Various Mande groups in western Liberia all say they were preceded by the Vai. The Vai say their Dyula ancestors were drawn to this area by the Gola salt trade. According to the Dei, the Vai first entered Gola territory, but the Gola pushed them toward the coast near the Dei.
Oral traditions of the Vai, Gola and Dei point to intermarriages being common between the three groups. But, the Dyula language could only have survived if the first group of Dyula immigrants had included a large number of women. After all, it is mainly women who pass the “mother tongue” from one generation to another.
Footnote: Bureau of Folkways, 1955, p. 58; Andah, 1992, p. 268.
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