THE

AFRICAN
FRONTIER
The Reproduction of
Traditional Aftican Societies
EDITED WITH ANINTRODUCTION BY
IGORKOPYTOFF
Indiana
University
Press
BLOOMINGTON AND INDIANAPOLIS
First Midland Book edition 1989
J987 by IgorKopytoff
All ri ghcs reserved
Nopari ofIhis book may be reproduCl'd or utilized in anyfonn
or by any means, electronic ormechanical, intluding photocopying
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ofAmerican University Presses' Resolution on Pennissions (onslituteJ
the only exception (0 'his prohibition .
Manufactured in the U'liced States ofAmerica
LibraryofCongres.t Cataloging-in-Public:ationData
The African fronti er.
L Ethnology-Afri ca-Addresses, essays, lectures,
2. Afri ca-Social conditionS- Addresses, essays,
lectures. ) . Frontier thes is-Addresses, essays,
lectures. 4 . Ethnic barriers-Addresses, essays,
lectures. I. Kopytoff, Igor.
GN645A]62 1986 )06' .096 85-45468
ISBN 0-25)-30252-8 d.
ISBN0-253-20539-5 pbk.
2. 3 4 5 6 93 92 91 90 89
Contents
PREFACE I vii
PARTONE: Introduction
Igor Kopytoff 1. TheInternal AJrican Frantier:
TheMaking ojAfrican Political
Culture
J
PARTTWO: Case Studies
Introduction
A PARADIGMATIC CASE
NancyJ. Fairley 2. Ideology and State Formation: The
Ekie ojSouthern Zaire
THE FRONTIER AS REGIONAL SYSTEM lor
Chet S. Lancaster 3. Politilal Structure atld Ethnicity in an
Immigrant Society: The Coba ojthe
Zambezi
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING FIRST 121
William P. Murphyand 4. Kinship and Territory in theHistory
Caroline H. Bledsoe ojaKpelle ChieJdom (Liberia)
THE MANY WI\.YS OF BEI NG FIRST
Randall M. Packard 5. Debating in aCommon Idiom:
Variant Tradit ions ofGenesis among
the BaSh" ojEastern Zaire
THE VIEW FROM THE METROPOLE 162
David Newbury 6. UBunyabungo": The Western
Rwandan Frolltier, c. 1750-1850
vi
Adell Patton,Jr.
Lee V. Cassanelli
W. Arens
Sandra T. Barnes
Contents
BUILDING A STATE ON
AN ALLEN FRONTIER
'93
7. An Islamic Frontier Polity: The
Ningi Mountains ofNorthern
Nigeria, 1846-1902
THE DISTANT FRONTIER AS REFUGE 2t4
8. Social Construction on the Somali
Frontier: Bantu Former Slave
Communities in the Nineteenth
Century
A CONTEMPORARY "ANOMALOUS"
SOCIETY ON THE RURAL fRONTIER 239
9. Mto wa Mbu: A Rural Polyethnic
Community in TanzatJia
THE POLITICAL DYNAMICS OF THE
URBAN FRONTIER 255
10. The Urban Frontier in West Africa:
Muskin} Nigeria
CONTRIBUTORS / 282
INDEX / 284
192 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
1963. Les milices du Rwanda precolonial. Brussels: ARSOM.
- --, 1969. Introduction aux grands genres lyriques de ['ancien Rwanda. Butare:
Editions Universitaires du Rwanda.
---.1972. Un abrege de ['ethnohistoire du Rwanda. Butare: Editions Universitaires
du Rwanda.
Kajiga,J. 1956. "Cetteimmigration seculaire des Ruandaisau Congo."Bulletin Tri-
mestriel du Centre d'Etude des problemes sociaux Indigenes, XXXII (1956) 5-65.
Kandr, R. 1904. Caput Nih. Berlin.
Lescrode, A. 1972. Notes d'Ethnographie du Rwanda. Tervuren: MRAC.
Lugan, B. 1977a. "Les reseaux commerciaux au Rwanda dans Ie dernier quart du
XIXe Siecle," Etudes d'Histoire Afticaine IX-X, 183-212.
---.1977b. "Les poles commerciaux du lac Kivu ala fm du XIXe Siecle,"
Revue Fra11faise d'Histoire d'Outre Mer 64, 176-202.
Maquet,J. J. 1955 "Les pasteurs de l'Itombwe," Science et Nature VIII, 3-12.
Nahimana, F. 1979. "Les bami ou roitdets Hutu du corridor Nyabarongo-
Mukungwa avec ses regions limitrophes," Etudes Rwandaises 12 (numero
speciale), 1-25.
Newbury, D. 1975. "Rwabugiriand Ijwi," Etude d'Histoire Afi'icaine VII, 155-173.
---.1979 "Kings and Clans: Ijwi Island, c. 1780-1840." Ph.D. dissertation:
University ofWisconsin-Madison.
---.1980a. "The Clans of Rwanda: An Historical Hypothesis" AJrica L, 4,
389-403.
---.1980b. "Lake Kivu Regional Trade in the Nineteenth Century,"Journal
des AJricanistes L, I, 6-30
Newbury, M. C. 1974. "Deux lignages au Kinyaga," Cahiers d'Etudes Afi'icaines
XIV, r, 26-39.
---.1975 "The Cohesion ofOppression: A CenturyofClientshipin Kinyaga,
Rwanda." Ph.D. dissertation: University ofWisconsin-Madison.
---.1978. "Ethnicityin Rwanda: The Case ofKinyaga," Afi'ica XLVII.
Pages, A. 1933. Un royaume hamite au centre de l'Afi'ique. Brussels: ARSOM.
Pauwels, M. 1962. "Le Bushiru et son Muhinza ou roitelet Hutu," Annali Latera-
nensi XXII, 19-40.
Propp, V. 1968. Morphology of the Folktale. Austin: University ofTexas Press.
Rennie, K. 1972. "ThePrecolonial Kingdom of Rwanda: A Reassessment," Trans-
aJrican Journal of History II, 2, 11- 53.
Reisdorff, I. 1952. "Enquetes foncieres au Rwanda." n.p.
Scheub, H. 1975. The Xhosa Ntsomi. London: OUP.
Smith, P. 1975. Le recit populaire au Rwanda. Paris: Armand Colin.
Spitaels, R. 1953. "Transplantation des Banyaruanda dans Ie Nord Kivu,"
Problemes d'AJrique Centrale VI, 2, 110-116
Vansina, J. 1962. L'evolution du royaume Rwanda des origines a 1900. Brussels:
ARSOM.
---.n.d.(a) "Ibiteekerezo: Historical Narratives from Rwanda," Chicago:
Center for Research Libraries (CAMP). Among the relevant texts see Reel 1,
Rugaanzu Ndori texts 6 and 8; and Reel 4, Ndahiro Cyaamatare text 14,
Rugaanzu Ndori texts 14, 29, 42, 49, 51, 53, 57, 71, 87, 92.
~ . n.d.(b) "Ibiteekerezo: Historical Narratives ofRwanda." On file at the
Musee Royal del'AfriqueCentrale, Tevuren, Belgium; these texts differfrom
those noted above ill n.d.(a).
BUILDING A STATE ONAN ALIEN
FRONTIER
Inthe preceding casestudies, theculturaldifferences betweenthefrontiers-
men and thehost societies had not been profound; they haverangedfrom
insignificant (Kpelle, Goba) to marginal (Ekie), to moderate (BaShu,
Rwanda). This kind of cultural affmity between frontiersmen and their
hosts characterized most of the internal African frontier. There were,
nevertheless, instances whentheculturaldistance wasconsiderablygreater.
Withinthehistoricpast, deep culturalcontrastsonafrontierstemmedfrom
the impact ofoutside forces that brought in new cultural identities. The
next three articles are concerned with that kind offrontier. Two ofthem
deal, respectively, withcommunities ofescaped BantuslavesinSomaliland
and withatwentieth-centurypolyethniccommunityof settlersinTanzania.
Theother, whichfollows, is astudy byAdellPattonofthe buildingofthe
Muslim Ningistateintheinstitutionalvacuumofa"pagan"frontierareain
northern Nigeria.
The immigrants were Muslim divines (mallams) and their families.
Espousing a reformist quasi-millennial ideology, they moved, in protest
against what they regarded as unjust taxation, to the frontier areas ofa
Muslim state. Here, they planned to build a community based on their
convictions-an example offrontiersmen as utopians, but one that needs
to be qualified and rigorously stripped ofanyWestern connotations ofthe
term "utopian." Forthe utopianismherewas well withinthe local Muslim
metropolitan cultural mold: the ideology (a term, when one deals with
Islam, preferable to "religion") included a trading-and-raiding ethos, a
consciousness ofbelonging to the cosmopolitan world ofIslam, a militant
and militaristic outlook, and a political culture that did not preclude ex-
pansionist state-building. This cultural configuration stood in contrast
with the host societies on the frontier-non-Muslim, pagan, parochial,
and politically fragmented. The cultural isolation ofthe immigrants was
exacerbated by the fact that the mallams knew that they were unlikely to
bejoined by others like them. At the same time, the integration with the
local population could only be minimal. The resulting society was thus
necessarily different from those wehave seen built onculturallyless alien
frontiers.
The course taken by the mallam polity (which came to be eventually
known as the Ningi state) exemplifies a series ofparadoxes. The mallams
tried to detach themselves from what they saw as an illegitimate Muslim
socialorder, andsetoutto build a pureMuslim community; butit was the
only social order that furrrished them with a model for social construction
194 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
and the only one with which they shared a moral universe. Yet the very
hostility of the neighboring Muslim metropo]es and the immigrants'
weakness meant that they had to seek refuge among pagan populations.
They sought to reproduce on the frontier a polity that would take its place
among the great metropolitan polities in the region from which the mal-
lams came, but the polity lacked an urban base and had to rely for its
political and military recruitment on the local parochial societies. Their
dependence on pagan subjects cum allies made chern accept these sup-
porters as they were and precluded an aggressive imposition of Islam on
them; instead, the mallams sought to insure their support by magic perfor-
mances. This, in turn, precluded moral ties with the pagan supporters and
their ideological integration into the fledgling state. The relationship that
was built was one of instrumental cooperation: the supporters' uncertain
loyalty had to be paid for with booty. And to obtain booty, one had to
turn to raiding neighboring Muslim states.
The historical trajectory began with dreams of a reformist frontier
community and ended with a powerful predacory state. The state was
Muslim-ruled; but resting on a pagan base, it was increasingly dependent
in its dynastic politi cs on pagan sub-chiefs and ali en slaves even while
modelling itself on the metropoles. In this respect , the story of Ningi
illustrates very well the role of the frontier as a reproducer of political
forms: whatever new social forms the frontiersmen may originally have
had in mind for the institutional vacuum that the frontier ideally repre-
sented, the success and growth of the community necessarily involved it in
the regional system, with all the conformiti es that such involvement im-
posed. The peculiarity dfNingi lay in that it had to deal with two regional
cultural traditions and it tried to reproduce one while having to build on
the other. In the other cases we have seen, there was no such cultural
disjunction.
-Editor
Adell Patton, Jr.
7
An Islamic Frontier Polity:
The Ningi Mountains ofNorthern Nigeria,
1846-1902
Frontier areas often provide refuge for those in rebellion against the met-
ropolitan society. But once on the frontier, they face certain organizational
problems. If there is a local population, they may meld into it, or keep
apart from it, or try to use it for their own purposes. And the immigrants
are often forced, sooner or later, lnw some kind of relationship with the
metropoli tan centers. This paper examines the case of a group of Hausa
mall ams (learned men) who fled their own society and established a polity
on the fringe of the Sokoto Empire, in the Ningi mountains of the Jos
Plateau of northern Nigeri a. They came to live in an area occupied from
time immemorial by vigorous but small-scale "pagan" societies, with ru-
dimentary forms of organized poli tical authority. At the same time, the
immigrant mallams had not withdrawn enti rely from the reach of the
organized states-emirates led by the Sokoto Caliphate. Thus, paradoxi-
cally, this Muslim reformist polity came to depend on an alliance with its
new non-Muslim neighbors in order to survive pressure from the Muslim
states with which it had immensely greater cultural affinities. The contra-
dictions that this entailed are at the heart of our story.
THE MALLAM REV O LT IN KANO
Kana Emirate was perhaps the most important of all the emirates in the
Fulani-dominated Sokoto Empire that emerged after the successful Fulani
jihad of 1804-1808. By the mid-nineteenth century, Kano had become not
only an outstanding metropolitan center of Islamic learning but also the
financial entrepot for the Caliphate. But like many empires, Sokoto began
to suffer from the COStS of expansion and its citizenry responded in various
ways to the increasing burdens of rents and taxes. Most, to be sure.
remained loyal; others j oined dissident brotherhoods; and some fled to the
fringes of the empire (Last 1970;345-357).
At the end of 1846, some sixteen Hausa learned men (mallams) and
their families, led by Mallam Hamza, left the Islamic center ofTsakuwa in
Kano Emirate, pursued by Kano forces for their refusal to pay the land tax
(kurdin kasa)-a tax from which they had been exempted before the Fulani
--
197 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
196
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conquest (Patton 1975:125-179). The communit y Uama'arsa) established
itself in the Ningi mountains, a frontier area at the fringes of and sur-
rounded by such Sakata vassal states as Kana, Zazzau. Bauchi, Gombe,
Jema'are. Misau, Katagum. and Hadejia.
The nucleus ofHamza's following came from a guild offree entrepre-
neurs. In time, this nucelus developed into an informal Sufi religious
body. From its beginning in /ran in the eighth century, the Sufi tradition
contained elements of protest against social injusti ces and obsession with
material gain and worldly affairs; and it harbored ideas of sa lvati on
through asce ti cism and spiritual djsciplille. In time, Sufism developed par-
ticular patterns of communal organization, various Sufi communities arose
over the centuries within Islamic societies, and SufIsm became a subsidiary
but well established current within the broader Islamic stream Uah
1973:93-96). Otal traditions at Tsa kuwa and Ningi hold that Hamza had
prayed in seclusion for long penods of time in search of "The Way"
(Patton 1975: 146). But unlike many Sufi movements , the one led by
The Ningi Mountains (Nigeria) , 1846- 1902
Hamza never developed into a cohesive brotherhood (tariq ). Instead, its
retreat into a non-Muslim area on the frontier of Islam made it the founder
of a predatory polity.
THE NINGI FR ONTI E R ZONE
The area into whi ch Hamza's mallam community moved was peri pheral
to the Islamicized metropolitan centers of nor thern Nigeria sociologicaHy,
culturally, ethnically, politically, and geographically. In this sense, it may
be regarded as a frontier zone. The Ningi area is the northernmost exten-
tion of the Jos Plateau massif. It is mountainous, incised with valleys
suitable for plain and terraced agriculture. Most of it is some 2,000 feet
above sea level, the central area rising to 3,000 feet and peaks reaching
6 , 000. The Ningi area of our story nearl y coincides with present Ningi
Division, which is just under 2 ,000 square miles. The area expen ences a
completely rainless season and it genetall y shares in the hardships of the
"famine zone" of the Western Sudan (Renner 1926:583- 596).
Even in the remote past, N ingi appears to have been an isolated fringe
area from the perspective of the flatlands on which arose the old Hausa
city- scates. It shows a great deal of cultural and linguistic diversity and it
had never developed, within hi storic times at least, important integrative
networks among its communities. It is impossible CO know what the
population of Ningi was when the mallams arrived. The first assessment
in colonial times, done in 1908 (Groom 1910), gave a total population of
some 21,500, some 17, 000 of these being of "original " stock. Among
these, the largest groups were the Watji (ca. 7,000) , the Pa' a (ca. 5,000) ,
and the Buta (over 3,000); the other groups were each in the range of a
thousand or less. Thes e figures suggest that the non-Muslim population
that the mallams found and thac came to represent their "reservoir" of
economic and military strength was in t he range of a score of thousands.
What histori cal populati on movements we can reconstruct appear to
have consisted of small groups of migrants who sought out unoccupied
areas and often absorbed previous inha bitants or were absorbed by them.
The resule was the presence, in hist oric ti mes, of several ethni c groups, the
chronology of whose appeatance in the atea can be roughly established. The
Buta (with their rela tives the Ningi, who, though few in numbers, gave
their name to the area) seem to represent the most ancient, non-Hausa-
speaking st t atum; they are the northernmost extension of the Benue-Congo
language family. The Warji belong to a branch of the Afro-Asiatic lan-
guages concentrated around Lake Chad. The Siri are Chadic speakers ftom
the Kano area, and they arrived in the Ningi area well befote the 1800's . The
Chama and Basa, of the Benue-Congo family, followed. The Chadic Pa'a
came next, from Bauchi, sometime in the ea rly nineteenth century. Thus,
the migration of the Hausa maUams from Kano in 1846 was but the last
important influx of outsiders into the N ingi frontier.
198 199 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
Survivingoral traditions teU us nothingofthe historyofthese groups;
they do not even yield myths oforigin or commonly accepted founding
heroes; and the earlier arrivals did not always aUow subsequent immi-
grants to assimilate (Patton 1975:45). Slave raiding by the old Kano king-
dom and, in the nineteenth century, by neighboring emirates served to
reduce the population and probably confuse the mythical charters ofthe
Ningisocieties (Patton 1979b:IS) . And theestablishmentofthe Ningistate
by the immigrant mallams from Kane and the consequences of this intru-
sion brought further confusion into historical self-perceptions.
The political systems ofthe Ningi plateau peoples were hi ghly local-
ized (Patton 1975:56-58) , though there existed a few supra-ethnic net-
works of social relations: some ethni c groups were connected by institu-
tionalized "joking relationships," most ofthem exchanged wives, and aU
were connected to trade networks. Villages were autonomous and the
process of fi ssion wi thin them often led to secondary settlements at some
distance from parent villages. Each settl ement was dominated by its
founding patrilineage. The lineage head was usually its most senior mal e
member, and he acted on behalf of the autonomous viUage community in
its dealings with outsiders and as its priest of the land cult. Above several
suchlineage heads stood what was the highest local authority-aIsofi, the
ritual head of the sacred shrine center linking several autonomous villages
and himselfusuaUy the head ofhis own patrilineage.
Theshrine thus provided the only formal basis foracertain degree of
socio-political integration above the village level. Within the territory of a
shrine, people came to consult about crop planting, famines, andjudicial
matters; they also mobilized for defense against external threat. The paro-
chial nature of political relations can be seen from the fact that , for ex-
ample, the Warji people (numbering perhaps 5,000 in the mid-nineteenth
century) were under thejursidiction ofseven tsafl (Izard 1918a,b). Oneof
chern, at Beima, was the civil and ritual senior over the others , and
another, at Ranga, acted as the head in times ofwar. Some competition no
doubt existed among the tsafi within a single language cluster. While the
overall hierarchy followed the sequence ofthe foundation ofsettlements
and their shrines, succession struggles among autonomous lineages did
take place when a senior tsafi died.
For the surrounding emirates. che position of these plateau societies
was broadlydefined by Muslimlaw, which aUowed themeitherto enslave
populations refUSing to convert to Islam or require them to pay kharaj,
land tax (Khadduri 1955:46-47). Oral traditions in Ningi hold that the
Sokoto Caliphate pursued a policy oftaxation when possible, while raid-
ing those many villages that refused to pay tribute. The Buta and Warji
sometimes organized themselves. each inco a temporary quasi-federation,
in answer to incursions from Kano and che Caliphate, buc che organization
remained a purely military one. In time, the military leadership solidified
among the Buta : Gwarsum began (ca. 1807) a line ofnine leaders which
The Ningi Mountain.s (Nigeria), I846-I90z
stretched intOthe early twentieth century. When the Emir ofKano Ibra-
him Dabo (1816-1846) invaded Buta territory, Gwarsum defeated him at
Basshe. Gwarsum's victory was nOt decisive but it did set the stage for
continuing resistance to the emirates that flared up periodically through
the nineteenth century.
It should be noted that the opposi tion was notstrictly that between
the mo untaineers On one side and the Muslims on the other. For example.
Kano and Bauchi Emirates competed in their efforts to impose tribute On
the mountaineers. The Buta around Marra and Dua villages paid tribute to
Bauchi; those around Burra paid it to Kano, as did the kindred Ningi
people and the Kuda. The nearby Pa'a, on the other hand, successfuUy
resisted Bauchi while themselves imposing tribute on the Sira. Thus, the
mountaineers were not strangers to relatively complex tributary relation-
ships, nor were they entirely on the receiving end of predatory activities .
Nor was the movement of the mallams into their area in r846 without
precedent. When the Sokoto Caliphateestablished its rule over Hausaland
in 1808, some Hausa leaders fled to the fringes ofNingi with their fol-
lowers, and some of these joined the Buta in their resistance to Sokoto.
THE RECEPTION OF THE MALLAMS BY THE
MOUNTAINEERS
Hamza's progression into the Ningi interior was gradual. At the end of
1846, the mallams settled in the hills ofeastern Burra. Burra at that time
was headed by tsaft Gira and it was under Kano control. During the dry
seaSOn of 1847, the mallams moved completel y beyond Kano control and
setded among the Buta at Dua, under Bauchi jursidi ction but under the
direct control ofDan Daura, the Sarki (chief) ofMarra and aFulani. Dan
D aura welcomed them. In Hamza, he saw a learned man who knew many
secrets and whose blessing would be beneftcial ; Hamza would be agood
teacher for his son and would enhance Marra's prestige. Dan Daura even
took Hamza to Bauchi co introduce him co Emir Ibrahim, who granted
Hamza permission to stay at Dua. But the Emir warned Dan Daura:
"Some day these mallams will prove too strong for you; you betterleave
them with me. " Nevertheless, Dan Daura returned to Marra with Hamza
and gave him food and lodging, and the mallams settled at Dua.
The Buta lrst and chen the other mountaineers easily accepted the
new mallam settlement in their midst. As metropolitan attempcs at op-
pression were growing, the mountaineers became more open co the idea of
larger-scale organization and more receptive to the idea of leaders
knowledgeable in the affairs ofthe neighboring states and their modes of
warfare. While their own political culture militated against a centralized
organization arising from among themselves, they seemed to be open to
the idea of a profitable alliance with an alien organization.
There was also, it appears, a certain messianic element in at least
200
201
THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
some local groups that made the mallams welcome. Buta traditions speak
of prophecies in the past that foretold that mallamas with "little black
bags"-leather satchels containing the Qur'an-would come to liberate
them from tributary servitude (Sarkin Dua [97J). Some of these stories
of prophecies are undoubtedly ex post facto elaborations; but it is also not
unlikely that some echoes of utopian Islamic thought in Hausaland had
reached the mountaineers through individuals acquainted with metropoLi-
tan affairs. Such prophecies should have found fertile ground in the anxi-
eties of the mountaineers as they saw the power of the emirates dosing
in on them. In 1832, yet another emirate, Misau, was established by
Fulani from Barno, followed two years later by Jema'are-both on
Ningi' s eastern flank. The inexorable course of events may well have
been making the peoples of Nirigi ready to accept new leadership that
promised them salvation.
There were reasons, then, why the mountaineers should have wel-
comed Hamza and his mallam community. Hamza had come from cos-
mopolitan Kana, he possessed full knowledge of Caliphate affairs and its
mode of warfare, and the polity he was about to found could therefore
help them to resist Sakata expansion (Vansina 1973). And there may also
ha ve been an element of sympatliy: tlie people knew that Hamza had
broken the law of the Caliphate in the same way that some of them had
from time to time when they refused to pay tribute.
THE VISION OF THE NEW STATE
In 1848, the Hamza movement took on millennial overt ones that echoed
the millennial currents in Islam that began to gather strength in the eigh-
teenth century. The impending appearance of the Mahdi and the end of
the world were expected, and injustice, oppression, and social disorder
were all signs of the Mahdi 's coming. The situation in which Hamza and
his community found themselves no doubt reinforced such a view of the
world. They were in the midst of non-Muslim mountaineers and at the
mercy of a small prOvincial Sarki, in stark contrast with their previous
position, when they enj oyed privileges, close ties to the pre-jihad dynasty
at Tsakuwa, a successfully developing Sufi community, resp'ect in
Qur'anic circles, and independence as free producers. They could observe
the Buta paying tribute to the Sarki and may have seen the new setting as
not very different from the one they had fled.
The strains of their new situation appear to have plunged Hamza into
a psychological crisis and he entered into communion wi th God (for a
discussion of this dynamic, see Brenner 1973). However he might at the
time have perceived his mission, Hamza began preaching to the Buta,
caUing on them to fight for their freedom. The millennia1 character of
Hamza's preaching is preserved in the following oral text collected at Dua,
in which Hamza says to the mountaineers:
The Ningi Mountains (Nigeria)J 1846-1902
Some people, red people will be coming and they will conquer everyone
and stop you from fighting one another . .. and take power from you.
No one will have the right of enslaving anyone nor the righe to fight
Kano and Bauchi After ehe red people again another group will come.
They will be black, and they will fight and defeat all (Sarkin Dua [973).
Whatever concrete actions Hamza now wished to take, it had to be in
a setting dominated by military power, and that power was overwhelm-
ingly on the side of the neighboring emirates who saw the Ningi area as a
natural source of captives and tribute. In brief, the state power of dle
enemies had to be countered by some kind of state organization.
T H E CREA TION OF THE NEW STA TE
At the end of 1848, Ha mza and his mallams began the moves by which
they would eventually transform the acephalous societies around them
into a centralized polity without resorting to conquest (which, in any case,
would probably not have succeeded). Hamza built a mosque and word of
his presence spread. He combined traditional Islamic practices with tradi-
tional Ningi ones into an appealing amalgam with magic (Sihr) at the
center of it. He also began to side'with the Buta in their perennial disputes
with Dan Daura. The la,tter thereupon accused Hamza of intriguing
among his subjects and mustered his troops. In the flrst confrontation at
Dua, the mallams and the Buta defeated the Bauchi troOps and Dan Daura
had to flee for his life.
Hamza now turned to political action on a broader scale. His mes-
sengers propagated among the mountaineers the mystical meaning of his
victory. The people of Burra, Tim, Ari , Guda, Badunga, Rabi, Kuluki,
and other places came to Hamza, and he shared the victory booty with
them and offered their leaders positions of responsibility. He told them:
You have now succeeded beca use yOll have found amongst you a person
like me; come to my fold and I will deliver you from the obligations to
the Fulani- the Fulani who are unjust, the Fulani who impose upon you
a lot of duties and impose upon you things which you cannot pay
(Imam Mahmud 1957-62:[68).
As Hamza continued to call upon the mountaineers to rebel against
the Caliphate, he combined his preaching with his Sihr magic. Word of his
extraordinary powers spread: he could throw paper in the air which would
remain suspended; he could mount a mat floating in the air; he could
stretch his tongue around his head like a turban, or stretch his leg to the
length of two spears and bring it back to normal size, or resurrect dead
ants. Harnza would have someone kill ants, have them placed in baskets,
and resurrect them. He would then tell the people: "Even if the Fulani kill
you, that is how I will return your lives to you; nobody will ever be able
to defeat you as long as I am amongst you" (Imam Mahmud 1957-62:169).
202 203 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
The Emir of Bauem sem troop reinforcements to Dan OauIa for an
attack on Harnza at Dua. Harnza's own troops now numbered probably well
over two hundred; he also had weapons and horses captured at the first
encounter and additional trOOps from newfound followers . Hamza set a
pattern in these encounters, one that was followed by his successors. As the
troops formed for battle, Hamza stayed behind, reci ting prayers for victory
from the Holy Book. Being his own Sark ill Yaki (war chief), he would, upon
completing the recitation. rush out in front of the troops toward the enemy
(Patton 1975: 158-1 59). When the Bauchi forces arrived at Dua, Hamza ap-
peared before them and showed them his magical skills. This apparently
astonished them, and some of the troops retreated. The bulk of the Bauchi
forces were routed and Dan Daura was killed. This victory marked the
foundation of Ningi as a state. The new state incorporated with varying
degrees of firmness and reliability most of the mountaineers, with the excep-
tion of the people of Sonoma valley and the Warji (Patton [975:149)
News of Hamza' s activities reached Sokoto during the Caliphate of
Amir al- Muminin Ali ben Bello ([837-[ 859). In the educated ci rcles of
Sokoto, Hamza was acknowledged as both a learned man and a magician
(Houdas 1966 [1899) :356), and his new activities were no doubt seen with
great apprehension by Sokato and the other emirates. Indeed, Hamza had
already begun to raid. He burned the town of Gau, an important fIef of
Bauchi, forcing the inhabitants to resettle farther away from Ningi . His
raiders attacked fl efs and estates that had an abundance of food, cattle,
horses, and people to enslave. This established the basic raiding style
which Ningi warriors were to follow througho ut the 19th century.
About 1849, Emir Ibrahim of Bauchi made preparations for war
against the mall ams. The latter had built a number of compounds sur-
rounded by walls of rock at Dua, which they did not want to risk being
destroyed. Hence, Hamza deci ded to confront Ibrahim at Jengere rather
than at Dua. But the N ingi forces were no match for the Bauchi and were
routed. How exactly Hamza met his death remains unkn own-his body
was never found. Local tradition explains the failure of Hamza's magical
powers in th.is instance. As the battle was about to unfold, it is said, the
Pa'a troops rushed' out to fight before Hamza could complete his prayers
and incantations. As the war leader, Hamza felt compelled to lead the
attack. Mounting his horse prematurely and brandishing his spear, he rode
out in front of his troops coward the enemy and to his death. He was
about sixty years old.
THE F O UNDING O F THE SECON D MA LL AM STATE
The Hamza period of the mallam state ended in 1849, after two years at
Dua. Hamza's fragile state, still tied ambiguously to millennial hopes, had
collapsed and the mallams now faced a number of problems: sheer survi-
val, the need to select a new leader, and the fear among their new non-
The Ningi Mountains (Nigeria), 1846-1902
Muslim adherents that Kano and other emirates might join Bauchi in
stamping out all signs of Ningi rebelliousness . Indeed, the tsaft leaders of
the Buta , Kuda, and Pa' a qui ckly withdrew to their own areas, leaving the
leaderless mallams virtually alone. It was clear that the mountaineers' ad-
herence to the mallam state was opportunistic and that they were mainly
interested in booty. A new and more viable state would thus require
institutional intervention in mountaineer affairs in order to insure loyalty.
The mall ams and their families-altogether probably a little over fIfty
men, women, and children-decided to move some twenty miles away
from Dua in to the less accessible mountain interior. They chose Tabela. a
Pa' a vill age. Hamza's widow Atta played a decisive role in the informal
process of selecting the new leader (and she continued to exert her influ-
ence in Ningi affairs for the foll o wing quarter century). Since Hamza's
sons were too young co rule, leadership passed to Mallam Ahmadu,
Hamza's brother. The non-Muslims of the original alliance accepted the
new leader.
The reformist features of Hamza's original vision had by now almost
completely receded. Rather than move in the direction of a Sufi brother-
hood- as it probably woul d have had it remained in Kano--the commu-
nity was on the way to becoming a predatory frontier polity. Ahmadu
gave the fledgling state an outright military cast. He made forays into
Bauchi territory and the renewed Ningi belligerency caused some concern
in Kano. Barth, who visited the area in 1851, observed that the Buta of
Burra continuously sei zed Kano couriers en route to Bauchi and confis-
cated the messages (Barth 1965 [1 857): 618). Bauchi fmally responded with
a war that lasted nearly seven years and in which it lost some 7, 000 men.
Bauchi received incidental help from another European traveler who vis-
ited the Emir's war camp outside of Tabela. In December 1855, Dr . Ed-
ward Vogel wrote to his father in Germany an account of his encounter
with the mountaineers:
On a scouting trip which we made to the enemy city situated on a rock,
we fell into ambush and were greeted with a hail of poison arrows. My
Fell .. t .. {FulaniJ compani ons fled and left me behind to cover their re-
creOle. 1 was able to do this with a gun, killing One of the attackers and
causing the other to fl ee. The Sultan sent me a (at wether [sheep gelding]
that evening for the deed. You must know that I can use guns skillfully
now, and can shoot hens and ducks with a bullet if I don't have buck-
shot (Wagner 1860:279).
MalJam Ahmadu did not outlast the war and died about 18 55. But the
emir's siege of Tabela was unsuccess ful, the losses were costly, and the
task of suppressing the mountaineers appeared impossible. The war
dragged on for nearly another twO years before the Emir of Bauchi with-
drew his forces . The cessation of the open hostilities gave time to both
sides to attend to much neglected business.
205 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
Mallam Abubakar Dan Maje emerged as the successor of Ahmadu.
Though unrelated to Harnza. he was a logical choice: the circumstances
called for an able warrior, and Dan Maje had fought and had been
wounded at Jengere in the battle against Bauchi . Dan Maje decided that
Tabela was no longer safe as headquarters for the weakened mallam
state--ics non-Muslim allies were now reduced in the main to the Pa'a ,
[he Kuda, and the Buta. Since each group had its own area of settlement,
the mallams sought a similar area of their own, one that would provide
added protection and would also be almost exclusively Muslim. The move
may be seen as further "nawcalization" of the mallams in Ningi-a seep
toward becoming another "ethnic" group among others and a realistic
admission of the need for its own territorial base. But it also implies a
reCreat from the supra-ethnic stance of Hamza's early efforts. With the
help of several hundred Kuda warriors, Dan Maje took over the "fortress"
of Lungu, a geological cubbyhole surrounded by high mountain walls,
expelling the fewer than 300 Ningi who were occupying it-an action that
brought little or no outcry from the surrounding groups. The mallams
then resettled in their new impregnable capital and from here Dan Maje
organi zed his administration. His council consisted of the Hausa scholars
(ulama) only, less chan a dozen in number. The senior counselor was also
the war chief, Sarkin Yaki.
In about 1860, Dan Maje conquered the Warji and established with
them a tributary alliance. Once the maUam state's concrol over the sur-
rounding countryside was achieved, raiding could be conducted from a
secure base. The Warji were useful allies that joined him en rouce to raids
on Katagum and o ther eastern emirates. The frankly military state grew
remarkably in power under Dan Maje's guidance: toward the end of his
rule, he had nearly 3,000 horsemen under his command.
In 1870, after losing two of his war commanders while plundering
southern Bauchi, Dan Maje himself died in an engagement at Toro from
an arrow wound behind his ear. His followers buried his body in a secret
place to prevent it from falling into Bauchi hands and being used to
immobilize his spirit. But the secret spot, in the Kwandon Nkaya vicinity,
was discovered by a Bauchi offIcial who exhumed the corpse, cut off the
head, and took it to the Emir of Bauchi.
THE MALLAM STATE AT ITS ZENITH
It is a measure of the strength the Ningi state had achieved chac Dan
Maje's death had no effect on its stability. Indeed, the state reached its
apogee in the following decade under the leadership of his successor,
Haruna Karami.
There were new factors to strengthen the cohesion of the new state. A
bureaucratic structure gradually developed. The office of Mallam-as the
ruler of the state was called-had become institutionalized by the 1870'S.
The Ningi Mountain.f (Nigeria), 1846-I90:l
The Mallam now determined who would be the leader of each of the
non-Muslim peoples, and he thus stood at the top of the Ningi hierarchy.
And the military character of the state and of the Mallam's leadership
meant that there was no hesitation to use force against any transgressor
against authority, be he an ordinary mallam or a tsaft .
The scholars, ulama. served as the supreme council to the MaHam.
The raids were not undertaken haphazardly but were a matter of carefully
examined policy. The council planned the raids and also engaged in divi-
nation to determine whether a raid would be successful. A consensus was
required on most issues, and the Mallam and the ulama also consulted the
tsafl of the non-Muslim peoples. The territorial segments thus participated
in the scate processes and often the decisions sanctioned at the top came
from the bottom (Patton 1975:93,196).
Ocher offi ces were consonant with the predatory character of the
scate, and Haruna himself introduced some changes in offices and created a
number of new ones . The office of the war chief, Sarkin Yaki, was de-
tached from the Mallamship, its incumbent now being one of the senior
counselors to the Mallam. The military offices of barde initially reflected a
segmented military system: every compound in the mountain fortress had
its own barde, more or less equal to and autonomous of any other. Haruna
put all the barde under a single head, and these accomplished warriors
now formed (he front ranks in battle. The barde system also became the
vehicle for the distribution of booty. The booty was divided into five
parts; besides the Mallam, the participants in the raids , the elder leaders in
the capital, the junior uiama, and the barde themselves received, each as a
group, one part. By dispensing the booty further down, into the com-
pounds, a barde could gain followers and sometimes divert loyalties from
the Mallam. Since the power of the barde decreased whenever raids were
disconti nued and peace prevailed, they tended to align themselves with the
more warlike factions in later struggles over succession.
Slaves held certain offIces . Mohammed Yayo, a slave seized in a raid
at Maganni in Kano, occupied the offi ce of Maga Yaki, concerned with the
surveillance and scouting that preceded a raid . One important function of
scouting was co spy on the movement of tribute to Sokoco in order to
capture it. The scouting reports of the Maga Yaki went directly to the
barde who collectively decided whether to mount a foray. Another slave
held the office of Shamaki, in charge of all the palace slaves, who were
quite numerous in Haruna's time; this office became influential in later
palace poli tics. Ordinary slaves did maintenance work and some farming,
and served in Haruna's army.
The mallam state was not without its share of internal troubles-
primarily succession troubles . There were no precise rules of succession to
the Mallamship. To become leader, one had to be a Hausa scholar but not
necessarily the eldest scholar. In contrast to the hereditary system of the
emirates, it was merit in war that primarily determined who led in Ningi.
206 207 THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
However, there were always several maUams who were experienced war-
riors and who might be tempted to bid for power. And there were always
the sons and relatives of the deceased ruler who were apt to feel that they
had a special, even if not exclusive, claim to the MaUamship.
When the electoral council chose Haruna to be the ruler in 1870, the
sons of Hamza. the founder of the state, contested the selection. When
tWO of them realized that their pretentions had no hope. they went away
to raid in Zazzau and died there. Harnza's third son, Iboro, stayed in
Ningj; but failing to gain palace support, he went to Tutu, the vassal chief
of the Buta at Burra, and obtained his adherence. In the fight that ensued,
the retired chief Zeriya of Burra came to the aid of Haruna and T uru was
defeated and removed from his position as Sackin ofBurra. Haruna there-
upon restored the chieftaincy to the Gira family, then living in exile. The
new chief, Abduraman, became the flrst Buta chiefro convert to Islam. In
the meantime, lboro prevailed upon the Pa'a to revolt against Haruna.
Haruna killed a number ofPa'a in battle before the opposing forces made
peace by swearing on the Qur'an, and Iboro too swore fealey to Haruna.
These fa cts suggest the continued precariousness of the non-Muslim ad-
herence to the Ningi state. While the state had the power to impose chiefs
on these subordinate groups, dissension at the co re could quickly radiate
out to the vassal peoples and, in times of crisis, they could playa signifI-
cant pare in the outcome.
The relations between the Ningi state under Haruna and the non-
Muslim mountaineers continued to be tributary. They supplied the mal-
lams with food and, as the state's foundations were strengthened in Dan
Maje and Haruna's time, the annual tribute from these people came in-
creasingly at the end of Ramadan or of SaUa. The mallams themselves did
not farm in this period, and administrative offices were not based on fiefs.
"Warring was their farming" according to Ningi informants (Patton
1975:235- 2)6). The Warji, however, always posed a problem. A flat agri-
cultural plain separated their plateau from the mallam state, and they were
farther from it than from the powerful emirates. It is for this reason, it
appears, that the Warji maintained a fragile balance in their relations with
Ningi on the one hand and Kano on the other, while each of these engaged
periodicall y in re-conquering the Warji to insure their loyalty.
The Ningi government levied no taxes on its citizens and vassals,
preferring instead to collect gaisuwa (gifts) in the form of chickens, goats,
foodstuffs, and the like. This brought it new adherents. Thus, some Fulani
and others, fleeing oppressive taxation, came to Ningi from Katagum,
Gombe, Zazzau, and Kano, and they were able to provide Ningi with
information about places that were rich and raidable. These events indicate
Ningi's increasingly more aggressive political-rather than merely mili-
tary-posture in the local inter-state system.
It was Haruna's achievement to routinize the predatory functions of
the Ningi state. Reacting to what promised to be Ningi 's permanent pres-
The Ningi Mountains (Nigtria) J 1846-1902
enee in the area, the emirates tried to contain it physically: Bauchi and
Kano built ribats (frontier fortresses) as a barrier to raids and appear to
have resettled some of the non-Muslim populati ons who resided within
the radius of Ningi raiding. But the emirates had also to contend with
Ningi 's skillful use of their common Islamic traditions as diplomatic and
strategic weapons. Foremost among these was the concept of "peace, "
aman (see Khadduri 195P63-l66 and al-Mawardi 19l5)
Haruna negotiated (aman), "the peace," flrst with Kano and then
Bauchi in the mid-1870'S. The peace legitimized Ningi as an independent
state and it ushered in new peaceful relations with Sokoto as well. For in
Islami c theory, the aman placed Ningi in a peaceful relationship with aU
the other surroundi ng emirates. This periodic interest in compromise in-
volved Ningi in some long-distance diplomacy. Arabic documents show
that Ningi messengers went as far as Sokoto once in the early 1870'S and
on several occasions to Kano with diplomatic immunity (Kanoprof Vol.
l , #17:1 6l).
Sokoto's conditions for peace stipulated that the Kano merchants
would not go to Ningi with horses for sale and that Ningi would not
purchase horses in Kana. The non-Muslims in the Ningi area did not own
horses before the mallams set up their state. Islamic law forbade selling
horses to them and it was Caliphate policy to extend the prohibition to the
ever troublesome Ningi, with its amalgam of Muslim and non-Muslim.
Horses, of course, brought some parity to the parties in a war-Ningi's
possession of horses explains much of its success in its forays against the
emirates. Dan Maje could produce a fo rce of 3,000 horsemen, and under
Haruna the number reached 4,000. For the emirates, there was no hope of
neutralizing, let alone defeating, Ningi unless the trade in this critical
military resource could be stopped. However, at the time, the Caliphate
area was experiencing monetary instability because of the inflation of
cowries that had begun in the 1850'S, and captives from raids came to
constitute for Sokoco a subsidiary currency. It appears that this led some
wayward Fulani princes in search of slaves to take horses CO Ningi to trade
them there for slaves.
In praCtice, the peace of aman provided Ningi with the time to heal its
wounds from the losses it suffered at the hands of Caliphate forces. Ningi
usually appealed to aman after military losses to its principal adversaries,
Bauchi and Kano, and it returned to the attack when there was renewed
promise of success. Thus, in the late 1870'S, when succession problems
festered in Zazzau, Kano, and Katagum, Haruna broke the peace and
resumed raids against the emirates. With an arm y of nearly 4,000 horse-
men, the Ningi state had become haughty and apparently even began to
harbor hopes that the crisis prevailing in the metropoie might provide it
with an opportunity to seize control at the center. rn effect, the frontier
state was in a position to take a political offensive against the metropole
and began to see itself as part of it. [t may well be, of course, that the
208 209 THE AfRICAN FRONTIER
mallams had in fact seen themselves all along as being only in temporary
exile.
Ningi began to form external alliances with factions within the emi-
rates. In 1878, Ningi lent a helping hand to the Galadima (senior titled
official) Suleimanu, a Hausa who had tried without success to become
Emir of Zazzau. Rival aspirants to the thrones of both Zazzau and Bauchi
had also offered Haruna substantial holdings in slaves and territory for his
help (Patton 1975:236). During the Bauchi civil war of1881, several dissi-
dent groups allied themselves with Ningi. A vassal people, the Gere,
joined Ningi and threw off Bauchi domination. And some Fulani dissi-
dents fled Bauchi City and formed an alliance with Ningi in order to
maintain their independence.
About 1880, following another Ningi peace request to Arnir al-Mumi-
nin Mu'adh ofSokoto, the mountaineers agreed to desist from fighting
Muslims "intheEast, West, South, and North" (Arewa House1973).This
suggeststhatatonetimeoranotherNingihadtakenonalloftheneighboring
emirates and, further, that in Haruna's time Ningi was apparently recognized
as an autonomous power by the Arnir who dealt with it directly.
Mallam Haruna is regarded as the most powerful leader in Ningi
history, one who made Ningi in the r870's into a local power to be
reckoned with. Under him, Ningi had, again and again, cut offKano
from its usual source of captives for use on its and as a kind of
currency (Last '970:349, Lovejoy 1978:343). And by successfully resisting
and attacking Sokoto, as well as negotiating with it on terms of equality,
Ningi asserted its position vis-a.-vis the highest legitimizing power of the
region. In the oral history ofthe Caliphate, "Ningi" became a common
term for tlie placefrom whichraiders were to be expected (Patton 1980:6).
TRADE
If Ningi's political relations with the emirates were in a constant state of
flux because of the predatory nature of the mallam state, so was its trade
with them. Before the mallams settled there, trade in the Ningi area was
apparently relatively desultory despite the fact that Ningi was linked into
the trade route network that also involved. among other centers, Kano
and Bauchi (Izard 1918a:l3). The commodities that the Ningi peoples
could offer to the outside were few; their terraced agriculture served essen-
tially their subsistence needs and their area was relatively defIcient in natu-
ral resources. Internally, however, baner trade was ubiquitous in Ningi.
with iron and medicines being of special importance (Sirawa Elders
'973:2, Butawa Elders 1973:4).
The coming of the mallams and especially Dan Majo's rule (ca.
1856-1870) introduced a new dimension to trade activity in Ningi and on
the Plateau in general. Although Gerhard Rohlfs, who visited Bauchi in
1867, reported that tlie decade of 1856-66 was a peaceful one (Rohlfs
The Ningi Mountains (Nigeria) , I846-190l
1874:153), peace did not mean an end to hostility between Ningi and
Bauchi . The earlier freedom of travel was gone and there was insecurity
and fear both within the Ningi mountains and along the trade routes.
About 1868 or earlier, Dan Maje disrupted the trading activities ofthe
Hausa tin-smelters at Ririwai-n Kano, and disrupted them twice again as
they kept moving their settlement (Roberts 1918, Tambo '979:5,12, Mor-
rison 1974).
In spite of the military instability, neutral cosmopolitan markets nev-
ertheless appear to have developed in theJos area and at Sanga (Lovejoy
1979, Morrison 1976:195-197,203). Before orabout 1875, cowries reached
the area to become the basic currency. Sanga, according to Morrison, was
also the only center in the area for trade in captives (generally, captives
went north and big horses went south). Ningi increased its revenue by
releasing captives, caught in raids, for ransom in cowries at these neutral
markets.
UNRESOLVEDINTERNALPROBLEMSOFTHE
NINGI STATE
The mallam state at its zenith did not succeed in resolving a number of
internal problems, the foremost being that of succession. Haruna's death
about r 886 was followed once more by a succession dispute among three
candidates: Gajigi, Haruna's younger brother; Inusa, son of a Ningi mal-
lam; and Usman Dan Yaya, holder ofthe powerful office ofHead Batde
and possibly Sarkin Yaki in Haruna's time. The candidates were first-gen-
eration Ningians. In the competition, Gajigi gained the support of the
powerful palace slaves, who in turn secured the support of the surround-
ing tsafl. The slave leaders slewInusa, while DanYaya fled the capital and
settled among the Pa'a.
As Mallam, Gajt giraided only once. Hepursuedapolicy ofpeace and
sent letters to Bauchi and Kano, requesting aman. The reasons for Gajigi's
unwarlike stance remain unclear. Millennial thought continued to reach
Ningi throughout its history, and Gajigi may have been influenced by the
Isawa mallamai-believers, in the context of Islam, in the Second Coming
ofJesus, Iso-who had been given refuge by his brother Haruna in 1870
and who were Gajigi 's own devoted palace supporters. [n the new relaxed
climate, the mountaineers began to move freely and unmolested between
Bauchi and Kano as in the old days before the Ningi state. Butthe move-
ment toward economic integration with the surrounding emirates was
soon cu t short.
Dan Yaya, who had retained theoffice ofHead Barde, did notwant
peace with Sokoto and began to intrigue against Gajigi and gained wide-
spreadsupport. BothHarunaandGajigihad allowed muchof thebootyto
remain in the Head Barde's hands, and Dan Yaya proceeded to distribute
gowns, cattle, women, and slaves to the non-Muslim mountaineers, par-
210
211
THE AFRICAN FRONTIER
ticularly to the Kuda warriors. He also got himself elected chief (sarki)
over the Pa'a. Failing to gain the support of the Buta and War]l, he
managed to prevent the annual gifts (gaisuwa) and various supplies from
reaching Gajigi. and this caused a famine in the capital. ..
Dan Yaya also persuaded Gajigi ' s nephews to join fotces with him,
and to mask his own ambitions, he began to support one oftherri, Adamu
Da, who was hoping to obtain the Mallamship for himself. He accused
Gajigi of ineptness and held that if the state was to survive, Gajigi had to
be deposed. In [889, the supporters of Gajigi and Dan Yaya claShed out-
side the palace. The Kuda locked out Gajigi, preventing him from takmg
refuge inside the palace. Some of his supporters fled and the abandoned
Gajigi was stabbed to death by his nephew. Thereupon, in an about face,
Dan Yaya warned the ulama not to entrust the leadership to onc who had
killed his blood uncle; with their support, he entered the palace as the new
leader of Ningi. Several of the remaining sons of Haruna fled Ningi and
turned to raiding the Birnin Gwari, perhaps joining Ningi's enemies
among the emirates.
Dan Yaya began to consolidate his power by killing a large number of
Gajigi's supporters, including one of the Isa mallams, or chasing them
from Ningi. To avenge Gajigi ' s selling of his mother Ramata into slavery,
Dan Yaya sold Gajigi's children (Malam Yahaya [973) Dan Yaya turned
to a warlike policy. Needing a frontier lookout to guard against Kano
raiders from the north, he cleared a large acea of bush and made It mto a
slave farming estate known as Kafm Dan Yaya. He was nOw to
He broke the peace by raiding in several directions-agamst HadcJla.
Katagum, Kano, and Bauchi emirates. To end the Warji's tributary alli-
ance with Kano he defeated them at Chan-Chan. But the mtroductlon of
firearms into Caliphate put the Ningi cavalry at a disadvantage, and it
turned to terrorizing surrounding villages. When, in r891, Kana adminis-
tered a stinging defeat to Ningi, Dan Yaya requested aman, "peace," from
Emir Muhammad Bello of Kana. The conditions for peace set by Kano
required that Dan Yaya desist from raiding in Gombe, 0isau: Katagun:,
Oilara, Shira, Hadejia, and Zazzau. Dan Yaya's reply survives 10 a letter 10
Arabic, and it shows him to be literate as well as diplomatic:
From the Khalifa of Ningi, Usman Dan Yaya, son of Malam Haruna
Baba, best greetings, good will and respect to the Sultan of Kano,
Muhammad Bello. son of the late Ibrahim Dabo. Your letter has
reached us and we have read it and understood what is in it completely.
And as for me, I ask peace of you, peace between us and you; for peace
[aman] is in the hands of God and his Prophet [i.e. , you cannot avoid
making peace because it is God's will]. And if there is recognition of
justice between us, send to us one of your servants of whom you ap-
prove, and I will make the cavenant with him far this will
not be broken if God wills. This is the extent of my des\re. This IS all
Peace (B,uprof Vol. 1,# 58:65).
The Ningi Moutttaitt1 (Nigeria),
As before, Ningi was resorting to the strategy of peace when the
balance of forces had become unfavorable. But the balance had not shifted
so far as to make aman unattractive to Emir Bello as well and from r891
to 1893. when Bello's reign ended. Kano and Ningi were once again
briefly at peace.
From 1894 on, Dan Yaya's unpopularity with his own people grew.
The resumption of hostilities with Kano brought no rewards. While
Ningi's defenses weakened, Kano built up its own line of interlocking
towns that protected successfully its own borders against raids. Finally, in
1895, Emir AIiyu of Kano invaded Ningi and followed this up with
another raid in [898. In one of these raids, he reportedly took [,000 slaves;
and he burned the granaries of the Kafln Dan Yaya estate and destroyed
other crops (Robinson 1896:205-8). But in the long run, the forces re-
mained in balance. While insecurity grew and trade came to standstill, the
raiding and counter-raiding between Ningi and the surrounding emirates
went on intermittently until the coming of British rule.
THE END OF INDEPENDENT NINGI
The colonial expeditionary force left Bauchi for Ningi onJuly 23, [902-a
seventy-five man detachment of the West African Frontier Force, equipped
with one Maxim gun, led by Captain Monck-Mason, and aided by Bauchi
(S.N.P. [5, 1902:1-17). When the force arrived in Ningi, Dan Yaya refused
its offer of peace, declaring that they must either go away or stand and fight :
"Your lies are finished (karyanku ya kare), " he said. But Dan Yaya's forces
were no match for the new enemy: the colonial troops entered the town and
sprayed it with bullets. Ningi suffered some fifty casualties, mostly among
the palace guard. It was now clear to all the mountaineers that Dan Yaya's
rule was at an end. The Buta turned against him and Dan Yaya fled his capitaL
He was found by the Buta ofSama onJuly 25. Sitting under a tree, he told the
Buta to send a small boy to shoot him with a non-poisonous arrow, since
special charms protected him from poisonous ones. The boy came and did as
he wastold. Thus, like most Ningi rulers (with the exception ofHaruna, who
died in the palace) Dan Yaya died a violent death. The local frontier on which
Ningi's history had been made was now gone, swept up by the larger moving
frontier of colonial rule.
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