Insulting to soothe, mocking to avoid violence: joking kinship is one of Africa’s most sophisticated social systems. Present from Senegal to Mali and Burkina Faso, it authorizes ritualized insult between families or groups in order to preserve social cohesion. Far from folklore, this ancestral political tradition reveals an African intelligence of conflict and coexistence.
Joking kinship, an ancestral African tradition in the service of social peace
In a market in Ouagadougou, two men cross paths. One calls the other a cattle thief, a lazy ancestor, the descendant of people incapable of properly cultivating their fields. Laughter erupts around them. No one is offended, no one steps back. A few moments later, the same men share tea together. To an observer unfamiliar with the codes, the exchange seems incomprehensible. In many other societies, insult calls for retaliation, sometimes violence. Here, it produces the opposite: cohesion. This ancient, structured, and deeply political mechanism has a name: joking kinship.
Long relegated to the status of folklore or cultural anecdote, joking kinship is in fact one of the most elaborate systems of social regulation on the African continent. It rests on a fundamental intuition: conflict is inevitable, but violence is not. Where other societies have chosen repression, legalism, or the sacralization of offense, many African societies have invented a social technology based on laughter, ritualized insult, and the obligation not to take offense.
Joking kinship, also known as joking cousinship or joking alliance, refers to an institutionalized relationship between individuals, lineages, or entire groups, in which mockery and insult are not only permitted but expected. This freedom is in no way anarchic. It follows strict rules: the one who jokes has the right to attack verbally; the one who receives the attack has the social obligation not to become angry. Refusing to laugh, responding with anger, or resorting to violence constitutes a serious breach of the symbolic pact and exposes the offender to heavy social sanction, sometimes interpreted as a moral or even cosmic imbalance.
The terms vary depending on cultural areas: sinankunya in the Mande world, rakiré among the Mossi, kal among the Wolof, kalungoraxu among the Soninke. But everywhere, the logic remains the same. The aim is to create a controlled aggressive familiarity capable of neutralizing tensions before they escalate. This practice is neither improvised nor individual. It is transmitted, recognized, and immediately identifiable. Everyone knows who their joking cousin is, which insults are permitted, and how far is too far.
Historical accounts often situate the formalization of this practice in the thirteenth century, during the founding of the Mali Empire by Soundiata Keïta. Oral tradition recounts that the founder instituted these alliances to prevent internal wars and guarantee the stability of a multiethnic empire. Contemporary historians, however, urge caution regarding this singular origin. Forms of ritualized joking appear to predate the empire and to have been widely practiced before it. Soundiata did not invent joking kinship; he elevated it to the rank of political institution, integrated into an imperial system where peaceful coexistence was a condition of survival.
This historical dimension is essential, because it reveals a conscious political thought. Precolonial African empires, confronted with linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity, developed non-coercive mechanisms of cohesion. Where armed force was insufficient, social norms took over. Joking became a peaceful weapon, more durable than constraint.
Anthropologists recognized the sophistication of this system early on. Marcel Mauss saw in joking kinship a total social relationship, engaging the symbolic, the political, and the ethical. Marcel Griaule showed that ritualized insult functions as a collective catharsis: it allows rivalries, frustrations, and criticisms to be expressed without breaking the social bond. Joking does not erase conflict; it makes it speakable and therefore bearable.
Contemporary scholarship extends this analysis. It emphasizes the profoundly realistic nature of joking kinship. It does not assume that individuals are naturally peaceful. It starts from the opposite premise: jealousy, rivalry, and anger are part of the human condition. Rather than moralizing these emotions, it frames them. Insult becomes a legitimate channel of expression, and laughter a social safety valve.
This abstract logic takes very concrete form in the surnames and alliances well known in West Africa. In Senegal, the N’Diaye and the Diop maintain an immediately recognizable joking cousinship. A N’Diaye may accuse a Diop of being lazy, of living off others, or of descending from an inglorious lineage. The Diop, far from taking offense, has the social obligation to laugh and respond in kind. Refusing the joke would break an ancient pact, far more serious than a simple insult.
In Mali and Burkina Faso, the Diarra and the Traoré embody one of the most widespread joking cousinships. In public spaces, a Traoré may ridicule a Diarra, recalling his supposed inability to govern or origins mocked by oral tradition. This mockery, rather than weakening the social bond, strengthens it. It recalls a fraternity inherited from Mande alliances and prevents any lasting claim to superiority.
The Keïta and the Kouyaté illustrate another dimension of joking kinship, closely tied to political history. The Kouyaté, a family of griots, may criticize and ridicule the Keïta, symbolic heir to the royal lineage. The Keïta accepts this derision, implicitly recognizing the griot’s role as guardian of memory and symbolic counterpower. Here, joking becomes a mechanism for regulating power.
Among the Fulani and in the Sahelian region, relationships between Ba and Sow, or between Diallo and Barry, operate according to similar logics. These surnames, often associated with a shared historical matrix, activate a joking register that crosses national borders, from Senegal to Guinea, from Mali to Niger. Once again, ritualized insult acts as a reminder of alliance and an antidote to conflict.
In Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, the Koné and the Coulibaly likewise illustrate this ability to transform a name into a tool of pacification. During community tensions or heated debates, invoking the cousinship is sometimes enough to defuse pressure. Laughter, triggered by an expected insult, restores the possibility of dialogue.
These examples show that joking kinship functions as a social grammar that is immediately legible. The mere utterance of a surname activates a specific register of speech, where aggressiveness becomes play, hierarchy dissolves into reciprocity, and potential violence is neutralized by the memory of an alliance older than the present conflict.
This capacity to pacify through insult proves particularly valuable in times of crisis. During land disputes, quarrels at ceremonies, or community tensions, the intervention of a joking cousin can be enough to prevent escalation. Where formal mediation would fail, derision succeeds. It allows the unacceptable to be said without making it irreversible.
Some African thinkers see in joking kinship a genuine political philosophy. It proposes a model of coexistence in which identity is not fixed but relational. To be Fulani, Mossi, or Mande is not an absolute, but a position within a network of alliances and reciprocal mockery. Any attempt at identity supremacy becomes absurd, because it collides with the obligation to allow oneself to be ridiculed by the other.
Modernity has not erased this system; it has displaced it. In African cities, joking kinship circulates in public transport, universities, and administrations. In diasporas, it survives in associations, family gatherings, and sometimes on social media. It is mobilized in political speeches, electoral campaigns, and the media as a way of criticizing without breaking ties.
But modernity also poses challenges. Joking presupposes shared knowledge of codes. Outside this framework, it can be misunderstood. The question of transmission therefore becomes central: how can a practice rooted in orality be preserved in increasingly fragmented and mediatized societies?
Beyond the African continent, joking kinship speaks to the contemporary world. It offers another way of thinking about conflict, offense, and mediation. It reminds us that laughter can be a political instrument, that insult can sometimes prevent war, and that peace does not rely solely on laws or institutions, but also on deeply rooted social knowledge.
Ultimately, joking kinship is neither a relic of the past nor an anthropological curiosity. It is the expression of a lucid African thought on human nature. It accepts conflict but refuses violence. It makes laughter a shield. At a time when contemporary societies struggle to manage plurality and sensitivity, it deserves recognition not as an exotic singularity, but as a major African contribution to the universal thought of living together.
NOTES AND REFERENCES
UNESCO, Joking Kinship, Social and Cultural Practices, recognition as Intangible Cultural Heritage, West Africa regional file, UNESCO, Paris.
Marcel Mauss, Sociology and Anthropology, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1950.
Marcel Griaule, Conversations with Ogotemmêli, Éditions du Chêne, Paris, 1948.
Alain Joseph Sissao, Alliances and Joking Kinship in Burkina Faso: Mechanisms and Future, Ouagadougou, Sankofa & Gurli Editions, 2002.
Jean-Loup Amselle, Mixed Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and Elsewhere, Payot, Paris, 1990.
Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Aspects of African Civilization, Présence Africaine, Paris, 1972.
Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilization or Barbarism, Présence Africaine, Paris, 1981.
Georges Balandier, Political Anthropology, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1967.
Tidiane N’Diaye, The Veiled Genocide, Gallimard, Paris, 2008.
Table of Contents
Joking Kinship, an Ancestral African Tradition in the Service of Social Peace
Notes and References
