You hear about us talking about the Dadjo people of Chad, but did you know there is another group of Dadjo in Chad? They are separated by a distance of around 350 miles and are related to the Dadjo people group with which we work. In fact, the other Dadjo people group are larger in size than the group with which we work.
The Dadjo that we work with are called the “Daju, Dar Daju”. The term “Dadjo” is a French spelling of the people group name. The other Dadjo are called the, “Daju, Dar Sila”. The word “dar” means, “from the home of”. So, the “Daju, Dar Sila” are the Dadjo from the home of Sila. The Daju, Dar Sila are situated on both sides of the border between eastern Chad and western Sudan.
The Daju, Dar Sila, emigrated from Sudan in the early 1600’s and established a sultanate in the Sila region with their first Sultan being Ahmed el-Daj. The Sultan’s brother, Farouk Ferne, decided to create another sultanate and moved westward with a group of Dadjo to the Guéra region of Central Chad. As time went on, the two groups’ languages changed and they became two distinct people groups, each with their own cultural and linguistic identities.
You may be wondering why you have never heard of these Dadjo. The reason is that though they are related to the Dadjo in north central Chad, their language is different enough that they are considered a separate ethno-linguistic people group. In simple terms, they are a separate people group.
Though the vocabulary of the two groups is very similar, the grammar is very different, and the two groups have a very difficult time understanding one another.
A humorous incident happened some years ago in Mongo, Chad where we used to live. A Dadjo man was invited to speak on the radio to other Dadjo in the area. When the Dadjo in Mongo heard the speaker, they could barely understand what he said. He was Dadjo, but he was from the other Dadjo people group.
So, the next time you run across a story about the Dadjo and wonder why we have not spoken about it, it might just be because they are, “The Other Dadjo People”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dar_Sila