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BADIU NATIONHeritage Project

Santiago · Cabo Verde · Afro-Atlantic Heritage

What does it mean to be Badiu?

“Kuzé ki krê fla ser Badiu?”

The people of Santiago — descendants of Senegambia, keepers of Kriolu. A living record of our history, language, and African ancestry.

Explore the LanguageRead the Origin Story
60%

of documented Kriolu Africanisms are Mande in origin

E-M2

West-African paternal lineage (E1b1a)

L1·L2·L3

African maternal haplogroups

1462

first settlement of Santiago

Splora Prujétu

Explore the Project

01
HistoryFrom the settlement of Santiago and Atlantic slavery to independence.
02
LanguageKriolu and its deep African substrate — Mande, Wolof, Temne.
03
GeneticsAfrican ancestral lineages — the peoples, and the haplogroups.
04
CultureBatuku, funaná, tabanka, and the food of the interior.
05
GenealogyThe line of the fathers, oral tradition, and the paths out.
06
The concelhosSantiago municipality by municipality, interior and coast.
07
EssaysLong-form reflection, scholarship, and community voices.

Di undi ki ‘Badiu’ ben? · The origin of the word

Baadiŋo — parente

Kin, relatives — a Mandinka word, built underneath from baa, mother, and diŋ, child. It was carried to the archipelago from Gêba, on the river of that name in what is now Guinea-Bissau, by the first Africans brought across, who used it of one another where the crossing had cut them off from their own.

Santiago kept the name, kept its first meaning, and wears it with pride.

Read the full origin story →
batuku circle · interior Santiago

Modi pa splora · How to explore

Four ways into the story

01Read the historyFrom the settlement of Santiago and Atlantic slavery to independence and after.02Hear the languageKriolu and the African substrate beneath it — Mande, Wolof, and Temne.03Trace the lineagesThe African peoples and haplogroups carried in the Badiu genetic record.04Add your storyContribute family memory, oral history, and corrections to the archive.

Voz di komunidadi · Community voice

“They gave us their names, but they could not give us their tongue, their drum, or their mothers. Those we carried ourselves.”

— recorded in the interior of Santiago