The population of Jenné includes a number of resident strangers, as Mandingoes, Foulahs, Bambaras, and Moors. They speak the languages peculiar to their respective countries, besides a general dialect called Kissour, which is the language currently adopted as far as Timbuctoo. The number of the inhabitants may be computed at eight or ten thousand. This town was formerly independent, but it now belongs to a small kingdom, of which Ségo-Ahmadou is the sovereign. He is a Foulah, and a fanatical Musulman, but a great conqueror. With a very small number of followers, he has subdued several districts in the south of Bambara, where he has introduced his religion and enforces obedience. Jenné was his capital; but this zealous disciple of the prophet, finding that the great trade of that town interfered with his religious duties, and drew aside the true believers from their devotions, founded another town on the right bank of the river. He named it el-Lamdou-Lillahi (to the praise of God), the first words of a prayer in the Koran. At this place there are public schools in which children are taught gratuitously. There are also schools for adults, according to the degrees of their information. This devout chief is brother to the king of Massina, a country situated on the left bank of the Dhioliba.
Ségo-Ahmadou does not levy contributions on the merchants who resort to Jenné for the purpose of trade. Foreign merchants settled in the country are not subject to taxes any more than natives; but they send presents to the king, as well as to his brother, the chief of Jenné. I had often heard Ségo-Ahmadou extolled for his generosity; but the Moors told me that he was generous only to his own subjects. The inhabitants of Jenné are exceedingly active and industrious, and very much like the savage negroes I had seen in the south. In short, they are intelligent men, who speculate on the labour of their slaves; while, among the freemen, the rich devote themselves to commerce, and the poor to various trades and professions. At Jenné, there are tailors who make clothes which are sent to Timbuctoo; smiths, founders, masons, shoe-makers, porters, packers and fishermen: every one renders himself useful in some way or other. Mats, made of the leaves of the ronnier, are used for packing up goods; they are manufactured by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, who sell them in the market. This matting is covered with a second envelope, consisting of a bullock’s hide, that is to say, if the goods are worth it. The smiths are no better provided with tools than those I saw on the road: they execute the same work with the same scanty means. It is the business of the packers to sack the grain, and, in order to force as much as possible into the bag, they press it down with a piece of wood. When their bag is full, they put a handful of straw above the millet, and sew the bag. This is much more secure than simple packing.
All the inhabitants of Jenné are Mahometans. They do not permit infidels to enter their town, and when the Bambara people come to Jenné, they are obliged to repeat the Mahometan prayers, otherwise they would be unmercifully beaten by the Foulahs, who form the majority of the population. I found the inhabitants very civil to strangers, at least to those of their own religion; and they put traders in the way of disposing of their goods.
They have several wives, whom, however they do not ill-treat, like the negroes further to the south. The women never go out unveiled, and are not allowed to eat their meals with their husbands, or even with their male children. The girls, when they attain a suitable age, assist their mothers in cooking, washing and other household business. They occupy their leisure moments in spinning cotton, which they buy in the market, for in the marshy environs of the city it is not cultivated; however, on the west side, I saw a little field of cotton surrounded by a thorn hedge. It appeared to be of very inferior quality, and does not thrive well.
The people of Jenné know no other writing than that of the Arabs: almost all can read, though few understand it. There are schools for youth, like those which I have already described. After the children have learned every thing that is taught in these schools, they are sent to El-Lamdou-Lillahi; and when they know the Koran by heart, they are looked upon as learned men: they then return to their native places, and enter into trade.
The inhabitants of Jenné live very well: they eat rice boiled with fresh meat, which is to be procured every day in the market. With the fine millet they make couscous; this is eaten with fresh or dried fish, of which they have great abundance. Their dishes are highly seasoned; they use a good deal of allspice, and salt is common enough to enable every one to get it. The expense of maintenance for a single individual is about twenty-five or thirty cowries per day. Meat is not dear in this place: a piece which costs forty cowries (twenty centimes) is enough to furnish a dinner for four persons. They generally make two meals a day; all sitting round one dish, and each taking out a portion with his hand, like all the inhabitants of the interior.
Their houses are not furnished. They have leather bags in which they put their things; these bags are sometimes hung to a line put up across the apartment. The people always sleep on bullocks’ hides, or mats, spread upon the ground. Hence they are very subject to rheumatic complaints, owing to the extreme dampness of the soil, for they cannot keep fires during the night on account of the scarcity of wood. The children, as well as grown persons, are very neatly dressed. They wear a coussabe made of cloth of the Soudan, generally white, which is the favourite colour; their trowsers reach to the ancle, and are not so full as those worn by the Mandingoes in the south; they have a hem at the waist in which is run a cotton string that ties above the hips. The Mandingo traders buy these trowsers and carry them to their country: I saw them at Sambatikila, Timé, and Tangrera. The people of Jenné never go barefoot, not even the children of the slaves. Their shoes, which are very neatly made, ressemble our European slippers; they have them of various colours. Their shoe-makers use no lasts they get thin leather from Timbuctoo, whither it is brought by the Moors from Morocco. I saw no tanners in Jenné.
The most elegant head-dress worn in this place is a red cap, round which a large piece of muslin is rolled in the form of a turban. Men of inferior rank, like the saracolets, wear caps made in the country. The dress of the women consists of a coussabe with a pagne under it. I saw several females with sandals. They plat their hair and wear necklaces of glass, amber, coral, and gold ear-rings. Some also wear about the neck plates of that metal which are made in the country. I saw some with nose-rings; they all have their noses pierced, and those who are not rich enough to buy a ring have a piece of pink silk in its stead. They wear silver bracelets of a round form, and their ancles are encircled by flat rings of plated iron, four inches broad, which cover them completely.
The price of an ordinary coussabe of cloth of native manufacture is two thousand cowries; a pair of trowsers costs one thousand, and a pair of slippers three hundred. They are to be had either cheaper or dearer, according to the variety of form or colour. The Moors have magazines well supplied with European merchandise; such as white Guinea cloth, (for they have but little blue) calico, scarlet cloth, paper, muskets, powder, hardware, needles, silk, and sulphur. They sell all these things wholesale. They have also white sugar and tea; but it is only the very rich who can afford such luxuries. I was pleased to find at Jenné that one might use a pocket-handkerchief without being ridiculed; for the inhabitants themselves use it, whereas, in the countries through which I had previously passed, it would have been dangerous to suffer such a thing to be seen. A cake of salt, of the dimensions which I have described in a former part of this volume, costs ten, fifteen, or even twenty thousand cowries, according to the scarcity or abundance of the article; there are smaller cakes, which cost seven or eight thousand cowries.
The Moorish merchants derive considerable profit from their trade in salt. They have great influence over the negroes, who give them credit for being richer than they really are. The poor Mandingo traders, after travelling for two months with loads of colat-nuts on their heads, are obliged to go through the streets of Jenné to sell them; for, being merely articles of luxury, they are not easily disposed of. It is true that a great many are consumed in the neighbourhood of Jenné and on the banks of the river as far as Timbuctoo; but the quantity which is brought from the south is immense, and they are consequently sold at eight or ten cowries each. Certainly at that price the poor Mandingoes can gain nothing; for the expenses incurred on their journey and during the time they stay at Jenné, the fares across the rivers, the passage-duties in the villages, and the requisite presents, absorb all their profits. The cowries obtained by the sale of their colats are appropriated to the purchase of salt, which cannot be bought with their merchandise.