Guinea - Vernacular architecture and Mandingo cultural landscape of Gberedou / Hamana

Located 50km north east of Kouroussa and 40km southwest of Kankan, GberedoulHamana is one of the most prestigious historical and cultural centers of Guinea. An integral part of Haute Guinee, where it keeps all the physical and climatic characteristics, the Gberedoui'llamana shelters important foci of the Mandingo civilization, real schools where one learns the history of all Guinea, even of West Africa. The Gberedou / Hamana is, moreover, a spiritual site through its sacred pools and its many places of worship which are still, today, at the heart of fantastic religious practices. It constitutes, in this, a living memory of the traditional religion. In any case, religious phenomena profoundly mark the landscapes, the spaces and the men by the worship of the dead and the ancestors by various rites and pilgrimages on the sacred places. Finally, the Gberedou / Hamana is constituted of multiple elements whose functional relation determines its integrity.