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The aim of our project B6 “Towards a genesis of the ethnolinguistic situation at the southern and western fringes of lake Chad basin” within SFB 268 “West African Savannah” is to analyse the emergence and development of the complex presentday ethnolinguistic patterns in a region which may be historically labelled as southern and western periphery of the Borno empire. For the first time, a model of migratory routes was put forward based on combined research efforts of the disciplines involved in our project. Below we shall attempt to summarise the main points and reflections of our findings. Our specific approach as a whole is based on applying the respective research methods of the individual disciplines represented in our project, namely anthropology, ethnomusicology, history and linguistics and eventually on integrating the results into a systemically coherent picture
Our dichotomy of ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ is expressed in the Kanuri language with the terms al@ga for ‘creation’ and ‘creature’ which embraces trees, mammals, birds, insects, humans, in short the whole of the natural environment, and ada for ‘custom, habit, way of behaviour, family tradition’ for culture as a whole. There is no genre of oral literature, which would describe al@ga as such, but aspects of it can always be expressed in proverbs, riddles, toponymic praise phrases and songs, of which those performed by the hunters figure most prominently in reflecting upon al@ga. Yet, in these songs (and partly in other genres) ideas about al@ga are not purely descriptive in naturalists’ terms. They are much rather expressions, which centrally combine notions of the social and natural environment.