The Tanji Village Museum is the first private museum in The Gambia and was established in 1997 by Mr. Abdoulaye Bayo, former curator of the Banjul National Museum. It is located 32 km from the capital of the Banjul, about 2 km south of the fishing village, and lies along the coastal road to Kombo.
Various structures house the ethnographic exhibits, such as tribal effigies, a photo gallery of the vegetation and birds of The Gambia.
This is a tourist attraction that was designed to look more like an African hamlet - a kind of 'living museum'. The centerpiece of the various exhibits is a reconstruction of a traditional Mandingo complex, illustrating how they lived over 100 years ago. It consists of a few round houses that house a carefully chosen selection of traditional objects and furniture, such as wooden beds, stools, spears, hats, and horsehair fly swatches.
The thatched-roof huts at the resort are divided into male and female sections, reflecting the traditional roles of the villagers. There are also agricultural tools, a seed store, a kitchen, cooking utensils, large wooden mortar and pestle, large calabash containers, and a livestock building. There is also a nice selection of traditional musical instruments, including koras, Djembe drums, balafons, etc., and on-site artists show visitors how they are played.
A tranquil nature trail, filled with trees, grasses, and shrubs, informs you about the flora and fauna of The Gambia, as birdsong can be heard above your head in many native trees. A leaflet indicates and describes all the vegetation, explaining their traditional uses, whether for building materials, food, or medicine. Further along the trail, we can observe artisans, such as woodcarvers making masks and drums, blacksmiths making African tools, knives and jewelry, using hand-pumped bellows, and weavers producing lengths of cotton fabric on hand looms.
