Hausa Superstitions and Customs : An Introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk [1 ed.] 9781136969669, 9780714617299

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CASS

LIBRARY OF AFRICAN

STUDIES

GENERAL STUDIES No. 90 Editorial Adviser : JOHN RALPH WILLIS Department of History, University of California, Berkeley

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I. -READY

FOR A

B aRt

SPLRIT.

11.-POSSESSED.

Bori is self-induced hysteria. During possession by the spirits, the pa tie nts imitate certa in p t:rsons or animals, a nd ofte n ill-t reat themselves. The spirit is usually expelled by sneezing . Vide page ' 45 a nd Note III.

Rausa Superstitions and Customs An Introduction to the Folk-Lore and the Folk

BY

A. J. N. TREMEARNE

With a new introductory note by

MERVYN HISKETT

With forty-one illustrations, over two hundred figures in the text, and a map

I~ ~~o~;~~n~~~up LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 1913 by FRANK CASS AND COMPANY LIMITED Published 20 13 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

New Introductory Note Copyright© 1970 M. Hiskett

ISBN 13: 978-0-714-61729-9 (hbk)

lDe~tcate~

BY PERMISSION TO

SIR F. D. LUGARD. G.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O.• WHO HAS DONE SO MUCH FOR THE HAUSA PEOPLE.

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO THE NEW EDITION The general background to Hausa folklore has been admirably dealt with by M. G. Smith and Neil Skinner in the Foreword and Introduction to the latter's translation of Edgar's Tatsuniyoyi. * In this present Introduction I shall therefore confine myself, briefly, to discussing the importance of Tremeane's collection in relation to African Islamic Studies. It is possible to categorize Hausa folkore in a number of different ways. Tremeane himself did so largely by subject matter, as the titles of his chapters make clear. But it may be that an attempt to classify the tales culturally will lead in the end to a deeper understanding of the cultural history of the society in which they arose. There are two broad cultural periods in pre-colonial Hausa history - the pre-Islamic period and the period of Islam. The folklore reflects this division; but it also raises many questions. Hausa folklore is rich in the world-wide motifs found in one form or the other in such widely differing cultures as those of India, Scandinavia, America, Ireland and so on. For instance, as Tremeane points out, Cinderella appears among the Hausa; so does Jack the Giant Killer; the child-eating witch and many other familiar characters of European folklore. But in the midst of this mass of "world-wide" material, the ultimate provenance of which it is almost certainly impossible to trace, there appear a number of motifs that seem, clearly enough to be Indian. These I have *Volume One, in which the Foreword and Introduction appear, was published by Frank Cass in 1969. Volumes Two and Three will appear in 1970. ix

INTRODUCTORY NOTE discussed in some detail elsewhere.* Particular examples which will be familiar to those even casually acquainted with Hausa stories are "Auta, the youngest son" the story of the clever francolin and that of the grateful fish. To assume that these stories came directly from India would be rash. But that they have a common motif with the Indian stories seems beyond question and their presence in Hausaland is chronologically and culturally puzzling. Is it to be explained by some remote link with the Indian sub-continent; or did the stories originate in Africa and spread from there to other parts of the world? But there are other stories in Hausa folklore which can be more readily traced back to their origins. For instance the well-known Arabic collection of stories Kalila wa Dhimna has certainly contributed to Hausa folklore. So also has the famous early medieval Arabic 'Book of Songs' (Kitab al-aghani). Another most important source of Hausa stories is the Muslim 'Tales of the Prophets' (Qisas al-anbiya) of al-Thalabi. This important work of the eleventh century records the Old Testament stories of the prophets in their Islamized forms, together with certain stories arising from the purely Muslim tradition. Thus the presence of the Qisas in West African Muslim communities accounts at once for the currency of stories about Abraham, Solomon, the Alexander cycle and numerous Biblical and Hebraic motifs which are reflected in Tremeane's collection as well as in other compilations of Hausa folklore. This is of great historical importance, for many romantic theories have been erected linking West Africa with the Mediterranean world of antiquity on the strength of these Biblical echoes in West African mythology. Yet most of them are readily to be explained by the presence of the Qisas in the hands of literate West African Muslims in the course of the last two or three hundred years. *'Historical and Islamic influences in Hausa folklore', Journal of the Folklore Institute, Indiana University, Vol. IV, Nos. 2/3. X

INTRODUCTORY NOTE Equally important as a source for Hausa stories is the great Islamic Saga of Saif b. Dhi Yazan, the legendary hero of the Arabs' wars against the Ethiopians. Versions of this story in which an Islamic cult hero wages war against the pagan negroes circulate widely in the Muslim Sudanic belt of West Africa and they are also to be associated with the common myth of Yemenite origin. One of the most interesting avenues of research now open to students of West African Islam seems to me to be to discover what part the Saif legend has played in West African folklore and to what extent it has been naturalized to conform to the history of the Hausas and other Islamic groups and to reflect their own confrontation with indigenous African animism. The place of the Arabian Nights in the folklore of any Muslim or partially islamized society hardly needs emphasizing. But the Nights themselves are a complex body of folklore and they have their own chronology and history. Islamic scholars have indicated the existence of an early Persian and Indian stratum, much of it bawdy stuff that found its way by many routes into the Decameron cycle; then a later Baghdad stratum which seems to portray the mores and the rather institutionalized morality of medieval Islamic society and finally a late Cairene stratum, full of fantastic tales of genii, miraculous treasures, talismanic service and other wonders. In studying the local folklores of peoples on the fringes of the Islamic world, one would like to know not only that the Nights had contributed their share - a fact which can almost be taken for granted - but also from which strata of the Arabian stories they had drawn and what changes the stories had undergone in the process of naturalization. For instance, it would be reasonable to expect that the late Cairene stories would predominate in Hausa folklore, and this may indeed turn out to be the case; but it certainly seems to me that the earlier Indian and Persia cycle has been equally important while the Baghdad cycle does not seem to be so conspicuous. xi

INTRODUCTORY NOTE But these are merely first impressions and much more research is needed either to confirm or disprove them. The publication of this second impression of Tremeane's work, together with the publication of Skinner's translation of Edgar's Tatsuniyoyi are important events in tht history of Hausa studies and they are particularly welcome at a time when there is a growing interest among students in the background of ideas that inform African cultures as well as in the phenomena of African languages and the structures of African societies. But this material should not be seen as exclusively African. It is also part of the general Islamic heritage and contains a wealth of evidence to enable us to explain and understand the nature of the Islamic presence in Africa. M. HISKETT

July 1969

xii

Foreword. IN offering this volume on the Hausas, who are interesting, not only on account of their beliefs and habits, but also because of the services of their soldiers to the Empire, I wish to express my best thanks to Messrs. Hartland and Crooke (ex-President and President respectively of the Folk-lore Society) for supplying many parallels to the tales-marked (H) or (C) ad hoc; to Professors Frazer and Westermarck for reading Part I; to Lieut. G. R. K. Evatt for several photographs, and for comparing my material with his own notes; to Mrs. Mary Gaunt, Colonel Elliot, Major Searight, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Royal Anthropological Institute for five photographs; and, lastly, to my wife for correcting the proofs, and to her friend, Miss E. M. Clarke, for most of the figures-some of which were drawn at the British Museum through the courtesy of the authorities there. A. J. N. T. Blackheath, September 27, 1912.

Abbreviations and References. I~ Pan I, ligures in parentheses, e.g. (40), refer to the tales in Part II, ,,-hile the Roman numerals, e.g., XL, refer to the notes in Part III. ln Part ll, a figure in parentheses refers to the number of a note in Part III under a Roman numeral corresponding to the number of the tale; thus (2) in Story 41 refers to Note XLI, 2. An asterisk after a word (e.g., spit* in Stories 14 and 83) means that it has been purposely mistranslated. The correct rendering \vili be sent \\-ith pleasure to anyone who requires it for scientit1c purposes. For the meanings of T.H.H., &c., see pages 9 and ro.

Contents. P a r t I . —F O L K -LO R E A N D FO L K -LA W . C ha p .

C hap.

C ha p .

C hap.

C hap.

C ha p .

C ha p .

I .— I n t r o d u c t io n .— V a lu e o f F o lk -L o r e — T h e P e o p le — T h e N a r r a to r s— D ifficu ltie s of C o lle c tin g — . A u th o r itie s — C o m m e n c em e n t and E n d in g o f Stories IX.— S ome C haracteristics of the T ales .— F ondness for T a les and P roverb s— S im ila r itie s — U n c l e R e m u s — E la b o r a te T r a p s and E a s y E s c a p e s — C h r o n o lo g y and S ty le I I I . — A nim als in the T ales — T he A n im a l C o m ­ m u n ity — T h e K in g o f B e a sts and In se c ts— B ird s— F is h — H a b its o f A n im a ls — R e se m ­ b la n c e o f A n im a ls to H u m a n B e in g s IV .— P e r s o n a l C h a r a c t e r i s t i c s a n d V i r t u e s . — A

Blind Man—A W om an ’s Tongue— Bravery — Honesty — Debts — Indolence— Gratitude — Morality — Love — D islike — Drunkenness — H ospitality — Salutations— T he Sign-Language — Games, &c. — Rid­ dles— Proverbs— Puns, &c.— Poetry V .— T h e L o r e o f t h e F o l k . M eaning of the T ales — Courtship — Intimacy previous to Marriage— Marriage— Prohibited D egrees — Relation of Husband and W ife — Cere­ monies — A voidance — The Bachelor — Parentage — Miracujous Births — Child­ birth— Infanticide— Relation of Parent and Child—Adoption — Organization — Descent — Tribal Marks— D evelopm ent— Death and Burial— Inheritance V I .— C u s t o m s a n d S u p e r s t i t i o n s . — B eliefs— Gods and Spirits — Nature Myths — The N ext W orld — Diseases — T otemism — Mythical B eings— The H alf-M an— Dodo-—A Fabu­ lous Bird — W onderful Anim als — Magic Ointment — Transform ation — Sacrifice — Cannibalism — Ordeals, &c. — The Curse and B lessing—-Earth — Kola-nuts — Tabu— Bori— H allucinations V I I .— C u s t o m s a n d S u p e r s t i t i o n s (continued).— E v il Influences— W itchcraft—V isits to the W orld of the Immortals— Lapse of T im e— Magic and T he E v il E ye— Lucky D ays— Rites— Conjuring— Charms and Potions— M agical ^ if t s — Forms of Address— The K ira ri— Names.

PAGE

I

30

46

74

CONTENTS P art II.-—HAUSA TALES, PARABLES AND VARIANTS. PAGE

I.

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