JENNE--YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY
During the miseries of the three centuries following upon the Moorish
conquest Gao disappeared. The Touaregs swept through it, and left
behind them a mere fraction of the grandeur and civilisation, the
customs and ancestral traditions, of the Songhoi capital. Barth was
fortunate in finding even the site of the city remaining. A massive
tower (such as we see at Timbuctoo), representing both the ruin of the
grand mosque and the tomb of Mohammed Askia, was, with the exception of
a few native huts, all that he found there.
Jenne, most happily, has reached us nearly intact. So complete is this
town that we can trace the thoughts and life of the Songhoi people in
it better than we could ever have done at Gao. By what miracle has it
been preserved? By none, but simply by the exceptionally privileged
position of the town and its surrounding country. The land here
marvellously resembles that of Egypt, and the emigrants were evidently
struck by the similarity, realising that their peculiar qualities would
best thrive in this place.
What more could they ask than this vast plain, periodically inundated
by the united rise of the Niger and its confluent the Bani. The
Kouakouru, a curious and important channel, connects these rivers
with Jenne. From July to November the stream flows from the Bani to
the Niger, for the four succeeding months it flows from the Niger to
the Bani, and during the rest of the year it has no current at all.
This alternation has been remarked by the natives, and recorded in
the following naïve observation: ‘Our country is watered by two great
rivers that marry at Mopti. The Bani is the male, and the Niger is
the female element. At first the Bani fills the Niger, but some time
afterwards the Niger, grown great, returns its fulness to the Bani.’
[Illustration: MAP OF JENNERI]
The scientific explanation of this phenomenon is simple. The Niger
and the Bani pursue an almost parallel course, and are enlarged at
the same period of the year by the same rains. The course of the
Niger is impeded, however, by great natural dams, and it has in
addition to fill the Pools of Dia and Bourgoo, while that of the Bani
is free, and augments no reservoirs. Inasmuch as the waters of the
Niger are more considerable, the two rivers do not overflow at the
same time of the year. The Bani rises first, and as it encounters no
obstacle, and suffers no diminution, it can by means of the Kouakouru,
transfer its superabundance to the Niger. The larger river attains
its fullest height later on, and it is then the Niger that flows
into its diminished confluent. The immense plain is flooded from
September to October, and during this period the waters of the Bani
are at their highest. This is not the case with the Niger, but its
mass is nevertheless greatly augmented, and forms a barrier against
the rapid currents of the Bani at Mopti. The level of the latter,
owing to this dam of water, begins to rise. The Pool of Kouakouru and
the various channels rise also, and the surrounding country, owing
to the absence of protective dykes, is flooded. At this period the
appearance of the region closely resembles that of the valley of the
Nile in times of inundation. The villages of the Songhoi agriculturist
emerge from the sheet of water like those of the Fellahs. They are
built of the same light grey clay upon mounds more or less artificial,
and are interspersed with the same feathery tufts of palm-trees.
The roads and the banks of river, channels, and pools have entirely
disappeared, canoes being the only means of communication remaining to
the villagers. The great plain has become a great sea strewn with grey
islands crested with green.
The waters subside in November, and rice (the principal cereal of this
region), having been planted in the first rains, is then harvested. The
soil being moist and easily worked, a second harvest of millet or maize
is prepared. The wonderful fertility of the ground is such that two
closely consecutive harvests may be obtained from it.
‘Fortune has showered its gifts upon Jenneri,’ says the old chronicle;
‘its markets are held every day of the week, and its populations are
very numerous. Its seven thousand villages are so near to one another
that the chief of Jenne has no need of messengers. If he wishes to send
a command to Lake Debo, for instance, it is cried from the gate of the
town, and repeated from village to village, by which means it reaches
its destination almost instantly.’
The meeting of many channels in this golden land severs an island from
the plain, and that island is Jenne.
Was it chance, or was it intention resulting from inquiry, that drew
the first Songhois to establish here the frontier town of their empire?
It matters very little; inspiration or choice was equally remarkable.
[Illustration: THE ISLAND AND TOWN OF JENNE]
The position was impregnable. If it were attacked in the fall of the
rivers, when its girdle of waters was fordable in parts, its banks
(from twenty to sixteen feet high), crowned by a ten-foot wall, still
presented an inaccessible front. In the floods the enemy would have
required special apparatus and instruments of war which were unknown
in those days. To starve it into capitulation would have been the work
of at least two years; and it would have needed a formidable army to
blockade both land and water, for Jenne is defended by its channels,
pools, and floods as much as by its walls.
Its inhabitants do not forget to tell you that Jenne, alone among all
the cities of the Sudan, was never taken, destroyed, nor pillaged. The
_Tarik_ confirms this assertion. When Gao and the rest of the Songhoi
empire became the tributaries and vassals of the powerful kingdom
of the Mali, Jenne and its people remained independent. ‘There were
many battles, nearly a hundred, and the people of Jenne were always
victorious. After the last defeat the Malinkas said, “We will come
again”; but in this year (1664) in which I write, the hundredth battle
has not been fought, and the Malinkas have not returned.’
Proud of its wealth and conscious of its power, was it at the height
of the Mali supremacy that Jenne broke loose from the links binding it
to the decadent Songhoi empire, and asserted its independence? Most
probably it was, inasmuch as, somewhere about that time (fourteenth
century), the army of Mossi took Timbuctoo, and separated Jenne
completely and effectively from the rest of the empire. When Sunni Ali
restored the power of the Songhois, his longest and most obstinately
opposed campaign was directed against these people. He invested the
town, and, according to some, he devoted seven years, seven months, and
seven days to the siege; others allow only four years. However that may
be, his entire army was collected in the country for so long a period
that his soldiers turned farmers. Jenne being suddenly threatened with
famine, the chief of the town proposed peace, and Sunni Ali, wearied
out on his side, hastened to accord the most honourable terms. So far
from humiliating it in the day of its capitulation, he seated his
former enemy on his right hand, married his mother, and, most important
of all as far as we are concerned, he respected the town.
Thus returned to the bosom of the Songhoi empire, Jenne supported her
lot with resignation. In the Moorish conquest she compounded with
the victors, as she did later with the Foulbes, and again a hundred
years after with the Toucouleurs. She would have spontaneously opened
her gates to Colonel Archinard had it not been for Alpha Moussa, the
commander of the Toucouleur garrison.
Jenne possesses another advantage in its insular position, from an
archæological point of view. The town, being built in a comparatively
limited space, could not invite the settlement of foreign elements in
any numbers sufficient to influence her appearance and customs. In
another situation the city would have enlarged into suburbs, which,
being incorporated with the town, would, by degrees, have modified its
earlier aspect, as was evidently the case at Gao. But Jenne in her
island has remained as completely herself as if she had been enclosed
in a tower of ivory.
* * * * *
We know that the palaces and temples of the Pharaohs were raised by
blows of the lash, and the fathers of the Songhois probably laboured
under them. The builders of these edifices were themselves content
with modest earthen dwellings; and if the construction of houses in
the new country had been a matter of quarrying and shaping blocks of
stone, they would have been satisfied with the primitive native hut,
and I should not have seen a city of the Pharaohs existing to this
day. Fortunately the Songhois discovered a suitable material for the
building of their town, which was neither the granite nor sandstone of
Egyptian monuments, but was merely a clay, plentifully found in the
island and its neighbourhood. Humble as it was, to these new-comers it
must have been inestimably precious, since it replaced that mud which
the negro is obliged to solidify by mixing with gravel, manure, or any
filth that comes to hand before he can build with it. It was not the
wretched _banco_ that makes Segu so unhealthy when the deluges of the
winter season soak into the infected sponges that represent its houses,
but was a good stiff clay, solid, resisting, and wholesome.
[Illustration: BRICK-MAKING]
They were enabled to make regular bricks from it, flat, long, and
rounded at the ends like those of ancient Egypt. Except in the Songhoi
countries, the negro does not proceed thus, but is content to fashion
his _banco_ into irregular balls as he uses them. These bricks, being
baked by the fierce Sudanese sun, are set in the walls with mortar, and
finally receive a special rough-casting. Dwellings thus constructed are
of great durability, and have all the appearance of being cut from one
enormous block of stone. They defy the heaviest tornadoes of rain and
wind in an astonishing manner, and with some repairing, which consists
entirely of renewed rough-casting, they last for centuries.
These clay bricks are admirably suited to the massive and simple lines
of Egyptian architecture, and the Songhois could build on as large a
scale with them as could the Pharaohs with their great blocks of stone.
Owing to their being enabled to work quickly and easily with this clay,
the town could be begun and completed while the memory of their native
country was still vividly before them.
Above all, the houses of Jenne display that essential characteristic of
Egyptian art--the pyramidal form, which represented solidity to those
ancient architects. The walls of the oldest constructions have a slight
inward inclination, and possess no windows, or only the roughest sketch
of them. Light and air enter through openings cut in the ceiling or
roof. In all the negro habitations the roofs are rounded to carry off
the terrible deluges of winter, but here they are flat, like those of
the valley of the Nile, where rain is scarce. The Songhois knew no more
how to construct an arch than did the Egyptians. The summits of their
dwellings are ornamented by those triangular battlements which may be
seen on the palaces of Rameses Meiamoun. The pylon, which is another
characteristic of Egyptian architecture, gives access to the dwellings
of Jenne, and forms, too, a motive of decoration, the façades of the
houses being adorned with great buttresses of pylonic form. You would
suppose these buttresses were intended to give additional support to
the edifice, but interrogation of the local architects convinces you
that they are merely ornamental adjuncts. Moreover, they are only to
be found in the houses of the wealthy, though the poorer dwellings
are no less solidly constructed. On certain buildings two of these
pylons are united at their summit by a projecting plinth, recalling the
ancient propylon. In short, the effect of the whole, its harmonious
proportions, the symmetrical distribution of its ornamental motives,
and its massiveness, unmistakably proclaim the art of Egypt.
[Illustration]
If we refer to the antique bas-reliefs which reproduce the principal
features of the ancient Egyptian habitations, and to the works of the
orientalists, we shall find they agree in every particular with the
buildings of Jenne. ‘The private houses were simple, and were not
constructed of stone nor granite, as were the temples and palaces,
but of rough bricks. The walls were plastered within and without, and
enclosed a suite of rooms which were not uniformly disposed, but were
divided according to the taste of the proprietor. They consisted of a
ground floor and a second floor surmounted by a terrace. The approaches
to the wealthiest houses were adorned with pylons and obelisks. The
summits and angles of the clay walls were finished by a kind of
framework of reeds held together by transverse bands. The roof was
flat, and formed by placing planks across the length and breadth of the
house; branches and rushes were strewn upon them, and the whole was
covered by a thin layer of earth reduced to the consistency of mud.
This covering slightly projected from all sides of the wall.’
The same methods of construction are pursued in the buildings of Jenne;
all these details are to be found, with others that are veritably
stupefying when seen in the heart of a negro country. A system of
baked pipes is established in every dwelling to carry away the
household water, and latrines, with perfectly constructed drainage, are
established on all the terraces.
The survival, through all those ages, of this method of building is
due, not only to the fact that the town has never been destroyed, but
also to the great durability of the houses. I was shown some which were
three or four hundred years old, their age being proved by the fact
that their ground floors were about three feet below the level of the
street outside. Centuries of layers have raised these roads as they
have those of Jerusalem, which stands to-day fourteen or sixteen feet
above its original level. Successive generations always possessed,
therefore, some models of ancient times, and their types have been
handed down to the present day. The great pent-houses with which
some are supplied form their chief digression. This addition to the
principal doors was provoked by the torrents of rain which threatened
to flood the ground floors. They are massively designed, somewhat
resembling the mantles of our ancient fireplaces, and are in nowise
out of harmony with the façades. One or two courts are arranged inside
the dwellings, and the few openings for air and light in the latter
are embellished with slabs of terra-cotta, ornamentally designed, and
set in the walls. The Moors, who installed themselves at Jenne after
the conquest, introduced the use of windows with wooden shutters in
the Arabian style, the only growth of their art they succeeded in
engrafting. Moreover, these windows were not manufactured in Jenne,
but were imported whole from Timbuctoo.
The Egyptian originality of the town must have been greatly jeopardised
by the Moorish arrival, for the new-comers, impregnated as they were
with Arabian art, would assuredly attempt other innovations. Thanks
to its precious clay, however, Jenne remained unspoiled, for this
substance did not lend itself to the construction of little columns and
colonnades, and Moorish arcades, nor was it suitable for arabesques
and all that slenderness of detail that have caused Fez and Marrakesh
to resemble Cairo and Algiers. Some adaptations would doubtless be
attempted, but they would crumble away in the first rains, and thus
the city has remained faithful to its ancient traditions, preserving
through twelve centuries indubitable proofs of its origin.
* * * * *
Although private houses are numerous, the type of monumental edifice is
lacking. It did exist, however. The domicile of the governor of Jenne
was of much greater dimensions than those of the ordinary dwelling; his
rank, and the custom of maintaining a numerous retinue, would require
it. His house, which was called the Madou, would have supplied us with
the missing example of the Songhoi palace, but unfortunately in the
eleventh century an event occurred which swept away this monument. ‘The
town remained pagan,’ reports the _Tarik_ and popular tradition, ‘until
the fifth century of the Hegira (1050). At that period it followed
the example of its chief Koumbourou, and adopted Islamism. The chief
convoked all the ulemas of the country, and more than four thousand
obeyed the summons. Koumbourou, having shaved his head in their
presence and announced his conversion, asked the ulemas to address the
following prayer to God in favour of the town: That any person who
should arrive there, having quitted his country from poverty and an
inability to live in it, should receive from God such abundant and easy
means of life that he should forget his native land. That Jenne should
become a great centre of commerce, and that its inhabitants should be
overwhelmed with wealth.’ This the ulemas did, and the prosperity of
the town is a proof that God heard their prayers.
‘On becoming a Mussulman Koumbourou destroyed his palace and built a
mosque upon its site. He lived to see its completion, but it was his
successor who surrounded it with walls.’
The zeal of the neophyte has thus robbed us of the sight of an ancient
Songhoi palace. The fact is the more lamentable that the various
Sudanese chronicles give no compensating description of the building.
The temple that was built to the new God somewhat attenuates these
regrets, however, for the grand mosque of Jenne was long famous in the
valley of the Niger, being considered more beautiful than the Kasbah of
Mecca itself.
It was an enormous block, rigidly square, its sides measuring
one hundred and eighty-three feet long by thirty-nine feet high.
Besides the usual pylonic adornments, three groups of buttresses
were distributed on each façade. Every group was composed of three
deep ridges, possessing a projection of nine feet at the base, which
diminished as they rose. The first of these groups was thirty-two
feet from the angles of the building, and they were separated from
one another by an interval of about twenty-six feet. The walls were
crowned with triangular battlements separated by the terminating ridges
of the buttresses, which were of similar form, but greater in height.
The building was oriented with each façade towards one of the cardinal
points, but the sides were not absolutely uniform with one another.
The north and south façades displayed two rows of windows.[6] The north
gave admission to the faithful through two doors, the south through
one only. The eastern (which was the sacred side, that looked towards
Mecca), was uninterrupted by either door or window, and its surface was
only broken by pylonic adornments and the three groups of buttresses.
The western side was also without a door.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE OLD MOSQUE]
The double rows of windows might lead one to suppose that the interior
of the edifice was composed of two stories. It was nothing of the kind;
they lighted a closed gallery which ran round the square. Opposite the
sacred eastern side was a row of nine triforiums.[7] Their dimensions
were analogous to those of the gallery which formed the veritable body
and sanctuary of the edifice. The interior was softly gloomy, its
only light being admitted through some openings in the high ceiling,
by reflections grudgingly let in by the two passages, by some windows
in the great gallery, and by the two doors opening on to the court of
the mosque. This latter occupied a wide space in front of the ninth
triforium, and measured one hundred and fifty feet long, by sixty-five
wide.
In the centre of the building, between the seventh and ninth
triforiums, rose a quadrangular tower, of which two sides measured
twenty-six feet at the base. Steps were cut in it, and it opened on to
the terraced roof by means of an edicule, from which a marabut called
the faithful to the five daily prayers. Another of these edicules was
placed in the centre of the eastern side.
A low wall ran round the building at a distance of sixteen feet from
it, widening respectfully to sixty-five feet before the sacred façade,
and forming there a spacious parade. This was the holy ground in which
the venerated marabuts, together with the scholars and people of
importance, reposed in their last sleep. It was their Pantheon, and
this chosen cemetery harmonised with the high wall that looked towards
the Kasbah. With its ridged buttresses alternating with pylons, and
with no doors nor windows to break its uniform grandeur by a note
of life, this eastern façade gave a very forcible impression of a
mausoleum.
The mosque was built on rising ground in the south of the town. A great
excavation at its feet provided the materials for its construction, and
served to further separate it from the town, so that it stood out from
the surrounding fortifications and houses, soaring above them like a
castle.
Is it necessary to refer once more to the Egyptian atavism revealed in
its massive dimensions, in the plan and symmetry of its construction?
Is it not better to dwell upon the fact that the only materials
employed by its architects were clay and wood, and yet, in spite of
that, their work lasted eight centuries?
It still survived sixty years ago, and would have lasted many centuries
longer if Cheikou Ahmadou, the great Foulbe conqueror, had not
commanded its destruction in 1830.
[Illustration: THE OLD MOSQUE RESTORED]
For a long time this command remained inexplicable to me. How came a
prince, a well-known fanatic, to destroy a mosque? ‘Because there were
so many mosques,’ said one. ‘Because it claimed to be more beautiful
than that of Mecca,’ said another, with greater probability. Priestly
_amour-propre_ caused them to conceal the true reason, and it was a
priestly jealousy that revealed it to me.
I was holding a _séance_ of human documents one day, and among its
members were three marabuts; two of them were natives of Jenne, and the
third was from Segu. In this religious society I did not fail to return
to the question of the destruction of the mosque. Quite in vain; the
two natives reiterated the same imbecile reasons I had already heard,
while the third sat silent, obstinately studying his sandals.
It did not occur to me that there had been any special significance
in this attitude, until I saw him mysteriously reappear very early
next morning. After rapidly examining my dwelling upon all sides, he
entered, and closing the door, he assumed the attitude of the evening
before, saying, ‘You asked us why Cheikou Ahmadou destroyed the old
mosque. I know the reason, but the history of it is unpleasant to
Jenne, and the marabuts naturally do not care to repeat it. That is why
I did not tell it to you yesterday. I will do so now, and you shall go
to them, saying, Is this true?’
Which I did; and the two marabuts confirmed the story, pretending to
have learned it in the interval.
* * * * *
Part of Cheikou Ahmadou’s youth had been spent in Jenne. He was sent
there by his parents to acquire learning from the numerous marabuts and
scholars of the place. As his family was neither rich nor powerful, the
young man was forced to lead the life of a poor student, and the alms
of wealthy merchants were his sole support. The town was prosperous,
and the Sudan was enjoying its last years of comparative tranquillity.
Plenty of amusements went on in Jenne, and strangers lived a joyous
life there, thanks to the laxity that prevailed in manners and matters
of religion.
Young Ahmadou, who, like most of the Foulbes, was austere both from
necessity and a rigid faith--Ahmadou, who was destined to take the
title of Emir of the True Believers, conceived a great horror of all
this depravity. The special quarters of the corruption were none other
than the precincts of the old mosque. The centre of debauch was just
opposite that sacred eastern wall which should have recalled the image
of the Kasbah to the minds of the faithful, and dances were held there
to the sounds of tom-tom and bafalon. Owing to its numerous foreign
elements, the town could supply the whole repertoire of the lascivious
dances of the Sudan. The neighbouring huts sold an intoxicating
drink (a kind of beer called dolo), which was naturally forbidden to
Mohammedans. An evening thus begun often terminated in low houses
erected close to the west wall of the mosque, and even more frequently
the dancers sauntered about the galleries of the mosque itself. Already
full of ambitious plans, Cheikou Ahmadou swore to put an end to these
scandals on the day that God should put the power in his hands.
Twenty-five years later, having destroyed the power of the Roumas and
taken Timbuctoo and Jenne, he kept his word. He also forbade idolatrous
strangers to enter the town, as he considered them the first cause of
the corruption. In order to still further punish Jenne, he founded a
new capital on the right bank of the Bani, calling it El-Lamdou-Lillahi
(To the praise of God), the Hamdallai of to-day. Finally, to purify the
quarter in which the dancing and drinking had taken place, he built
the new mosque, which, simple, bare, and commonplace, marks the spot
to this day. When it was completed he ordained his son and successor,
Ahmadou Cheikou, his grand Iman, and then--he commanded the destruction
of the old mosque (1830).
All that now remains of it is a heap of ruins, surrounded and preserved
by their enclosing walls. The interior of the edifice has disappeared,
the triforiums, the ceiling, the galleries, and the two towers are
totally effaced. The great walls offered more resistance to the
destroyers, and are only partially broken through. With the assistance
of these, and the memories of the old men, my work of reconstruction
was easy enough. The rows of windows are fairly distinguishable, so
are the indented lines of the terrace and the positions of the great
buttresses. Guided by these indications it was not difficult to trace
the walls of the triforiums, the minarets, and the extent of the court.
The only consolation left for its destruction lies in the fact that it
is now possible to verify the great antiquity of the monument. This is
easily done by a method resembling that of the woodman, who determines
the age of a tree by the concentric circles of its trunk. From the
great walls of the façade, whose normal thickness was three feet, I
removed a layer of rough-casting not less than thirty-five inches
thick. According to the old houses, the masons allowed about four
inches a century, which would take us back to the eleventh century, and
this date would correspond with that given by the _Tarik_.
[Illustration: THE RUINS OF THE OLD MOSQUE]
The venerated tombs were the only things respected by Cheikou Ahmadou,
and they now form a cemetery, or rather a charnel-house, in which I
spent many hours of research. I had no idea that I was in a place of
tombs and corpses the first time I saw it. The surface of the earth was
pierced here and there by terra-cotta pipes similar to those employed
in the household drainage of the town. Here, planted vertically in the
soil, you would take them for the chimneys of troglodyte dwellings. But
on looking down these supposed chimneys you find them full of earth;
they are connected with subterranean dwellings, however, for this is
the abode of the dead, and these pipes mark their tombs.
[Illustration: THE CEMETERY IN THE MIDST OF THE RUINS]
In some places the earth had fallen through, and I could distinguish
piles of skeletons that were only separated from one another by thin
layers of earth. The dead sleep so closely to one another that in a
short time there will be more human dust than earth in this little
place. One seldom sees the living in this spot, but there is life here,
of a sort, that is very intense and active, and is produced by the dead
lying below the red tubes.
Eagles and crows, hovering overhead, swoop suddenly down upon the dogs
and rats that dig up the tombs. Legions of red and yellow lizards
frisk unconcernedly about in this world of worms and insects. Goats
and their kids make pretty spots of white and red against the sombre
tones of the ruined walls. They too find a living in this dead heap;
the grass must be savoury here, and they can enjoy such delightful
climbs among these ruins. But the kings of the place are the enormous
iguanas--green, and large as crocodiles; the daintiest morsels of the
charnel-house are for them, and they have traced long passages from
drain to drain. They find many a feast there--corpses, and worms that
they snap up with their long double tongues, rats, lizards, scorpions,
and others. The ground is littered with the remains of its inhabitants:
tibias and shoulder-blades here, femurs there, with occasional shreds
of intestines. There are no skulls. Is it possible that the animals
consider as inferior that part which man values most?
All this is not in the least sad or gloomy. At the foot of the ruins,
from town, market, and crowd, mount the great sounds of life. The sun
pours its floods of intense light and gaiety upon this double death;
upon those mounds where the works of God and the works of man are done
with, and are crumbling away together.
‘Jenne is one of the greatest commercial towns of Islam. The salt of
Thegazza and the gold of Boundou are sought there, and its inhabitants
have acquired great riches. Good fortune is in its soil, and on account
of this blessed city men come to Timbuctoo from all parts.’
So says an old Sudanese chronicle of the sixteenth century. How did
such a commercial centre come about? and why at Jenne rather than any
other town? The reason is to be found in the wealth and configuration
of this part of the Sudan.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF JENNE AND THE OLD MOSQUE]
The wonderful fertility of the soil yields, as we know, a profusion of
exchangeable produce, and the hydrographic system, which gives such
exceptional irrigation to agriculture, also offers means of transport
which is all that could be desired. These great advantages are not
peculiar to Jenne, however, but are common to all the towns above
and below her. Moreover, if her insular position was an excellent
one from point of view of security, it was a serious drawback where
communication was concerned. Segu and Sansanding on one side, and
Mopti, Korienza, Sa, and Sarafara on the other, possessed the advantage
of being situated on the Niger itself; yet Jenne was the town that
attained the greatest celebrity. She not only ranked above Timbuctoo,
but took her place among the great commercial centres of Islam. And why?
Because, among all the towns of the Niger, Jenne alone was a Songhoi
city. Because her inhabitants bore within them the germs of the
great Egyptian civilisation. Because, from the midst of the gloom of
barbarity which covered the whole of the valley, Jenne stood out as the
luminous point in which the cultured man appeared. Because this culture
gave Jenne conceptions, and the means for executing them, that were
unknown to her rivals.
In place of the primitive barter between village and village, and
market and market, she created a true commerce. Her inhabitants
formulated ‘business firms,’ in the European sense of the word, which
were provided with a routine and staff similar to our own. They
established representatives in important centres and opened branches
at Timbuctoo. They sent out travelling agents who received so much per
cent. on the business they accomplished, and were, in fact, no other
than our ‘commercial travellers.’ The staff was composed of relatives
and slaves, or free men who were obliged to earn their living. Among
their numbers there were occasionally, as with us, certain indelicate
members who disappeared with the merchandise that had been intrusted to
them.
Thus organised, Jenne drains the whole of the Sudan in general, and the
south of the valley in particular, through the medium of the markets
of Baramandougou, San, and Bla. The ground floors of its large houses
serve as spacious bonded warehouses by means of which their merchandise
is not exposed to the rain and numerous parasites, as is the negro’s.
These storehouses are filled with cereals, great sacks of rice and
millet, jars full of honey, blocks of karita covered with leaves and
bound with rushes, arachides, spices, onions, cakes of indigo, baskets
of kola nuts, neta flour, monkey-bread (the fruit of the baobab), and
bars of a wonderful iron brought from Karaguana (a country near Mossi),
packets of ostrich feathers, ivory, virgin gold, civet musk; lead from
the mountains of Hombouri and marble bracelets from the same place
(ornaments greatly affected by the inhabitants of Nigerian countries);
antimony, used by the negresses to darken the orbits of their eyes and
increase their brilliancy--the blonde among them (for there are fair
negresses) using it to darken their complexions; native fabrics, fine
linen and woollen textiles, long white lengths of stuff from which
the ample garments of these people are made, _pagnes de Segu_ for the
women, and superb large draperies artistically patterned in yellow,
black, copper-colour, and blue. I must not forget to mention another
kind of merchandise, warehoused in the same place and as much in demand
as any of the preceding, namely, slaves.
There is no specialisation of trade. Every one sells everything:
textiles, human flesh, cereals, metals, and spices. These merchants do
not carry on their real trade in the market--they merely send thither
agents provided with a small stock; their true business is done in the
penumbra of their large Egyptian dwellings.
With this abundance of products, the means of assembling, and shops to
shelter them, there still remains the problem of transport. It was
Jenne that taught the Sudanese the art of commercial navigation. Its
boats could be compared with the aboriginal pirogue as little as the
town could with a native city or its houses with the native huts. The
negro’s canoe is a mere sketch of a boat, hollowed out from the trunk
of a tree, and at the mercy of the least of the Niger’s breezes. It
can only carry the smallest of cargoes, and, in order not to capsize
it, the occupants are obliged to sit motionless as a Buddha in a Hindu
temple or practise the agility of a Japanese equilibrist.
[Illustration: BUILDING A LARGE BOAT]
But the people of Jenne built regular vessels that were large and
steady. The framework or body is not formed of regular planks adjusted
and nailed to the keel, as one would expect, but is made of irregular
blocks of Kaïcedra ebony or cedar-wood. These blocks are pierced
with holes, then juxtaposed like pieces of Mosaic, and held together
by strong hempen cords; the recipe apparently being: Take holes and
surround them with rope and wood. They are finally made sufficiently
water-tight by means of straw, tow, and clay; this method of
construction imparting to them an elasticity that is highly desirable
in view of the frequent groundings encountered on the sandbanks of the
river.
Not being limited to the size of a tree-trunk, the Songhois construct
boats measuring between fifty-eight and sixty-five feet long by ten
broad, and able to carry from twenty to thirty tons. To convey the same
weight by land would necessitate a caravan of a thousand porters, or
two hundred camels or three hundred bullocks. Instead of any one of
these costly methods, a single vessel, with from six to ten boatmen, is
all that is required, which clearly proves the superiority of Jenne to
the surrounding country.
Its great merchants have their own boats devoted exclusively to
transport. The less wealthy have fleets of regular fly-boats at their
disposal, which carry merchandise and passengers at a fixed tariff.
Bars of iron, blocks of karita, jars, anything, in short, that water
cannot damage, are stored in the hold, and upon these are piled sacks
of cereals and the more delicate merchandise. A compact mass is thus
obtained which forms the deck, and upon this the passengers lie or
squat, protected by an awning from the sun. A space is left in the
middle of the hold for baling out and cooking purposes. These fly-boats
travel all day, and only stop at sunset for the evening meal; when
there is a moon the journey is resumed as soon as it rises. For a
consideration of 1500 cowries (2 frs. 50 c.) you can go to Timbuctoo
(a twenty days’ journey), or for three francs you can send thither a
hundredweight of goods.
Other towns, such as Sansanding, Korienza, and Sarafara, learned how
to construct these large boats, which, wherever they may have been
built, are invariably called ‘Jenne boats.’ Little by little an active
commercial movement was diffused among the labyrinths of the Niger. But
Jenne still retained her position as metropolis, owing partly to the
superiority of her inventive resources, and partly to her isolation,
which protected her from the sudden cataclysms and destructions to
which the other cities were subject.
By means of her numerous fleets, her more civilised manners, progress
and architecture spread throughout the western valley, even penetrating
to Timbuctoo and the Kong country. After leaving Bammaku I found
adaptations of her architecture everywhere: in the façades of the royal
dwellings of Segu and in the town gates. All the mosques, though of
more modest proportions, are built in the style of the old mosque at
Jenne.
[Illustration: JENNE: A CORNER OF THE QUAY]
The sole point of contact between these vast regions and the Songhoi
world, Jenne had morally dominated them long before they were actually
conquered by the kings of her race. With this supremacy augmented by
her fabulous wealth, it is small wonder that she was enabled to hold
her own in ‘nearly a hundred battles’ against the Mali kings, who
were practically the masters of the valley. Her work of civilisation
continued uninterruptedly through centuries. Slowly she prepared the
Western Sudan for that sudden and brilliant flight revealed by history
in the great century of the Askias (1500-1600).
This civilising _rôle_ would be a title in itself to a place in the
memories of mankind, but she possessed another of equal importance: she
could claim to be the foundress of Timbuctoo.
Her commercial attention must have been fixed from the first upon that
inestimable commodity which the Sudan lacked, viz. salt. The caravans
bringing it from the Thegazza mines returned by the interior, instead
of diverging to the east towards the river. Their precious burden would
thus be rapidly diffused among the wealthier towns (notably Oualata),
and but a costly fraction of it would reach the banks of the Niger.
Jenne would therefore take especial pains to assure a regular
salt-market from which she could provide herself with large quantities
at a fair price. This would naturally lead her to the discovery of the
admirable geographical position of Timbuctoo, which was situated at
the very doors of the Mali people and on the confines of her frontier.
Caravans could go there direct from the mines, and the merchandise
be secured at first hand; Jenne’s great vessels, her most valuable
auxiliaries, would now enter upon the scene, and the new market would
thus be established.
Timbuctoo (as we shall see later) could hardly be said to exist until
the merchants of Jenne settled there, and brought all that the wealth
of the Sudan could offer to the indigent starvelings of the desert
in exchange for their loads of salt. The traders of Morocco and Tuat
followed in her train, and in this way Jenne, although she did not
actually create, undoubtedly founded Timbuctoo, for she was the means
of transforming the poor hamlet into a great commercial centre of
universal renown.
The Sudanese express this idea in their saying: ‘Jenne and Timbuctoo
are two halves of the same city.’ It is, in fact, a portion of Jenne
that lies out there on the threshold of the desert; her great merchants
have homes and agents in the town, and during several months of the
year they personally direct operations there. But in spite of this,
the parts played in the Sudanese commerce by these two halves are in
no way homogeneous. Jenne’s is the active, preponderating, and most
interesting share; she represents the producer, the great merchant
who settles in the centre of a country to utilise all its powers and
resources. The character of Timbuctoo, on the other hand, is passive;
she is the counting-house, the branch, a mere _dépôt_. Her inhabitants
are brokers, intermediaries, and innkeepers, and she has always been
inferior to Jenne both in wealth and commercial importance. This is why
the old chronicle speaks of Jenne, and not Timbuctoo, as being one of
the most considerable towns of Islam, adding, ‘It is on account of the
blessed city of Jenne that men come to Timbuctoo from all sides.’
How comes it, then, that Timbuctoo has acquired notoriety all over the
world while Jenne has remained comparatively unknown? The distinct
characters of the two towns will explain this injustice. The caravans
of North Africa, Morocco, Tuat, and Tripoli, which made the renown of
Timbuctoo, never went beyond that city, and knew nothing of the Western
Sudan. They had no need to prolong their journey into the south so long
as Timbuctoo offered in great quantities all the merchandise they had
come to seek. Even if it had occurred to the more enlightened among
them that they would obtain these goods at cheaper rates in the country
of their production, the paths thither were encumbered by considerable
difficulties.
Nature, in creating, at the immediate south of Timbuctoo, a land
that was a network of tributaries and channels and was periodically
submerged, had closed the doors of the Sudan against the caravans of
northern Africa. Their camels, admirably adapted to the passage of the
desert, would have been totally useless in such a country, and would
soon have perished from the excessive moisture. The north, therefore
(at that time Europe’s sole source of information concerning the
interior), totally ignored the Sudan proper; they only knew, and could
only know, Timbuctoo. This crushing preponderance is far from obtaining
in the Sudan, however, where the name of Jenne is known to every one,
while Timbuctoo is frequently ignored.
The renown of the Songhoi town extends to the Kong country in the
south, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. She sends merchandise to
the sea-coast; and when the first Europeans trading between Banin and
Cape Palmas asked where the gold and produce offered them for sale came
from, the natives answered ‘from Jenne.’ Her name was thus given to the
Gulf of Guinea, and, indirectly, to an English coin, the guinea, so
called because the first pieces were struck from gold coming from there.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE CHIEF OF THE TOWN OF JENNE]
Of all the great cities of the Niger, Jenne was the one to suffer
least from the long period of anarchy that the history of the Sudan
has revealed to us. Signs of violence are not visible at first sight
as they are at Nyamina and Sansanding. It was, nevertheless, cruelly
used under the Toucouleur dominion. ‘We suffered nothing but vexation
and pillage,’ an old chief told me. ‘El Hadj Omar was a brigand, and
his sons and generals have carried on his trade. Little by little the
town has been emptied of its original inhabitants. Thou wilt find more
of the people of Jenne in the surrounding country than in the city
itself. It was time for the French to come. Colonel Archinard has done
very wisely. When he came before our walls he respected the merchant
quarter, and bombarded only that Toucouleur citadel which is now your
fort.
‘I will not disguise from thee that, in spite of all we suffered
from the Toucouleurs, the arrival of your people was disagreeable
to us. The Toucouleurs were at least Mussulmans, and we were afraid
of the dominion of the Christian. We had been told of many misdeeds
committed by you. But now we are very satisfied. You allow us to make
our prayers, and you do not despoil us as the Toucouleurs did, nor do
you force impious practices upon us, and make us eat and drink unclean
things, as we were told you would. When you have collected the tax you
do not demand more, and you pay for all you want. We can resume our
trades in safety and with greater profit, for the three tolls we had to
pay upon the Niger before reaching Timbuctoo have been removed. This is
why the former inhabitants are returning to us from all sides.’
[Illustration: MARKET IN THE STREETS]
[Illustration: PRECINCTS OF THE DWELLINGS OF THE GREAT MERCHANTS]
In fact, during my stay there many old houses became reinhabited and
new ones were built, and these latter afforded me the opportunity of
observing those Songhoi methods of construction which had been brought
from so far, and were so different from those I had hitherto noticed
among the negroes. The general physiognomy of the town is not less
striking. Its thresholds are no longer encumbered by sleepers and
idlers, nor are its streets obstructed by loafers, as is the custom
elsewhere. A bright energy and an unusual gaiety and elasticity of
movement are astir in the town from early morning. The people hurry
busily about, driving donkeys and carrying burdens, and all are working
to attain some end. I must admit that all this energy is only relative.
In Paris or London I should call it indolence, but in the Black
Continent, under a blazing sun, it does not do to be too particular.
The precincts of the great merchant dwellings are particularly busy,
their doors being literally besieged. A crowd of clients, in the Roman
and commercial sense of the word, are awaiting their turn of audience.
Some fill the streets with a sound of noisy discussion, while others,
preoccupied by their affairs, meditatively crack and peel kola nuts.
Here and there in front of the eastern rampart, where the bank slopes
gently to the commercial gate, slaves load and unload the vessels which
are incessantly coming and going. At the four cross-roads you see low
straw huts (the improvised stalls of the itinerant vendor) looking
conspicuously out of harmony with the large houses. A few women keep a
stall before their door; sometimes they leave their goods with piles
of cowries beside them indicating the prices, while they themselves
are busy about the house. Thus, instead of confining her trade to the
market-place, as is the case in other towns, Jenne cries ‘Commerce!
commerce!’ at every step of the way.
[Illustration: THE COMMERCIAL HARBOUR]
[Illustration: SHOPS OF ITINERANT MERCHANTS]
The market does not present the accustomed haphazard appearance of
its negro counterpart, with merchandise strewn about here, there, and
everywhere. It occupies a large square in the centre of the town, and
is regularly intersected with paths for the buyers and raised places
for the sellers. Rows of shops border three of its sides, and the
fourth opens upon the Mosque, as if in reminder that honesty and good
faith should preside over all its transactions. Sitting surrounded
by calabashes and potteries, the women sell vegetables, milk, fish,
animal butter (salt or fresh), karita, spices, soap, and faggots of
wood. There are three erections formed by square posts in the centre
of the market-place, with a shop between every two posts, in which men
sell the choicer goods--native and European textiles principally, with
salt, kola nuts, slippers, boxes of matches, mirrors, pearls, knives,
etc. The money-changer is stationed here also, with his black face
showing out from between little mountains of cowries. For native gold
(in rings like the moneys of the Pharaohs) and silver coins, varying
from five-franc pieces to fifty centimes, he gives and takes hundreds
and thousands of these little shells. Our gold pieces are not rated,
because--well, because they are not very well known there just yet.
[Illustration: WOMEN SELLING IN THE STREETS]
[Illustration: THE GREAT MARKET OF JENNE]
The butchers’ shops are the most characteristic and picturesque of
all. Dead shrubs, retaining only their principal branches, are planted
before the posts, and the joints of meat are suspended from them, while
live sheep await their turn of cutlets and chops. Primitive furnaces
are established in their near neighbourhood, upon which you may roast
your purchase free of charge, if you buy your fuel from the wood-seller
next door. It is just like a London grill-room; but instead of the
heavy atmosphere and gloom peculiar to the taverns of that city, there
is the vast sky for ceiling, the brilliant sun for light, the bright
and beautiful decoration of an ancient Egyptian town for background,
and a crowd of people clothed in the white draperies of the Songhois
for surroundings.
[Illustration: THE MONEY-CHANGER]
* * * * *
Islamism and Arabian civilisation have been superimposed and so firmly
planted in these countries that a great many Egyptian manners and
customs have disappeared. The embalming of the dead bodies of their
celebrities (one of the most marked characteristics of the peoples of
the Nile) is no longer practised. The Mohammedan religion considered
the practice impious, but the custom survived among the Songhois for a
long time, nevertheless. The old chronicles tell us concerning Ali the
Conqueror: ‘The king being dead, his children caused him to be opened
and the entrails were taken out and replaced by honey, in order that
the body should not become corrupt.’ Unfortunately their documents do
not shed as much light upon other subjects. Nothing recalls the ancient
hieroglyphic or demotic characters. It is true that thin pieces of a
very smooth wood are used instead of paper (which is expensive), to
teach writing to the school-children. The Pharaohic scribes were wont
to employ the same materials, in order to economise the more costly
papyrus. The Arabic writing has entirely obliterated the other, as it
has in Egypt, and, for that matter, as the Koran and Arabian jurist
have effaced the native judicial customs.
[Illustration: THE BUTCHER]
But you have only to enter their houses, and penetrate their private
life, to find in manners and customs many very characteristic
indications of their origin. Their oral traditions, their chronicles,
and their dwellings all betray their Nilotic fatherland. The Songhois
resemble a palimpsest on which the first manuscript is dimly
decipherable. Fragments are, and always will be, missing, but the
omissions are those which it is easy to supply.
Among the favourite divinities of ancient Egypt, the crocodile was
especially dear to the priests of Thebes and Crocodilopolis, and the
cult is still to be found at Jenne under a form naturally attenuated.
The town and its environs are frequented by enormous green iguanas very
similar to crocodiles. In Senegal and elsewhere the natives hunt this
saurian for the sake of its flesh, which is very fine and delicate--so
I am told. The people of Jenne, on the other hand, consider it sacred,
and to kill it is to commit sacrilege. ‘The Koran does not forbid its
meat,’ replied the marabuts to whom I reported this custom of the
negroes, ‘but we venerate the iguanas because our fathers did so.’
[Illustration: CORNER OF THE MARKET]
The dove, the oracular bird of the temple of Ammon, enjoys similar
privileges at Jenne; nests and food are arranged for them in the
houses, and they are never by any chance put upon the spit. The respect
paid to the dove by these people is known of in Nigerian countries
other than Songhoi, where they are called ‘birds of Jenne.’
[Illustration: JENNE: THE HAIRDRESSER]
The same ready sweetness of disposition that has already been ascribed
to the Egyptian races forms the psychological basis of the Songhoi
character. The chronicler of the _Tarik_, a man of the Sudan but not
of this race, has been struck by this. ‘The characteristics of its
inhabitants,’ he says, ‘are sympathy, kindness, and generosity.’ They
gave me an impression of that goodness and spirit of charity with which
the old Egyptian papyri are so strongly imbued. The following was the
happy altruism of the old Jenne merchant who said to me (explaining
the system of their commission agents): ‘We trust our merchandise to
people who have no goods; they sell it for us throughout the country,
and part of the profit is theirs. If they have the will they can become
merchants in their turn.’ And he concluded, ‘It is a disgrace to beg
here, for among us it is possible for every one to earn a living.
However poor he may be, a man has but to work to become rich.’
We will now pass to more commonplace comparisons. Contrary to Oriental
and Arab usage, but conformably with ancient Egyptian custom, it is
the men among the Songhois who weave the textiles, and not the women.
The latter do the spinning and dyeing. Moreover, the Nigerian negro
knows only one colour, the blue of his indigo, but the Songhoi uses
black, yellow, and copper-red vegetable dyes. The ornamental motives
employed are severely symmetrical, the most frequently used being that
alternation of dark and light squares so often found in the hangings
and draperies of the Egyptian frescoes. Among their finer tissues one
deserves special attention; it is a luxurious stuff, used for shawls or
turbans, and woven with an uneven surface resembling our honey-combed
towelling.
Among the artisans we can trace vestiges of a division into companies.
Masons and blacksmiths alike are furnished by certain families, the
trades descending from father to son. Both occupations recognise the
supreme authority of one of their number, who takes his place among
those personages of the town who deliberate and control public affairs.
Masonry is man’s work here, while in the negro countries it is the
women who build the houses.
While Senegalese and Sudanese lean towards blue as the prevailing tint
of their garments, the Songhois show a preference for white, like the
Nubians; and rice, not millet, is their staple food. Their kuss-kuss
is not taken from calabashes, but is served in cups of baked clay
similar in every point to those in the scenes of repast depicted upon
the Egyptian tombs. The various forms of their numerous potteries also
recall the antique specimens of the same land; and they have real
wooden bedsteads instead of the lump of earth, covered with skins,
that serves the negro as a place of repose....
* * * * *
[Illustration: JENNE: THE BARBER]
The last day at Jenne! I have been employed since morning in receiving
processions of the friends I have slowly gained among her inhabitants.
Oh! very slowly. Our first acquaintance was not made without much
hesitation, suspicion even. They could not understand this European,
the first they had ever seen, who was neither soldier nor trader. My
incessant and entirely unexpected questions bewildered them. They
looked at one another and laughed as the interpreter transmitted them,
and were obviously thinking, ‘What absurd idea has the white man got
into his head? What has all this got to do with him?’ Then, hearing
that their most learned marabut was reading the _Tarik_ to me, and
that I gathered marabuts about me and blacked sheets of paper as I
listened to them, they began to classify me accordingly and called
me the ‘marabut-toubab’ (the white marabut), and the nick-name soon
became popular. By-and-by I became a subject of much salutation in my
walks abroad. The men greeted me in Arabian fashion, with the right
hand placed first to the forehead and then to the heart; the women
with a gracious movement of the left hand similar to the military
salute. I did not deceive myself, however; these demonstrations merely
expressed much compassion and indulgence for a harmless lunatic, an
inoffensive imbecile, ‘the man with the questions.’ But when I could
speak with some knowledge of their ancestors, their epopee, and their
little anecdotes: ‘Iho, iho’ (ah, ah!), they triumphantly exclaimed,
‘thou wilt write a Tarik for the whites about the blacks!’ After this
they lent me their books willingly enough, and opened their doors to
me, even introducing me to the women’s apartments. Thus the monomaniac
became, bit by bit, more than a mere acquaintance, and an indulgent
contempt was exchanged for a real affection. Their farewell visits
(entirely unexpected) revealed this to me, and I discovered that I too
had a feeling for some of them which was more than sympathy. They all
brought some offering, a small souvenir, a few provisions, and little
notes in Arabic, representing letters of introduction. Kindly wishes
for the journey were mingled with affectionate questions: ‘Would I come
and see them again?’ ‘Should we talk together once more of Dialliaman,
the impious Sunni Ali, and the unhappy old age of Askia the Great?’ In
order to justify my reputation of ‘marabut-toubab,’ I said to them:
‘Yes, we shall all meet again. Not here, but in a country where there
are neither blacks nor whites, in the land of Allah, where you will be
white like me.’ Whereat we all laughed together for the last time.
Towards the end of the afternoon, as the hour of the prayer that must
be said at sunset approaches, they all withdraw, and I go up to the
terrace of my house. From that height the town, the island, and the
three channels that join to sever Jenne from the mainland, look as
though drawn upon a map. After having pressed the hands of its friendly
inhabitants, I wish to take a last look at this country which has so
impressed itself upon my imagination.
The plain is scattered with white dots like daisies, but they are
moving daisies, all possessed by the same motive and all drawn towards
the town as to the sun. On the banks of the river the white dots
collect in groups; they are the people hastening to their houses at the
close of day, and waiting for the canoe ferry-boat to take them over
the water. Dark spots now appear in the distance making for the same
point; they are troops of horses returning from pasture. They wait for
no ferry-boat, but precipitate themselves into the water that separates
them from their stables. Finding no one waiting for them at the gates,
they gallop through the town, joyously chasing, kicking, and nibbling
each other. The streets are filled with a delightful uproar, cries,
laughter, and swirling movements of voluminous white draperies as the
foot-passengers start aside from the frolicsome animals. When the
latter have had their play out, they go peaceably home in search of the
masters who have given themselves no trouble to look for their beasts.
All sounds gradually die away in the town. A marabut has climbed to the
terrace of the great mosque, and cries, ‘God is great!’ The surrounding
terraces are peopled with white forms, which stand out against the
summits of the palm-trees and the green of the baobab. Their backs are
turned to the purple splendours of the dying light, for their faces
look towards the already darkened east, which is lighted for them by
that eternal light in which Mecca is to be found.
The silence is harshly broken by a brazen sound; it is the bugle from
the fort sounding the call for rations....
The plain is now a vast desert, phantasmagorically illuminated. Above,
the sky flames into every imaginable colour, and the channels, scarcely
visible a moment ago, blaze into a reflection of the ardour of the sky,
while the rows of ospreys upon their banks look like necklaces of pink
pearls. Then all the enchantment is overwhelmed in the sudden darkness
of a tropical night.
Farewell, my friends, whose lips are murmuring prayers unknown to mine!
Farewell, strange island! Farewell, mother of Timbuctoo, thou Egyptian
Jenne to whom I owe the unimaginable joy of having lived, at the end of
the nineteenth century, in a city of the Pharaohs!