People of the veil

by Baron Francis James Rennell Rodd Rennell of Rodd

PLATE 4

DIOM IN ELAKKOS

PUNCH AND JUDY SHOW

Tessawa lies in a shallow depression which, like others further north on the way to Damergu, drain into the Gulbi n’Kaba, an affluent of the Niger containing running water only in its lower reaches in the neighbourhood of Sokoto. North of Tessawa and Damagarim the land becomes more sparsely populated and the bush thickens, except in the immediate vicinity of the villages, which now begin to be tenanted in increasing numbers by Kanuri. The bush contains herds of Fulani cattle and a certain amount of game; there are two or three varieties of gazelle, some bustard, guinea-fowl, ostriches and occasionally giraffes. The vegetation becomes more stunted as progress is made northward and large trees are rarer; the soil is sandy; rock outcrop is almost completely absent. The configuration of the ground is difficult to follow in the thick bush; the gentle slopes and valleys appear generally to drain westwards, but shallow closed basins are numerous. Plenty of water is obtainable in any of these depressions a few feet below the ground; the larger groups of wells, usually near the two or three hamlets of straw huts which form a village, are the resort of the Fulani with their cattle during the dry season. The vegetation and the general aspect of the country, however, are still those of the Sudan.

Damagarim differs but little from the Tessawa landscape except that the bush is thicker and there are fewer open spaces. East of the boulder-strewn hills of Zinder the more ambitious elevations of Gure are visible. Zinder itself consists of two contiguous towns; like Tessawa and the Hausa cities further south, they are built of red mud. Zinder is smaller than the analogous Nigerian cities. Since 1921 it has had no Sultan. The French headquarters of the Niger Territories till recently were situated here. In the past Zinder was of some importance; although the main caravan track from the north appears in the early days to have run direct to Katsina, a branch from Damergu went by way of Zinder as soon as Kano grew in importance. But in spite of the number and influence of the Tuareg who used to make Zinder their headquarters, neither Damagarim nor Gure has changed its essentially Sudanese character.

Within a few days’ march of Tessawa on the road north to Gangara in Damergu, several interesting features were observable. At Urufan village the Magazawa Hausa and Kanuri women were wearing the ornament known as the “Agades Cross,” peculiar to the Air Tuareg, in a simple as well as in a conventionalised form. Many of the women exhibited almost Mongolian traits in their eyes and cheek-bones. Their hair was done in what I believe to be a Kanuri fashion, that is to say, in a low crest along the top of the head, tightly matted and well greased, with a parting, or very often a shaved strip on each side, running the length of the skull; over the ears the hair was again tightly plaited and greased. Their dancing was different from the practice in Nigeria: the women dance with bent knees and a crouching body, so that the back is nearly horizontal. They shuffle up to the drum band one behind the other, the woman at the head of the line turning away at the end of each movement to take her place behind. The absence of sedentary Fulani influence is obvious as soon as music starts; the rattles and cymbals made of segments of calabash on a stick, peculiar to the Fulani in Nigeria, are not used.

Ethnically it is a very mixed area. In most cases each hamlet in a village group is inhabited by a different people. Magazawa Hausa, Kanuri from Damergu, and more recent Kanuri from Bornu predominate, but there are also nomadic Fulani and semi-nomadic Tuareg.

This is the edge of the country called Damergu, which, on the direct road from Tessawa, may be said to begin at the village group of Garari in a small valley, tributary of the Gulbi n’Kaba. Just before reaching the southern edge of the valley the thorn bush suddenly ceases. In the hollow are two or three hamlets of Kanuri, Bornuwi, sedentary Tuareg and Hausa with common wells in the valley bottom. Instead of interminable thorn scrub just so high that nothing can be seen above it, an open wind-swept plain of rolling downland covered with yellow-gold grass appears in front. On the sharp African horizon to the N. and N.E. are the blue peaks of Damergu, quite small and humble, but clear cut against the sky-line with all the dignity of isolation in a sea of waving sun-washed prairie.