Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268
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08, 095
In Nigeria terrace agriculture can mainly be found in the so called "Middle Belt Economy" as FORDE (1946)1 coined this type which lies between the grain economy of males in the north and tuber cultivation of females in the south. The people - lacking a hierarchically social and territorial organisation - are called acephalous or segmentary societies. From the geographical point of view the Middle Belt is seen as a zone of transition. Because of the variability of the climate (sometimes it is too wet for grains, sometimes too dry for tubers) a strategy of mixed cropping enables the farmers to overcome these hazards. Their strategy can be seen in the frame of the game theory. A low population density and a lack of sufficient accessibility limited the innovation of cash crops at that time. The papers on the Tangale-Waja Region will reveal manifold facets of the culture and agriculture. In a first step we learn by the research of J. Heinrich that the natural environment is - from the genetic point of view - a prerequisite for the establishing of terraces, but it is still today an important provision to the modern farmers in their resettlement areas.
08, 067
Our paper deals with the problems of migration, culture and language in the wider Benue-Gongola basin. Here are mainly concerned the West-Chadic speaking groups Kwami, Kupto, Kushi and Piya as well as the Jukun who speak a language belonging to the Benue-Congo family. We try to point out the possible reasons for their historical migrations and in particular the consequences of ethnic expansion of the Jukun in the middle Benue region. History shows that contacts of ethnic groups - being peaceful or by force - had always led to mutual influences and changes in culture and language, which finally resulted in cultural fusion of various aspects. Our study, based mainly on oral traditions as well as on linguistic comparisons, focusses especially on the history of the above mentioned Chadic groups, who are considered - according to our hypothesis - to have come in close contact with the Jukun. Subsequently the warlike expansion of the Jukun caused a strong turmoil which led to the scattering of the various ethnic units.
08, 037
The paper takes recourse to oral tradition and linguistics to ascertain the assertion that the presentday Kanuri and Kanembu speech forms emerged from the same parent language. In determining the parent language, the descriptions of the various components (i.e. clans and ethnic groups) of Kanuri and Kanembu are given as a first basis and the relation of each dialect of Kanuri and Kanembu to the other (i.e. dialect contiguity) is demonstrated as a second basis. Taking into consideration the sociolinguistic background of both Kanuri and Kanembu, the brief history of their divergence, the strong contention of the Borno Ulama and the dialect contiguity of the data presented, the paper concludes that Kanuri and Kanembu are initially one and the same language with ancient classical Kanembu being the parent language.
08, 335
The objective of this paper is to combine the environmental conception of the Kanuri with detailed findings of pedological and botanical field investigations. Interpretation of multitemporal satellite data and aerial photographs should provide land cover and land use information for an extended area. The area of investigation was outlined within the transitional zone from the clay plains to the sandy areas by interpretation of satellite images. The presented subset of a SPOT-XS-satellite image shows part of the Marte Local Government Area with its capital Old Marte in the north-eastern part of the image. The darker colours represent the clay plains while the lighter parts are related to the sandy areas. Almost half of the research area is covered by clay but all settlements are located on the slightly elevated sandy areas. Within these sandy areas different gray shades demonstrate the pattern of the rainy season farming area. Differences in colour within the clay plains are mainly due to variances in soil, water content and vegetation cover. In the north-eastern part of the image irrigation channels of the South Chad Irrigation Project are visible. The main attention, especially of the pedological and botanical research, was directed towards the south-western part of the subset in the vicinity of the villages of Wulwa, Dura, Kajere and Ngubdori.
08, 303
Maiduguri, an important city in the Sudano-Sahelian zone of West Africa, experiences both drought and floods. Although droughts are more popular, floods are a seasonal occurrence in parts of the city in the average rainy season. Both hazards exert a heavy toll on their victims. Present response to the hazard problems is characterised by a fire-fighting approach which does little about future occurrence. Much of the perception and response is spiritual and stops short of needed structural and organisational programmes for effective mitigation of hazards. Future occurrences of drought and flood may have more adverse effects as land use in the city becomes more complex and agricultural and water supply system comes to depend heavily on surfacial sources. Future effects will also depend on the socio-economic conditions of the people at risk and the capacity of those who help them. Governments and people need to work together to reduce drought and flood hazards.
08, 137
We can conclude that the Dughwede calendar lasts for two seasonal years, marked by the bull festival as a culminating and turning point. All ritual and agricultural activities are interlinked and need to be seen comprehensively together with the social and cosmological order to understand the underlying cultural pattern. The year is dramatized throughout the seasons to keep the communication between the natural and spiritual forces, both creatively reflected in the individual person. The traditional world was kept in balance as a functional equilibrium over a period of time not known to us, but is now moving towards a process of transformation initiated by structural historical change. The first step towards change is the change of moral values which affects possibly first individuals and then groups. This encourages them to give up the traditional way of interacting with their environment. This process can be described as secularisation and leads to another quality of relationship between man and his natural environment. The same process can also be described as socio-economic change.
04, 099
The tale portrays the unhappy life of a dove. Constantly surrounded by enemies, hunted by human beings and animals, disappointed by friends and separated from her family, the dove despairs of her life. She ponders over her unjust fate in this world and in a monologue she begins to consider, whether it would not be better to end her own life. This tragic theme forms the climax of several episodes, in which the tension between life and death is described. The elaborate development of dramatic acts demonstrates the intertwining of guilt and innocence in human existence.
04, 111
Tenkodogo, a township situated in the south-eastern part of Burkina Faso on the road leading from the capital Ouagadougou to the Togo border, has approximately 29,000 inhabitants. It is Burkina's seventh largest town and is the location of the regional government of the Boulgou-Province. This regional government is represented by a high-commissioner and a "préfet" as it is the residence of a traditional ruler, otherwise known as Tenkodogo-naaba. His sphere of influence covers many villages and hamlets in the region: in total he is the sovereign of nearly 120,000 people. The power of the traditional rulers was curtailed first by the arrival and following overrule of the French colonialists and then after independence by Sankara and his revolutionary government. The kings ceased to be the ultimate judges who were able to determine life and death of their subjects. Henceforth they were no longer allowed to recruit subjects for certain work on their fields, and they no longer could claim control over the allocation of resources. Their position was strengthened anew by Sankara's successor in office, Blaise Campaore, who quickly recognized that collaborating with the traditional rulers could only be of advantage: in fact they later proved to be his best supporters in the election campaign.
04, 131
All over the world meat plays an important role in the nutrition of people. Mostly it is considered to be a special source of strength and health. In many peoples' minds the consumption of animal products, such as muscle, fat, blood, inner organs and bones, is much more associated with vital strength than a vegetarian meal. A reason for this may be the inherent physical similarity between human being and animal, especially mammals. There are other ways of producing meat, such as hunting and fishing, but today the most common method is butchering. The people in Tenkodogo consider beef to be an excellent meat. We will focus our comparative studies on special occasions, specialised butchers, locations, times, technical methods, distribution and ideas connected with the production and consumption of beef. Two fundamental reasons for the butchering of cattle can be identified: firstly, bulls are killed during the rituals of the year and secondly, cattle is slaughtered for daily commercial purposes on the market. In both cases almost the entire carcass of the butchered animal is consumed by people. In Tenkodogo we can actually compare those two different reasons, which have at least one common impact.
04, 005
In a recent article dealing with the Tangale Peak or Kilang, as it is called in the local Tangale language, Herrmann JUNGRAITHMAYR presents an account narrated by a Tangale elder about the attempted ascent of that characteristic mountain by a British colonial officer and his subsequent death.1 Kilang mountain is a basaltic cone approximately 1300 m high, about 8 km southwest of Kaltungo, one of the principal settlements of the Tangale people, in southern Bauchi State, northeastern Nigeria. During a research stay at the National Archives in Kaduna in November 1993 I was able to consult a file containing various documents relating to this incident in detail.2 In the following note I present an outline of the events based on the evidence in the colonial records. By doing this I not only intend to shed more light on a tragic event from the very early years of the colonial era. The picture of the circumstances emerging from the investigations of the colonial authorities may serve as a background to the narrative by the Tangale elder presented in JUNGRAITHMAYR's publication.
02, 179
It is one of the paradoxes of the history of the states of the Central Sudan that Borno, the state with the longest tradition of Islamic literacy should have such an illestablished chronology - especially for the nineteenth century - when compared with its neighbours. No kinglist has been published, no list with regnal years, such as is known from other states. Our problems are compounded by the fact that every known list is presented in the Christian solar calendar and there is no way in which we can be certain that the original material has been correctly converted from the Muslim lunar calendar. In the paper that follows I have attempted to establish a chronology based primarily upon Arabic sources and upon the Muslim calendar. These sources include state seals which usually are engraved with the date of the year of accession; mahrams, charters, or grants of privilege, or rather renewal of such grants by newly appointed leaders. It was the practice for owners of such documents to have them renewed at the beginning of a new reign. When attempting to date events connected with the eclipse of the al-Kanimiyyin and the advent of Rabih I have also made use of evidence relating to the seasons and to various meteorological conditions.
02, 133
The architecture and chemistry of a dug-out : the Dufuna canoe in ethno-archaeological perspective
(1993)
This research work emanated from a joint research project between the Johann-Wolfgang Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany and the University of Maiduguri, Nigeria; as outlined in the Bilateral Agreement of July 21st 1988.1 The research program is interdisciplinary in nature involving these areas: Archaeology, Geography, Linguistics and Historical Ethnology; all under the general theme of West African Savannah. Considerable research work has already been carried out in these areas by German explorers and scholars dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. The project is funded by the German Research Foundation. The present paper addresses itself purely to one and very important aspect of an archaeological campaign undertaken in the Chad Region of Nigeria in late 1990/1991 season. In consequence to reconnaissance survey and excavation conducted at a site called Gajiganna, abundant lithic materials were noticed and collected. The crucial question one poses to the site which lacks physical outcrops in and within the precinct of the settlement are, what could have been the source of the raw materials at the site? Were they transported from somewhere to the site? If so, why was it necessary for the materials to be brought to this site? These and other related questions posed a serious commodity problem for most sites in Borno with lithic materials.
02, 013
The craggy and hilly Muri Mountains, which are situated to the north of the Benue Lowlands, are an area with a complex pattern of settlement. This roughly 80 km long and 20 km wide mountainous area is inhabited by about 20 ethnic groups belonging to different language families. The present ethnic and linguistic situation is understood as the result of a complex series of migrations and adaptations to the natural environment. This paper will describe actual movements of settlements and consider certain conditions which may have been relevant in the decision to leave a settlement or choose a new one. The most important conditions will be the accessibility of arable land and/or pasture, accessibility of water, and conditions dependent on the historical and political context such as affording of security and possibility of defence. Therefore an interdisciplinary approach seems to be appropriate to evaluate the natural conditions for settlement and cultivation of the various places from a geographer´s point of view, to interrogate into the historical aspects and motifs of the settlement patterns and migrations with a thorough ethnological background, as well as to gain additional information from a linguistic analysis of toponymes and contact phenomena of the languages spoken in the area.
02, 043
Studies on land use in Africa have usually been carried out by ethnologists or human geographers and were rarely concerned with data on the physical conditions of soil. There is hardly any issue, however, where interdependencies between natural and cultural factors are as evident as in the topic of land use. For this project the approach of three ethnologists, Braukämper, Kirscht and Platte, was therefore combined with the analysis of Thiemeyer as physical geographer. The area of research is the Local Government Area of Marte in the Nigerian State of Borno. As part of the Chad Basin this region is mainly characterised by clay sediments which are commonly labelled firgi by its inhabitants. Beside this general term, however, the local peasants clearly distinguish five types of soil (Kanuri: katti), to which different physical conditions and qualities with respect to their cultivation are attributed. The question arose how far can this popular knowledge, accumulated by agricultural experiences over generations, be correlated with scientific data. That is why samples of the mentioned types of soil were collected by the members of our team and analysed in the laboratory of the Frankfurt Institute of Physical Geography. The detailed presentation of this analysis has to be preceded by the classification of the respective soil types in the terminology of the indigenous farmers.
02, 161
We wish to emphasize the fact that so far our investigations have concentrated on documenting large bodies of data covering a number of linguistic units in an area which - as we hope to have demonstrated - displays a highly complex linguistic and ethnic structure. Our aim in the above remarks is essentially to throw out a challenge. In order to be able to interpret this situation in terms of the historic development of this zone of compression, further investigations are required, particularly regarding linguistic interference between Chadic and Niger-Congo languages in the south, as well as between Chadic and Nilo-Saharan languages, particularly Kanuri in the north-east and Songhay in the north-west. Ultimately, questions like the following are at stake: To what extent did the numerous Chadic languages preserve their original Hamitosemitic heritage? What is the impact of the Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan languages on individual Chadic languages in the respective border areas? In this context, detailed comparative studies between Chadic and Adamawa on the one hand, Chadic and Jukunoid and Chadic and Jarawan Bantu on the other hand as well as Chadic internal research, are urgently required.
02, 113
The land use in the Tangale-Waja area is analysed according to the two basic categories of geography: Firstly the manifold interaction between men and environment which form the spatial characteristics of an area, and secondly the decrease of influence with increasing distance. The importance of these two elementary factors is described by indicators as accessibility for the period from the precolonial situation until the time after World War II, when new roads were constructed through the mountainous area. Living in a hilly environment the self contained population (formerly called "hill pagans") had developed special agricultural techniques which can be considered ecologically well adapted. The opening up of the area after the pacification, Christianity and education, led to a considerable increase in population, the expansion of land under cultivation, and the change of settlement structure by down-hill population movement. This resulted in overuse of the fragile natural resources. The size of farm steads became too small for the family unit and the still low accessibility of the hinterland of the main interregional roads as well as inappropriate techniques of agricultural production are shortcomings causing heavy damage to the physical environment and decreasing living standards of the local population.
02, 227
The account of Borno's war with Mandara thus recounted above, at least from the point of view of the Mandara Chronicler, and all the other accounts I have given above clearly portray to us the essence of the Mune in that oppression and/or a war of caprice is not enjoined. And the war against Mandara was clearly a war of caprice, as Mandara had clearly recanted on its recalcitrance, when threatened. The essence of the Chronicle itself, however, is that we are here seeing, from accounts of an eye-witness, the portrayal of a polity whose language principles and practice of diplomacy, in war and in peace, are not less developed than any we have seen in the states of Euro-Germanic experience, of comparable times. The basis of this well ordered art is essentially the Mune, even though in its universalist form we may wish to assign it to the Book and the Sunna of Islam. Why not then, should we not regard the Mune as the constitution of the pre-colonial Borno State? Munen - ba (not in the Mune), for the Sayfawa ruler is certainly more binding than most modern constitutions had been binding on leaders of present-day African States!
02, 255
The Lake Chad Basin is a major geographical region in the central part of the Sudan zone of Africa. The northern parts, however, extend into the Sahel and the southern parts of the Sahara desert. It consists of an extensive shallow depression of about 1.536.000 km2 (600.000 miles2) of which about 10% lies in Nigeria. The greater part is shared between the three countries of Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Climatically and agriculturally, the Chad Basin lies within the dry or semi-arid zone of Nigeria. It is a marginal area which has experienced severe droughts and considerable environmental changes in recent years. The natural environment, its use and misuse, and the threat of life posed by environmental pollution dominate discussions on environmental change. But in addition to the natural or physical environment, there are other equally important 'environments' which deserve some attention in view of the role that they play in generating economic growth and in ensuring sustainable development which is the central issue in our concern about the environment. These other environments are the cultural environment, the political environment and the economic environment, both internal and external. In the Chad Basin, all these other environments, along with the natural environment have been greatly influenced by its land locked location in the heart of Africa.
02, 197
Yerwa is the last of the Borno capitals. Although established in the first decade of colonial administration, it cannot be compared with the many other towns like Fort Lamy, Jos, Kaduna, Niamey et al. which all developed about the same time. Colonial interference with the development of Yerwa appears restricted, mainly, to insistence upon wider roads than a Borno town otherwise would have featured and resettlement schemes, e.g. Mafoni, Ari Askeri. The following is based on the premise that as the town - despite time and political circumstances of its emergence - is a distinctive Borno town, also occupational diversification and structure are distinctively related to urban Borno culture.