Mythe et histoire dans la vie de Kaan Fay du Cangin (Sénégal)

Just to the west of the center of the Senegambian region, the Cangin area has long been overlooked. As of the 1850s, the struggle against French colonial domination assumed many forms there, at first classical armed confrontation and then a sort of Robin-Hoodism. Kaan Fay, a leading actor in this resistance, is presented as a miraculus being at birth who is crowned with glory during his youth and adulthood, or as a dignitary who fiercely opposed colonial subjugation of his territory. The reconstituted biography sheds light on the sway of myth in the Senegambian mentality and shows how hard it is to follow the evolution of the saafi lineage societies.