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Traditional land rights in Dagara and Sisala societies in Burkina Faso and Ghana which were stateless in pre-colonial times are closely connected with the concept of earth-shrine parishes under the protection of a local land god and ideally under the control of the “first-comers” to the area. The earth priests perform regular sacrifices at the shrine and allocate land to later immigrants as well as the right to build houses and to bury their dead, often in exchange for gifts. The international border between Ghana and Burkina Faso, which was drawn up in 1898 and runs along the 11th parallel, often cuts across earth-shrine parishes. Particularly since the border demarcation exercise in the 1970s, the spatial separation of the Sisala earth priests on one side of the border from the Dagara immigrants on the other side has given rise to intricate conflicts over land rights. The paper will present the history of one such conflict and look at the various landrelated discourses – traditionalist, nationalist, and Christian – which the adversaries put forward in order to substantiate their claims.
Numerous ecologists postulate that West African savannas are mostly the result of degradation of formerly closed forests. This hypothesis can only be tested by palaeoecological investigations. The palynological results summarised in this paper document the history of the Sudanian and Sahelian savanna of NE-Nigeria during the last 11.500 years (uncal. BP). Both sites investigated provide evidence for the persistence of savanna throughout the entire Holocene. Patches of closed dry forest may have occurred, but never completely displaced the savanna vegetation. Humid conditions during the early and mid Holocene (from 10.000 BP onwards) caused a rapid spread of Guinean and Sudanian taxa into the northern vegetation zones. A slow return to drier climatic conditions between ca. 6800 BP and ca. 5500 BP can be recorded at both sites. Finally, between 3800 BP and 3300 BP a strong aridification resulted in the establishment of the modern vegetation zones. In both the Sahelian and Sudanian zone the vegetational changes appear to have been primarily controlled by climatic changes, whereas the effects of human activities remain palynologically silent even for the late Holocene.
The conflict I refer to happened at the beginning of the 1998 farming season when the distribution of land started. The seasonal migrants went into the village area were they had been farming since many years, they gave their contributions and payments to the respective officials and started to prepare the land. Shortly after they had started to plant the beans – the main cash crop beside fishing – they were harassed by armed people and had to leave the area. Only several weeks later they were able to go back to their prepared fields and proceeded with their farming business. The question I want to concentrate on is related to the topic of the ethnological sub-project – “Community building in newly founded settlements in the Lake Chad area” – and can be specified as “What do conflicts tell us about the community and people involved?”
The study investigates elements influencing agricultural development in villages of the hinterland of Gombe, Gombe State, Nigeria. It aims to discover changes in socio-economic and socio-cultural interactions that exist among household, region, nation and world market. Of special interests are rural households as well as wholesale markets where dynamic processes in the structure of agricultural enterprises and the individual reasons of innovations are recognisable. The final objective of the study is to analyse the agricultural sector in the investigated villages in time and space, by typifying rural households, there strategies of action in relation to different factors: for example, farmsize, cultivation techniques and marketing of agriculture products. The study is also interested in operational profits and costs of farms, income of households as well as expenditures, etc. Because of the fact that statistical work is still going on, it is only possible to present a small portion of the results. Namely, the change in cultivation and marketing of farm products with special emphasis on cash crops during the last 30 years.
This paper is concerned with the transition from hunting and gathering to food production in West Africa, based on evidence from the Sahel Zone of Burkina Faso compiled by field research during the last years. Our study intends to enhance the knowledge about the West African versions of this transition, traditionally seen as one of the most fundamental changes in human prehistory. Embedded in an interregional program the Sahel Zone of Burkina Faso has proved to be one of its most unexpected examples.
L’histoire du peuplement demeure au Burkina Faso un sujet de préoccupation pour les historiens. Les mouvements migratoires et la mise en place des différents groupes ethniques restent très peu précis même pour les populations les mieux connues (Moose, Peul, Gulmanceba). Les limites des données historiques conduisent à l’utilisation de légendes pour expliquer les origines des formations sociales. La légende de la princesse Yennega fonde l’histoire des Moose; celle de Diaba Lompo, l’ancêtre eponyme descendu du ciel avec son cheval à Lompotangou constitue la base des dynasties du pays gulmance selon encore la légende. La séparation entre les Sana et leurs cousins Bisana serait intervenue pour une tête de chien. L’histoire du peuplement des populations à organisation lignagère comme le groupe dagara est encore plus difficile à établir. Il faut en effet, collecter les données sur les mouvements migratoires de chaque lignage pour espérer cerner les origines des familles respectives.
Les ferrières sont par définition les amas des déchets de la réduction du fer. De par son origine elles constituent des lithosols qui ont beaucoup évolué dans l’espace et dans le temps. A notre connaissance très peu d’études se sont penchées sur cette végétation qui couvre actuellement les sites de réduction du fer. L’inventaire floristique de plusieurs sites en zone soudanienne montre la fréquence de certaines espèces sur les ferrières. L’étude de la chorologie de toutes les espèces confondues ligneuses et herbacées, montrent que la plupart sont constituées par des espèces zoochores et quelques espèces anémochores. Elles sont disséminées principalement par les animaux d’élevage, par les oiseaux. Cette communication synthétise les données des différentes prospections et les premiers résultats de nos observations et analyses. Elle a deux objectifs : de montrer l’importance des activités anthropiques dans la formation du paysage végétal d’une part, et d’autre part de mettre en évidence le processus de colonisation des sols nus et des ferrières en zone soudanienne.
The investigations carried out within the project in NE-Nigeria since 1989 have been focussing on the late Pleistocene and Holocene landscape development of the south eastern Chad basin. Areas of interest include palaeodune fields, clay plains and former beach ridge systems of Lake Chad. Transgressions and regressions of Lake Chad played an important role in the younger landscape history of NE-Nigeria and have also caused great environmental changes. The term „Megachad“ is well known and describes an enormous lake with an extension comparable with the Caspian Sea of today. The term „Microchad“ stands for the other recent extreme in terms of the lake dimensions varying during the times. Environmental changes in the surroundings of Lake Chad are closely connected with transgressions and regressions of the lake. These lake level changes can be climatically induced as well as non-climatically, due to human impact. Nearly all land units have more or less been influenced by the lake, spatially as well as temporally. It is important, though, to notice the scales of the changes. Some changes took place in a millennial scale, some in the scales of centuries or decades, and at least – as can be observed every year – in a seasonal scale.
La présente esquisse vise à montrer l'importance des frontières et des conflits chez les Dagara et leurs voisins du Burkina Faso précolonial. En partant des écrits disponibles et de nos propres enquêtes dans le sud-ouest burkinabè, elle en est arrivée à dégager deux périodes historiques bien distinctes. La première, allant de la fin du XVIIIème siècle à la seconde moitié du XIXè siècle en gros, fut dominée par le dynamisme du front pionnier. L'appropriation de l'espace y engendrait quelques heurts interethniques, voire intra-ethniques, fussentils latents ou ouverts. La deuxième période identifiée, elle, s'étend de la seconde moitié du siècle dernier à la conquête française du sud-ouest burkinabè en 1897-1898. Les Dagara, à l'instar des autres ethnies du sud-ouest sont directement ou indirectement confrontés à des conquérants islamisés parmi lesquels les Zaberma, les troupes samoriennes, et surtout Moctar Karantao de Wahabou. Ce nouveau contexte géopolitique différemment accueilli par les ethnies en place aurait été à l'origine d'une guerre dite de sept ans durant laquelle on note des alliances et pactes interethniques. L'analyse des tactiques et stratégies de ces regroupements ponctuels en temps de crises permet de mieux cerner le comportement des Dagara et des ethnies circonvoisines face à la conquête coloniale.
Depuis l’indépendance du Burkina Faso et une nouvelle fois après la révolution, plusieurs ébauches pour réformer les lois nationales sur la terre ont échoué (pour passer du droit foncier coutumier à une tenure individuelle et codifiée). Même dans les environs de la boucle du Mouhoun, notre zone d’étude, comme dans d’autres régions rurales du Burkina Faso, des réformes n’ont pu prendre pied. Face à l’échec des tentatives de gestion étatique du foncier, une meilleure compréhension des systèmes fonciers coutumiers est nécessaire. A l’aide d’exemples historiques et des conflits fonciers récents tirés de l’histoire du peuplement régional, la logique et les mécanismes de régulation politiques et sociaux de distribution des terres sont documentés et analysés dans cet article.