Day 1 Thursday 6th September

Landscapes, Sources, and Intellectual Projects in African History

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

THURSDAY 12 NOVEMBER

2015 FAGE LECTURE
Muslim Oralcy in West Africa: A Neglected Subject

Paulo Fernando De Moraes Farias, University of Birmingham

No religion is more scriptural than Islam, and Islamic culture is closely associated with Arabic literacy. Naturally, modern studies of Islam in West Africa have devoted great attention to written texts –Arabic inscriptions, Timbuktu writings, Sokoto Jihād literature, and other grand examples, but also smaller-scale manuscript traditions. In contrast, oral materials produced in West Africa by Muslims, or by people who borrowed from Islamic repertoires with Muslim help, have attracted much less scrutiny. In fact they are often bracketed away by scholars and ideologues who are in search of pristine African traditions “uncontaminated” by Islam, or who dismiss them as ignorant misconstructions of Islam, vestiges of an era of jāhilīya that is better forgotten. Hence this dimension of West African oralcy remains deprived of a generally acknowledged name. It is a research field yet to be perceived and constituted as such. Its links with other oral genres and with Arabic literacy, its political purposes, the alternatives to the Jihād tradition it offered, and the intellectual work it embodies, are still to be systematically investigated and discussed. Our aim in this talk is to call attention to the field’s contours and historical interest.
FRIDAY 13 NOVEMBER

1. 
   MYTH AND ARCHAEOLOGY
   

Chair/Discussant: John Mack
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 16^th 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 (Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin) and Carlos Magnavita (independent researcher)

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.
Subsidiarité et dialogue des sources: réflexions sur Mâli et Sijilmâsa à partir du cas d’étude du royaume songhay

François-Xavier Fauvelle, TRACES, Toulouse, France

L’opus magnum de Paulo F. de Moraes Farias, Arabic Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali (2003), est un chef-d’œuvre d’érudition, et restera longtemps, pour les africanistes, un modèle d’édition de sources. Au-delà de l’exceptionnel corpus documentaire qu’il offre aux chercheurs, ce livre résulte également d’un effort visant à réécrire l’histoire du royaume Songhay, situé le long de l’arc oriental de la Boucle du Niger. Une telle ambition n’est réalisable qu’au prix d’un authentique dialogue entre des sources qui appartiennent à des régimes documentaires différents, en l’occurrence l’épigraphie funéraire médiévale et les chroniques de Tombouctou du XVII^e siècle, les fouilles archéologiques et les sources arabes externes, les matériaux oraux songhay et berbères.

Un tel dialogue, qui est l’idéal de la recherche africaniste sur les périodes historiques, n’a cependant rien d’évident. Comme le montre P.F. de Moraes Farias, il suppose d’abord d’avoir mesuré la valeur heuristique de chaque catégorie de sources, et de cesser de considérer certaines d’entre elles comme des données ancillaires parce qu’elles seraient strictement factuelles. L’ouvrage de P.F. de Moraes Farias constitue de ce point de vue un changement de paradigme important en histoire de l’Afrique.

Ce changement de paradigme doit être appelé de nos vœux dans le dialogue souvent encore impossible entre archéologie et sources arabes. A partir des exemples de la capitale du Mâli médiéval (celle décrite par Ibn Battûta et al-Umarî) et de Sijilmâsa, deux sites liés au commerce transsaharien et à l’histoire de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, nous montrerons comment une démarche archéologique non assumée visant à « confirmer » ou « infirmer » les sources écrites a jusqu’à présent, dans les deux cas, produit des connaissances qui s’avèrent résolument fausses. Mais renoncer à la subsidiarité de l’archéologie par rapport au texte ne fait-il pas courir le risque d’avoir à constater leur incomparabilité?

2. 
   ARCHAEOLOGICAL BORDERLANDS: BENIN-BURKINA AND SAHARA-SAHEL
   

Chair/Discussant: Silke Strickrodt

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.

3. 
   GRIOTS, TRADITIONALISTS, AND ORAL LITERATURE
   

Chair/Discussant: Jose Lingna Nafafe

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 (13^th-19^th centuries) and to the Jaara Kingdom (15^th to 19^th centuries). Three periods have marked this staging, indeed this performance. The first is the griot/jeli, examined first in the 14^th century, then in the 16^th 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.

4. 
   SOKOTO AND THE CENTRAL SAHEL
   

Chair/Discussant: Benedetta Rossi

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.
The Arabic Writings of Abdullahi dan Fodio and Muhammad Bello
Paul Naylor, PhD Student, DASA, University of Birmingham
This paper will highlight the surprisingly different personas of uncle and nephew as shown through their Arabic writings. I will first introduce the two characters of Muhammad Bello and Abdullahi dan Fodio and summarise the role the two men have assumed in the historiography of the Sokoto Caliphate, especially in the writings of scholars from northern Nigeria. I will then demonstrate how I have compared and contrasted their intellectual differences over two periods of their writing. The first, after the death of Usman in 1817 when both men fought a war of words to establish themselves as successor to the Caliphate and the second their very different intellectual responses later in life when it was clear that the utopian vision of an Islamic society proposed by the jihadists was not going to materialise.

Taken alive, or dead in the Sokoto jihad?

Murray Last, University College London

At this time of remembering the 1^st 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 19^th 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).

5. FOCUS ON SPECIFIC ARCHIVES AND COLLECTIONS

Chair/Discussant: Zachary Kingdon

Sahelian book collectors into the twentieth century

Shamil Jeppie, University of Cape Town

In this paper I shall try to demonstrate what might be gained from investigations into how a book collection was constituted over time.  The use of archives is central to the practices of the historian but detailed examination of the making of an archive (as collection, a network of collections, or even one work) deserves much more attention. The history of the archive in the Sahel presents us with many possibilities to read the making of collections over time. While this paper focuses on the activities of the early twentieth century collector in Timbuktu, Ahmad Bularaf, it goes back into earlier styles of collecting, to the time of Ahmad Baba (d.1627). One of the abiding myths about the history of Africa is the relative insignificance of the written word. However, there are large stores of written materials across the Sahel available for multiple uses by historians with various interests. The study of the making of collections is one such approach. What is achieved through this type of study is at once a contribution to intellectual history and to the history of objects. Prof de Moraes Farias’ work is a major and inspiring contribution to the study of the intellectual worlds of the Sahel. He has opened up a huge archive for us and my paper is a modest contribution inspired by his work to take the intellectuals of the Sahel seriously as “colleagues” from the past and not merely as inanimate sources about the past.