The Sultanate of Bornu

VII

Bornu offers to the ethnologist, as well as to the botanist and zoologist, phenomena well worthy of notice. Especially he finds confirmed here the interesting fact that in a relatively short time a nation essentially uniform in character can be built up out of various races. The predominant race and the one that inhabits the largest districts in the country is the Kanuri.[354] They are a mixed race of the kind mentioned above; their speech and character are uniform, although single individuals often show ‘throw-backs’ in their external appearance which point unmistakably to the bodily peculiarities of the tribes which have contributed to the creation of the new breed. We have here in front of us one of the most difficult problems of general ethnology, because all the conditions favouring the creation of a state of miscegenation from very heterogeneous elements, such as continued migrations, lack of natural boundaries, and the universal and widespread practice of slavery, coincide to a degree known scarcely anywhere else. Absolute clearness regarding the origin of the race is still more difficult to obtain to-day than it was in Barth and Nachtigal’s time, because since then the campaigns of Rabeh have introduced new elements into the population of Bornu.[355]

Roughly speaking, one will not go far wrong if one follows in the main the deductions of Nachtigal based on the philological studies of Barth, according to which the Kanuri are a mixed race of Arab tribes and Hamitic Kanembu and Tubu,[356] 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. Of the good qualities of the desert tribes steeled by a struggle with hostile Nature, the Kanuri appear to have retained only a certain mental activity and industry, whilst the moral virtues, such as energy and chivalry, and the generous bodily characteristics, swamped by the opposite qualities of the inferior negro type, have disappeared more and more. Not only has the influence of the intermixture of blood been made apparent, but also that of the enervating climate of the newly conquered country, which does not call into play all the powers both of body and spirit in the same degree as that of the Sahara.[357] As regards external appearance the Kanuri in general are far inferior to many other tribes in the country owing to their heavier build and pronounced negro physiognomy. One may well describe them as of an ugly, thickset type; their women, moreover, still further disfigure themselves, at least according to European ideas of beauty, by staining the teeth red and wearing in the nostril the inevitable plug of coral or stud of metal. Their chief characteristics are untrustworthiness, love of good living, and true negro levity. Still the assertion of Monteil that Bornu is justly called by the Hausas and Fulani ‘the Land of Lies’,[358] certainly suits the Kanuri in no higher degree than other tribes with a strong negro strain. When, on the other hand, the German travellers Barth, Rohlfs, and Nachtigal lay eulogistic stress on the estimable qualities of such people as Shehu Umar, this is almost always a sign that in the case of these particular individuals the intermixture of negro blood has not yet been thoroughly assimilated.

The quality which shows the Kanuri in an advantageous light as compared with other peoples is their industry; in spite of their undeniable love of pleasure, they do not leave all the hard work to the women and slaves, as is so very very common in the Sudan and especially in almost all negro countries, and it is this that has rendered possible the rich cultivation of the country.[359] In spite of this activity, much that one may consider as signs of a higher civilization appears to have been lost, such as the use mentioned above of burnt bricks in earlier times.

The influence of Islam is everywhere unmistakable; often indeed it is purely formal, but it is the predominant religion of the country, and in spite of contact—in the Eastern Sudan—with the fanatical sect of the Senussi, conducts itself throughout in tolerant fashion. On the other hand, it can scarcely be denied that Islam has favoured in every respect that deeply rooted inclination towards slave-raiding, on which the European Powers have latterly for the first time imposed some check. The ordinances of the Koran are very laxly observed, as is shown especially by the very slightly secluded life of the extremely coquettish Kanuri lady, who is thus enabled to play a definite part in public life,[360] and who even apart from this shows none of the reserve of her sisters in strict Mohammedan countries. This freedom goes so far that, at least in the larger towns, the women show themselves in the streets and exhibit an exceedingly wanton demeanour, to which even the ladies of royal blood form no exception.[361] Finally, in harmony with this looseness of manners is the lack of piety towards the dead, in which the Kanuri compare very unfavourably with many pagan tribes.[362] The practices peculiar to Islam are shown by the conscientious observance of the Mohammedan feasts; the existence of a mosque or ‘masallachi’[363] which is never lacking anywhere, though it often consists of nothing more than an enclosed rectangular space; and the instruction of a large proportion of boys in the teaching of the Koran. If the teaching generally consists only in the thoughtless repetition by rote of the first chapters of the Koran,[364] still one meets more people in Bornu than in other countries of the Central Sudan who can reproduce the words of their native language in the letters of the Arabic alphabet. However little may be the value of the ‘high schools’ of the larger towns, of which Rohlfs and Nachtigal inform us, and however scanty may be the knowledge of the ‘beggar-students’ taught there,[365] still it is to be observed that Barth met people at the Court in Kukawa who knew enough to be able to converse with him on the subject of Ptolemy.[366] Moreover, the fact that a part of the history of Bornu, as we have seen above, could have been handed down in written form, is surely owing to this unmistakable impulse towards education.

It is obvious that in so purely Mohammedan a country as Bornu is, there is no pictorial art to be met with apart from the decoration of houses and utensils. On the other hand it happens that music is extensively cultivated; besides long coach-horns and the ‘algeita’[367] found all over the Sudan, which is a wind instrument evolving the most clamorous dissonances, there are also many string instruments, by means of which very pleasing melodies are produced. Music finds multifarious applications in Bornu, and even serves to spur the people to labour cheerfully in the fields.[368]

The fact that the dress of the natives in Denham’s time—apart from the fact that European influence is now predominant—was subject to certain definite fashions, may perhaps be considered as a sign of a fairly high state of culture. In Barth and Vogel’s time the women wore their hair in a sort of helmet shape, quite different from the fashion prevailing now,[369] though the tattoo marks usual at that time, numerous parallel lines or three scars on each cheek, are still partly retained to-day.[370] The tobe and burnous, formerly invariably worn by men, have now in many cases been replaced by the Dervish dress introduced by Rabeh. The Kanuri bestow great attention on their external appearance and show a preference for costly stuffs; besides those manufactured in the country itself, excellent cotton fabrics are imported by way of Tripoli and the Niger, and as a result of this their taste is constantly changing. This has become especially noticeable in the last decade, and is shown by the preponderance of East Sudan influence over that of the Hausa States, which was formerly predominant, in the dress of the Bornu troops, consisting of wide trousers, the fez, and the Rabeh ‘gown’, worn especially by the infantry. The cavalry have to a large extent retained the old equipment, which from the remotest times has been peculiar to the Central Sudan, consisting of a coat of mail worn under the clothes, made of a thickly wadded cotton quilt, which can protect both horse and rider against poisoned arrows or throwing knives, and a helmet, which is occasionally furnished with a piece of chain-mail[371] to cover the nape of the neck. They are still armed, even to-day, with the lance, though besides this various kinds of missile weapons—such as the infantry invariably carry—are included in their equipment.

Houses and utensils have not been subject to change in the same degree as clothes, and thus they have preserved the same forms as were observed by the earliest travellers in Bornu and which were so fully described, especially by Nachtigal.[372] In all villages or the suburbs of towns one finds round huts with conical roofs of the shape usual throughout the Sudan. The substructure consists either of mud walls or of a wooden framework covered with matting, the roof of various material usually furnished by the stalks of whatever grain is to be had locally. On the topmost point of the roof, which is generally thickly overgrown with gourd tendrils, is often fixed an ostrich egg as a symbol of fertility.[373] In the towns there are houses usually of one rarely of two stories of rectangular design with thick walls of sun-dried brick or mud and the flat roofs customary throughout the East. The majority of these houses stand in a compound formed by mud walls, which render it impossible to see into them from outside. The dwellings of all men of rank are built in this style, as also are the mosques which have no minarets. The bare outer walls are generally without any ornament, only the party-walls and square pillars of the houses of the great are decorated with a fresco of paint in three colours.[374] Only such material as is found in the country is employed in house-building, viz. wood, mud—often mixed with cow-dung—and mats of various kinds.[375] In spite of their apparent solidity the mud houses nevertheless do not afford the same protection against the ravages of the rainy season as the huts with conical roofs, which carry off the water better.

The villages, in which the round hut predominates, are as a rule open; on the other hand, places whose importance is expressed externally by the prevalence of massive buildings are surrounded by a more or less considerable mud wall, the inside of which is buttressed by sort of stairs leading upwards, and which can even be arranged for the reception of cannon.[376] No town of any size is without a ‘dendal’, or High Street, which, apart from the market, is the centre all day long of life and activity. The internal arrangement of the houses is extraordinarily simple and is without much comfort, being generally confined to round huts filled with household furniture, among which the most prominent utensils are tastefully ornamented calabashes and carefully plaited grass dish-covers.

Amongst the employments which fill up the daily life of the Kanuri, and in which is almost universally recognized to an extensive degree the principles of the division of labour and the separation of professions, the most prominent are those connected with the operations of agriculture,[377] whose sole implement throughout the country is the hoe, and the breeding of cattle. The Kanuri devote special attention to their market-gardens—this care is also displayed by some of the other tribes of Bornu—and thus render it possible in the dry season by means of artificial irrigation to make use of the soil and produce vegetables of all sorts. These market-gardens, of numberless small shapes, have rectangular beds lying parallel to each other, which—like the moulds of a blast-furnace—are connected by channels and are irrigated by means of hydraulic contrivances from deep wells, in constructing which the Kanuri are past-masters,[378] or from the surviving pools of the dried-up rivers.[379]

The Kanuri wealth in cattle is in some places extraordinarily large, and the great attention which they pay especially to their horses is a peculiarity unmistakably inherited from their Arabic or Hamitic tribal ancestors. In harmony with this is the great love of animals displayed by the Kanuri, which forms a sympathetic trait in their character, and which is caused by their often being engaged in capturing and taming wild animals.[380] The herds of cattle, some of which are employed as pack-animals, supply the Kanuri first and foremost with milk, which is never made use of in its fresh state, but not until it has been curdled by the admixture of cow’s urine.[381] Even the butter, which the Kanuri everywhere know how to make, always has the fatal aftertaste of this unpleasant addition to the milk.

Fishing is eagerly carried on in the rivers with small nets, the fisherman being supported above the water by two hollow calabashes connected by a stick—these are also used for the manufacture of rafts.[382]

Whilst both men and women share in agricultural work, the manufacture of industrial products, as for example even the artistic embroidering of the short bodices worn by the women,[383] is almost entirely confined to men. The two commonest industries are those of textile products and leather. The former obtains its raw material from the rich cotton farms of the country; the thread made from this cotton is first manufactured into strips as broad as a man’s palm, in which state it is already an article of value, and these are then sewn together to form various kinds of garments. The dyeing of these garments and the embroidering of them in tasteful designs is, especially in the large towns, a common branch of industry. From the hides of slaughtered cattle[384] the Kanuri know how to produce excellent morocco leather generally of a red colour, which is then manufactured in the country itself into durable and beautifully patterned articles, such as cushions, travelling bags, and cartridge-belts, as well as riding-boots, slippers, and so forth. A not insignificant rôle is also played by the products of the salt-works[385]—which article is also partly obtained from the ashes of salt-producing plants[386]—and those of the smiths, who although obliged to obtain most of the raw material for their craft from other countries, yet have even ventured on the casting of cannon.[387]

The products of agriculture and industry are only sold privately to a small extent, but they are objects of the liveliest barter in the markets of the towns and the larger villages. Here the various kinds of merchandise can each show their special quarter, which at the same time serves as a workshop for many industrial products. Under the superintendence of a special functionary, the ‘Maisuk’,[388] and in the presence of numerous auctioneers and brokers, there is displayed in the market, especially at midday, an almost international conglomeration and an unparalleled crowd, which better than anything else shows the quick commercial instincts of the Kanuri people. They have here an opportunity to bring into play their mercantile inclinations, though these, indeed, are even to-day still united with that unreliability and faithlessness—even among the higher ranks—of which we hear complaints as early as Leo Africanus.[389]

On the other hand, the military spirit—as is sufficiently proved by the history of the last few years—has disappeared more and more. Already Denham was able to describe the Kanuri as an unwarlike nation.[390] Even the numbers of the army have steadily declined. Whilst Vogel still speaks of an army of 22,000 horse and 10,000 foot as having advanced into the Musgu country,[391] the numbers to-day would not amount to the half of this for the whole of the territory inhabited by Kanuri. The stimulating effect of the military spirit of Rabeh’s troops was only temporary; the only things that have remained permanent are externals, such as the ‘fantasia’ which Sanda, the Sultan of German Bornu, holds even at the present day at his capital of Dikoa on every Friday and at every Mohammedan festival; on these occasions large quantities of powder are blazed away and all the pomp at his command is displayed. Together with the disappearance of the military spirit has dwindled more and more the power and influence of the ‘Koganawa’ or higher officials, as well as that of the ‘Kachellas’ or military commanders, whose position to-day consists of little more than the title, which in long past times was far more important than at present. Moreover, with the partition of Bornu between England, France, and Germany, the old Sultanate automatically ceased to exist. The Sultans, who formerly stood in a subject relation to Bornu, such as those of Gulfei, Kusseri, Logone, and Mandara, are to-day on a perfect equality with the Shehu of Dikoa, the descendant of the last Bornu dynasty, so that all distinction between them has disappeared.

Of the Hamitic tribes settled in Bornu Proper who have contributed to the formation of the Kanuri race, only the Kanembu, the inhabitants of Kanem,[392] are still to be met with along a narrow strip of the south-west shore of Chad. But the traces in Bornu of an older race, which Barth asserts were distinguishable in his day, have now been lost.[393] Even the characteristic shields of ‘ambach’ wood[394] can to-day scarcely be still considered as a peculiarity of the Kanembu, as Nachtigal thought,[395] since they are also found in use by the Kanuri and Shuwa Arabs of the villages on the south bank of Chad, which often show a very varied mixture of tribes.

To the tribes settled in Bornu before the advent of the Kanuri belong a whole string who were absorbed in the conquering people and lost their own characteristics, but there are others who retained their individuality and who can still be distinguished from the former even at the present day.

The largest and most important tribe is that of the Masa in Western and South-Western Bornu, to whom both Barth and Nachtigal devoted an exhaustive linguistic study; with them are to be reckoned the Makari or Kotoko, the islanders of Lake Chad, the Gamerghu, the Mandara or Wandala, and the Musgu.[396]

Among the smallest of these are the Mohammedan Gamerghu—who even in Barth’s time had been for the most part extirpated[397]—whose villages are scattered along the middle Yedseram in Kanuri country, and who thus have very little chance of bringing into play their tribal peculiarities. Very important, however, on one ground or another, is the rôle that has been played in former times by all the other branches of the Masa.

The Makari or Kotoko and the Logone people, who can scarcely be distinguished from them, are the most civilized of these, although in Barth’s time their Mohammedanism was not more than sixty years old.[398] These tribes inhabit the great flooded district between the Shari, the Logone, and the connecting system of canals somewhat north of the eleventh parallel of latitude. They are more heavily built even than the Kanuri, appear to be of a more serious and steadier nature than that frivolous people—a quality, however, which inclines them to listen to the call of witchcraft—and on that account seem to be more trustworthy and more energetic. The rest of their mode of life corresponds to their greater solidity of character. This is shown even in the building of their townships.[399] Manifold are the forms of the massive often two-storied mud buildings, which have a pleasing appearance owing to the changing shapes of the doorways and windows and the crenellated edges of the thick walls decorated with turrets. The numerous nooks and corners of the narrow lanes and the high walls with their very narrow gateways make up a whole that reminds one, in towns such as Affade, Gulfei, Kusseri, and Logone (Karnak), of the ramifications of a castle of the Middle Ages.

Where so civilized a spirit finds expression it is natural that industries should be prominently developed; so besides excellent woven fabrics one meets all over the country with extraordinarily fine basket-work; in fact the Logone baskets, plaited in three-coloured patterns, are amongst the most beautiful industrial products of the Central Sudan. But besides this agriculture receives the most careful attention; the population is generally pretty thickly distributed and needs an unusually large quantity of food which will grow in a small space.[400] Of the species of grain found in Bornu, maize is here especially cultivated and certainly with great care. Moreover, along the many water-courses of the country the fisheries are very important, a branch of employment that soon makes itself very noticeable by the strong smell of fish offal in the towns. The people who live along those rivers that always contain flowing water have been compelled to develop a form of navigation of the highest interest. Their roomy barges with long beak-shaped prows and flat bottoms, which Dominik compares with the dahabeas of Egypt, are cleverly built of broad planks, and are moved forward by oars as broad as a man’s hand or by long poles.[401] Besides this, smaller canoes are also employed which are manufactured from hollowed out tree-trunks. In dress the Kotoko and Logone people differ from the Kanuri principally in the fact that the tobe is hardly at all worn any longer, much more prevalent is the East Sudan dervish dress; their weapons, on the other hand, do not appear to have any obvious differences.

Amongst the allied tribes, the Mohammedan Wandala or Mandara have to suit their habits of life to some extent to the mountains[402] which border their country on the south, and which owe their name—not a very distinctive one—to this tribe; whilst the islanders of Lake Chad, partly intermixed with Kanembu and other tribes, are the embodiment of a people living half in and half out of the water. They, too, are for the greater part Mohammedan[403] and fall into two great subdivisions.[404] The Yedina[405] or Budduma inhabit the northern and larger part of the Chad archipelago, the Kuri the smaller and southern. Whilst the former build big barges singularly resembling those of the Shari, besides possessing also smaller vessels made of ‘ambach’ wood, the means of transport used by the Kuri, though here there is a close imitation of the barges used on the Shari,[406] are nothing more than a canoe-shaped bundle of ‘ambach’ stems.[407] Bigger logs of this light material, which every man—Kuri as well as Budduma—carries with him on his hunting and raiding expeditions,[408] enable them to cross in very convenient fashion even those places where the water indeed has disappeared, but where mud a yard deep forms a dangerous hindrance to traffic. This means of locomotion, excellently adapted to the constantly shifting distribution of the waters of the lake, at any time difficult of access, may have been an inducement towards the propensity for robbery of the Chad islanders, although they have sufficient resources in their own fields and herds, and the abundance of game[409] and fish. Even if they are in friendly commercial intercourse with one or other of the villages on the banks, still the dwellers in Lake Chad as a whole correspond to what the Tuaregs are for the country to the north of the River Yo; in fact, the ‘pirates of the Chad’[410] are scarcely less audacious than the dreaded robber bands of the Southern Sahara.[411]

Of the tribes belonging to the Masa, the pagan Musgu people doubtless deserve our chief attention, firstly, on account of their numerically large population, and secondly, also on account of their interesting national customs, which furnish ethnographers with many hints for connecting them with the tribes of the watershed between the Shari and the Congo, and even with the dwellers farther south. Among these characteristics belongs especially the use of the throwing-iron, a weapon which is found far within the Congo basin and takes the place of bow and arrow.[412]

Inhabiting the flooded country of the Shari and Logone, south of the eleventh degree and the most fruitful stretches of these lowlands at that, the Musgu have been able to preserve their characteristics almost unchanged in contrast to the uniformity of those of Islam. The coarse features of the otherwise well-formed Musgu people are rendered still more unattractive by the use of lip-disks—similar to the wooden disks worn by many Indian tribes in Brazil—with which the female sex disfigure themselves, so much so that Denham mentions that the slave-dealers of Tripoli and Fezzan declined to buy Musgu women. The disks are of the size of a dollar and made out of the most varied materials, but usually from the rind of the calabash gourd;[413] the lips are perforated and the disks forced into them, so that they project like beaks. The same or a similar foolish fashion is found in the countries on the north border of the Congo basin and even in East Africa.[414] The character, too, of the Musgu has many features that do not exactly evoke sympathy. The worst of these is their domestic discord, which has not only prevented this people from offering a common front against the slave-raiders, but, on the contrary, has even caused them to utilize in the most shameless fashion the misfortunes of their fellow-tribesmen in order to rob and plunder.[415] Characteristic of the Musgu, moreover, is the barbarous way in which they retain their seat on a horse—large numbers of a small, shaggy, but pretty hardy breed are raised in the country. As saddles are quite unknown, the Musgu supply the deficiency by causing an artificial sore on the place where the saddle ought to go of a horse otherwise in good condition; this sore is kept continuously open, so that the rider is as it were glued to his horse.[416] The bridle, too, consists of nothing more than a piece of rope like a halter, which is bound round the animal’s jaw.[417] Whilst in their clothing the Musgu are also very primitive—the men only wear an apron[418] and the women only a band of rope-like twisted grass passed between the legs—in the building of their villages one finds, on the contrary, a taste for a certain amount of household comfort, for art, and for an orderly mode of life. The most remarkable thing in these villages—at least, as far as the Musgu country proper is concerned—are the bee-hive or tiara-shaped mud huts, which have numerous knobs on the outside. These knobs may make the houses more capable of withstanding the effects of the tornadoes, but they also make it possible to climb to the top of the hut from outside and thence to gain a view over the extremely flat tract of country.[419] One also, indeed, meets the usual round huts of the Sudan and mud buildings, especially designed for the storage of grain. The Musgu towns, which with certain exceptions such as the capital, Musgum, are not fortified, lie extraordinarily thick, so that this district is amongst the best populated of the whole of Africa, and was formerly the favourite quarry of slave-raiders. The banks of the Logone are so thickly inhabited, that one may describe the stretch of country extending over fifty kilometres between the towns of Musgum and Mochore as one huge city.[420]