CHAPTER VI
THE LIFE OF THE PEOPLE—THE HERDSMAN AND THE ARTISAN
The word “peasant” as applied to the Fulani is, no doubt, a misnomer. I employ it merely to distinguish the herdsmen from the caste of statesmen and governors, evolved in Nigeria by the genius of Othman Fodio, but, as their recorded history throughout Western Africa shows, inherent in this mysterious race whose moral characteristics have persisted through all degrees of admixture with the negro. The Fulani peasant is but rarely an agriculturist in Nigeria, but he plays an important, if indirect, part in the agriculture of the Hausa provinces. Over the face of the land he wanders with his great herds—which may number upwards of several thousand head in one herd—of beautiful hump-backed cattle, mostly white, ever seeking “pastures new.” Speaking under correction, in Borgu only does his settlement partake of permanency. Elsewhere he is a wanderer. One month a given district may be full of Fulani camps, come from where his fellow-man has but the vaguest of notions. The next, not a single Fulani will be seen within it. But they return, as a rule, the ensuing year to their old haunts. To the Hausa farmer the M’Bororoji or “Cow-Fulani” are an invaluable asset, and he enters into regular contracts with them for turning their cattle on to his fields; and he buys milk from them. I struck several of their encampments, at distances hundreds of miles apart. The first, at the crossing of the Bako, between Badeggi and Bida, was in charge of a patriarch who might have stepped out of the book of Genesis: a Semite every inch of him: spare of form, emaciated in feature, with high cheek-bones, hawk-like nose, flashing, crafty eyes, a long white beard and a bronzed skin without a trace of black blood.
A FULANI GIRL.
There is no more interesting sight in Nigeria than a Fulani encampment. It is usually pitched well away from the beaten track, albeit within convenient distance of a village. You rub your eyes and wonder if you can really be in the heart of the Dark Continent, as these gracefully built, pale copper-coloured men and women—one may say of some of the young girls with the sun shining on their velvety skins, almost golden coloured—appear tending their herds and flocks, or standing and sitting at the entrance to their temporary shelters. Even the latter differ frequently from the African hut, resembling in shape the wigwam of the North American Indian. As for the people themselves, you are aware of an indefinable sentiment of affinity in dealing with them. They are a white, not a black race.
I have discussed their origin and West African history elsewhere,[8] and will only say here that delicacy of form, refinement of contour and simple dignity of bearing distinguish this strange people, just as the ruling families possess the delicacy of brain and subtlety of intellect which impress their British over-lords. A fact worth recording, perhaps, is that while the Hausa woman spins and the Hausa man weaves cotton, the Fulani woman does both the spinning and the weaving.
If the agricultural life of the Northern Nigerian peoples is a full one, the industrial life, especially in the northern provinces of the Protectorate, is equally so. It is an extraordinarily self-sufficing country at present, and the peasant-cultivator and artisan are interdependent, the latter supplying the domestic wants and making the requisite implements for the former. The variety of trades may be estimated from the old Hausa system of taxation. This system the Fulani adopted, modifying it slightly here and there by enforcing closer adherence to the Koranic law, and we are modifying it still further by a gradual process tending to merge multiple imposts under two or three main heads, with the idea of establishing a more equitable re-adjustment of burdens and to ensure greater simplicity in assessment. The Hausa system provided that taxes should be levied upon basket and mat-makers, makers of plant for cotton-spinners, bamboo door-makers, carpenters, dyers, blacksmiths and whitesmiths, as well as upon bee-keepers, hunters, trappers and butchers. Exemption from taxes was granted to shoe-makers, tailors, weavers, tanners, potters, and makers of indigo; but market taxes were imposed upon corn measurers, brokers, sellers of salt, tobacco, kolas, and ironstone.
The chief agricultural implement is the Hausa hoe, the galma, a curious but efficient instrument, which simultaneously digs and breaks up the soil and is said to be of great antiquity, but which is easier to draw than to describe. There is also in daily use among the Hausas a smaller, simpler hoe and a grass-cutter, while the pagan favours a much heavier and more formidable-looking tool. This pagan hoe somewhat resembles our English spade, but is wielded in quite different fashion. Iron drills, rough hammers and axes, nails, horseshoes, stirrup-irons and bits are included among the ordinary forms of the blacksmith’s art. Iron-stone is common in many parts of the country and is extensively worked, furnaces being met with in every district where the use of the metal is locally in vogue. It is to be hoped that “Civilization” will not seek to stamp out this native industry as the tin-miners have done their best—and, unless the promise made to the smelters of Liruei-n-Kano by Sir H. Hesketh Bell is not speedily carried out, but too successfully—to crush the interesting tin-smelting industry. The history of native tin smelting in Nigeria furnishes a remarkable proof of the capacity of the Nigerian native, but is too long to set forth here in detail. Suffice it to say that for a hundred years, a certain ruling family with numerous branches, has succeeded in turning out a singularly pure form of the white metal whose sale as an article of trade brought prosperity to the countryside. When I left the tin district, owing to unjust and stupidly selfish interference with immemorial rights, the native furnaces had been closed for nine months and poverty was beginning to replace comparative affluence.
PANNING FOR IRON.