above a century later than El Idrísí, after stating that Kánem is the
greatest kingdom of Negroland, that it has Fezzán on the north, and that
it is the head of Bornú, adds, that it has on the west Kaúkaú, Baghárah
or Taghárah, Tekrúr, &c. He says also, that “from Tádmekkah to Kaúkaú
are ten stages, from Kaúkaú to Ghánah twenty; then follows the Ocean.”
The reduced distance here allowed between Tádmekkah and Ghánah, may have
arisen from confounding the Kaúkaú of the desert with the city of the
same name (called also Kúghah and Kághó) on the Great River. But on one
point Ibn Sʿaíd speaks clearly, namely, that Kaúkaú was not comprised in
the kingdom of Kánem, which then included Bornú and part of the desert,
but lay further west, between Tádmekkah and Ghánah.
Numerous as are the Arab writers of Geographical Treatises and
Dictionaries, it is vain to seek in their pages for any information on
so obscure a point as the position of Kaúkaú. They all copy preceding
writers literally, particularly El Idrísí; and on opening their volumes,
we are almost sure of reading, that “Kaúkaú stands on a river of the
same name, coming from the north, and afterwards sinking in the sands of
the desert, though some say,” &c. Yet they present one striking
variance; many, if not even a large majority of them write, not Kaúkaú,
but Karkar. It may be said, indeed, that in Arabic writing, Kaúkaú is
easily changed into Karkar, and that the latter name is probably only a
clerical corruption of the former.[175] But can it be shown _à priori_
that there could not have been a city or country named Karkar? and is
not the readiness to suppose the corruption of Kaúkaú into Karkar,
itself the result of a prejudice founded on the celebrity of the former
of these names, and which was likely at all times to prompt copiers and
compilers to a corruption of an opposite kind, namely, that of Karkar
into Kaúkaú? Of two names resembling each other, the more famous and
better known may be well presumed to have had the benefit of all doubts
in the process of transcription; while on the other hand, if there were
actually two important places named Kaúkaú in Negroland, it is
inconceivable that Arab travellers visiting that region should have
never called attention to so remarkable an instance of homonymy; nay,
that Arab Geographers should never have even suspected the existence of
two places of that name, but should have uniformly endeavoured to draw
to a single point the double image before their eyes. The manifest
double use of the name Kaúkaú; the remarkable absence of all direct
testimony as to the existence of two places of that name; and the
various readings of geographers compiling from the same authorities,
being maturely considered, it is impossible to avoid concluding, that
there actually were not two places named Kaúkaú, but that there was in
the desert a tract called Karkar, which Arab authors easily transformed
into Kaúkaú. They separated this well-known name from the names Kúghah
and Kághó, with which it had no apparent relationship, and set it on
Karkar, wherewith it almost naturally coincided.[176]
But is there any direct and positive evidence, it will be asked, of the
existence of a place or territory named Karkar? Yes, we reply, there is
direct evidence to that effect, sufficient to confirm the authority of
the numerous Arab geographers who write Karkar instead of Kaúkaú. Ibn
Baṭúṭah informs us that the Desert of Káhir, eastward of Tekaddá,
belonged to the Karkarí Sultan.[177] There is here no possibility of
confusion; Kaúkaú, which that traveller had visited, was included in the
empire of Málí; and Tekaddá, an independent state, stood between that
place and Káhir, depending on the Karkarí. But Káhir had ʿAhír, the
desert of the Tawárik, on the north and east; Tekaddá on the west; and
southwards it extended—as we learn from Leo, who calls it Ghír—to the
frontiers of Guber: in this latter direction, then, we may naturally
look for the head quarters of the Karkarí.
A modern writer, who has collected much, but not always distinct
information relating to the interior of Africa, after mentioning the
Kadarko (probably the Kotú-n-kúra) and the Shaderbah (the river of
Kábi), adds,—“some of these rivers open a communication with a tribe of
heathens named Gargari, who live in tents, and are not black, but a red-
skinned people, yet they are not of the Arabian stock. The best breeds
of horses and mules come from these parts.”[178] This is evidently a
description of a Berber tribe, whose loose observance of the Mohammedan
rites has caused them to be mistaken for pagans. They reared their
horses and mules in the desert, and visited the high countries of
Kachenah, Zamfarah, and Gúber, whence the rivers alluded to descend.
Clapperton found the Tawárik near Kachenah to be in possession of a
remarkably fine breed of horses. The same traveller learned that, five
days south of Katagum there is an independent people named Kurrikurry,
probably a colony of the Karkari who have fixed themselves on the
eastern slopes of the hills of Baúshi.[179] In a route from Kanó to
Tomboktú, described by an intelligent native of the former place, the
following names occur in succession:—Berni-Kachenah (Berni means city),
Berni-Gurgar, Zamfarah, Ulumdar, Mallay, Galefaty and Asben. Ulumdar is
the name of one of the Arab tribes frequenting Houssa; Mallay means a
town belonging to the indigenous population, or the Mallawa; Galefaty
(Kiliwatí, in the Houssa language Kiliwawa) is the town of the Kiliwah,
a Berber tribe; and Berni-Gurgar, on the frontier between Kachenah and
Zamfarah, is probably the chief place of the Karkarí.[180]
The obscurity and indistinctness which hung over the most important
place in Negroland being thus removed, there still remains the inquiry,
whether Kúghah, Kaúkaú, or Kághó, still exists and flourishes; has it
mouldered to decay, or does it still retain the pre-eminence which we
know it to have held during at least six centuries? These questions, in
the present state of our information, cannot be answered with perfect
confidence. The brief journal of Amadi Fatouma, the only survivor of
Park’s second expedition, seems to contain no mention of Kághó. But
without the original of that journal, how can a critic decide
peremptorily as to its contents? Is there nothing to awaken suspicion in
the published translation of that journal; or is it not possible, nay
even probable, that the name there read Kaffo was really Kághó?[181]
Bowdich says, that the places passed on the river below Tomboktú are
Uzzalin, Googara, Koolmanna, Gauw, &c. The last-named place is in Marra;
Koolmanna is probably the Gourmon of Amadi Fatouma, in the kingdom of
Ghurma; and Googara is Kúghah, the burr of the letter ghain being
represented by an _r_.[182] Mohammed Másíní, in his description of the
Kowára, places on its banks, ten days below Tomboktú, a city named
Ghagró, which name, as we have neither the original document, nor an
explanation of the translator’s mode of representing the Arabic letters,
we feel justified in supposing to be intended for Kághó.[183] Finally,
in an account of the travels of an Egyptian-Arab, procured by Major
Laing, are the following words:—“To the westward, between Houssa
(Kachenah) and Yawoori [this is an indication of direction by the
traveller in Núfí] is situated on the Niger, a town of immense magnitude
and importance, called Kuku (Kaúkaú), of the power of which surrounding
tribes stand in much awe.” These allusions, taken together, seem to
warrant the conclusion that Kúghah, Kághó, or Kaúkaú still exists and
flourishes.[184]
The argument urged above to show that Kaúkaú is often written for Karkar
may be thus briefly stated: Kaúkaú is described by Arab geographers with
impossible conditions, the analysis of which shows that either there
were two places named Kaúkaú, or two places not so named indeed, but of
which the written names were so much alike, that, in nine cases out of
ten, they would be both read Kaúkaú; and this is the preferable opinion.
Having thus decided that the eastern Kaúkaú, or rather Karkar—as it
shall be called hereafter for the sake of avoiding ambiguity—was the
territory extending from the vicinity of the modern Aghades, to the
frontiers of Gúber and Kachenah, we must now give a little attention to
its river. Enough is known of Negroland in that quarter, to render it
certain that a river described in such doubtful language, must belong to
the desert. Streams flow southward from the mountains of Muḳsim near
Aghades, and one of these was probably the river of Karkar.[185] Passing
through this place, it turns westward (or rather south-westward), and
then, according to some accounts, it winds towards the desert (or
northward), and is lost in the sands. But some say that it joins the
Nile (the Great River, or Kowára); and as the country north-west of the
Quorrama is described as being well watered, and having rivers flowing
through it to the Kowára, the river of Karkar may be assumed with
probability to be one of them.[186]
* * * * *
[Footnote 170: Not. et Extr. p. 649. Leo (pt. VII. c. 7) says, that not
above half or a third of the gold brought to Gago could find purchasers.
Cowries were imported into Kúghah, and they were also the money of Gago.
A Spanish writer (D. Jorge de Mendoza Dafranca) says of Muley Hamed,—“He
increased his empire by the conquest of Gago and Tumbocotum, whence they
bring an immense quantity of gold. And here I must state as a curious
fact, that in the taking of Gago there was found, in that place, a piece
of artillery, bearing the arms of Portugal; a small image of Our Lady,
and a metal crucifix.” (Papeles Curiosas, in the Egerton Collection,
Brit. Mus. Additional MSS. No. 10,262, p. 235).]
[Footnote 171: Ramusio, 1554, tom. I. Navig. di Aluise Ca da Mosto, c.
XIII.]
[Footnote 172: Not. et Extr. p. 656.]
[Footnote 173: Jaubert’s Idrísí, pp. 21, 22, 116.]
[Footnote 174: Jaubert’s Idrísí, pp. 116, 117.]
[Footnote 175: Hartmann (Commentatio de Geogr. Afr. Edrísianâ, p. 43)
says, that Ibnu-l Wardi alone has Karkar. But this is a hasty assertion.
The Kitábu-l-jʿarafíah, above cited, has also Karkar; and of four
Geographical Dictionaries among the Arabic MSS. in the Library of the
British Museum, viz., Nos. 7497, 7503, 7504, and 7505, the first three
read Karkar. Ibnu-l Wardi sometimes writes Karkarah.]
[Footnote 176: Kaúkaú كوكو in ordinary Arabic writing can hardly be
distinguished from كركر, and the latter name is thus assumed to be the
former.]
[Footnote 177: Ibn Baṭúṭah writes “es-Sultan el-Karkarí,” the latter
word expressing not Sultan’s dominion, but his native country or tribe.]
[Footnote 178: Dupuis, in the passage referred to (Resid. in Ashantee,
App. 55), says, that the Moslem merchants of Benin trade with the
Gargari by means of those rivers. It is evident that he has here
mistaken Bini, a name given by the people of Houssa to the countries
adjoining Núfí, and even to Bornú (Clapperton’s Second Expedition p.
103), for Benin.]
[Footnote 179: Clapperton points out the situation of the Kurrikurry in
the journal of his first expedition, II. p. 246. He speaks of the
Tawárik horses in p. 317.]
[Footnote 180: About twenty years ago, M. Andrada, the Portuguese
Minister in Brazil, collected much information from the natives of
Houssa whom he found there in slavery. The most interesting portion of
it was transmitted by M. Menézes de Drummond, to the Journal des
Voyages, and afterwards appeared in the German periodical the Hertha,
July 1827, whence it is here quoted.]
[Footnote 181: Park’s Second Journey, 8vo. p. 288. In coarse Arabic
manuscript, Kaffo would be hardly distinguishable from Kagho.]
[Footnote 182: Bowdich’s Account of a Mission to Ashantee, p. 199.]
[Footnote 183: Clapperton’s Second Journey, p. 330.]
[Footnote 184: Journal of Science, edited at the British Institution,
vol. XIV. 1823, p. 8.]
[Footnote 185: The rivers in ʿAhír on the northern side of Muḳsim
(Walckenaer, Rech. p. 448) can hardly be supposed to flow southwards.
But the Tatar merchant Wargee (Asiatic Journal, 1823, p. 16) also speaks
of a great river one day’s journey south of Aghades; though perhaps it
was one of those rivers which have but a short existence after the rains
(Walckenaer, Rech. p. 450).]
[Footnote 186: Clapperton’s Second Expedition, App. 332, 333.]
LEMLEM.
Remrem — Demdem — Yemyem — Al-Límiyín.
“Going along the river,” says El Bekrí, “westwards from Kaúkaú (Karkar),
you come to the country of the Remrem (or Demdem), who eat all who fall
into their hands.” This sentence is copied verbatim by the greater
number of the Arab geographers. El Idrísí however satisfies himself with
merely stating that south of Ṭanṭanah are Kaúkaú (Karkar) and the
Demdem; leaving it to be inferred that the last-named people are
furthest south. From what has been said of the position of Karkar and
the course of its river, it will be apparent that the Demdem, being
negroes and savages, must have been situate, not due west, but rather
south-west of that place, and consequently must be sought in the hills
of Kábi, facing the desert, and still inhabited at the present day by a
wild and intractable race.[187]
In all accounts of Central Africa, from the time of El Bekrí to the
present day, mention is made of cannibals variously called Remrem,
Lemlem, Demdem, Yemyem, or N’yumn’yum. These names differ only in the
consonants employed, one liquid being changed for another, except in the
case of Demdem, which might be naturally an oral corruption of Remrem;
if it be not merely a variety originating in error of
transcription.[188] Are we then to believe that there are so many
different nations of cannibals in Negroland, bearing names so singularly
related to one another? Or is it not more likely that these various
names are but modifications of one, which being the nickname of a
particular class of savages, would be naturally carried about to the
slave markets, and fashioned to suit the genius of every language which
adopted it?[189] It is true that El Idrísí speaks of Lemlem and Demdem
as of two distinct countries; but the position of his Lemlem depends on
the westward course of the Great River to Ghaïárú, the absurdity of
which has been already pointed out; and this error being corrected, his
Lemlem and Demdem will be found to coincide.
In modern accounts of Negroland, frequent mention is made of a race of
cannibals, styled Yemyem or N’yemn’yem; and every precise indication of
them, from whatever quarter it may come, points to the same spot, namely
the hilly country extending southward from Kanó.[190] The Yemyem of the
present day, therefore, dwell at no great distance from the site of the
Demdem of earlier ages. They occupy the remote continuation of the chain
of mountains once inhabited by the latter: and if the changes
necessarily effected in the northern part of that region, or Houssa, by
the introduction of Mohammedism, the influx of Berbers, Zagháï, and
Fellátah, be duly considered, together with the fact that a wild people
still keep possession of the hills on the frontier of the desert, it
will appear a natural inference that the reproach of cannibalism, or the
barbarity itself, has receded, owing to the progress of civilization,
and that the Yemyem are the Demdem, changed in site and appellation only
by the variations of the medium through which we view them.
If the Yemyem or N’yemn’yem of the present day be not the same people as
the Lemlem, Remrem, or Demdem of early writers, it must then be
inquired, What has become of these latter?[191] To deny such identity is
to plunge back into obscurity: to suppose nations of negroes become
extinct, or—a still bolder hypothesis—to have wholly changed their
character. On the other hand, the supposition that the Baúwa (or Slaves)
in the hills south of Kanó, to the remoter portion of whom the epithet
Yemyem is now applied, once occupied the hills of Zamfara and Kábi, and
were stigmatised as Demdem or cannibals, reconciles ancient with modern
authorities; it attributes a just permanence to a great moral feature of
Negroland, depending on peculiarity of race, modelled by physical
circumstances; and it adjusts with remarkable precision the geographical
elements involved in the question, assigning to the Demdem a position,
which exactly coincides with that deduced from the statements connecting
them with Karkar and the Great River. It may be assumed as certain,
therefore, that the Demdem peopled the hills of the country now called
Houssa.[192]
There is another name, much less known than Lemlem or Demdem, and
apparently more comprehensive, applied to the inhabitants of the same
region. Ibn Baṭúṭah says that Múlí, on the Great River, where the empire
of Málí terminated, was in the country of the Límí (Al-Límiyín); and
again, he says that Yúfí (Núfí) was in the country of the Límí; whence
it is evident that the people so named were on the left bank of the
river. The Blacks at Sofálah, he adds, were tattooed like the Límí of
Genéwah, the latter name being in this instance used in the wide sense
in which it was generally understood in the systematic geography of the
Arabs. The practice of tattooing the body all over in fine patterns, is
confined, in Central Africa, to the people of Marra. The Límí were said
to wear clothing made of a plant called _worzi_, capable of resisting
fire. The productions of their land seem to have been in general of a
marvellous description.[193]
We are told that in the country of the Remrem or Demdem was a castle,
whereon was a statue of a woman, adored by the people; and it is
remarkable that in the traditions of Houssa the history of Zegzeg begins
with the conquests of a female. It matters not that her name is
Arabicised or her antiquity underrated by the native Chroniclers; they
leave untouched the essence of the tradition, which is, that Zegzeg was
founded by a heroine.[194]
* * * * *
[Footnote 187: Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p. 655. Jaubert’s Idrísí, p.
116.]
[Footnote 188: The _l_ of the Arabs and _r_ of the Africans so often
displace each other, that the change of Lemlem into Remrem is quite
regular. In Arabic writing Remrem is hardly distinguishable from Demdem,
which might therefore have originated in the ambiguous characters of the
former name. But it will be shown further on, that in Marra (adjoining
the original Demdem) the _r_ is often changed into _d_.]
[Footnote 189: It may be naturally presumed that the slave market,
whence the designation first proceeded, was that of Ghánah, and
therefore that its meaning should be found in the language of Tomboktú
or territory of Ghánah. Now in that language _lemlem_ signifies _to eat_
(Caillié, tom. III. p. 311); and if the Kissúr be as simple in its
construction as the Mandingo, it also signifies an _eater_ or cannibal.
Thus from _domo_, to eat, in Mandingo, comes the verbal noun _domo_, in
the plural _domolu_, eaters—not man-eaters, as it is translated by Park
(First Journey, p. 217), who writes _dummulo_—the name with which the
Bambarans stigmatize their neighbours the Maniana.]
[Footnote 190: Burckhardt (Trav. in Nubia, p. 441) mentions the Yemyem
without assigning their position. Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkw. Reis. III. p.
436) vaguely connects them with Kanó. Hornemann (Trav. p. 119) sets them
ten days south of the same place. Clapperton (Denh. and Clapp. Disc. II.
p. 248) learned that the Baúwa in the country of Jacoba, between Kanó
and Adamawa, are styled Yemyem; though Sultan Bello (Clapp. Sec. Exped.
p. 250) removed the reproach of cannibalism to the country of Umburm,
adjoining Jacoba. Hutchison also was informed in Ashantí (Bowdich’s
Mission, &c. p. 203), that the Yemyem are in Quollaliffa, and couples
their name with that of Dall, a mountainous district, a few days south
of Kanó. According to Abdu-r-Raḥmán Aga, the informant of Niebuhr
(Deutches Museum, 1790), the Yemyem are in Adamawa. Again, Lander
(Exped. to the Niger, III. p. 83) was told that the journey from Funda
to Bornú might be accomplished in fifteen days, and that the only
dangerous place on the road was the country of the Yemyem. Browne (Trav.
in Afr. p. 356) and others who have gathered their information on the
eastern side of the desert, speak of cannibals under the name of
Gnumgnum (N’yemn’yem), in vague terms, not indicating their situation.
But a Tatar merchant named Wargee, who visited Cape Coast in 1822,
stated that the Namnam (as he called them) were fifteen days south of
Kanó, a distance reaching to the country of Jacoba. The ocular testimony
of this intelligent man (Asiatic Journal, vol. XVI. p. 19), and of
Sultan Bello, seems fully to establish the fact that cannibals exist in
the quarter indicated.]
[Footnote 191: It must not be supposed that Yemyem is the native name of
any country or people south of Kanó: it is a foreign term applied with
more or less vagueness to the inhabitants of that region. The misery and
degradation of a people marked out especially as the prey of the slave
hunter, exposes them to the imputation of cannibalism, which draws on
them fresh injuries. Lander (Clapp. Second Exped. p. 292), on his way
southwards from Kanó to Funda, saw at Fali-n-dúshi (the White rocks) for
the first time, a people completely naked and ready to sell their
offspring. But the natives of Zamfara also go nearly naked (Clapp. p.
178): the Kombori in Kotú-n-kúra, are still treated as Demdem (id. p.
146), and the pagan negroes near the desert (id. p. 334) are certainly
not placed in circumstances more secure or favourable to civilization
than the Baúwa further south. The change effected in Houssa by
Mohammedism, and the influx of strangers, may be learned by comparing
together the descriptions of that country by Clapperton and Leo
Africanus. The latter writer (pt. VII. c. 11) knew of no city named
Kachenah; the villages of the country so called were small and of the
meanest construction; the people were of the deepest black, with noses
and lips disproportionately large. He speaks of the people of Zamfara
(c. 13) in still less flattering terms, concluding that “they are rather
brutes than men.”]
[Footnote 192: On the eastern side of the desert, the Shillúks are
pointed out as a remarkably barbarous people, but yet they are not
styled Yemyem. In the west, the people of Bambara accuse their
neighbours, the people of Maniana (the Manegnan of Caillié), of
cannibalism, yet without applying to them the epithet Lemlem, Demdem, or
Yemyem. From east to west there is but the one spot to which this name
is constantly and distinctly given. With respect to the Manegnan (or
rather Manegna, the nasal final being superfluous) it may be suspected
that the imputation cast on them by their enemies has its origin in
tradition, and that they are descendants of the Manes, reputed cannibals
who overran the coast in the latter half of the fifteenth century.]
[Footnote 193: Al-Límiyín الليميين. This name occurs three or four times
in Ibn Baṭúṭah’s Narrative. M. Quatremère (Not. et Extr. 650) has read
it Lâmes, in the unpointed Parisian MS. of El Bekrí. May not the Worzi
be the Bordi (Walck. Rech. p. 448) of the Moors? Marmol (vol. I. fol.
31) quoting Ibn Gezzar, places the people called Lime (Límí) in Genéwah
on the eastern side of the desert (that is, in the eastern part of the
western division of the desert), between the cities of Rafin and Cuco.
Rafin might be easily read for Rágha in Arabic text. Cuco is probably
Kaúkaú or Kághó: it elsewhere occurs in the same author (vol. I. fol.
34, and II. fol. 221), but evidently referring to the place so named in
the province of Algiers (Peyssonel et Desfontaines, Voy. dans la Régence
d’Alger, &c., 1838, tom. I. p. 380). Marmol again places the Limin
(Límiyín) (fol. 45) between the Zinj and Western Ocean, and calls them
savages. All his hints combined show that they possessed the interior of
Houssa.]