The best museums Casamance

Under the impetus of a French-Senegalese couple, Marie and Paul Bassene, this museum of traditional Diola culture saw the light of day in March 2018. Through ancient objects collected from the local population, we discover the Diola people and their traditions. The museum consists of four exhibition rooms: the construction of an impluvium hut in a green setting, everyday objects, seasonal activities and animist ceremonies. A pair of ostriches, in their enclosure, will majestically accompany your visit.

Kadioute is an open-air museum set in a forest of centuries-old cheese trees. On a guided tour at the foot of each tree, you'll discover instruments, utensils and detailed, humorous explanations of Diola culture. If possible, visit this museum at the beginning of your stay. You'll then have all the information you need to better understand your trip to Casamance. On the program: discovery of wrestling codes, palm wine harvesting, cooking, fetishes, the agrarian cycle, etc. Valère, the guide, is fascinating!

This open-air museum is located in the old village where the first inhabitants of Djembéring lived. Bones have been found there, proof of the existence of a cemetery, but no dating has been carried out. As in the Kadioute ecomuseum, we discover the culture and traditions of the Diola through an interesting journey, in the bush this time, where we discover objects of daily life such as fishing boats or mortar to plunder seeds. At the end of the visit, you will taste the local palm wine!

You will probably be offered a pirogue trip to the Bird Island and then Djilapao. It is an animist village which shelters a hut decorated by an artist named Jean, who died in 2005, and who made his own museum, with personal sculptures, rather eccentric and not very accomplished, but speaking about the Diola culture. Sculptures, very imaginative and finally quite funny, like this sai-sai (dredger) drawn in situation or this fetish that casts a spell! The interpretations of each scene are endless and everyone draws his own conclusion.

This traditional impluvium hut contains all the everyday objects used by a Diola family in the last century, following an ancestral tribal way of life. Tools, of course, for growing rice and catching fish, but also fetishes, kitchen utensils, the telephone drum used to pass messages to neighbors... An interesting visit, thanks to the explanations of Yannick, the museum's curator, who is passionate about Diola history.

Since 2018, Ziguinchor has had a small museum, which has the merit of existing, and which should soon develop into a second site, on the side of the Assane Seck University. It presents two aspects of Senegalese culture: heritage and contemporary art. On the one hand, you will see traditional and cult objects from various ethnic groups such as masks and musical instruments. On the other hand, works of Senegalese artists reflecting among others the colours of Casamance.