the deductions of Nachtigal based on the philological studies of Barth,
according to which the Kanuri are a mixed race of Arab tribes and
Hamitic Kanembu and Tubu,[356] which, gradually losing more and more the
physical and mental peculiarities of the dwellers in the desert, became
merged in the negro population of the conquered country. Of the good
qualities of the desert tribes steeled by a struggle with hostile
Nature, the Kanuri appear to have retained only a certain mental
activity and industry, whilst the moral virtues, such as energy and
chivalry, and the generous bodily characteristics, swamped by the
opposite qualities of the inferior negro type, have disappeared more and
more. Not only has the influence of the intermixture of blood been made
apparent, but also that of the enervating climate of the newly conquered
country, which does not call into play all the powers both of body and
spirit in the same degree as that of the Sahara.[357] As regards
external appearance the Kanuri in general are far inferior to many other
tribes in the country owing to their heavier build and pronounced negro
physiognomy. One may well describe them as of an ugly, thickset type;
their women, moreover, still further disfigure themselves, at least
according to European ideas of beauty, by staining the teeth red and
wearing in the nostril the inevitable plug of coral or stud of metal.
Their chief characteristics are untrustworthiness, love of good living,
and true negro levity. Still the assertion of Monteil that Bornu is
justly called by the Hausas and Fulani ‘the Land of Lies’,[358]
certainly suits the Kanuri in no higher degree than other tribes with a
strong negro strain. When, on the other hand, the German travellers
Barth, Rohlfs, and Nachtigal lay eulogistic stress on the estimable
qualities of such people as Shehu Umar, this is almost always a sign
that in the case of these particular individuals the intermixture of
negro blood has not yet been thoroughly assimilated.
The quality which shows the Kanuri in an advantageous light as compared
with other peoples is their industry; in spite of their undeniable love
of pleasure, they do not leave all the hard work to the women and
slaves, as is so very very common in the Sudan and especially in almost
all negro countries, and it is this that has rendered possible the rich
cultivation of the country.[359] In spite of this activity, much that
one may consider as signs of a higher civilization appears to have been
lost, such as the use mentioned above of burnt bricks in earlier times.
The influence of Islam is everywhere unmistakable; often indeed it is
purely formal, but it is the predominant religion of the country, and in
spite of contact—in the Eastern Sudan—with the fanatical sect of the
Senussi, conducts itself throughout in tolerant fashion. On the other
hand, it can scarcely be denied that Islam has favoured in every respect
that deeply rooted inclination towards slave-raiding, on which the
European Powers have latterly for the first time imposed some check. The
ordinances of the Koran are very laxly observed, as is shown especially
by the very slightly secluded life of the extremely coquettish Kanuri
lady, who is thus enabled to play a definite part in public life,[360]
and who even apart from this shows none of the reserve of her sisters in
strict Mohammedan countries. This freedom goes so far that, at least in
the larger towns, the women show themselves in the streets and exhibit
an exceedingly wanton demeanour, to which even the ladies of royal blood
form no exception.[361] Finally, in harmony with this looseness of
manners is the lack of piety towards the dead, in which the Kanuri
compare very unfavourably with many pagan tribes.[362] The practices
peculiar to Islam are shown by the conscientious observance of the
Mohammedan feasts; the existence of a mosque or ‘masallachi’[363] which
is never lacking anywhere, though it often consists of nothing more than
an enclosed rectangular space; and the instruction of a large proportion
of boys in the teaching of the Koran. If the teaching generally consists
only in the thoughtless repetition by rote of the first chapters of the
Koran,[364] still one meets more people in Bornu than in other countries
of the Central Sudan who can reproduce the words of their native
language in the letters of the Arabic alphabet. However little may be
the value of the ‘high schools’ of the larger towns, of which Rohlfs and
Nachtigal inform us, and however scanty may be the knowledge of the
‘beggar-students’ taught there,[365] still it is to be observed that
Barth met people at the Court in Kukawa who knew enough to be able to
converse with him on the subject of Ptolemy.[366] Moreover, the fact
that a part of the history of Bornu, as we have seen above, could have
been handed down in written form, is surely owing to this unmistakable
impulse towards education.
It is obvious that in so purely Mohammedan a country as Bornu is, there
is no pictorial art to be met with apart from the decoration of houses
and utensils. On the other hand it happens that music is extensively
cultivated; besides long coach-horns and the ‘algeita’[367] found all
over the Sudan, which is a wind instrument evolving the most clamorous
dissonances, there are also many string instruments, by means of which
very pleasing melodies are produced. Music finds multifarious
applications in Bornu, and even serves to spur the people to labour
cheerfully in the fields.[368]
The fact that the dress of the natives in Denham’s time—apart from the
fact that European influence is now predominant—was subject to certain
definite fashions, may perhaps be considered as a sign of a fairly high
state of culture. In Barth and Vogel’s time the women wore their hair in
a sort of helmet shape, quite different from the fashion prevailing
now,[369] though the tattoo marks usual at that time, numerous parallel
lines or three scars on each cheek, are still partly retained to-
day.[370] The tobe and burnous, formerly invariably worn by men, have
now in many cases been replaced by the Dervish dress introduced by
Rabeh. The Kanuri bestow great attention on their external appearance
and show a preference for costly stuffs; besides those manufactured in
the country itself, excellent cotton fabrics are imported by way of
Tripoli and the Niger, and as a result of this their taste is constantly
changing. This has become especially noticeable in the last decade, and
is shown by the preponderance of East Sudan influence over that of the
Hausa States, which was formerly predominant, in the dress of the Bornu
troops, consisting of wide trousers, the fez, and the Rabeh ‘gown’, worn
especially by the infantry. The cavalry have to a large extent retained
the old equipment, which from the remotest times has been peculiar to
the Central Sudan, consisting of a coat of mail worn under the clothes,
made of a thickly wadded cotton quilt, which can protect both horse and
rider against poisoned arrows or throwing knives, and a helmet, which is
occasionally furnished with a piece of chain-mail[371] to cover the nape
of the neck. They are still armed, even to-day, with the lance, though
besides this various kinds of missile weapons—such as the infantry
invariably carry—are included in their equipment.
Houses and utensils have not been subject to change in the same degree
as clothes, and thus they have preserved the same forms as were observed
by the earliest travellers in Bornu and which were so fully described,
especially by Nachtigal.[372] In all villages or the suburbs of towns
one finds round huts with conical roofs of the shape usual throughout
the Sudan. The substructure consists either of mud walls or of a wooden
framework covered with matting, the roof of various material usually
furnished by the stalks of whatever grain is to be had locally. On the
topmost point of the roof, which is generally thickly overgrown with
gourd tendrils, is often fixed an ostrich egg as a symbol of
fertility.[373] In the towns there are houses usually of one rarely of
two stories of rectangular design with thick walls of sun-dried brick or
mud and the flat roofs customary throughout the East. The majority of
these houses stand in a compound formed by mud walls, which render it
impossible to see into them from outside. The dwellings of all men of
rank are built in this style, as also are the mosques which have no
minarets. The bare outer walls are generally without any ornament, only
the party-walls and square pillars of the houses of the great are
decorated with a fresco of paint in three colours.[374] Only such
material as is found in the country is employed in house-building, viz.
wood, mud—often mixed with cow-dung—and mats of various kinds.[375] In
spite of their apparent solidity the mud houses nevertheless do not
afford the same protection against the ravages of the rainy season as
the huts with conical roofs, which carry off the water better.
The villages, in which the round hut predominates, are as a rule open;
on the other hand, places whose importance is expressed externally by
the prevalence of massive buildings are surrounded by a more or less
considerable mud wall, the inside of which is buttressed by sort of
stairs leading upwards, and which can even be arranged for the reception
of cannon.[376] No town of any size is without a ‘dendal’, or High
Street, which, apart from the market, is the centre all day long of life
and activity. The internal arrangement of the houses is extraordinarily
simple and is without much comfort, being generally confined to round
huts filled with household furniture, among which the most prominent
utensils are tastefully ornamented calabashes and carefully plaited
grass dish-covers.
Amongst the employments which fill up the daily life of the Kanuri, and
in which is almost universally recognized to an extensive degree the
principles of the division of labour and the separation of professions,
the most prominent are those connected with the operations of
agriculture,[377] whose sole implement throughout the country is the
hoe, and the breeding of cattle. The Kanuri devote special attention to
their market-gardens—this care is also displayed by some of the other
tribes of Bornu—and thus render it possible in the dry season by means
of artificial irrigation to make use of the soil and produce vegetables
of all sorts. These market-gardens, of numberless small shapes, have
rectangular beds lying parallel to each other, which—like the moulds of
a blast-furnace—are connected by channels and are irrigated by means of
hydraulic contrivances from deep wells, in constructing which the Kanuri
are past-masters,[378] or from the surviving pools of the dried-up
rivers.[379]
The Kanuri wealth in cattle is in some places extraordinarily large, and
the great attention which they pay especially to their horses is a
peculiarity unmistakably inherited from their Arabic or Hamitic tribal
ancestors. In harmony with this is the great love of animals displayed
by the Kanuri, which forms a sympathetic trait in their character, and
which is caused by their often being engaged in capturing and taming
wild animals.[380] The herds of cattle, some of which are employed as
pack-animals, supply the Kanuri first and foremost with milk, which is
never made use of in its fresh state, but not until it has been curdled
by the admixture of cow’s urine.[381] Even the butter, which the Kanuri
everywhere know how to make, always has the fatal aftertaste of this
unpleasant addition to the milk.
Fishing is eagerly carried on in the rivers with small nets, the
fisherman being supported above the water by two hollow calabashes
connected by a stick—these are also used for the manufacture of
rafts.[382]
Whilst both men and women share in agricultural work, the manufacture of
industrial products, as for example even the artistic embroidering of
the short bodices worn by the women,[383] is almost entirely confined to
men. The two commonest industries are those of textile products and
leather. The former obtains its raw material from the rich cotton farms
of the country; the thread made from this cotton is first manufactured
into strips as broad as a man’s palm, in which state it is already an
article of value, and these are then sewn together to form various kinds
of garments. The dyeing of these garments and the embroidering of them
in tasteful designs is, especially in the large towns, a common branch
of industry. From the hides of slaughtered cattle[384] the Kanuri know
how to produce excellent morocco leather generally of a red colour,
which is then manufactured in the country itself into durable and
beautifully patterned articles, such as cushions, travelling bags, and
cartridge-belts, as well as riding-boots, slippers, and so forth. A not
insignificant rôle is also played by the products of the salt-
works[385]—which article is also partly obtained from the ashes of salt-
producing plants[386]—and those of the smiths, who although obliged to
obtain most of the raw material for their craft from other countries,
yet have even ventured on the casting of cannon.[387]
The products of agriculture and industry are only sold privately to a
small extent, but they are objects of the liveliest barter in the
markets of the towns and the larger villages. Here the various kinds of
merchandise can each show their special quarter, which at the same time
serves as a workshop for many industrial products. Under the
superintendence of a special functionary, the ‘Maisuk’,[388] and in the
presence of numerous auctioneers and brokers, there is displayed in the
market, especially at midday, an almost international conglomeration and
an unparalleled crowd, which better than anything else shows the quick
commercial instincts of the Kanuri people. They have here an opportunity
to bring into play their mercantile inclinations, though these, indeed,
are even to-day still united with that unreliability and
faithlessness—even among the higher ranks—of which we hear complaints as
early as Leo Africanus.[389]
On the other hand, the military spirit—as is sufficiently proved by the
history of the last few years—has disappeared more and more. Already
Denham was able to describe the Kanuri as an unwarlike nation.[390] Even
the numbers of the army have steadily declined. Whilst Vogel still
speaks of an army of 22,000 horse and 10,000 foot as having advanced
into the Musgu country,[391] the numbers to-day would not amount to the
half of this for the whole of the territory inhabited by Kanuri. The
stimulating effect of the military spirit of Rabeh’s troops was only
temporary; the only things that have remained permanent are externals,
such as the ‘fantasia’ which Sanda, the Sultan of German Bornu, holds
even at the present day at his capital of Dikoa on every Friday and at
every Mohammedan festival; on these occasions large quantities of powder
are blazed away and all the pomp at his command is displayed. Together
with the disappearance of the military spirit has dwindled more and more
the power and influence of the ‘Koganawa’ or higher officials, as well
as that of the ‘Kachellas’ or military commanders, whose position to-day
consists of little more than the title, which in long past times was far
more important than at present. Moreover, with the partition of Bornu
between England, France, and Germany, the old Sultanate automatically
ceased to exist. The Sultans, who formerly stood in a subject relation
to Bornu, such as those of Gulfei, Kusseri, Logone, and Mandara, are to-
day on a perfect equality with the Shehu of Dikoa, the descendant of the
last Bornu dynasty, so that all distinction between them has
disappeared.
Of the Hamitic tribes settled in Bornu Proper who have contributed to
the formation of the Kanuri race, only the Kanembu, the inhabitants of
Kanem,[392] are still to be met with along a narrow strip of the south-
west shore of Chad. But the traces in Bornu of an older race, which
Barth asserts were distinguishable in his day, have now been lost.[393]
Even the characteristic shields of ‘ambach’ wood[394] can to-day
scarcely be still considered as a peculiarity of the Kanembu, as
Nachtigal thought,[395] since they are also found in use by the Kanuri
and Shuwa Arabs of the villages on the south bank of Chad, which often
show a very varied mixture of tribes.
To the tribes settled in Bornu before the advent of the Kanuri belong a
whole string who were absorbed in the conquering people and lost their
own characteristics, but there are others who retained their
individuality and who can still be distinguished from the former even at
the present day.
The largest and most important tribe is that of the Masa in Western and
South-Western Bornu, to whom both Barth and Nachtigal devoted an
exhaustive linguistic study; with them are to be reckoned the Makari or
Kotoko, the islanders of Lake Chad, the Gamerghu, the Mandara or
Wandala, and the Musgu.[396]
Among the smallest of these are the Mohammedan Gamerghu—who even in
Barth’s time had been for the most part extirpated[397]—whose villages
are scattered along the middle Yedseram in Kanuri country, and who thus
have very little chance of bringing into play their tribal
peculiarities. Very important, however, on one ground or another, is the
rôle that has been played in former times by all the other branches of
the Masa.
The Makari or Kotoko and the Logone people, who can scarcely be
distinguished from them, are the most civilized of these, although in
Barth’s time their Mohammedanism was not more than sixty years old.[398]
These tribes inhabit the great flooded district between the Shari, the
Logone, and the connecting system of canals somewhat north of the
eleventh parallel of latitude. They are more heavily built even than the
Kanuri, appear to be of a more serious and steadier nature than that
frivolous people—a quality, however, which inclines them to listen to
the call of witchcraft—and on that account seem to be more trustworthy
and more energetic. The rest of their mode of life corresponds to their
greater solidity of character. This is shown even in the building of
their townships.[399] Manifold are the forms of the massive often two-
storied mud buildings, which have a pleasing appearance owing to the
changing shapes of the doorways and windows and the crenellated edges of
the thick walls decorated with turrets. The numerous nooks and corners
of the narrow lanes and the high walls with their very narrow gateways
make up a whole that reminds one, in towns such as Affade, Gulfei,
Kusseri, and Logone (Karnak), of the ramifications of a castle of the
Middle Ages.
Where so civilized a spirit finds expression it is natural that
industries should be prominently developed; so besides excellent woven
fabrics one meets all over the country with extraordinarily fine basket-
work; in fact the Logone baskets, plaited in three-coloured patterns,
are amongst the most beautiful industrial products of the Central Sudan.
But besides this agriculture receives the most careful attention; the
population is generally pretty thickly distributed and needs an
unusually large quantity of food which will grow in a small space.[400]
Of the species of grain found in Bornu, maize is here especially
cultivated and certainly with great care. Moreover, along the many
water-courses of the country the fisheries are very important, a branch
of employment that soon makes itself very noticeable by the strong smell
of fish offal in the towns. The people who live along those rivers that
always contain flowing water have been compelled to develop a form of
navigation of the highest interest. Their roomy barges with long beak-
shaped prows and flat bottoms, which Dominik compares with the dahabeas
of Egypt, are cleverly built of broad planks, and are moved forward by
oars as broad as a man’s hand or by long poles.[401] Besides this,
smaller canoes are also employed which are manufactured from hollowed
out tree-trunks. In dress the Kotoko and Logone people differ from the
Kanuri principally in the fact that the tobe is hardly at all worn any
longer, much more prevalent is the East Sudan dervish dress; their
weapons, on the other hand, do not appear to have any obvious
differences.
Amongst the allied tribes, the Mohammedan Wandala or Mandara have to
suit their habits of life to some extent to the mountains[402] which
border their country on the south, and which owe their name—not a very
distinctive one—to this tribe; whilst the islanders of Lake Chad, partly
intermixed with Kanembu and other tribes, are the embodiment of a people
living half in and half out of the water. They, too, are for the greater
part Mohammedan[403] and fall into two great subdivisions.[404] The
Yedina[405] or Budduma inhabit the northern and larger part of the Chad
archipelago, the Kuri the smaller and southern. Whilst the former build
big barges singularly resembling those of the Shari, besides possessing
also smaller vessels made of ‘ambach’ wood, the means of transport used
by the Kuri, though here there is a close imitation of the barges used
on the Shari,[406] are nothing more than a canoe-shaped bundle of
‘ambach’ stems.[407] Bigger logs of this light material, which every
man—Kuri as well as Budduma—carries with him on his hunting and raiding
expeditions,[408] enable them to cross in very convenient fashion even
those places where the water indeed has disappeared, but where mud a
yard deep forms a dangerous hindrance to traffic. This means of
locomotion, excellently adapted to the constantly shifting distribution
of the waters of the lake, at any time difficult of access, may have
been an inducement towards the propensity for robbery of the Chad
islanders, although they have sufficient resources in their own fields
and herds, and the abundance of game[409] and fish. Even if they are in
friendly commercial intercourse with one or other of the villages on the
banks, still the dwellers in Lake Chad as a whole correspond to what the
Tuaregs are for the country to the north of the River Yo; in fact, the
‘pirates of the Chad’[410] are scarcely less audacious than the dreaded
robber bands of the Southern Sahara.[411]
Of the tribes belonging to the Masa, the pagan Musgu people doubtless
deserve our chief attention, firstly, on account of their numerically
large population, and secondly, also on account of their interesting
national customs, which furnish ethnographers with many hints for
connecting them with the tribes of the watershed between the Shari and
the Congo, and even with the dwellers farther south. Among these
characteristics belongs especially the use of the throwing-iron, a
weapon which is found far within the Congo basin and takes the place of
bow and arrow.[412]