LEMLEM.

Remrem — Demdem — Yemyem — Al-Límiyín.

“Going along the river,” says El Bekrí, “westwards from Kaúkaú (Karkar), you come to the country of the Remrem (or Demdem), who eat all who fall into their hands.” This sentence is copied verbatim by the greater number of the Arab geographers. El Idrísí however satisfies himself with merely stating that south of Ṭanṭanah are Kaúkaú (Karkar) and the Demdem; leaving it to be inferred that the last-named people are furthest south. From what has been said of the position of Karkar and the course of its river, it will be apparent that the Demdem, being negroes and savages, must have been situate, not due west, but rather south-west of that place, and consequently must be sought in the hills of Kábi, facing the desert, and still inhabited at the present day by a wild and intractable race.[187]

In all accounts of Central Africa, from the time of El Bekrí to the present day, mention is made of cannibals variously called Remrem, Lemlem, Demdem, Yemyem, or N’yumn’yum. These names differ only in the consonants employed, one liquid being changed for another, except in the case of Demdem, which might be naturally an oral corruption of Remrem; if it be not merely a variety originating in error of transcription.[188] Are we then to believe that there are so many different nations of cannibals in Negroland, bearing names so singularly related to one another? Or is it not more likely that these various names are but modifications of one, which being the nickname of a particular class of savages, would be naturally carried about to the slave markets, and fashioned to suit the genius of every language which adopted it?[189] It is true that El Idrísí speaks of Lemlem and Demdem as of two distinct countries; but the position of his Lemlem depends on the westward course of the Great River to Ghaïárú, the absurdity of which has been already pointed out; and this error being corrected, his Lemlem and Demdem will be found to coincide.

In modern accounts of Negroland, frequent mention is made of a race of cannibals, styled Yemyem or N’yemn’yem; and every precise indication of them, from whatever quarter it may come, points to the same spot, namely the hilly country extending southward from Kanó.[190] The Yemyem of the present day, therefore, dwell at no great distance from the site of the Demdem of earlier ages. They occupy the remote continuation of the chain of mountains once inhabited by the latter: and if the changes necessarily effected in the northern part of that region, or Houssa, by the introduction of Mohammedism, the influx of Berbers, Zagháï, and Fellátah, be duly considered, together with the fact that a wild people still keep possession of the hills on the frontier of the desert, it will appear a natural inference that the reproach of cannibalism, or the barbarity itself, has receded, owing to the progress of civilization, and that the Yemyem are the Demdem, changed in site and appellation only by the variations of the medium through which we view them.

If the Yemyem or N’yemn’yem of the present day be not the same people as the Lemlem, Remrem, or Demdem of early writers, it must then be inquired, What has become of these latter?[191] To deny such identity is to plunge back into obscurity: to suppose nations of negroes become extinct, or—a still bolder hypothesis—to have wholly changed their character. On the other hand, the supposition that the Baúwa (or Slaves) in the hills south of Kanó, to the remoter portion of whom the epithet Yemyem is now applied, once occupied the hills of Zamfara and Kábi, and were stigmatised as Demdem or cannibals, reconciles ancient with modern authorities; it attributes a just permanence to a great moral feature of Negroland, depending on peculiarity of race, modelled by physical circumstances; and it adjusts with remarkable precision the geographical elements involved in the question, assigning to the Demdem a position, which exactly coincides with that deduced from the statements connecting them with Karkar and the Great River. It may be assumed as certain, therefore, that the Demdem peopled the hills of the country now called Houssa.[192]

There is another name, much less known than Lemlem or Demdem, and apparently more comprehensive, applied to the inhabitants of the same region. Ibn Baṭúṭah says that Múlí, on the Great River, where the empire of Málí terminated, was in the country of the Límí (Al-Límiyín); and again, he says that Yúfí (Núfí) was in the country of the Límí; whence it is evident that the people so named were on the left bank of the river. The Blacks at Sofálah, he adds, were tattooed like the Límí of Genéwah, the latter name being in this instance used in the wide sense in which it was generally understood in the systematic geography of the Arabs. The practice of tattooing the body all over in fine patterns, is confined, in Central Africa, to the people of Marra. The Límí were said to wear clothing made of a plant called worzi, capable of resisting fire. The productions of their land seem to have been in general of a marvellous description.[193]

We are told that in the country of the Remrem or Demdem was a castle, whereon was a statue of a woman, adored by the people; and it is remarkable that in the traditions of Houssa the history of Zegzeg begins with the conquests of a female. It matters not that her name is Arabicised or her antiquity underrated by the native Chroniclers; they leave untouched the essence of the tradition, which is, that Zegzeg was founded by a heroine.[194]