N'haala

N'haala is the traditional religion of the Balanta of Guinea-Bissau, rice farmers who by archaeologists' reckoning came to the coast in small groups between the 900s and 1300s. Their name is Mandinka for those who resist, and they kept to egalitarian villages governed by councils of elders, whose members were initiated at the Fanado ceremony.

In Balanta belief God is far away, and people reach the divine through their own spiritual practices, sacrifice and the worship of spirits such as Djon Cago. In the 1800s they spread across the region to resist the expansion of the Mandinka kingdom of Kaabu.