“Fulo janfaa mo! Pol orkat.”

I cannot remember the first time I heard those words, but they have been part of our society for as long as I can remember. And that is a problem. Some sayings become so deeply embedded in everyday conversation that we inherit them before we ever stop to ask what they mean.

A Fula is someone you cannot rely on, we are told. But who told us? And, perhaps more importantly, who told them?

Even “someone you cannot rely on” does not adequately explain janfaa. In Mandinka, janfa refers to betrayal or conspiracy, while janfa-mo means a betrayer. In Pular/Pulaar, janfa similarly carries meanings such as treason, treachery, trickery and deceit.

The closest comparison I can think of in English is Judas, not simply as a name, but as a symbol of someone who earns your trust and then betrays you. That is much heavier than being unreliable, as I initially thought.

So if that is what we mean when we say “Fulo janfaa mo,” perhaps we should think more seriously about what we are saying. We are attaching the character of a betrayer to an entire people.

Where did this description come from? Was it rooted in an event, an old grievance or a story whose original meaning has been forgotten? Or have we repeated it for so long that repetition itself has become our evidence?

Following the reaction to my piece on Gambiana on “Sosseh du sossal ken,” several people encouraged me to examine some of the narratives that exist between our ethnic groups. I hesitated because I am not convinced that what we have in The Gambia can simply be described as ethnic division.

I think something more complicated is happening. And that is that we have inherited stories about one another which we have, willingly or unwillingly, adopted without questioning their origins or motives.

If we were prepared to interrogate Sosseh du sossal ken and ask how it became associated with the Mandinka, then surely it is fair to ask the same of Fulo janfaa. And that is what brought me to this article.

Have you ever questioned why Fulas are called janfaa, and where that came from? Perhaps not, so allow me to share my findings with you.

My search took me into the intertwined history of the Mandinka and Fula peoples and, inevitably, to Kaabu.

What we know is that Kaabu was a powerful Mandinka-led state in the wider Senegambian region, centred in what is now Guinea-Bissau and extending its influence into parts of present-day The Gambia and Casamance. Its ruling elite governed populations that included Fula communities, among others.

By the nineteenth century, Kaabu faced growing pressure from Fuuta Jallon, the powerful Muslim state to its east. Political, economic and religious rivalries intensified, culminating at Kansala in 1867.

Forces from Fuuta Jallon defeated Kaabu at Kansala in 1867. The capital was destroyed, bringing the old Kaabu political order to an end (Barry, B., 1997, pp. 158–176).

The significance of Kaabu and Kansala did not disappear with the battle. Their histories survived through oral traditions, and scholars have spent decades collecting and comparing different accounts of Kaabu’s rise and fall.

That history presents a tempting explanation.

Was this where Fulo janfaa came from? Was the memory of conflict transformed over generations into a judgement about Fulas themselves? It is tempting to draw that line, but I cannot, at least not from the evidence I have found.

I have found evidence of the conflict between Kaabu and Fuuta Jallon, of Kansala and the destruction of Kaabu in 1867, and of the way those events survived in oral traditions. I have also found evidence that janfaa means something considerably stronger than “unreliable.”

What I have not found is convincing evidence that Fulo janfaa originated at Kansala, or that a particular Fula betrayal during the conflict gave birth to the expression.

That distinction matters. Otherwise, in trying to investigate an inherited story, I might simply create another one.

That does not mean the answer is not out there. There may be people who know versions of this history that I have not come across, particularly stories passed down through families and communities. If you know something about the origins of Fulo janfaa, I would genuinely like to hear it. Not simply another version of the saying, but where the story comes from and how it was passed down.

The history surrounding Kaabu is also more complicated than a simple story of Mandinka versus Fula. Political, religious and economic divisions did not always fall neatly along ethnic lines. Muslims within Kaabu, including Mandinka Muslims, were part of the changing political landscape. History, inconveniently, is rarely as tidy as the stories we inherit from it.

The more I looked, the more complicated that picture became. In her study of Fuladu and the River Gambia, anthropologist Alice Bellagamba writes about karafoo, a practice of entrustment through which strangers placed themselves under the protection of others. These relationships involved confidence, protection and reciprocal assistance, creating networks of trust and interdependence between people who were not necessarily connected by family or origin.

That struck me because it sits almost uncomfortably beside the word janfaa. One speaks of betrayal and the breaking of trust; the other tells us of relationships that depended upon trust. This does not, of course, prove that Fulas are trustworthy any more than an act of betrayal proves that Fulas are treacherous. That would simply be replacing one generalisation with another. What it does show is that the societies in which these communities lived were far more complicated than the sayings we inherited about them.

The further I went into the history, the harder it became to understand how such a complicated relationship between peoples could have been reduced to two words: Fulo janfaa.

We repeat Fulo janfaa with remarkable confidence for something whose origin is difficult to establish.

Of course, many will say it is only banter. And often, it is. A Mandinka teases a Fula, the Fula returns the favour, everybody laughs and life continues. These joking relationships are part of what makes The Gambia what it is.

But a joke between friends who understand one another is one thing. Believing that someone possesses a particular character because of the ethnic group into which they were born is something else entirely. That is the distinction we sometimes fail to make.

I am not suggesting that we stop joking with one another. Our teasing relationships are deeply woven into how we interact, and there is something beautiful about laughing at our differences without allowing them to divide us. But there is a difference between laughing with someone and believing something about them.

Whether you are Fula, Mandinka, Wolof, Jola, Serahule, Manjago or anything else, none of us chose the ethnic group into which we were born. None of us should have to inherit responsibility for something somebody who shared our ethnicity may or may not have done hundreds of years ago.

The ties that bind us are far greater than what separates us. We marry one another, live beside one another, speak one another’s languages, eat from the same bowls, raise children together, mourn together and celebrate together.

Sometimes even our surnames cannot tell the full story of who we are anymore. Perhaps that is why I remain reluctant to call what we have ethnic division. Sometimes, I think, we simply inherit stories and never stop long enough to interrogate them.

Sosseh du sossal ken, Fulo janfaa mo.

We know the sayings. We repeat the sayings, but perhaps every once in a while, we should ask the simplest question of all; Who told us?