Topic summary
Awlil
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Waalo.
Origins
Oral histories claim that, before becoming a kingdom, the area of Waalo was ruled by a patchwork of Lamanes, a Serer title meaning the original owner of the land. Etymological evidence suggests that the area was ruled by the Jaa'ogo dynasty of Takrur. This aligns with early Arabic written sources which describe an island town known as Awlil (Waalo) near the mouth of the Senegal river, in a region called Senghana.