  
Symposium in honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias
12-14 November 2015
department of African studies and anthropology
centre of west African studies
Photo courtesy of Anne Haour
Programme
Landscapes, Sources, and Intellectual Projects in African History
Symposium in honour of Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias
12-14 November 2015
PROGRAMME
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER
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MYTH AND ARCHAEOLOGY
Myth and Archaeology in Eastern Ethiopia.
Timothy Insoll, University of Manchester
The origins of ethnic identity and the settlements linked with different groups in eastern Ethiopia have been the focus of historical research but neglected by archaeologists. This is an omission of consequence for these are linked with myth and legend – be it Arab origins (Argobba) or great physical stature (Harla). Added to this are narratives centred on Islamic power and authority connected with jihad and focal figures such as Ahmad Gragn, “Ahmad the left handed” who used the city of Harar as a base to launch raids against the Christian empire in the first half of the 16th century AD, as related in the Futuh al-Habasha. Webs of fact and embellishment have been created and disentangling the two can be difficult. Archaeology offers a means to begin to rectify this. Beginning in 2014, excavations have been focused upon Harar and its wider region both to provide a settlement chronology and to evaluate the material culture ‘markers’ of cultural identity, trade, and Islamisation. This archaeological evidence is presented and the mythic and historical context re-evaluated based upon it.
All that glitters is not gold: reconsidering the myths of ancient trade between North and sub-Saharan Africa
Sonja Magnavita and Carlos Magnavita, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin
In this paper, the myth of a flourishing trans-Saharan trade in gold and slaves in classical Antiquity is questioned in the context of historical and archaeological research that continue to fail in providing positive evidence of such activities. Whilst gold and slaves, two of the main proposed commodities allegedly sought after in West Africa, remain largely invisible in the archaeological record, we emphasize that the integration of archaeometric methods can indeed help to trace them. As a prospect for current and future research targeting these topics, it is shown that the implementation of natural scientific methods may be helpful in disentangling fact from fiction by providing empirical evidence that is needed for reconstructing historical processes in a credible way.
The 'Pays Do' and the Origins of the Empire of Mali
Kevin MacDonald & Nikolas Gestrich, UCL Institute of Archaeology
Research for this paper has been done in collaboration with Seydou Camara (ISH Bamako) and Daouda Keita (University of Bamako)
In Autumn 2013, British and Malian archaeologists and historians worked together to document the past of ‘Do’ region of Tamani/Dugubani – notionally, a confederation of villages which formed one half of the nucleus of the Empire of Mali (c. AD 1230-1500). Heretofore, knowledge about the so-called three regions of 'Do' have been drawn from the great oral epics of Mali recited by griots hailing from the 'heartland of Mande' some 200km or more to the south-west. Indeed, on the basis of such accounts, the location of the ‘Do’ of Sogolon (mother of Sundiata) has been contested. This new work provides complex and interlinked oral accounts and archaeological data reinforcing arguments for a more easterly situation of the core and heartland of early imperial Mali (see also the 13th-15th c. ‘power centre’ of Sorotomo, near Segou, excavated by this same team). The organisation of the heterarchical ‘Do’ polity, formed both for mutual defence and the coordination of ritual activities, will also be discussed.
Archaeological survey documented a number of settlement mounds from different periods, including the notional capital of this early confederation: Dodugubani. However, another remarkable discovery was a massive 75ha tumulus field, with over 250 monumental tumuli, recorded at Teguébé, near the modern Malian town of Baroueli. Survey on the ground and by remote sensing has revealed the existence of hundreds, if not thousands of further tumuli in the region, on a scale heretofore unknown in this part of Africa. On the basis of surface ceramics, we provide an approximate temporal context for these sites. The potential implications of the Do region’s unique and extensive necropolis are also considered.
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ARCHAEOLOGICAL BORDERLANDS: BENIN-BURKINA AND SAHARA-SAHEL
Surveying the sand sea: research perspectives on Saharan medieval archaeology
Sam Nixon, University of East Anglia
During the medieval era the Sahara witnessed a revolutionary phase within its history, becoming a commercial gateway to West Africa, and experiencing the arrival and consolidation of Islam. Arabic historical documents provide a fruitful source to travel this historic landscape, tracking the trade routes which structured commercial life, the towns dotted along these, and the peoples who inhabited them. These sources have also provided a framework with which to approach and study the archaeological evidence of this medieval landscape, both epigraphy and settlement archaeology. Over the last 50 or so years archaeology has increasingly shown its potential to offer alternative sources of evidence to further our understanding of the medieval Sahara and its fringes, and a truly fruitful and fascinating scholarly interplay has developed between the study of historical documents and the study of the material remains found on the ground. This paper seeks firstly to provide an overview of this scholarly process, following this up with a consideration of the research directions which have been adopted in relation to medieval Saharan archaeology, and the future directions and outlooks for continuing research.
Archaeological materials from Niyanpangu-bansu site and the contribution to understanding multi-ethnic populations on the right bank of the Middle Niger: the case of Borgu (North Benin, West Africa)
B. Mardjoua, Student in MPhil / archeology at the Multidisciplinary Doctoral School of University of Abomey-Calavi, Benin Republic
Niyanpangu-bansu, an abandoned settlement site, is located on the margins of the W National Park of Niger. The name of the site reflects its mixed heritage: ‘‘niyanpangu’’ means "new neighborhood" in the Gourmantche language and "bansu" "ruined habitat" in Baatonum. Oral and written sources both assign this site to the Gourmantche, one of the socio-cultural groups cited as the initial settlers of this of north Benin. Systematic archaeological survey conducted in 2012 and 2013 and test pitting carried out in March-April 2014 have generated substantial materials which, in combination with oral sources, contributes to a better understanding of the settlement history of the region. This paper will discuss the location and physical characteristics of the site, describe the methodology adopted and present the archaeological material collected and its contribution to the understanding of the multi-ethnic population the study area.
Veiling and unveiling Loropeni mysteries
Richard Kuba, Frobenius Institute
The ruins of Loropeni in southern Burkina Faso and the other “Lobi ruins” have sparked curiosity and speculation since the early colonial period. Inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage site in 2009, these vast drystone walls reaching heights up to 6 meters and surrounding spaces larger than a football field were interpreted according to the different fashions of last century’s African historiography: From non-African origins over slave trade transfer stations to entrepots of medieval gold trade and, more recently, as origins of the local Gan kingdom. This paper offers an overview of the rich production of historical mythmaking surrounding the “Lobi ruins” and, in the light of some recent archaeological evidences, tries to place the site within its regional and chronological context.
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GRIOTS, TRADITIONALISTS, AND ORAL LITERATURE
The Time-Tested Traditionist: Intellectual Trajectory and Mediation from the Early Empires to the Present Day
Mamadou Diawara, Institut für Ethnologie, Goethe-Universität
In the vast critical work that Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias has devoted to the sources of African history, the author rightly presents the traditionist as a full-fledged intellectual in his own right. He thematizes the trajectory of this figure and deals with the spoken word and its relativity in an elegant manner. What does the body of the Griot, whether male or female, say and do that transcends the spoken words they pronounce so forcefully? What is this performance undertaken in order to make the text speak the meaning that it may or may not have? What still remains of the delicate balance between the text’s content and its staging, which is what bestows meaning upon the text? We will limit our scope to the Malian Empire (13th-19th centuries) and to the Jaara Kingdom (15th to 19th centuries). Three periods have marked this staging, indeed this performance. The first is the griot/jeli, examined first in the 14th century, then in the 16th century, and finally in the present day. What is the meaning of this trajectory in a context that is now more than ever influenced by electronic media, and where the Griot, who is the media personality par excellence, is faced with the emergence of radio, television, cell phones and so many other forms of electronic communication? What does this mean for the intellectual project of these men and women? What remains of the text now that female Griots are taking center stage?
The Next Generation: Young Griots' Quest for Authority
Jan Jansen, Leiden University
Scholars with an iconoclastic agenda have often criticised encyclopaedic informants, describing the narratives of these informants as either inventions or as texts co-authored by a researcher plus informant. Paulo Farias has explored a more nuanced approach in his analysis of Mali’s famous griots Wa Kamissoko and Tayiru Banbera. Farias sees these griots’ narratives as hybrid constructions that are motivated and inspired by twentieth-century issues, thus meeting and negotiating the demands of issues contemporary to the performance. This explains why such narratives are well received by a wide range of audiences. This approach challenges us to investigate how a griot reaches the level of credibility in which he can be trusted as an encyclopaedic informant by his contemporaries. Since answering this question based on the lives of much consulted griots would be a tautological and self-evident affair, this paper seeks to answer this question by analysing what young griots do when their prestigious and often consulted fathers die. It capitalizes on the experiences that the author (born in 1962) shared with his peers, while doing research on the “school of oral tradition” of Kela (Kangaba) in the period 1991-present.
Thoughts on a Nigerien oral literature piece: an overview of traditional and Islamic beliefs
Ana Luiza de Oliveira e Silva, PhD student, Social History Program, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil
Our PhD research is focused on a six-volumes collection of West African oral literature. This piece is composed of sixty-seven stories and was conducted by Boubou Hama, the intellectual who published it in the 1970’s under the title Contes et légendes du Niger (Tales and Legends of Niger). Generally, we are interested in identifying which elements of traditional cultures of peoples such as Tuareg and Songhay were safeguarded by those stories. Since such narratives allow us to identify tracks of the magical-religious universe of those peoples, we intend to, first, examine a few elements of their traditional beliefs. Secondly, we plan to reflect upon the process of penetration, reception and absorption of Islam in West Africa. Finally, we aim to focus on how elements of Islam and elements of traditional beliefs appear in a couple of tales and legends we study. With this paper, we intend to relate oral tradition (the stories) and worldviews (traditional and Islamic beliefs) in order to perceive what cultural aspects Boubou Hama rescued through those stories, having in mind the idea of propagation, recovery, and conservation of culture in post-independent West Africa.
In praise of history; history in praise
Karin Barber, University of Birmingham
Paulo Farias has always treated historical sources, whether oral or written, not as reservoirs from which can be dredged certain hard historical facts concerning dates and events, but rather as the creation of thinking people formulating interpretations of their experience, including their experience of the past. The Arabic inscriptions of medieval Mali reveal, to an attentive reader, constructions of time and space; the oriki and itan of the royal bards of Oyo reveal not data about the reigns of the Alaafin but a perception of the role of historical memory itself. This approach, which I here honour by emulating, requires a close attention to form: to the conventions of the genres in which such interpretations are formulated. Yoruba praise poetry was described by one local intellectual, C.L. Adeoye, quoting Aristotle, as “truer than history”. The dynamics of praise poetry need to be grasped before one can make sense of this assertion. Oriki – precisely through their constitution as disjunctive, vocative, centreless and opaque flows of text – activate the potentials of past persons and powers by hailing their distinctive, idiosyncratic qualities. They evoke the “present in the past”. My question in this paper is what happens to this mode of apprehending the past when it is co-opted by literate local intellectuals, from the late nineteenth century onwards, into Yoruba print culture. Written history in the Yoruba language was everywhere – in newspaper serials, in pamphlets, in books published by local presses. Most of these texts made extensive use of oriki. In particular, I will look at Iwe Itan Ogbomoso (The History of Ogbomoso, 1934) by N.D. Oyerinde: a historian who could also be described as poet of past events.
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SOKOTO AND THE CENTRAL SAHEL
From Afnu to Copenhagen: Tripolitan diplomatic circulation, a Hausa slave, and knowledge of Africa in 1772 (draft)
Camille Lefebvre, CNRS Paris
In the 1740s-1750s, the two Nordic Kingdoms of Sweden and Denmark signed a series of treaties with Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli to support expanding trade relations across the Mediterranean. In this context, two consecutive delegations of Tripolitan diplomats were sent to the Nordic capitals to negotiate the treaties and to strengthen the relations between Tripoli and the Nordic Kingdoms. The encounter between the Tripolitan envoy Abderahman Aga and the German traveler Carsten Niebuhr in Copenhagen in 1772 led to a discussion of the interior of Africa as it was known at the time. The exchange between Abderahman Aga, his two African slaves, and Niebuhr yielded one of the few reports available in the second half of the Eighteenth Century on the Central Sudan. By focusing on the intellectual context of this encounter and the report that followed, this paper reassesses the contribution of this source to our knowledge of the Central Sudan in the late Eighteenth Century.
Beyond Jihadist Pathos: Rediscovered Hausa Ajami Sources Reviewing the Sokoto Jihad
Stephanie Zehnle, University of Kassel
Generations of Sokoto scholars were engaged with the conservation and copying of the Jihadist triumvirate literature of Uthman and Abdullah dan Fodio, and Muhammad Bello. But in the 1880s, European colonial officials also collected texts from less popular local Hausa writers and brought them to Europe. One such scholar was Alhaji Umaru, or Al‐Hajj Umar (1858‐1934). Born in Kano, he ended up as an Imam in Northern Ghana and wrote Hausa Ajami texts for – among others – the German trader and linguist Gottlob Adolf Krause (1850‐1938). While Umaru’s accounts deposited in Ghana (Legon) only describe the colonial conflicts in the 1880s, much of his historiographical material on the Sokoto Jihad among the Krause Collection was lost in the German Democratic Republic, where it could not be accessed from “Western” historians. Berlin State Library holds this collection today. This precious material reveals a counter narrative to the official and often pathetic Jihadist commemoration. Which Hausa oral traditions survived Jihadist censorship? And what do they tell about methods of Jihadist occupation? The proposed paper will explore a broad context of source production, transmission and (re)interpretation of Jihad history. It will compare the myths of the perpetrators to the myths of the victims.
Taken alive, or dead in the Sokoto jihad?
Murray Last, University College London
At this time of remembering the 1st world war, and given Paulo’s interest in ancient gravestones, I thought we might discuss some of those never given such stones – casualties in the 19th century jihad. It is a feature of wars that far more are wounded than actually die in battle; and illness and hunger usually killed the most. But very few historians ever discuss mortality rates in wars within Africa. The most common assumption is that massive numbers of deaths were standard. My question to colleagues is: is there any way we can seriously work out casualty rates, or even military policy in warfare, within specific theatres of conflict? As one example, my very contentious suggestion is that the Sokoto jihad was perhaps not as lethal as many might imagine; and jihad may not be primarily about death. I shall try and offer some evidence for this, provocative though it might be.
The Kano Chronicle Revisited
Paul E. Lovejoy, York University, Canada
One of the most important historical documents in the history of the Hausa states is what has become known as the Kano Chronicle, which is usually thought to be a compilation of oral traditions and perhaps also written texts that have been lost. As a history of the kings of Kano, it is usually thought that the Kano Chronicle was the product of many authors and traditionalists and not the work of a single individual. It is argued here, however, that the actual author of the Kano Chronicle that has survived was in fact a royal slave, Dan Rimi Barka, who was initially brought into the emir’s palace in Kano during the reign of Ibrahim Dabo (1819-1846) and subsequently continued in office under Dabo’s successors, dying in the late 1880s during the reign of Sarkin Kano Muhammad Bello (1883-1893). This chronology explains why the Chronicle ends abruptly with the reign of Emir Bello. Moreover, it is argued, subsequent additions to the Kano Chronicle were collected by C.L. Temple in 1909 and that these additions were the product of Dan Rimi Barka’s son, who was also a slave official in the palace of the emir of Kano, Muhammad Abbas (1903-1919).
The emergence of the Ilorin Emirate and the perils of its historiography
Stephan Reichmuth, Ruhr Universitat Bochum
Ilorin emerged over a period of about thirty years as one of the successor states of the Old Oyo Empire and, at the same time, as an emirate within the Islamic realm of Sokoto/Gwandu, in a turbulent interplay of military and religious actors of diverse origins that remained highly enigmatic to contemporary observers. No wonder, then, that the historiography of this process still remains charged with tensions and contradictions. The paper reviews the sources and historiographical topoi which have prevailed in the description of the rise of Ilorin. Making use of some less known written sources and, at the same time, relying on oral and topographical material collected in Ilorin mainly during the late 1980s, it will attempt to open some new inroads into the thorny domain of a past that has continued to shape Ilorin society until the present. The problems of the unavoidable involvement of the latter-day field-working researcher in the local dynamics of identity formation will also be highlighted.
5. FOCUS ON SPECIFIC ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS
What you see
Daniela Moreau, Historian, Director of Acervo África, São Paulo, Brazil
ACERVO ÁFRICA, São Paulo
In 1906 the Dakar-based French photographer and picture editor Edmond Fortier (1862-1928) arrived at Timbuktu. He traversed West Africa diagonally in a SW-NE direction, departing from Conakry and then following the Niger River’s course from its source to the desert. Over five hundred photographs from this journey were published by Fortier in postcard format. The negatives have disappeared: printed on fragile pieces of paper, these images, which constitute a precious record of the region’s history, were scattered around the world. Inspired by Paulo Farias’ teachings and with his encouragement, I decided to assemble and study this wealth of material. The reconstitution of this visual corpus, which was fragmented and had not existed in effect, allowed me to bring to the fore precious information about a specific moment during the colonial period in the history of this vast region.
In this paper, I intend to address the obstacles and challenges I faced while working with Fortier’s oeuvre, and to present the methodology employed to extract historical information from these early twentieth-century postcards. To demonstrate the potential offered by this material as a research avenue for West African studies, I will analyse the sequence that portrays a Tuareg group, led by the amenokal Chebboun, at the French administrative Bureaux at Timbuktu. I will also show what are certainly the oldest photographs of Sanke mon collective fishing at San, and of the Kôrêdugaw rite at Ségou – both being cultural expressions from the Republic of Mali registered by UNESCO as world heritage, requiring permanent protection. To reflect upon the importance of precise sorting and dating of Fortier’s series, I will turn to the question of the photographer’s postcards purported influence in Picasso’s work.
Materials and Mythology: Making History
The Emil Torday Expedition to the Belgian Congo, 1907-1909
Rebekah Sheppard, PhD Candidate, Sainsbury Institute for Art, University of East Anglia
The Emil Torday Expedition left for the Kasai in 1907 and spent two years in the former Belgian Congo (modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo). The expedition members were Emil Torday, Merville Hilton-Simpson and the artist, Norman Hardy. They collected over 3000 artefacts for the British Museum, as well as a further thousand or so for museums around the UK, Europe and the United States. They took photographs (numbering over 1500) and, most significantly, spent considerable time with the Nyimi (loosely translated as King, or Emperor) of the Bushong-Kuba, recording and transcribing oral histories. The wax cylinders that held these historical sound bites and music have disappeared from the archives, but what remains are material remnants of conversations and dialogue that are revealing of a political ideology on both sides of the exchange. The “encounter” was made up of performances; a corpus of interconnecting materials, objects, people and orality. This paper attempts to reinvigorate the active properties of artefacts (what they do, or did) within this encounter context. The reason for the inclusion of this contextual information is to re-invigorate the active and contemporaneous properties of historical texts and museum collections -especially their orality- that can be said to remain despite their supposedly external and distant authorship. These artefacts and performances mobilised history, and connected the material to the immaterial world in both Europe and Africa.
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