Emit

The Jola of Senegal and the Gambia recognised a single God, Emit or Ata Emit, the master of the universe, linked to the sky, the rain and the turning year. They honoured charms and sacred precincts without worshipping them, and held that the spirits called Bakin or Eneerti guard families, villages and rice fields, even against conversion to Islam and Christianity.

Funeral rites were essential, for without them a soul could not reach the creator and join the ancestors. Most Jola lived without chiefs, though some, as at Oussouye, had a king who served more as priest than ruler. Some accepted Islam only after the Soninke-Marabout war of the 1800s.