Aboubacry Moussa Lam returns to the probable meaning of W3st, "Thebai", "Thebes", a term formed from the hieroglyphic sign of the w3s scepter, an object with which the Neterus are associated. He notes: “There is a link between the w3s scepter and the notion of prosperity. Indeed D. Meeks, citing Dendera VIII, 30, 9, points to a w3si spelling whose meaning would flourish. This meaning, if confirmed, would come to oppose that better known of w3si, to ruin itself, to fall into decay. Such facts would leave us in embarrassment if parallels taken from the Fulani did not come to our aid. (…) As for the root waas-, it can mean prosperity or ruin thanks to the relevant opposition between aa and ii. Waasaa translates as well provided, prosperous, and waassii by deprived, ruined. (…) The w3s symbolizes more than wealth in the hands of the Egyptian gods and pharaohs: it also evokes divine power and glory. There too we have confirmation by Negro-African languages. In fact, both in the Mande group and in the Pulaar, wasu means autoglorification. The pulaar gives us here again an opportunity to note the extreme delicacy of the convergences existing between Egypt and the rest of Africa. It is this language that allows us to understand why the cattle, the wealth, the glory, are inextricably linked. Wasorde is, in Pulaar, an open place, generally located behind the village, and which serves as a gathering place for herds.
"The scepter w3s is the staff that is most often seen in the hands of gods and pharaohs. Some Egyptologists have taken the w3s which for a camel driving stick, which for a vulgar date picking instrument. And the author of this last hypothesis is astonished that the Egyptian gods could have chosen as insignia a tool of date picker. The Egyptian gods were not known for their taste for dates, the thing is indeed surprising "(A. Moussa Lam, The Paths of the Nile, pp. 127-128).
(…) Wasaade, in the same language, has two meanings. The verb designates the animals in the state of rest in the place described above. Wasaade is also said of an animal better fed than its neighbor and therefore fatter. Lewasorde is the place where the comparison between beasts and herds can be easily made. This is why, to designate the best shepherd of the year, all the flocks are gathered in the wasord or its equivalent. This gives rise to a very selective competition, the basondiral (from the same root as wasu) which is nothing more than a comparative evaluation of the overweight of the animals by a jury of experts made up mainly of former shepherds. Wasu (noun) self-glorifying andwaastade (verb) self-glorifying, are therefore two concepts borrowed from pastoralism. (…) So it is all these elements, apparently far from each other but in reality logically linked, that the Egyptians condensed in the scepter w3s. We now understand better why it is so frequent, at the level of Egyptian iconography, in the hands of the gods and the pharaohs. We also understand why W3st whose spelling includes the scepter w3s could just as easily mean the prosperous, the glorious, or both at the same time. It is perhaps here the place to point out that the parallels of the great capital identified in the Fuuta-Tooro seem to favor prosperity: Waasetaake, the name of one of the identified villages, literally means place where one does not can be poor ”(A. Moussa Lam, Les Chemins du Nil, pp. 128-130).