The hunters' associations of Mali and neighboring countries extending over savanna and forested areas are brotherhoods whose members undergo initiation into both hunting and magic. Dating back to prehistory, this institutionalized form of hunting continues to occupy a special place in local societies, as it is intimately linked to their processes of protection and regulation. To some extent, it can be said that hunting, with its initiatory dimension, still constitutes a legitimization of power. In these West African regions, the hunters and their associations thus form a kind of framework underpinning not only the structure of traditional power, but sometimes also that of modern state power.