APPENDIX XIV

ETHNOLOGICAL NOTES ON BORNU PROPER

There are eight chief races in Bornu Proper:

(a) Kanuri, (b) Kanembu, (c) Shuwa, (d) Fulani, (e) Koyam, (f) Manga, (g) Gamerghu, (h) Mobber.

(a) The Kanuri or Beriberi are supposed to be a mixed race of Arab tribes and Hamitic Kanembu and Tubu, which, gradually losing more and more the physical and mental peculiarities of the dwellers in the desert, became merged in the negro population of the conquered country, the half-mythical ‘So’, a giant race, whose descendants are supposed to be represented at the present day by the Beddes, Buddumas, Kotokos, &c. One of the chief Kanuri clans is the Magumi, to whom belongs Maina Gumsumi, now Ajia of Kaiuri district, the representative of the old ‘Mais’ of Bornu.

(b) The Kanembu, i.e. the inhabitants of Kanem, are an Hamitic race, whose relationship to the Kanuri may be roughly described as similar to that between the Lowland Scots and the English. Their chief clans are the Sugurti and the Kubri (the Shehu’s clan).

(c) According to Schultze, quoting Barth, ii. 355, the Shuwa Arabs immigrated into Bornu at various times, firstly, with the conquerors of the country from the north, and secondly, at a much later epoch, about 300 years ago, from Nubia or Kordofan.[549] They are broken up into a great number of tribes, of which the Beni Hassan has remained the purest, but they have lost many of the bodily and mental peculiarities of the Semitic race, doubtless as a result of their long wanderings, and also of the intermixture which has taken place with other peoples. Their language, however, they have retained in wonderful purity.

There is a vocabulary of Shuwa Arabic in Koelle’s Polyglotta Africana, and some notes on the language appeared in Decorse and Demombyne’s Rabah et les Arabes du Chari. A book on Arabic spoken in Wadai and to the east of Chad by H. Carbou has recently been published, vid. List of Authorities.

From the best information available in British Bornu the Shuwas may be divided into two classes, (A) those who entered Bornu before Lamino’s time, (B) those who entered with or shortly after Lamino.

To (A) belong (1) the Joama, originally settled north of Mongonu, but migrated to Karaguaro and Magumeri after the Fulani invasion; (2) the Maiyin or Meyin, originally settled at Marguba; (3) the Saraje, originally settled in Uje district. All these three tribes entered Bornu about 300 years ago, ten or twenty years before Birni Gazerregomo was built. They came from Darfur. There were no Shuwas in Bornu prior to this. This statement differs slightly from Schultze. None of these tribes are now numerically important.

To (B) belong (1) the large and wealthy tribe of the Kwalme Shuwas, (2) the Kurata, (3) the Beni Hassan, mostly in Mandara and Musgu, of very pure descent.

The Kwalme are divided into many clans, of which the following may be enumerated:[550]

(1) Wulad Sarar.

(2) Wulad Salim.

(3) Wulad Himet.

(4) Wulad Kanem.

(5) Beni Badder.

(6) Dagana.

(7) Beni Muharab.

(8) Asali (to whom belonged Lowan Adam, murdered in 1906).

(9) Salamat (murderers of Lowan Adam).

(10) Wulad Amir.

(11) Beni Wail.

(12) Ajeni.

(13) Wulad Hodir.

(14) Wulad Abu Isa.

N.B.—‘Wulad’ in Shuwa means sons, ‘beni’, daughters. The derivation of ‘Kwalme’ is variously given, but its real origin is probably unknown. Some connect it with ‘kworram’ = amber (Kanuri) and ‘mi’ = son of, from the fondness of the Shuwa women for amber ornaments. Others derive it from a Shuwa word ‘galib’ = it is too difficult, they are too difficult for me (Kanuri ‘tegeri’, Hausa ‘gargare’); ‘galib’ became corrupted into ‘galim’, and by transposition to ‘galmi’. This term is said to have been applied to the Shuwas on account of their obstinate character by the Arabic-speaking peoples east of Chad. Some support is lent to this derivation by that given for the word ‘Shuwa’. The word ‘ashe’ in Kanembu and Kanuri means ‘the strong-headed man, wilful or disobedient man’ [‘ashi’ = obstinacy, ‘-wa’ = the people of]. Hence the word ‘Ashiwa’ now ‘Shuwa’. They are originally supposed to have been so perverse that they would not follow the Prophet, thence they became a wandering tribe [cf. p. 318].

(d) The Fulani or Fellata of Bornu belong chiefly to three clans, the Abore Fellata (Hausa, ‘Borroro’), the Mare Fellata (the term ‘Mare’ is said to be a Fulani word for a tree resembling the ‘dorowa’ or locust-tree, whose pods are used in making the floors of native huts), and the Kitiji Fulani (only found in Gujba and among the pagan Babur and Burra tribes; they are themselves pagan). The origin of the Fulani has been, and still is, hotly disputed.[551] They have not coalesced to any extent with the bulk of the Bornu population and remain aliens and, to a certain extent, pariahs. The Kanuri have many proverbs and sayings embodying their contempt of them as ‘bushmen’.

(e)[552] The Koyams seem to have had the same origin as the Tubba or Sef dynasty of Bornu. They are said to have reached Kanem from Yemen, travelling slowly and living on the alms offered them as wandering students. With the consent of Mai Arri ben Haj Umar (1645-84), Sheikh Abdullahi and thirty-nine companions established themselves at Belbelec, sometimes called ‘the town of the Kullumfardos’, where they founded a mosque and a school. The origin of the term ‘Kullumfardo’ is said to be as follows. When Abdullahi and his companions, all Koyams but not of the same family, presented themselves to Mai Arri, the latter asked them who they were. They replied, ‘Koyam’, adding ‘Kullum fardun’, Arabic words meaning ‘all, separately’, wishing to explain that they were all of the Koyam tribe, but of different families. At the present day it is only the descendants of Sheikh Abdullahi, their first ‘Mokaddem’ or religious chief, that call themselves ‘Kullumfardo’; the descendants of the thirty-nine others are called Koyams. Sheikh Abdullahi was succeeded by his son, Sheikh Umar. Owing to Tuareg raids and to famine Belbelec was abandoned and the Koyams scattered. Some went south and, abandoning their rôle of students, became herdsmen and acquired wealth. They took the name of Kel Etti, a term whose meaning and origin are unknown, and became subdivided into seven fractions, each with its chief.

A small number of disciples followed Sheikh Umar to Nupe, where he remained some time, but he afterwards returned to Bornu and re-established himself at Gaskeru, situated, like Belbelec, north of the River Yo.

Umar was succeeded by his brother, Mustapha, who was the first to join political functions to the religious ones, to which his family had hitherto confined themselves. He appointed his nephew, Mahmut, as chief of the warriors and said to him: ‘You shall be the Sheikh’s auxiliary or lieutenant’ (El Auan, Lowan). Lowan was thus originally a military title, and later became applied to the head of a district or a town.

At the end of the eighteenth century Gaskeru was destroyed by the Tuaregs and the Koyam ‘Mokaddem’ established himself at the pool called Sandaram, inside the walls of the Bornu capital of Gazerregomo (Kasr Kumo).

When the Fulani captured Gazerregomo the Koyam ‘Mokaddem’ followed the varying fortunes of the exiled king. When Shehu Lamino became head of the state, the Koyams applied to him to be dispensed from payment of tax as they had always been hitherto. Lamino, who had studied among the Koyams in his youth, consented and established the Koyam ‘Mokaddem’ at Zigaba on the north bank of the Yo.

In the last year of Lamino’s reign, however, a great famine occurred and the Koyams again dispersed. The incursions of Rabeh scattered them still further, and the present representatives of the Koyam ‘mokaddems’ now live at the village of Kullumfardo in Munio.

The Koyams in British Bornu are semi-nomadic cattle-owning people living chiefly in the districts of Bussugua, Ngunse, and Gusumalla.

(f)[553] The Mangas are mostly bilingual, speaking both their own dialect (said to be related to Bedde) and Kanuri. M. Landeroin inclines to the opinion that they are an indigenous tribe conquered by the Kanuri. Manga is said not to be their original tribal name, but to have been given them by the Kanuri.

It is said to be a corruption of ‘Madinga’ which signifies according to some ‘gens difficiles’, according to others ‘the cunning people’.

The Mangas inhabit the country both north and south of the River Yo.

(g) The Gamerghu are a branch of the Masa family, but are now almost extinct. Their villages are scattered along the course of the River Yedseram. Their chief industry is horse and cattle stealing. Barth gives a detailed study of Masa in his Central African Vocabularies, and there is a vocabulary of the Gamerghu dialect, collected by Barth, in Notes on Some Languages, &c. (Benton). They are semi-pagan.

(h)[554] The Mobbers, like all the other tribes, assert that they originated from Yemen. Serfs of the Magumis, who were themselves the subjects of the Tubbas or Sef dynasty, they were installed by the latter along the course of the River Yo, from which they never strayed far, as they had no knowledge of well-digging.

Their chief towns at the present day are Bosso, on the northern bank of the Yo where it debouches into Chad, and Yo on the opposite south bank. Nachtigal says of the Mobbers: ‘This tribe is according to some a remnant of the Beddes, according to others a mixed race of Kanembus and Beddes or of Sos and Kanembus.’ Like the Mangas, they are bilingual, speaking their own dialect as well as Kanuri.

Little reliable information is yet available regarding the pagan and semi-pagan tribes in the British Province of Bornu. A certain amount about the Bolewa of Fika, including a short sketch of the language, is printed in Benton, Notes on Some Languages of the Western Sudan.[555] There is a short account of the Beddes in Koelle, African Native Literature in Kanuri, p. 210, and a vocabulary in Koelle, Polyglotta Africana. Overweg visited Babur in 1852, cf. Benton, Notes on Some Languages, p. 222; for Barth’s notes and vocabulary of Marghi cf. idem, pp. 78, 134, and 144. For list of Marghi kings cf. Appendix X under Maifoni. There is a vocabulary of Kerrikerri in Koelle, Polyglotta Africana.