Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268
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14, 093
Dumba-fishing was invented at Lake Chad about 10 years ago by immigrant fishermen from Mali and Nigerian Hausaland. The new technique brought about a new era of Lake Chad fishery, characterised by social and institutional changes. Titled Kanuri fishery headmen (Kacalla njibe)2 who traditionally controlled the access to the lake's water were unable to cope with the massive influx of immigrant fishermen. The lack of an institution for effective control lead to serious conflicts between local and immigrant fishermen. With the Fishermen Association Marte Local Government a new institution was invented, in which local and immigrant fishermen, regardless of their ethnicity, should control access to the fishing grounds together. The Fishermen Association was modelled after “modern” urban institutions and thus mirrors the transformation of the lake shores from rural backwaters, with local customs and culture to an economic centre, characterised by inmigration, cultural diversity and several other 'urban' traits.
14, 415
Over approximately the last 200 years, north-west Ghana and large areas of neighbouring southern Burkina Faso were the stage for a highly successful expansion of Dagara-speaking peoples. Probably setting out from an area around Wa, small groups of Dagara migrated towards the north, some of them taking a westward route, crossing the Black Volta river into today’s Burkina Faso. They rarely advanced into nomansland but rather displaced peoples such as Sisala-, Dyan-, Phuie- and Bwamu-speaking groups, who then moved further west and north. Today, the Dagara occupy about 3500 km2 in southern Burkina Faso, where they represent the sixth largest language group. In this paper I wish to explore the history of the north-west frontier of Dagara expansion and the interaction between the “land-owning” Phuo and the incoming Dagara.
14, 179
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
14, 083
This paper, which is based on field research in Doron Baga and Maiduguri, attempts to describe and analyse the main determinants of the fish trade in North-east Nigeria with Doron Baga as the main focus. Fish is a significant source of income and a principal trade commodity, bringing together the remote fishing community of North-east Nigeria with the major urban centres of the Southern part of the country. In order to get an insight into the workings of the fish trade, indepth interviews were conducted with fatoma (or dealers), traders and transporters in Doron Baga and Maiduguri. In addition, the authors utilised documentary sources to supplement the data collected from the field. For instance, a number of postgraduate dissertations, archival accounts as well as journal articles and books were consulted. After giving a brief introduction of the development of the long distance trade in fish, the paper discusses the role of the fatoma, means of transportation, value and volume of the trade. The study focuses on the period 1997-1999, during which substantial part of the data used were collected.
14, 467
The paper presents two case studies from Nigeria and Burkina Faso, that differ in many respects, but show also some significant similarities. In both cases, previously existing claims on land were not recognised by the national authorities who implemented development projects. But as a contrast, in the Nigerian case people had to move out of the territories that were now claimed by the state, whereas in the Burkina case people were brought into an area that was declared state property. As a result in both cases, this had specific implications for the inter-ethnic relations in the respective regions. In Nigeria, Kanuri farmers moved to new fertile areas that incidentally emerged parallel to the development efforts of the state.
14, 327
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.
14, 071
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?”
14, 411
One of the powerful conventional images of pre-colonial Africa is that of a continent of more or less immobile ethnic groups, living since time immemorial on their ancestral lands, steeped in their traditional cultures. In this image, Africa appears like a mosaic, with clearcut ethnic boundaries, each sherd representing a different people cum language cum culture cum territory. Since a number of years, however, historians and anthropologists of Africa have insisted that this image is misleading. Most pre-colonial societies were characterised by mobility, overlapping networks, multiple group membership and the contextdependent drawing of boundaries. Communities could be based on neighbourhood, kinship and common loyalties to a king, but this did not absolutely have to include notions of a common origin, a common language or a common culture. Our own research on the West African savannah has also shown the enormous importance of mobility. Among the societies of southern and southwestern Burkina Faso, for instance, which several projects have studied, there is hardly a single village whose history has not been characterised repeatedly by the arrival and settlement of new groups and the departure of others. In some cases, we can even speak of systematic practices of multilocality.
14, 299
The paper gives a brief history of the Fulçe people who are found all over West and Central Africa. Since no study of a people is complete without mentioning their language, the paper also gives a very brief account of Fulfulde, the language of the Fulçe people. However, the central focus of the paper is the concept of pulaaku, that unique attribute of the Fulçe that serves as an unwritten code of conduct for all ‘true’ Fulçe. Pulaaku is Fulçe’s guiding principle in their dealings with their fellow Fulçe as well as with all other people. Rather than talk about pulaaku in isolation, however, the paper tries to mirror it through Fulfulde proverbs. Coded or loaded messages called wise-sayings or proverbs are widely used in all languages. Fulfulde is particularly rich in this, which is why the paper explores this reservoir of knowledge in trying to portray the rich culture of the Fulçe people. The corpus of proverbs from which the selected proverbs come, was compiled in and around Gombe with the help of Mallam Bappayo Bappa Yerima Djibril. Since the Fulçe are easily the most dispersed people in Africa, no single study can do real justice to all of them. This is why this study narrows its scope to cover just the Fulçe of Gombe area of the northeastern of Nigeria.
14, 127
The Nigerian agricultural sector deserves to be studied not less for the contribution of such knowledge to our understanding of the past, and present, but more for the usefulness of such knowledge in shaping the sector. The role that agriculture plays in Nigeria’s national economy since her independence may be determined by considering first, the changing structure of the national economy. As the national economy changes, also the role of agriculture. The observed structure at successive periods thus reveals the contribution that agriculture makes to the national economy. A total picture could also be presented through an examination of the contribution of agriculture to the gross domestic product GDP, over the years. It is also possible to add to the above presentation, the annual production of each agricultural crop over the period, or the productivity of the individual farmer as the years pass by. No doubt, the role of agriculture shall not remain static, for as deliberate efforts are made to develop the economy, the agricultural sector is also affected, although several endogenous factors also influence development within the sector. An emperical approach to the understanding of what is happening within the sector is to be prefered and such is documented in small scale studies conducted already by such scolars as FRICKE (1965), TIFFEN (1976) and MALCHAU (1999a+b).
14, 125
The search for persistent elements in nature and culture, which comprises language as a constitutive part, is a prerequisite for the definition of any change which is the aim of our common project. When analysing the process of transformation by a number of disciplines we expect to discover significant features of this alteration and the forces dominating it. The current highly complex present linguistic situation in the western and south-western fringe of the Chad Basin will be reconstructed from the historical migrations undertaken by the various linguistic groups from Lake Chad (mainly Chadic languages) to their present settlements. The six authors, the linguists Dr. Dimitr Ibriszimov, Dr. Doris Löhr, Christopher Mtaku, the ethno-musicologist Dr. Raimund Vogels, and the historian Ibrahim Maina Waziri integrated the results of their studies into one paper towards a systemic approach by tracing back the common roots of the languages, the customs and the music of those peoples and give an outline of their tradition concerning their movements. A basic dual model of migration will be put forward.
14, 169
Summary and evaluation
(2000)
The geographical analysis of the Savannah Zones of north-eastern Nigeria revealed a basic insight on the differentiated development at the meso-regional level: The northern districts had a much lower population increase than the average. It was already arid land before the dramatic reduction of precipitation since the late 1960s. The quality of the soil for farming is rather poor despite specific minerals which give grass during the very short growing season a higher nutritional value than further south. Through studies at the local level, it became evident that on one side this is an area of out-migration of the local population but on the other side we have to register the influx of migrants from the even more dryer northern districts including Niger Republic. The rate of urbanisation in Nigeria increased rapidly from 15 to 36 %. Northern capitals like Kano and Maiduguri multiplied their number of inhabitants seven times but were overtaken by Gombe’s growth. In any case they are centres of social and cultural change as the preliminary findings of H. BALZEREK concerning the boom-town Gombe revealed. But social tensions seem to be inevitable as religious movements not only in big towns like Kano but even in Gombe were already analysed by WATTS (1993, 61). The bearer/ carriers of this movement are landless people who did not migrate to new land in the country side, they are hoping for new jobs in an urban environment. The social structure has changed since the time of the old Hausa towns, but their reliance on surplus of labour force appears to have continued.
14, 011
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.
14, 021
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.
14, 153
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.
14, 477
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.