The Bozo are held to be the oldest people of the inland delta (Delafosse; the people of Dia today speak Bozo).
They live by fishing and by the river, in villages on the mounds and banks from the head of the delta at Ke-Macina to Lake Debo and beyond, moving with the flood and the fish. Rights over each stretch of water belong to particular lineages, whose heads decide when and where the fishing may begin.
Who holds it
- Name
- No ruler
- Title
- Masters of the water (the heads of the lineages holding rights over the waters) and village heads
- Since
- Not pinned
- Confidence
- low
Overlord
None overall; near Jenne, the ruler of Jenne.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing fishing villages.
Customs
Lineage rights over waters; the great collective fishing of the falling flood (January to May); dried and smoked fish traded for grain.
Assemblies
Village and lineage elders; the masters of the water.
Overlord claims
The ruler of Jenne near his town; Mema at the delta's western edge; none elsewhere.
What the year holds
What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.
- January to May 1200The fishing season of the falling waters.Depends on: A normal flood. Stopped by: Drought.
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Tradition and ethnography; archaeology of the delta mounds (Jenne-jeno, Dia) shows fishing peoples from the first millennium BC.
On the map: A people spread through the floodplain, not a block.
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia, Dia, Mali (the Leiden-Malian excavations from 1998; Ibn Battuta's Zagha)
- General ethnography of the inland delta and the Sahel (Bozo masters of the water, Nono and Marka, Bamana village government), from the researcher's knowledge; used only to describe customs, not to date them
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.