The lower Senegal from the delta to about Dagana, with the Lac de Guiers and the Ndiael, is Wolof country divided among villages and lineages whose land chiefs, the lamanes, hold the land by right of first clearing, allot it and take dues from those who farm it.
Tradition remembers Waalo before its first king as just such a patchwork of lamanes, quarrelling over a wood by a lake until a stranger, Ndiadiane Ndiaye, divided it fairly and was made ruler. That kingship, and the Jolof empire that grew from it, most historians date to the thirteenth or fourteenth century: on 1 January 1200 the lamanes govern. The delta people farm the flood plain, fish the river and lagoons and pass the salt of Awlil upriver.
Who holds it
- Name
- Not known. No lamane of 1200 is named
- Title
- Land chiefs (lamanes, laman): heads of the lineages that first cleared the land
- Since
- Not known
- Confidence
- low
The founding legend of Waalo and Jolof (Ndiadiane Ndiaye, the stranger from the lake who settled the lamanes' quarrel over wood or fish and became the first ruler) is placed by different scholars in the early thirteenth century, about 1300 (Boulegue 2013), or the second half of the fourteenth (Fage; Ndiaye 2021 from the king lists). Amadou Wade's Chronicle of Waalo (published 1964) starts its count in 1186, which would put Ndiadiane in Waalo on 1 January 1200; few historians accept that chronology.
Overlord
None known. The king of Takrur upstream and the Juddala Sanhaja at the river mouth are the powers near; neither is attested as overlord in 1200.
How things stand that morning
Self-governing under the lamanes. If the campaign follows Amadou Wade's chronicle instead of the modern consensus, Ndiadiane Ndiaye is ruling Waalo as its first king (brak) that winter, in the fourteenth of his sixteen years there (see Ndiadiane Ndiaye (Wade's dating)); this record does not.
Customs
Land held by the lineages of first clearers (the lamanic right); dues in grain from those given land; village heads and elders; Wolof and Serer religion with some Islam spreading from Takrur (not measured).
Assemblies
Each lamane rules his own estate; no assembly over all of Waalo is recorded before the kingship.
Overlord claims
Takrur's kings may have claimed obedience (not recorded). G. E. Brooks (cited in Wikipedia: Godala) puts both sides of the river mouth under the Juddala Sanhaja.
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.
- Not dated (thirteenth or fourteenth century in most reconstructions)The lamanes accept a single ruler, the brak, in the Ndiadiane Ndiaye legend; Jolof's overlordship of the Wolof follows.Depends on: Tradition only; no event is fixed in 1200. Stopped by: Not applicable to 1200.
Where the sources disagree
- Wade's chronicle (1186 start) against the modern datings (early thirteenth century, about 1300, or the late fourteenth). The Rao tumulus near Saint-Louis with its gold pectoral, sometimes linked to Jolof's founding, is dated about 1300-1350 (Wikipedia: Ndiadiane Ndiaye): it is later than 1200.
Evidence: Oral tradition written down in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; no Arabic source names the Wolof; Sanghana (al-Bakri, 1068) may lie in this country.
On the map: The later Waalo, drawn back to 1200; the limits are not known.
Sources and studies
- Wikipedia: Ndiadiane Ndiaye (datings by Fage, Boulegue 2013, Ndiaye 2021; Rao 1300-1350)
- Amadou Wade, Chronique du Walo senegalais (1186?-1855), trans. B. Cisse, ed. V. Monteil, Bulletin de l'IFAN B 26 (1964) (from the researcher's knowledge)
- Wikipedia: Godala
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.