Savanes Autonomous District
The Savanes Region, then the Savanes Autonomous District, is located in the north of Côte d’Ivoire, close to Mali and Burkina Faso. Its capital is the town of Korhogo. The climate is hot and dry, with the Harmattan in January and February. The population is predominantly Malinke and Senufo, with a minority of Fulani herders. Throughout the region, balafon and kora music accompany most ceremonies, particularly funerals. It borders the Autonomous District of Denguélé, whose main town is Odienné, as well as Mali and Burkina Faso. The region’s main source of wealth is agriculture, notably cotton production for export.
Korhogo, the capital of the Savanes Autonomous District, is the heart and brain of this Senoufo country, so renowned for its highly elaborate social system, its rites, its dances and its crafts, one of the richest in the country. After years of enforced lethargy, Korhogo, capital of the Poro region, whose name means “heritage” in the Senoufo language, is the largest town in the north.
The Senoufos left the inner Niger delta in search of good land and are thought to have arrived in the region where they now live around the first millennium.
Korhogo is said to have been founded in the 18th century by Nanguin Soro, a tribal chief driven out of the Mande kingdom of Kong. Protected from warlike incursions by the Bandama Blanc, it became the capital of the Kiembam, a Senufo sub-group, and the seat of the most important Senufo chiefdom.
Like the rest of the North, the region can take on two completely different appearances depending on the time of year. As soon as the rains begin, it explodes with greenery, not only because the Sénoufo make the most of every plot of land, but also because between the crops spreads thick, fat, tall grass that catches the slightest ray of sunlight and is flooded with light that shifts in the breeze. Around December, everything changes. The bush fires start, the dry grass blazes. From Ferkessédougou to Boundiali, the tarmac road gives travellers a good understanding of this Senoufo country, which is never monotonous thanks to its undulating terrain and various waterways. These include the Bandama, which here does not yet have the appearance of a major river, but rather a modest one, and the Bagoué, which rises to the west of Boundiali and then flows up towards Mali. On the road to Tengréla, at the point where it crosses the river, clever pirogue men provide travellers with canoes that take them to the loop where a group of hippos like to hang out.
Ferkessédougou is a major town in the Savanes Autonomous District.
Ferkessédougou, known colloquially as Ferké, is the last major town on the northern road and rail route into Burkina Faso, and an important stopover for road hauliers on their way to Mali. It is a market town and a transit town.
The capital of the Tchologo region, Ferkessédougou is populated mainly by Sénoufos, a farming people par excellence. Founded in the 19th century by Ferkessé, a Niarofala pushed westwards by the expansion of the Kong empire, Ferkessédougou owes its development to the arrival of the railway in 1928. The town gained a significant lead over Korhogo thanks to the creation of new plantations, notably of sisal and kapok, crops planted by the colonists in the north of the country to compensate for the loss of cocoa due to the fall in prices in the 1930s. Later, industrial cotton and sugar cane crops were planted in the area. Previously unknown in Côte d’Ivoire, sugar cane was acclimatised to such an extent that the total production of sugar refineries in the north was sufficient for domestic consumption. Two refineries were built around ten kilometres from the town. Cotton is a traditional crop and a characteristic feature of the savannah landscape. Rice is of more recent importance, as is maize, unlike millet, sorghum, manioc and yams, which are grown in every home garden. What’s more, the region, and in particular Sine-Matiali, is renowned these days for its delicious tomatoes, which locals – and restaurateurs – rightly consider to be far better than imported produce. These developments have brought new wealth to the town.