Christianity, Islam, and 'the religion of pouring': non-linear conversion in a Gambia/Casamance Borderland

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Periodical article

Title:	Christianity, Islam, and 'the religion of pouring': non-linear conversion in a Gambia/Casamance Borderland
Author:	Thomson, Steven K.
Year:	2012
Periodical:	Journal of Religion in Africa (ISSN 0022-4200)
Volume:	42
Issue:	3
Pages:	240-276
Language:	English
Geographic terms:	Gambia Senegal
Subjects:	religious conversion interreligious relations plural society Christianity Islam Diola songs funerals
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1163/15700666-12341232
Abstract:	The twentieth-century religious history of the Kalorn (Karon Jolas) in the Alahein River Valley of the Gambia/Casamance border cannot be reduced to a single narrative. Today extended families include Muslims, Christians, and practitioners of the traditional Awasena 'religion of pouring'. A body of funeral songs highlights the views of those who resisted pressure toward conversion to Islam through the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. The introduction of a Roman Catholic mission in the early 1960s created new social and economic possibilities that consolidated an identity that stood as an alternative to the Muslim-Mandinka model. This analysis emphasizes the equal importance of both macropolitical and economic factors and the more proximal effects of reference groups in understanding religious conversion. Finally, this discussion of the origins of religious pluralism within a community grants insight into how conflicts along religious lines have been defused. App., bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. [Journal abstract]