THE INDIGENOUS CIVILIZATION OF THE NORTH
An attempted reconstruction of the prehistoric period—considered
locally—of that portion of Western Central Africa, now known as Northern
Nigeria, would take up many chapters, and would be largely founded upon
conjecture. It suffices to say that in the course of ages, through
the influences of Moorish, Semitic, and probably pre-Semitic Egyptian
culture, fused in later times with Mohammedan law, learning and religion,
there has been evolved in this region a civilization combining a curious
mixture of Africa and the East, to which no other part of the tropical
or sub-tropical continent offers even a remote parallel. And this is the
more remarkable since these territories have been separated from the east
by inhospitable, mainly waterless stretches, and from the north by vast
and desolate sandy wastes; while southwards the forest and the swamp
cut them off from all communication with the outer world by sea. The
peoples responsible for the creation of this civilization did not acquire
the art of building in stone, but, at a cost of labour and of time
which must have been gigantic (slave-labour, of course, such as built
the pyramids) they raised great cities of sun-dried clay, encompassing
them and a considerable area around, for purposes of cultivation and
food-supply, with mighty walls. These walls, from twenty to fifty feet
high and from twenty to forty feet thick at the base, in the case of the
larger cities, they furnished with ponderous and deep towered entrances,
protecting the gates with crenellated loop-holes and digging deep moats
outside. They learned to smelt iron and tin; to tan and fabricate many
leather articles durable and tasteful in design; to grow cotton and
fashion it into cloth unrivalled for excellence and beauty in all Africa;
to work in silver and in brass; to dye in indigo and the colouring juice
of other plants; to develop a system of agriculture including (in certain
provinces) irrigated farming, which, in its highest forms, has surprised
even experts from Europe; to build up a great trade whose ramifications
extend throughout the whole western portion of the continent; to
accumulate libraries of Arabic literature, to compile local histories
and poems, and, in a measure, to become centres for the propagation of
intellectual thought.
That is the condition in which Leo Africanus found them in the sixteenth
century, when he first revealed their existence to an incredulous and
largely unlettered Western world; in which the pioneer explorers of the
nineteenth century found them; in which the political agents of Great
Britain found them ten years ago when destiny drove her to establish
her supremacy in the country. That is the condition in which they are
to-day in this difficult transition stage when the mechanical engines of
modern progress, the feverish economic activity of the Western world,
the invading rattle of another civilization made up of widely differing
ideals, modes of thought, and aims, assailed them.
Will the irresistible might wielded by the new forces be wisely exercised
in the future? Will those who, in the ultimate resort, direct it,
abide by the experience and the advice of the small but splendid band
of men whose herculean and whole-hearted labours have inscribed on
the roll of British history an achievement, not of conquest, but of
constructive statesmanship of just and sober guidance nowhere exceeded
in our management of tropical dependencies? Will they be brought to
understand all that is excellent and of good repute in this indigenous
civilization; to realize the necessity of preserving its structural
foundations, of honouring its organic institutions, of protecting and
strengthening its spiritual agencies? Will they have the patience to
move slowly; the sympathy to appreciate the period of strain and stress
which these revolutionary influences must bring with them; the perception
to recognize what elements of greatness and of far-reaching promise
this indigenous civilization contains? Or will they, pushed by other
counsellors, incline to go too fast both politically and economically,
impatiently brushing aside immemorial ceremonies and customs, or
permitting them to be assaulted by selfish interests on the one hand and
short-sighted zeal on the other? Will they forget, amid the clamorous
calls of “progress” and “enlightenment” that their own proclaimed high
purpose (nobly accomplished by their representatives) of staying the
ravages of internal warfare and healing open wounds will be shamed in the
result if, through their instrumentality, the seeds of deeper, deadlier
ills are sown which would eat away this fine material, destroy the lofty
courtesies, the culture and the healthy industrial life of this land,
converting its peoples into a troubled, shiftless mass, hirelings, bereft
of economic independence and having lost all sense of national vitality?
Thoughts such as these must needs crowd upon the traveller through these
vast spaces and populous centres as he watches the iron horse pursue its
irrevocable advance towards the great Hausa cities of the plains, as he
hears the increasing calls from the newly opened tin mines for labour,
from the Lancashire cotton-spinner for cotton and markets; as he takes
cognisance of the suggestions already being made to break the spirit
of the new and admirable land-law, and of the efforts to introduce a
militant Christian propaganda; as he listens in certain quarters to the
loose talk about the “shibboleths” and “absurdities” of indigenous forms
and ceremonies, the cumbrousness of native laws and etiquette.