[11][13] The Serer people have been historically noted as an ethnic group practicing elements of both matrilineality and patrilineality that long resisted the expansion of Islam.

[19] The Serer society, like other ethnic groups in Senegal, has had social stratification featuring endogamous castes and slaves.

[23][24][25] Other historians, such as Thiaw, Richard and others, believe that the Serer did not maintain a slave culture, or at least not to the same extent as other ethnic groups in the region.

[29] The Serer (also known as "Seex" or "Sine-Sine") occupy the Sine and Saloum areas (now part of modern-day independent Senegal).

Issa Laye Thiaw[failed verification] views it as possibly pre-Islamic and suggests four possible derivations:[32] Professor Cheikh Anta Diop, citing the work of 19th-century French archeologist and Egyptologist, Paul Pierret, states that the word Serer means "he who traces the temple.

"[20] Diop continued: "That would be consistent with their present religious position: they are one of the rare Senegalese populations who still reject Islam.

[33] Professor Dennis Galvan writes that "The oral historical record, written accounts by early Arab and European explorers, and physical anthropological evidence suggest that the various Serer peoples migrated south from the Fuuta Tooro region (Senegal River valley) beginning around the eleventh century when Islam first came across the Sahara.

"[10]: p.51  Over generations these people, possibly Pulaar-speaking herders originally, migrated through Wolof areas and entered the Siin and Saluum river valleys.

This lengthy period of Wolof-Serer contact has clouded the origins of shared "terminology, institutions, political structures, and practices.

"[10]: p.52 If one is to believe the economist and demographer Étienne Van de Walle[34] who gave a slightly later date for their ethnogenesis, writing that "The formation of the Sereer ethnicity goes back to the thirteenth century, when a group came from the Senegal River valley in the north fleeing Islam, and near Niakhar met another group of Mandinka origin, called the Gelwar, who came from the southeast (Gravrand 1983).

[12][21] After the Ghana Empire was sacked as certain kingdoms gained their independence, Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar, leader of the Almoravids, launched a jihad into the region.

[42][43] The Faal (var: Fall) paternal dynasty of Cayor and Baol that ruled after 1549 following the Battle of Danki were originally Black Moors (Naari Kajoor).

[44][45] Prior to the Faal dynasty of Cayor and Baol, these two kingdoms were ruled by the Serer people with the patrilineages "Joof" or Diouf, Faye and Njie, and the maternal lineage of Wagadou – members of the royal families from the Ghana Empire (proper "Wagadou Empire") who married into the Serer aristocracy.

[19] The inter-ethnic wars involving the Serer continued till 1887, when the French colonial forces conquered Senegal.

[19] Most of the newly converted Serer people have joined Sufi Muslim Brotherhoods, particularly the Mouride and Tijaniyyah Tariqas.

[56] The Serer people have traditionally been a socially stratified society, like many West African ethnic groups with castes.

[57] That view (propelled during the colonial era probably due to anti-Serer sentiments[58]) has now been discarded as there is nothing in the Serer oral tradition that speaks of a military conquest, but a union based on marriage.

This view is supported by Senegalese historians and writers such as Alioune Sarr, Biram Ngom and Babacar Sédikh Diouf.

[14][15][16][17][18] The hierarchical highest status among the Serer people has been those of hereditary nobles and their relatives, which meant blood links to the Mandinka conquerors.

These castes included blacksmiths, weavers, jewelers, leatherworkers, carpenters, griots who kept the oral tradition through songs and music.

Where a king dies without nominating an heir (buumi), the Jaraff would step in and reign as regent until a suitable candidate can be found from the royal line.

The abdication of Fakha Boya Fall from the throne of Saloum was led and driven by his own bur kevel.

[27][26] This view is supported by scholars such as François G. Richard who posits that: The Serer ethnic group is rather diverse, and as Martin A. Klein notes, the institution of slavery did not exist among the Serer-Noon and N'Dieghem.

Chere is very versatile and can be eaten with fermented milk or cream and sugar as a breakfast cereal or prepared just as a standard couscous.

In the event of the death of an elder, the sacred "Gamba" (a big calabash with a small hollow-out) is beaten followed by the usual funeral regalia to send them off to the next life.

"The Serer people are known especially for their rich knowledge of vocal and rhythmic practices that infuse their everyday language with complex overlapping cadences and their ritual with intense collaborative layerings of voice and rhythm."

No matter how long a Mauritanian Moor has lived in the area as a migrant, he could never achieve high status within the Serer aristocracy.

According to some, the history of this position goes back to an early Moor in Serer country who had a child by his own daughter.

[81] Many Senegambian people also refer to this joking relations as "kal" (used between first cousins for example between the children of a paternal aunt and a maternal uncle) and "gamo" (used between tribes).

"Kal" derives from the Serer word "Kalir" a deformation of "kurcala" which means paternal lineage or inheritance and is used exactly in that context by many Senegambians.