Abstract
Much of what is known about Diola people and region they inhabit has come about through works of a handful of European and American ethnographers and sociologists/anthropologists. French colonists did not hesitate to describe Senegalese people as superstitious, ivrognes, drunks and savages. Les Peres du Saint Esprit, the Holy Ghost Fathers, who came to Senegal with first French colonial administrators, confused their Eurocentric version of Christianity for a tool with which to civilize Diola barbarians. Diola religion was labeled a satanic path and its ouwasena or kouwasena priests, priest-kings as savages. Historical events such as creation of a shrine, Kahat, and especially Bukut, constitute tapestry from which Diola established a sense of chronology and socioreligious structure. Remembered and interpreted inter-generational events are dynamic ways Diola people construct their symbolic universe through which self-understanding is reached, identity shaped, and reality grasped.Keywords: Christianity; Diola; French colonists; Senegalese people; socioreligious structure
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