Seydougou

Seydougou lies in the wooded savanna west of Odienné, in a region where Mande-speaking communities and Muslim scholars established settlements along the routes of the interior. Its name is said to mean the village beneath the shea tree. Local tradition credits its foundation in the eighteenth century to a marabout named Mema Moussa Fofana. The shea tree, whose nuts yield a valued butter, gives the village a name rooted in the landscape around it.