Hamanteh, a living archive of The Gambia

Founded with Half Die, growing with communities across The Gambia and its diaspora.

The mission

Half Die is Hamanteh’s founding collection, not the limit of whose histories matter here. Naming ceremonies, fishing routes, family migrations, songs, and everyday knowledge can be carried by people and places across The Gambia and beyond. Hamanteh helps communities record, keep, transcribe, and return their own histories in forms they can hold, question, and pass on.

How it works

01

Pick up your kit

Record on your own phone, borrow a Hamanteh recorder from the community desk, or gather the photos and letters you already keep at home.

02

Send it in, at your pace

Upload what you have in Wolof, Mandinka, Fula, English, whichever feels right, with photos if you have permission to share them.

03

We help make it readable

A trained transcriber labels speakers, then transcribes the audio line by line, preserving language tags.

04

You see it before anyone else

Your family entry goes back to you for review. Nothing is published without explicit consent.

Hamanteh Day

Once a year, communities gather to celebrate the families and elders whose stories have been recorded. The archive is screened, songs are sung, food is shared. The next generation hears their grandparents' voices and adds their own.

Want to share a community memory?

Share a memory for private review, or explore the sourced national community archive.

Share a memory