The Susu or Soussou people are a Mande-speaking ethnic group living primarily in Guinea and northwestern Sierra Leone, particularly in Kambia District.

[citation needed] The Susu are a patrilineal society, predominantly Muslim, who favor endogamous cross-cousin marriages with polygynous households.

The terms "Sawsaws," "Souses," and "Sussias" are all English corruptions of "Susu," rarer variants of their name are also encountered such as Souzo, Sossé, Suzées, Socé, Caxi, Saxi, Saxe, and even as Sexi.

[13] They are said to have originally been a section of the Soninke people that migrated out of Wagadou and were initially a clan of blacksmiths who displayed their clear intentions to object converting to Islam.

In the twelfth century, when Ancient Ghana was in decline, they migrated south and established a capital city of Soso in the mountainous region of Koulikoro.

The Fulani created an Islamic theocracy, thereafter began slave raids as a part of Jihad that impacted many West African ethnic groups including the Susu people.

[20] The political environment led the Susu people to convert to Islam in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, along with further westward and southward migration towards the plains of Guinea.

[27] The Susu castes in the regional Muslim communities were prevalent and recorded by sociologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

[27] The Susu people also utilize practices of the Bondo secret society which aims at gradually but firmly establishing attitudes related to adulthood in girls, discussions on fertility, morality and proper sexual comportment.