Rural Hausa: A Village and a Setting

RURAL HAUSA a village and a setting

RURAL HAUSA a village and a setting POLLY HILL Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge

Cambridge at the University Press 1972

Published by the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press Bentley House, 200 Euston Road, London NWI 2DB American Branch: 32 East 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022 © Cambridge University Press 1972 Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number: 75-161287 ISBN: o 521 08242 0

Printed in Great Britain at the Aberdeen University Press

Contents

I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV

List of tables List of illustrations Preface List of abbreviations and conventions Introduction Batagarawa Fathers and sons in gandu The evidence for economic inequality Further aspects of inequality The sale of manured farmland Migration Farm-labouring Local trade in grains and groundnuts Individual poverty Individual viability Short-term stability The absence of' class' Concluding speculations Commentary, including Hausa glossary Bibliography Index

page vii ix xi xv i 10 38 57 71 84 95 105 124 141 153 160 175 189 199 338 351

Tables II. i 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 11.8 11.9 11.10 11.11 11.12 iv. 1 iv.2 iv.3 iv.4 iv. 5 iv. 6 iv.7 v.i v.2 v.3 v.4 v.5 v.6 v.7 v.8 v.9 v.io v.i 1 VI. 1 VI. 2 vii. 1 VII.2 VIII. 1 viii.2 viii.3 viii.4 viii.5 VIII.6

Classification of Batagarawa population The relationship of adult male dependants to heads of farming-units Women dependants of heads of farming-units Size of farming-units Size of family work-groups Relationship of heads of house-sections to heads of houses Population by house and house-section Ownership of granaries Ownership of granaries by type of produce: (A) Ownership of granaries by type of produce: (B) Ownership of manured farms by farm-area Number of wives per husband Population by economic-group Ownership of manured and bush-farmland by economic-group Means of acquisition of manured farmland by economic-group Millet production and groundnut acreage by economic-group Ownership of donkeys, sheep and goats by economic-group Ownership of granaries by economic-group Ownership of moveable property Non-farming occupations by economic-group: heads of farming-units Non-farming occupations by economic-group: men-in-gandu Holdings of manured farmland by acreage: heads of farming-units Holdings of manured farmland by acreage: heads and mcn-in-gandu Bundles of millet produced by economic-group Ownership of granaries by heads of farming-units Ages of heads of farming-units by economic-group: (A) Ages of heads of farming-units by economic-group: (B) Number of wives by economic-group Farming-units with two or more sons by economic-group Acreage of manured farmland per working-man by economic-group Farm-buyers and farm-sellers by economic-group Farm-prices Places of origin of Batagarawa wives by economic-group The whereabouts of adult sons by economic-group Total employment offered by 40 farmers 'Days' of employment offered by farmers 'Days' worked by 18 labourers Classification of labourers by economic-group Days worked by labourers by economic-group Distribution of employment between labourers

page 32 33 33 33 34 34 35 35 36 36 37 37 61 62 64 65 67 68 69 72 74 76 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 82 87 92 96 100 107 109 no no in 112

Tables VHI.7 VIII.8 viii.9 VIII. 10 VIII. 11

Distribution of labourers'work between employers Size of work-group Size of work-group by economic-group Time spent by labourers on different occupations: (A) Time spent by labourers on different occupations: (B)

VIII. 12 Labourers'earnings

113 114 114 116 116 117

VIII . 13 Transfer of labour between economic-groups ix. 1 Selling prices of produce per tiya: (A) ix.2 Selling prices of produce per tiya: (B) XII. 1 The 'strength' and incidence of gandaye by economic-group: (A) XII.2 The 'strength' and incidence of gandaye by economic-group: (B) xiii. 1 Imputed slave origin by economic-group XIII.2 Marriage and imputed slave origin xin.3 Economic-groupings of husbands and of wives' fathers xiii.4 Acreage of manured farmland per working-son XIII.5 Number of brothers sharing inheritance XIII.6 Working-sons, age and economic-grouping

120 130 133 170 171 179 179 180 181 182 188

Commentary 1 c.2 c.3 c.4 c.5 c.6 c.7 c.8 c.9 c.io

232 233 234 234 236 237 238 239 257 257

Average farm-areas, Hausaland Size-distribution of farms, Hausaland Means of acquisition of small farms, Batagarawa Farm-area by economic-group, Batagarawa Average acreage of farm-holdings, Hausaland: (A) Average acreage of farm-holdings, Hausaland: (B) Size-distribution of farm-holdings, Hausaland Average acreage per head and per working-man, Hausaland Groundnut acreage per farming-unit, Batagarawa Size-distribution of groundnut acreage by farming-unit, Batagarawa

Illustrations FIGURES 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Map of Hausaland Map of Nigeria, showing state boundaries Map showing the situation of Batagarawa Sketch-plan of Batagarawa gari, 1967 Rough sketch-plan of part of the District Head's house The farms of Batagarawa unguma Farm map of part of Kaukai Hamlet Farm map of part of Makurdi Hamlet Farm map of part of Autawa Hamlet Retail selling price of early millet (gero), 1968 Retail selling prices of gero, maiwa and dawa, 1968-70 Retail selling prices of gero, shelled groundnuts and unshelled groundnuts, 1968-70 13 Retail selling prices of gero, kalwa and wake, 1968-70

page xvi 8 io 11 12 13 14 14 14 126 127 131 132

We are grateful to Methuen and Co. Ltd for permission to reproduce the map from p. 357 of W. B. Morgan and J. C. Pugh's West Africa (Fig. 1); and to the editor of Man and the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland for permission to reproduce the graph from Man, vol. 4, P- 397 (Fig. 10).

PLATES (Between pp. 144 and 145) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Mallamawa, the District Head Magaji Batagarawa, the Village Head Audi Mai Gida Malam Tukur, District Scribe Alhaji Barau Small clay granaries The District Scribe peering inside a large granary Cornstalk granary Fellow-students on vacation at Batagarawa Mallamawa's family

Illustrations 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

The road into Batagarawa A walled street in Batagarawa Two types of entrance-hut Ploughing when the rains come Ploughing The'hand-plough' A labourer weeding Drought in mid-season Supervised labourers weeding Bent backs for weeding View of part of Batagarawa Groundnuts interplanted with guinea corn Bulrush millet (gero) Men and boys celebrate the Prophet's name-day Secluded women celebrate the Prophet's name-day An earthenware tray used for cooking waina Dropping seeds in prepared holes when the rains come Woman grain-measurer Katsina market Oceans of onions at Ajiwa market The standard measuring-bowl, the tiya Plough parts in Batsari market Aerial view showing unfarmed land of Batagarawa gari Aerial view of part of the Hamlet of Autawa Aerial photograph of Batagarawa and neighbouring farmland

Preface This book consists of two separate, but related, sections. The fourteen chapters are concerned with analyzing the socio-economic affairs of a single village in Nigerian Hausaland; the long alphabetical Commentary provides that village with a general setting of rural Hausaland and is partly intended as a separate browsing ground. Just as this multi-purpose book has not been designed to be read through from start to finish, so I have not had any particular 'class of reader' in mind. I hope that the book will appeal, at the one extreme, to readers with no particular interest in Hausaland (even as a demonstration of the relevance of detailed village studies to wide general questions of rural economic under-development) and, at the other extreme, to those who want to know more about country life in their homeland. As mentioned in the Introduction to the Commentary (p. 201), which is not repeated here, one reason for splitting the book into two sections is to enhance readability: the development economist may ignore the Commentary, while the reader in search of'background' may leave most of the chapters unread. The first of the fourteen chapters serves as a brief introduction to all of them. Plain facts andfiguresrelating to socio-economic life in our village (Batagarawa) are given in Chapter 11, where the impossibility of distinguishing cash and subsistence sectors is also emphasized. Supporting lineages (and concepts of'family land') are lacking in Hausaland, and Chapter ill deals with the means by which fathers and sons seek to relieve their individual insecurity through the farming relationship known as gandu. The dominant theme of economic inequality is introduced in Chapters iv and v, and further pursued in Chapters vi, vn and VIII, which relate to farm-selling, migration and farm-labouring. Chapter ix is a necessary digression on village price fluctuations (seasonal and otherwise). Summarized case material emphasizing the contrasting situations of poorer and richer individual farmers is given in Chapters x and xi. The most important conclusions on the village are provided in Chapters xn and xm, which analytically-minded readers may peruse, if they wish, immediately after scanning Chapters 1,11 and iv. Chapter xiv is a postscript on the causes of general poverty, not a summing-up of my findings. The material in the Commentary derives exclusively from my research in Batagarawa and from published and (to some limited extent) Nigerian archival sources. Although I am only too well aware that in covering so large a field so

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rapidly some errors will have crept in, I must implore readers (however angry) who find that 'things are different in their village' not to condemn me for this reason alone, but to remember that I have merely done my utmost to summarize that which has been recorded. The reference material in the Commentary is no more comprehensive than an assemblage of footnotes: it's a question either of publishing now (and enduring the consequences) or of spending many years organizing the collection of much fuller information. I hope that the little that I have been able to do will stimulate others to do much more. It is this hope that partly justifies my constant harping on the theme that we (the literate community) are far more ignorant than we think. Apart from serving as a repository of reference material and as a glossary, the Commentary includes (as separate entries) short essays on such important topics as: economic regulations, fatauci (long-distance trade), granaries, groundnuts, manure supplies, marketplaces, marriage-expenses, migration, permanent cultivation, ploughing, taxation, usury and women (economic position of). In the course of my future research in Hausaland, I hope to explore the distinction between 'rural' and 'urban', a matter which receives scant attention in this book. The old Hausa terms birni (a walled or capital city) and gari (a town), were always somewhat relative and are now quite outmoded in this analytical connexion. We cannot use a definition based on population-size, as the boundaries of town enumeration areas, for census purposes, usually include outlying portions of countryside. While working in Kazaure town, in 1971, where most farmers store their grain in rooms (soro), not in granaries, it occurred to me that grain storage methods might provide one useful distinction between 'rural' and 'urban'. Certainly (as in Yorubaland) many farmers are urban-dwellers: but (in contrast to Yorubaland) a very high proportion of farmers lives wholly in the countryside. However, my present inability to define 'rural' should not invalidate my general approach, which is partly an endeavour to invert normal procedures by regarding Hausaland from within a village', rather than vice versa: it is also an affirmation that village communities are not cities in microcosm, but quite different places - see, in particular, Chapter xin. The notion that rural Hausaland is the essential Hausaland (that it is the cities which are anomalous), takes much support from a recent article by Prof. Abdullahi Smith, in which he argues that Hausa cities are cosmopolitan communities which 'emerged not so much as a result of the natural increase of a single community but rather as centres of immigration'. (Journal of the Historical Society of'Nigeria, December 1970, P- 341-) Prof. Smith's article appeared after my bibliography had gone to press. Several other important works, which will appear before this book, are omitted for the same reason. Also, there would have been much more reference to the fundamental and extensive research of members of the Rural Economy Research

Preface

xiii

Unit at Ahmadu Bello University (particularly that of D. W. Norman) had it not happened that their publication programme substantially overlapped with my own; one cannot cull citations from unfinalized drafts (such as were kindly made available to me), if only because pagination is due to be changed. Acknowledgments

It would be impossible for me to exaggerate the debt of gratitude I owe to Mohammed Sabi'u Nuhu who, in my absence, collected much of the material in this book. In 1966, when on vacation from Ahmadu Bello University, M. S. Nuhu worked as my assistant on an enquiry on trade and marketing, and happened to suggest a visit to Batagarawa, his home village. Somehow it came about that the whole direction of my research was soon changed and in 1967 I returned to live for six months in Batagarawa in an excellent, newly-built, traditional-style house in the centre of the village. M. S. Nuhu, ably assisted by Usuman Salisu (whom I found a most interesting companion), continued to organize my work with his accustomed efficiency and kindness. In October I concluded my fieldwork, only to realize a few months later that there were many very serious gaps. Fortunately M. S. Nuhu had promised to continue our work; during 1968 and 1969 he made many visits to Batagarawa for this purpose and also lived there for about six months. He not only dealt with all my queries with speed, accuracy, efficiency and imagination, but also organized many statistical and other enquiries entirely on his own initiative. All the material in this book which is dated later than 1967 (and much else besides) was collected by M. S. Nuhu. (Unless otherwise stated, our statistics relate to 1967, which seems sufficiently recent to justify the use of the present tense.) So kind and friendly were the people of Batagarawa that my stay there was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. Mallamawa, the District Head, had no hesitations about welcoming me, and his benign approval transmitted itself throughout his entire District, so that no introductions were necessary in more remote hamlets, where I met many interesting people, including Abubakar Labo, erst-while long-distance trader. My warmest thanks go to Mallamawa personally, as well as my apologies for any unwitting misrepresentations. I am also most grateful to Magaji (the Village Head), to M. Tukur (formerly District Scribe), to Alhaji Barau (especially for organizing the building of my house), and to Mukaddas (the Hamlet Head). So many Batagarawa citizens helped me, or contributed to the enjoyment of my stay, that it is impossible to mention most of them. My special thanks are due to Mati Na'ida, who as an inspired and thoughtful commentator and observer, was particularly helpful over our detailed enquiry on the history of transactions in farmland. Among others I am particularly grateful to are: Alhaji Nuhu and his senior wife (parents of M. S. Nuhu), M. Abubakar, Bila,

xiv

Preface

Galadima Ruga, Kaura, M. Mamman, Mande, Sani Ruga, Sule Magini and my next-door neighbours Danjuma Drummer and his wife Mairo. Especially on my evening strolls through the farmland, I enjoyed the companionship of many schoolchildren, who were most welcoming to my daughter Susannah Humphreys and my niece Alison Hill. During the many arduous months entirely devoted to writing this book my chief encouragement came (yet again) from Prof. Ivor Wilks, then in Cambridge; although we spent so much time in discussion and he read most of the typescript at various stages of drafting, he (like all the others who helped me) bears no responsibility for the final result. I am also particularly grateful to Murray Last and A. H. M. Kirk-Greene for reading earlier drafts of the Commentary and for numerous suggestions and corrections; to Prof. Joan Robinson, my teacher of long ago, for reading and criticizing the chapters and for generously appreciating the relevance of my approach; and to Barbara E. Ward for her most constructive criticisms of Chapters xn and xin. Prof. Meyer Fortes, Thomas Hodgkin, John Lavers and Renee Pittin are among the other friends I must thank for criticizing certain sections. My research in rural Hausaland was made possible by the Center for Research on Economic Development, at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: I am extremely grateful to the Center and in particular to Prof. W. F. Stolper, for their remarkably enlightened financial support (over as long as four years), which gave me entire freedom to pursue research in Nigeria, as and where I wished. I am very glad that I decided to work in rural Hausaland and I am very grateful to the Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research (NISER), at the University of Ibadan, for their active support at such long range, particular thanks being due to Dr Onitiri, the Director, and to Mr A. Ijose, Administrative Secretary. Finally, I wish to thank members of the staff of the Cambridge University Press for their unfailing courtesy, helpfulness and tolerance of the waywardness of authors; and the administrators of the Smuts Fund for a grant for typing. My insistence that rural (Nigerian) Hausaland is, socio-economically, the great under-explored region of West Africa, echoes through the pages of this book. Yet, anyone who ventures into this field derives extraordinary help from as many as five great authors, and why should they not find a place in a list of acknowledgments? They are the famous explorer Henry (Heinrich) Barth (1857); th e lexicographer G. P. Bargery, whose dictionary (1934) is a mine of encyclopaedic information on rural Hausaland to which one never turns in vain; the doctor-scientist J. M. Dalziel whose Useful Plants (1937) is, ethnographically, so much more than a botanical compendium; and the social anthropologists M. G. Smith and G. Nicolas who, more recently, have laid the foundations for all subsequent socio-economic work in rural Hausland. July 1971 POLLY HILL

Abbreviations and Conventions After some earnest debate, which took account of printing costs among other factors, it was finally decided not to use the three Hausa 'hooked' letters - the implosive ' b ' and ' d ' and the 'k' which is modified by being forcibly ejected and accompanied by glottal stop. Most Hausa words that appear in the chapters are included in the Commentary: to facilitate reference, isolated nouns usually take their singular form, even when the sense requires the plural. The letters c q.v.' after any word, tell the reader that there is an entry in the Commentary under that word if he cares to refer to it. Similarly, any words in semi-bold type in the chapters refer to contextually relevant entries in the Commentary. (See, also, pp. 201-2.) References such as Last (1970, pp. 346-7) relate to entries in the bibliography - in this case M. Last's article of 1970.

14°N

International boundary ±£±i£i Approximate boundary of Hausa area ^/]1,500-3,000feet Fig. i. Map of Hausaland (after Morgan and Pugh, 1969)

CHAPTER I

Introduction As most publications relating to Hausaland have long historical introductions, there is good reason not to follow suit. So this book, on socio-economic life in a Hausa village, opens with no more than a few general observations on historical, administrative, ethnic, linguistic and other background matters, the general reader being referred to a number of specialist studies, such as those from which citations have been drawn, where far more detail may be found. The Hausa people are settled mainly between i o J and 13! degrees North and 4 to 10 degrees East (see Fig. 1) in a huge area, mainly in the north of Nigeria but also in the south of the Niger Republic, which essentially consists of the basin of the Sokoto river and its tributaries to the west, and of a great plateau to the east. The Hausa enjoy a high degree of cultural, linguistic and religious uniformity; the differing patterns of social and economic organization relate rather to the contrast between rural and urban life than to ethnic differentiation. Politically, Hausaland has for long comprised a number of emirates owing a common allegiance to the Caliph (Sultan) of Sokoto. Each emirate was centred upon a capital town (birni) in which the Emir (sarki) resided. The ruling-class was predominantly Fulani in origin. The high degree of cultural assimilation of this ruling-class with the culture of Hausa commoners has, however, mitigated against the continuance of ethnic exclusivity. The Fulani assumed a position of political dominance in the aftermath of the jihad (q.v.) called by 'Uthman dan Fodio in 1804. The extraordinarily complex nature of the movement that culminated in jihad makes any brief description impossible. Suffice it to note that the movement, in the later eighteenth century, drew much of its strength from the discontented rural population - whether sedentary Hausa farmers or nomadic Fulani pastoralists: Hausa rulers had become increasingly oppressive over such matters as taxation and compulsory labour (military and otherwise), with a resultant fall in the standard of living of the free peasantry. In the course of the jihad, however, the movement appears to have passed under the control partly of Fulani clan leaders and partly of certain scholars who were particularly closely associated with 'Uthman. It was the members of these elites who created the structure of the emirates which has survived to the present time - see Last (1970, pp. 346-7).

2

Rural Hausa: a village and a setting

Almost a hundred years after the jihad, the caliphate (with its component emirates) was incorporated into the British Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, under Sir Frederick Lugard as High Commissioner. In 1900, when Lugard first assumed this office, there was, as Perham has noted, nowhere in sub-Saharan Africa to compare with the political and cultural sophistication of these ancient Hausa states, with their walled red cities, crowded mosques, literate mullahs, large markets, numerous crafts in metal and leather, far-ranging traders, and skilled production of a wide variety of crops. Served by cattle, camels, horses and donkeys, and by slaves whom early travellers to Kano reckoned as half the population, not only the ruling class but the more prosperous of the Hausa had some of the luxury of leisure coupled with a standard of living very rare in tropical Africa. Perham (i960, pp. 33-4)

The policy of the colonial administration was based upon the conservation of the older political structure. As J. A. Burdon, the first Resident of Sokoto, argued: What is the attitude of the British Administration towards these states ? Briefly, it is construction, not destruction. Our aim is to rule through existing chiefs.. .to enlist them on our side in the work of progress and good government. We cannot do without them. To rule directly would require an army of British magistrates... My hope is that we may make of these born rulers a high type of British official, working for the good of their subjects in accordance with the ideals of the British Empire, but carrying on all that is best in the constitution they have evolved for themselves, the one understood by, and therefore best suited to the people. (Burdon, (1904), cited by Crowder (1966, pp. 212-13))

As a result of this attempt to create continuity, Hodgkin has observed that The two major empire-building movements which marked the beginning and end of the [nineteenth] century - Fulani and British - had more in common than is sometimes realised. Both succeeded in imposing, by a combination of diplomacy and military force, the authority of a single government over a large, politically heterogeneous, region. Both derived their dynamic from a missionary impulse - the idea of the construction of an Islamic state, on the model of the early Caliphate, in the one case; of the spread of Christian civilization, European commerce, and British justice, in the other. For both this sense of mission was accompanied by a certain contempt for the institutions of the supposedly 'backward peoples', whose moral and social standards it was the conquerors' duty to raise. Hodgkin (i960, p. 51)

In 1914 the Northern and Southern Protectorates of Nigeria were amalgamated, Lugard being appointed Governor-General - see Kirk-Greene (1968). In 1954 Nigeria became a full federation of three regions (North, East and West), with a federal capital at Lagos. In i960 Nigeria became an independent country, and 1967 saw the creation of twelve separate Nigerian states, six of them in the former Northern region, three of them (Kano, North Central and North Western) being the homeland of most Nigerian Hausa. (See Fig. 2.) In a typical emirate the Fulani ruling-classes and their Hausa subjects continued to owe common allegiance to the Sokoto Caliphate. M. G. Smith has drawn attention to the extent to which Islam provided an ideology which

Introduction

3

minimized tension, especially at a societal level, between the Fulani rulingclass and their Hausa subjects: 'As Muslims, both groups.. .belong to the Malikite school or rite. Both emphasize agnatic kinship in descent and domestic life, both practise polygyny with easy divorce, both hold common judicial and administrative institutions, and, formerly a common system of slavery' - Smith (1965, p. 231). 'Hausa' is a linguistic not an ethnic term, and refers to those who speak the Hausa language by birth: many groups whose sole language is Hausa have little or nothing in common ethnically. But the Fulani ruling-class (Hausa-speaking though it is) constitutes a separate group, as is emphasized by their use of the name 'Habe' (singular 'Kado') to denote an 'indigene'. The Hausa proper are, also, often differentiated from the pagan Hausa-speakers, the Maguzawa (q.v.), who are scattered throughout the centre of Hausaland. It may be that there are some 15 million Hausa-speakers in the northern states today: certainly there is no other 'linguistic group' in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa with as many 'members' (see Hausa). The fact is that ethnic classifications 'remain fluid according to the social context' - Smith (1955, p. 3). Even the settled Fulani (Filanin gida), from whom the ruling-class is drawn, are apt to describe themselves as 'Hausawa' to the outsider, but although they have lost most of their independent culture, all their language but the greetings, most of their cattle and, through intermarriage and concubinage, some of the Fulani physical traits, among themselves they draw sharp distinctions not only between the dominant Fulani and subject Hausa, but between Fulani members of ruling families and other settled Fulani. (ibid., p. 3)

But despite the complexity of its ethnic structure, the society and the economy of Hausaland (and of the kingdom of Bornu to the east) have an 'underlying uniformity': Here the local rural community, despite its self-sufficiency in food and in most other commodities, has long formed part of a wider administrative and economic framework. Taxcollectors and traders have for centuries been transporting the rural surpluses to the political capitals and the tradition of surplus production for distant centres of consumption, through trading, taxation and levies is deeply implanted. Forde (1946, p. 119)

While Hausa has long been a literary language, most Hausa works have been religious, poetical, or historical in content; or have been renderings of traditional folk tales, animal fables, proverbs and so forth. There are few sources which touch on the day to day economic affairs of ordinary people - on craftwork, rural slavery, trade, markets and so forth. Literary-minded British administrators (such as E. J. Arnett, J. A. Burdon, F. Edgar, H. R. Palmer, R. S. Rattray, A. J. N. Tremearne and others) compiled many documents on history and customs, languages and folk lore, their contribution, according to M. G. Smith (1969, p. viii), being outstanding in its 'depth, quality, variety and volume'.

4

Rural Hausa: a village and a setting

Since those times, history, politics and administration have continued to be the subjects on which books have been written. Apart from M. G. Smith's The Economy of Hausa Communities of Zaria (1955) and the fascinating autobiography of Baba of Karo recorded by Mary Smith (1954), no books have been written about rural Hausaland, though Forde's section of a book edited by Perham (1946) is a most useful compendium of archival material. The results of such fieldwork as has been done in rural areas since the last war now mainly rest in inaccessible, or out-of-print, articles and officially published pamphlets. It is this extraordinary neglect of socio-economic affairs over the centuries which has prompted the gathering together of so much reference material in the Commentary of this book. The opportunity has also been taken of emphasizing our ignorance on many matters, such as rural slavery, craftwork, or the cloth trade, on which somehow there is always assumed to be a wide corpus of knowledge. Often it seems that the great traveller Henry Barth, who was in West Africa 120 years ago, is the most modern of all observers of the rural scene. Although the chapters of this book mainly relate to certain aspects of socioeconomic life in a single Hausa village (Batagarawa in Katsina Emirate), and although the single theme of economic inequality dominates the whole analysis, these chapters, together with the accompanying Commentary, partly represent a tentative demonstration of the possibilities of arguing from the particular to the general in this enormous, sociologically unexplored, region. Put in general terms the idea is that the analysis of the detailed findings in a single village, set against the background of similar work elsewhere, enables the formulation of hypotheses, or the presentation of mere ideas, relating to the identity of some of the salient socio-economic variables associated with the posited 'uniformity' in Hausaland - hypotheses and ideas which may then be tested elsewhere. The adoption of such a procedure does not involve the idea that there is anything especially 'representative' or 'typical' about the chosen Hausa village - although it is necessary to insist, for reasons given below, that Batagarawa is the centre of a considerable area of dispersed settlement and not a mere suburb of nearby Katsina city. In a part of the world where rural population densities vary enormously (and where high proportions of the population live respectively in very densely and very sparsely populated localities), and where hosts of other ecological or geographical factors also show immense variation - examples being the depth of the water-table, soil fertility, the proportion of marshland {fadama), accessibility to markets, availability of firewood, extent of good grazing land, incidence of trypanosomiasis - the very notion of a representative village is obviously absurd. Different though ten Hausa villages in as many widely-flung areas might happen to be, there is no need to decide which of them is the most representative when analysing why they have 'more in common' than (say) any pair of villages one of which is Tiv, the other Hausa.

Introduction

5

This book is also an attempt to demonstrate that when studying the structure of socio-economic life in a small West African rural community, there are places and circumstances in which an approach based on isolating economic factors within a sociological framework may be even more illuminating than one of wider and more sociological scope. Low though the standard of living in Batagarawa is, it may yet be the kind of place where economic factors have more influence than kinship on the choice of marriage partners. But any method of fieldwork which leans so heavily on the study of the economic behaviour of individual farmers {qua individuals) must be based on a theme (or set of themes) relating the individuals to one another, differentiating their functions, enabling one to observe the workings of the economy as a whole and so forth. It was by sheer accident that the theme of economic inequality first emerged towards the end of the present writer's six-month stay in Batagarawa in 1967 when grain was very scarce, and it was only gradually, as analysis of the detailed material proceeded, and as additional information came in from M. S. Nuhu, that it began to appear that a single-theme approach, based on the classification of farmers into four 'economic-groups' in accordance with their living standards, provided a workable framework. While this framework proved much more useful than had been expected, its artificiality, as a mere device on which to hang the detailed findings, must be strongly emphasized. It is true that a man's general economic standard is closely related to his success as a farmer and that some farmers are generally regarded as notable successes and others as dismal failures; yet the ordinary man-in-the-street does not look at society in this mechanistic kind of way. In a society where neither land nor labour are scarce factors, the present writer is not in the least obsessed by the topic of economic inequality as such, but has rather experimented with the use of a tool which is seldom used in such an environment. It is quite likely that some other approach would have proved more relevant to the primary aim of tentative generalization. But this approach is certainly a forceful demonstration of the dangers of regarding any farming community as composed of a group of'average farmers' - together with (as one must always nowadays assume) a few 'progressive farmers'. It is not merely that a few farmers operate on a much larger scale than others, but that there are many richer farmers who have entirely different economic aims from many poorer farmers. As for the 'failed farmers', those who in our terminology are 'too poor to farm', they do not deviate from the 'norms' set by more successful men, 'but live in a looking-glass world of contrariety' (p. 160). The Hausa people are much less urbanized than the members of many of the other important West African 'ethnic groups' (such as the Yoruba or the Ashanti), it being likely that at least four-fifths of those in the homeland are largely dependent on farming for their livelihood (see p. 297) - though many

6

Rural Hausa: a village and a setting

who travel abroad to Ghana, southern Nigeria and elsewhere, congregate in cities. Yet nearly all administrators and research workers (except for a few missionaries and others who have studied the pagan Maguzawa) have been based on cities and large towns, like the fief-holders in the nineteenth century. A mass of valuable village assessment reports and similar material, compiled by young and enthusiastic District Officers, who travelled around the countryside con tour', must still lie unexplored in the National Archives. But most publications suffer from severe 'urban bias' - hallowed conventional notions about the 'mass of the peasantry' (talakawd) passing from one respectable author to another. A few pertinent citations are presented here without comment; many similar citations from more recent sources are criticized elsewhere in this book. First there was (and is) the idea that where land is plentiful 'there could be no natural supply of wage-labourers' - Perham (i960, p. 41), so that 'to obtain workers it was necessary to resort to force' - Meek (1925, p. 287); tied up with this was the belief in the 'rudimentariness' of rural economic systems. 'There was only a rudimentary monetary and exchange system and the ruling class, or men of exceptional enterprise, could hardly obtain the labourers their activities required except by compulsion' - Perham (i960, p. 41). Lugard's policy of abolishing the legal status of slavery, while permitting owners to retain the slaves they already owned, was readily justified, as follows: '...thus slavery was built into the Hausa economic system which would have been completely disrupted by wholesale manumission, and hordes of unemployed people who had lost their lands and their tribes would have been thrown out to starve or to thieve' {ibid.). Secondly, there was (and is) the presumption that given 'freedom from fear', benign evolutionary processes automatically come into play in the countryside: Freedom from want, as far as ever it entered colonial plans, was thought of as something that followed in due though slow course from the freedom from fear that the Pax Britannica provided; unharassed by tribal wars and slave raids, and by fiscal extortion, the people could be left to develop their natural resources in their own way. Mahood (1964, p. 7)

Thirdly, there was (and is - see p. 136) the belief that farmers lacked foresight or the incentive 'to work more than the low standards of well-being demand' Perham (i960, p. 41). In reference to the early years of British administration Heussler (1968, p. 150) recently asserted that 'everyone knew that the peasant was in the habit of planting just enough to see him through from one harvest to the next'. Hastings, who first arrived in Northern Nigeria as a Political Officer in 1906, readily confirms this viewpoint: Nigerian farmers are not provident, they never take thought about the morrow, or keep a reserve in hand for times of scarcity. The average man just sows and reaps for present needs. He has to feed himself and his wife and children for a year and keep enough grain for next year's seed, for paying his tax and a bit for charity and hospitality. That is all the great

Introduction

7

majority bother about. In an abundant year they will have an extra surplus, but it is by God's will, not their own effort, that they gain it. At first sight it is difficult to understand why they do not guard against the rainy, or in Nigeria the non-rainy day, but they have their reasons, and one can suppose they know best what suits them. Constitutionally they are lazy, and will not work more than they need, though while they are at it they work hard. Another thing they know is that rain shortage is rare on the whole, and they trust to luck and Allah. Hastings (1925, pp. 112-13)

In reference to the (then) new policy of 'mixed farming' (see Ploughing), another colonial official, asked: 'What is the use of increasing his [the farmer's] productivity eight-fold ? What can he do with the crops ? He already has as much food as he wants, and sells such surplus as he has with difficulty' Crocker (1936, p. 132). Fourthly, most writers are burdened by the presumption that 'ordinary farmers' compose the great bulk of the population - a belief which, as already mentioned, it is our particular purpose to demolish. This idea is so deep-seated that it is seldom made explicit, except in relation to 'mixed farming': thus 'the ordinary farmer normally cultivates only about 3 or 4 acres' - Faulkner and Mackie (1936, p. 94). Given the persistence of beliefs of this kind, and of important misconceptions about more specific matters such as the cultivation of manured farmland and farm-selling, it is no wonder that the reports of most outside experts who have been asked to advise on methods of increasing agricultural output are informed by profound pessimism. The experts are in a cleft stick. On the one hand, Hausa rural economies are assumed to be in such stable (natural) equilibrium that no outside intervention could make any significant impression on them; on the other hand, this equilibrium is presumed to be so fragile that any reform which happens to help some farmers more than others is bound to lead to immediate disaster - particularly to the emergence of a 'landless class'. The author would like to think that her findings will assist the adoption of some stance intermediate between these two extremes. The concept of a typical Hausa village is necessarily absurd. Yet certain villages may be regarded as notably atypical if it is certain that only a small proportion of the total Hausa population lives in similar environments. Thus, a village situated on a river bank which is so suitable for onion-growing that most farmers cultivate this crop, might be considered atypical for this reason alone. Again, it is arguable that villages in the Kano and Sokoto Close-Settled Zones, where population densities are so great that bush-farms have been entirely eliminated from the agricultural landscape, are notably atypical - although the realization that there are many localities where farmers choose to cultivate most of their farms every year despite the availability of nearby bush-land, has somewhat reduced the strength of this case. However this may be, it is necessary

8

Rural Hausa: a village and a setting

to avoid misconceptions by insisting that Batagarawa is not notably atypical owing to its proximity to the famous city of Katsina. Owing to the small scale of most population-density maps, it is often assumed that Katsina city is entirely encircled by a densely-populated zone, but the large-scale published dot-map compiled by R. M. Prothero on the basis of the 1952 census shows that this zone is a mere segment running from north-east, through east, to south-east, densities elsewhere being quite low, though variable. As Fig. 3 and Plate 33 show, a forest reserve lies between Batagarawa and Katsina city; and early travellers (see Batagarawa) commented on the wild state of the country to the south of the city. The Batagarawa Hamlet (unguwa) extends some miles to the west, north-west and south of the village and includes much uncultivated, though cultivable, bush. N I G E R

CHAD

*-\ N ./Sokoto->x-yan tebur (q.v.). (3) These traders mainly handle sweet potatoes (dankali) grown in Batagarawa. (4) Those in Groups 1 and 2 are: 2 tobacco traders, 1 trader in small livestock, 1 trader in local fruit and 1 kola wholesaler. Those in Groups 3 and 4 are all traders in local foodstuffs, apart from one grindstone trader. (5)5 (6), (7)- See Commentary. (8) These craftsmen are 2 dyers, 2 well-diggers and 3 carpenters (or hoe-handle makers). (9) See Commentary. One of those in Groups 1 and 2 is virtually retired. (10) Collectors and manufacturers of'free goods' - i.e. materials such as grass for thatching which may be freely collected (though they are not then devoid of value), or of manufactures therefrom - such

Further aspects of inequality

73

Craftsmen. Twelve out of 23 craftsmen are in Groups 1 and 2. The 5 craftsmen in Group 4 are 2 builders, 2 carpenters and 1 well-digger. Butchers. Seven out of 9 of the butchers are in Groups 3 and 4; of the 2 butchers in Groups 1 and 2, one is virtually retired and the other is an anomalous case of a young unmarried (fatherless) man. 'Free goods'. Nearly all the collectors and manufacturers of 'free goods' are in Groups 3 and 4. Barori. Nine out of 15 of the bar ori ('servants' and others) are in Group 3. Non-farming labourers. All these labourers are in Groups 3 and 4. 'Services'. Seven out of 11 of those in 'service occupations' are in Group 3. Koranic teachers and students. Eleven out of 13 of those whose principal nonfarming occupation was adjudged to be Koranic teaching or studying are in Groups 1 or 2 (see Malami). Drummers. All those 5 drummers who were regarded as heads of farming-units (there were also a few others) were placed in Groups 3 and 4. (ii) Summary by economic-group

Groups 1 and 2. About a third of all the heads of farming-units in these two economic-groups are traders, 8 of them being 'yan kwarami (q.v.) and 5 being shopkeepers. About a fifth are craftsmen - 10 out of 12 of whom are tailors, builders or blacksmiths. About afifthare Koranic teachers and students. A great variety of occupations is pursued by the remaining 17 men - see Chapter xi. Group 3. No occupation is predominant. Eight men are small-scale traders in local foodstuffs - none of them 'yan kwarami; 10 are collectors and/or manufacturers of 'free goods'; 9 are barori; 7 are in 'service' occupations; 6 are craftsmen (of whom 3 are tailors); and 6 are non-farming labourers. Group 4. About a third of these 41 men are engaged in collecting and/or manufacturing 'free goods', of whom 8 arefirewood-collectors;the remainder are in a great variety of occupations, only 2 being traders. (See Chapters x and XII.) as mats, thatches, ropes, cornstalk beds, etc. (see Commentary). The total of 26 includes 13 firewoodcollector/sellers and 5 makers of ropes, thatches, mats, etc. (11) Includes servants (domestic or other) and clients and retainers - see Bar a, (12) Including earth-collectors. (13) Including 5 barbers, 3 calabash repairers and decorators, 2 washermen and 1 bicycle repairer and hirer. (14) Including Koranic students as well as teachers and 1 Arabic teacher; 8 of the 9 teachers are in Groups 1 and 2. (15) See Commentary. (Several drummers are not included here as they are not heads of farmingunits.) (16) Including: the Chief Imam, the Hamlet Head, the Sanitary Inspector; those with several occupations none of which appears to be predominant; and a few men in miscellaneous occupations such as cattle droving, prayer-calling, road work, and cattle management. (17) All of these men are unable to work through old age or decrepitude, except for one who is an active dan kwadago.

74

Rural Hausa: a village and a setting

SUBSIDIARY OCCUPATIONS OF HEADS OF FARMING-UNITS (Table V.l)

Recorded subsidiary occupations (of which any individual might have one or more) total 96, of which one-third (32) are collectors or manufacturers of'free goods', 21 are traders and 9 (each) are craftsmen or non-farming labourers: this total is an under-estimate as men may fail to mention such occupations as are pursued casually, intermittently, or occasionally, according to opportunity or inclination. Again, the large number of mentions of 'free goods' came mainly from members of Groups 3 and 4. OCCUPATIONS OF MEN-IN-'GANDU ' (Table V.2)

The relationship between non-farming occupations and economic-group is even more striking for men-in-gandu than for heads of farming-units and follows much the same lines. TABLE v.2. Non-farming occupations by economic-group: men-in-gandu* Economic-group i and 2

Type of occupation Traders 'yan kwarami 'yan tebur other Craftsmen Butchers 'Free goods' Barori Building and other labourers 'Services' Koranic studies Other Total

3 4 (Number of occupations mentioned)

Total

1

— — — —

1 — —

2

2

5

4

3 —

7

5

4

H

1

6

1 —

5 — —

2

5

28

22

2I9 3j 4

—1

I

3J

1

4

1

11

flu 6j 5 1 2

6 8 61

NOTES

(i) For notes on different types of occupation see Table v.i. (ii) As the difficulty of distinguishing principal and subsidiary occupations was greater than with heads of farming-units, the table relates to all recorded occupations followed by those men-ingandu for whom this information was obtained, (iii) Assistance given to fathers by sons is omitted, even when payment was received.

Summary by occupation (Table v.2) Traders. Again, all the *yan kwarami are in Groups 1 and 2. No Group 4 man was recorded as being a trader of any type. Craftsmen. Four of the 5 craftsmen are in Groups 1 and 2, being 2 tailors, 1 blacksmith and 1 builder.

Further aspects of inequality

75

Butchers. Four out of 5 of the butchers are in Groups 3 and 4. 'Free goods'. All 7 sellers of'free goods' are in Groups 3 and 4. Labourers. This is the only occupation pursued to any extent by members of all economic-groups, as many as 5 out of 14 of the building and other labourers being in Groups 1 and 2. Koranic studies. All those recorded as being actively engaged in Koranic studies are in Groups 1 and 2. Summary by economic-group (Table v.2) Whereas 19 out of 28 occupations mentioned by those in Groups 1 and 2 are trading, Koranic studies and craftwork, no man in Group 4 mentioned these occupations. Whereas 5 out of 11 of the occupations mentioned by those in Group 4 were 'free goods' or butchering, such occupations account for only 1 of the 28 'mentions' by those in Group 1.

The statistics in the following sections show that the various averages by economic-group presented in Chapter iv did not conceal wide variations within the economic-groups. Individual holdings of manured farmland Considering that those responsible for the classification by economic-group had access to no acreage statistics (the figures had not then been computed), a remarkable degree of association between economic-group and the size of the holdings of individual heads of farming-units is revealed by Table v.3, which shows that: (i) all save one of the farmers with no manured farmland are in Groups 3 and 4, the exception being a retired father whose farms have passed to his eldest son; (ii) as many as 27 out of 30 of those with holdings of less than 2 acres are in Groups 3 and 4; and that (iii) all save 2 of those with holdings of 10 acres or more are in Groups 1 and 2. If the private holdings of men-in-gandu are included with gandu holdings, as in column (12) of Table iv.2 (p. 62), then (see Table v.4) it is found that roughly three-quarters of all holdings in each economic-group fall within the following ranges: 10 - 29-9 acres (Group 1); 5-19*9 acres (Group 2); 2-9-9 acres (Group 3); 2-4-9 acres (Group 4). Only 3 out of 17 of the Group 1 holdings are less than 10 acres, the corresponding figures for the other economic-groups being 31 out of 45, 65 out of 68 and 41 out of 41.

j6

Rural Hausa: a village and a setting

TABLE v. 3. Holdings of manuredfarmland by acreage range: heads of farming-units Economic-group Acreage range Nil Under i 1-1.9 2-4.9 5-9-9 10-19-9 20 and over Total

1

2

3 (Number of holdings)

—

1

5 4

—

2

10

2

9

3

21 11

29 18

1

6 6 17

—

45

68

Total

7

13

2 11

23

17

4 — —

2

—

4

7

57 46 19

6 171

TABLE v.4. Holdings of manured farmland by acreage range: heads of farmingunits and men-in-gandu' Economic-group Acreage range

Nil Under 1 1-1.9 2-4.9 5-9-9 10-19.9 20-29.9 30-39-9 55-7 Total Average acreage (as per Table iv.2)

1

2

—

1

—1

9

3 (Number of holdings) 4 4 9

2

26

LL8

[

J

4

Total

4

8 7

2

I

^Uo _ r «J

T

5

2 1 1

17

19-5

24

53 48 20 9

—

— —

— —

1 1

45

68

41

171

—

8.4

4-2

2.8

6-5

Production of early millet (gero) by individual farming-units

The figures in Table v.5 show that there is a close relationship between the reported quantity of millet produced by farming-units (exclusive of production on the private farms of men-in-gandu) and economic-group. Thus: (i) all those farming-units which produced no millet at all, or less than 10 bundles, are in Groups 3 and 4; (ii) as many as 26 out of 29 of those units which produced 50 bundles or more are in Groups 1 and 2. Furthermore, there is reason to think that some Group 4 farmers inflated their figures.

Further aspects of inequality

77

Considering that both late millet (maiwa) and guinea corn (dawa), for which no production estimates were obtained, are to some extent acceptable substitutes for early millet (gero); that family size (and thus grain requirements) varies greatly within economic-groups; and that better-off farmers do not necessarily aim at self-sufficiency in grain - the figures suggest that most farmers aim to produce 'considerable quantities' of millet, though many of the poorer farmers fail to achieve this. TABLE v.5. Bundles of millet ('gero') produced by economic-group Heads of farming-units Economic-group Nnmhcr of bundles Nil Under 10 10-19 20-49 50-99 100 and over Total

M.zn-m-gandu Economic-group A

1

— — —

2

3 4 (Number of men) — —

5 6

2

23 23

3

26

6 5

15

14

43

3 — 60

Total

1

2

3

4

Total

(Number of men)

5

10

9 15

15 40

— 2

11 —

63 24

6 —

—

5

40

157

2

3 5 5 — —

3 7 2 — —

2 1 1 — —

10

13

12

4

8 15 — 2

39

NOTE. See Notes on Table iv.4 (p. 65).

As for millet production by individual men-in-gandu, Table v.5 shows that this bears little relation to economic-grouping. Some of the sons of fathers in Groups 3 and 4 who are small grain producers try to make up the deficit by growing millet on bush-farms; some of those in all economic-groups concentrate on groundnuts. (However, the figures are of interest in showing that 2 out of 7 farmers who produced 100 bundles or more are men-in-gandu; and that the 16 men-in-gandu who produced 20 bundles or more, grew more millet than 65 heads of farming-units.) Estimated groundnut acreage

The estimates of groundnut acreage are very rough (see Groundnuts) and relate to mapped farmland only, but it is worth noting that 26 out of 28 of the farming-units (including m.tn-m-gandu) which were recorded as having no (mapped) acreage under groundnuts are in Groups 3 and 4; and that 20 out of 22 of the farming-units with an estimated 4 acres or more under groundnuts are in Groups 1 and 2. See also Tables c.9 and c.io, p. 257. Ownership ofgranaries

As Table V.6 shows, 12 out of 17 of Group 1 heads of farming-units own 4 or more granaries, compared with 16 out of 43, 6 out of 67 and 2 out of 41,

7