The sandstone plateaus and valleys of the Futa Jallon, where the Senegal, the Gambia and the Niger rise, are held by the Jallonke (Yalunka), Mande-speaking farmers whose language is all but the same as Susu, together with the ancestors of peoples who later moved to the coast.
Their chiefs are not named. Tradition later made the country a province of the Sosso and of Mali, which belongs after 1200; the Fulbe herders who were to make the Futa Jallon theirs had not yet come in force.
Who holds it
- Title
- Jallonke chiefs and lineage heads
- Since
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
The Jallonke are the earliest known inhabitants of the Futa Jallon (Wikipedia: Fouta Djallon); the region is said to have been a province of the Sosso and of Mali under the name Jallonkadugu (N'Daou 1999), which would be later than 1200. Bankole Taylor ties the Temne migration to the fall of a 'Jallonkadu empire' in the eleventh or twelfth century (Wikipedia: Temne people); no such state is attested in writing. The Fulbe come in numbers from about the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; the Fulbe state of Timbo dates from the eighteenth.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing so far as anything is known.
Customs
Chiefdoms and lineages; farming of the valleys; ironworking (later evidence).
Assemblies
Not recorded.
Overlord claims
None known in 1200.
Where the sources disagree
- A 'Jallonkadu empire' falling in the eleventh or twelfth century (Taylor) is not attested in any written source we know: treat as tradition.
Evidence: Tradition and later evidence.
On the map: A large block for a thinly known people.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.