1. I must emphasize that this kind of internal evidence is far from conclusive. Particular places in the list of destinations may well be late and/or local additions to a much older poem and it would be possible to put forward earlier dates for composition particularly if the presence of Wadai in the list was to be regarded as aberrant. It is probable that Hausa traders visited Kumase in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and that Salaga may have had a Hausa settlement by the beginning of the nineteenth century, though that settlement probably did not become an important market center until 1820. This makes it possible to argue—if all the other locations in the list are ignored—that the poem could have been composed between about 1800 and 1835(Hausa traders were excluded from Kumase from about 1835). In the list of locations to the west of the Volta basin the following four towns are mentioned: Safara (?Sofara), Fatoma (?Fatoya), Bobo Dioulasso, and Daboya. Although the identity of the first two is in doubt, it is certain that Bobo Dioulasso and Daboya were regularly visited by Hausa traders in the second half of the nineteenth century, if not earlier. There were Hausa settlements (zango) at Kona, Mopti, San, Segu, Barouele, Sikasso, Bobo Dioulasso and Daboya in the mid-ninettenth century. There were probably many other such settlements on the trade routes that passed through the Niger inland delta area, and through Gonja, Dagomba and Mamprusi. On the Hausa diaspora in these areas see Adamu, Mahdi, The Hausa Factor in West African History (Zaria, 1978), 59-89, 143–63.Google Scholar Though I favor a proposition, based on the internal evidence, that this poem dates from the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, this is far from conclusive and alternative propositions can be entertained.

2. Works, John A. Jr., Pilgrims in a Strange Land (New York, 1976), 43–74.Google Scholar

3. Hausa traders were completely excluded from the mid-1830s until 1874. Between 1874 and 1896 a small number of Hausa traders may have been permitted to travel to Kumase and even to pass through Asante to trade on the Gold Coast. Wilks, Ivor, “Asante Policy Towards the Hausa Trade in the Nineteenth Century” in Meillassoux, Claude, ed., The Development of Indigenous Trade and Markets in West Africa (London, 1971), 124–41.Google ScholarBerberich, C. W., “A Locational Analysis of Trade Routes of the Northeast Asante Frontier Network in the 19th Century” (Ph.D., Northwestern University, 1974), 44–47.Google ScholarWilks, , Asante in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1975), 243–304.Google Scholar

4. On the development and decline of Salaga and the events leading to the war of 1894 see Krieger, K., “Kola-Karawanen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Hausa,” Mitteilungen des Instituts fur Orientforschung, 2 (1954), 306–09Google Scholar; Braimah, J. A./Goody, J. R., Salaga: The Struggle for Power (London, 1967).Google Scholar

5. Adamu, , Hausa Factor, 59–86.Google Scholar

6. Hiskett, M., A History of Hausa Islamic Verse (London, 1975), 80-87, 156–61.Google Scholar His-kett noted that in certain nineteenth-century Hausa poetry, a favorite personificaton was to take the figure of an aged and diseased whore as symbol of the wicked world. He also draws attention to the work of two modern Hausa poets, Mu'azu Hadeja and Hami-su Yaddudu Funtuwa, who have composed savagely satirical and moralizing poems about the behavior of modern women.

7. Famine and disease as worldwide phenomena of the biological Ancien Regime are discussed by Braudel, Fernand, Civilization and Capitalism, I, The Structure of Everyday Life (London, 1981), 70–92.Google Scholar Note in particular the regular use of famine foods and the generally longer lifespan of the wealthy.

8. Hill, Polly, Rural Hausa (Cambridge, 1972), 231–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, citing a report by W.F. Gowers in the National Archives, Kaduna (K2151/1926). For a wide-ranging and thought provoking discussion of famine in Hausaland since precolonial times, see Watts, Michael, Silent Violence: Food, Famine and Peasantry in Northern Nigeria (Berkeley, 1983)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 3. From a detailed examination of the scientific studies of drought and the historical records of famine in the sahel and savanna, Watts presents a tentative chronology of famines in central Hausaland in the nineteenth century. Famines in the Katsina area in 1914, 1927, and 1942 have been commemorated in Hausa verse (ibid., 515-20) and no doubt earlier famines were commemorated in verses that are now lost in various areas of Hausaland.

9. Hill, , Rural Hausa, 231.Google Scholar See also Watts, , Silent Violence, 93, 104Google Scholar, who notes that localized food shortages, known to the Hausa as dan mudu, kunci, and matsi, occurred with considerably greater frequency than the great regional famines–babban yunwa.

10. See note 36 to the Hausa text.

11. See note 46 to the Hausa text.

12. Mischlich, Adam, “Uber Sitten und Gebrauche in Hausa,” Mitteilungen des Seminar für orientalische Sprache, 11/3 (1908), 48–51.Google Scholar

13. a) Wheat: On the wheaten foods mentioned in the poem, see note 93, 94, 95, and 98 to the Hausa text. Adamu, Muhammed Uba, “Some Notes on the Influence of North African Traders in Kano,” Kano Studies, 1/4 (1968)Google Scholar, argued that wheaten foods (including alkaki, kuskus, and gurasa ) were first introduced into Kano by Arab traders and artisans, mainly of Ghadames origin, who had previously been resident in Katsina and Zinder, in the reign of Ibrahim Dabo (1819-46). These foods were quickly adopted in the households of the ruler and other members of the Kano aristocracy and their use spread to other parts of Hausaland.

b) Honey: W. B. Baikie observed in Bida in 1862 that honey was virtually the only form of sweetening available and was a luxury and that there was considerable export of it from southern Zaria, where honey-gathering and beekeeping were the chief means of livelihood. Letter dated 22 March 1862 in F.O. 97/434. Lewicki, Tadeusz, West African Food in the Middle Ages According to Arabic Sources (London, 1974), 112-14, 213–14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, produces evidence which suggests that honey collection and beekeeping were important activities throughout Hausaland and Borno. However, Baikie's report may indicate that the demand for honey exceeded the available supply from the vicinity of cities such as Kano and that this gave rise to the export trade from southern Zaria.

c) Palm oil: See note 101 to the Hausa text.

d) White sugar, cloves, etc.: White sugar from Europe is mentioned as a re-export from Tripoli to the western Sudan in most, if not all, accounts of the trans-Sahara trade in the nineteenth century. Cloves and “aromatic plants” are noted in Col. Mircher's report on the trans-Sahara trade in 1862. See Newbury, C. W., “North African and Western Sudan Trade in the Nineteenth Century: A Re-evaluation,” JAH, 7 (1966), 233–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In a fairly detailed examination of the imports of Kano, Barth referred to trade in these and related products to the tune of many millions of cowries. For details see Barth, Heinrich, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London, 1890) 1: 304–09.Google Scholar

14. On the introduction of wheat into the central and western Sudan see Lewicki, , West African Food, 38–41.Google Scholar On the cultivation of wheat in nineteenth-century Hausaland see Mischlich, , Uber die Kulturen im Mittel-Sudan (Berlin, 1942), 132–33.Google Scholar

15. There is no doubt that in Hausaland there were highly skilled architect-builders and specialized building craftsmen. See Moughtin, J. C., “The Friday Mosque, Zaria City,” Savanna, 1/2 (1972), 143–63.Google Scholar See also Mischlich, , Kulturen, 172–73Google Scholar, where al-Hajj ʿUmar observes that a man does not have a house built with an upper story unless he is very wealthy.

16. Perhaps in the Hausa proverb Amfanin abin ado daurawa (“the use of fine clothes is to put them on), there is an echo of the hadith “When Allah gives riches to a man he wants them to be seen on him” or alternatively “Allah wishes to see the favors he bestows on a man apparent on him.” For the Hausa proverb see Kirk-Greene, A. M. H., Hausa ba dabo ba ne (Ibadan, 1966)Google Scholar, 2 and 24. For the hadith see Goitein, S. D., Studies in Islamic History and Institutions (Leiden, 1968), 224–25.Google Scholar

The evidence of nineteenth-century European travelers to Hausaland and adjacent areas suggests interest on the part of the aristocracy and wealthy in sartorial display. Barth, (Travels, 1:258, 290-91, 307)Google Scholar noted that the aristocracy of Hausaland were inclined towards luxury in their dress and noted the importation into Kano of Arab clothing from Tunis and Egypt to the value of 50 million cowries. Though part of this was expenditure on clothing of inferior quality, much of it went on luxury items.

17. See note 84 to the Hausa text. The items of clothing and jewelry probably depend in whole or in part on relatively expensive and imported materials. Barth, (Travels, 1:304–09)Google Scholar noted that beads to the value of 50 million cowries were imported, approximately 30 million worth being re-exported. French silk cloth, locally known as hattaya, to the value of 20 million cowries was also imported, though most was re-exported to Yoru-ba and Gonja, being out of fashion in Kano. Finally, Barth recorded the import of copper to the value of 15-20 million cowires, a large part of that also being re-exported, as well as the importation of tin, silver, and gold.

In the poem the two jewel stones tsakiya/sokiya are mentioned and they probably refer to cornelians or agates. If the lantana stone, a type of agate or cornelian, was meant, that too was an expensive item imported from the margins of the Sokoto Caliphate being mined in the area of Kirtashi, on the Niger River between Sayi and Gaya and then taken to Ilorin for polishing and piercing. See Mischlich, ,Kulturen, 182.Google Scholar For an account of the lantana bead-making industry see A. O'Hear, “Ilorin ‘Lantana’ Beads -Industry and Trade,” Seminar paper, History Department, Univeristy of Ilorin, 6 May 1982.

18. This might refer to a failure of auren sadaka (marriage of alms), the practice of gifting a daughter to a friend, to some poor but respected malam, or to an influential person. It would usually come as a surprise to the bridegroom and would cost him virtually nothing except a small gift to the bride's parents and the bride. The bride's father would also provide the sadaki, the payment to the bride that would normally be made by the bridegroom on the day of the marriage ceremony, essential for the marriage to be legal. Though I know of no instance of a refusal to accept a bride gifted in this way, it is possible to imagine its happening. If so, it would be a public scandal, deeply humiliating to the young woman and shaming to her parents. On auren sadaka see Trimingham, J. S., Islam in West Africa (Oxford, 1976), 170–71Google Scholar, and Smith, Mary F., Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa, (New Haven, 1981), 99-100, 151–54.Google Scholar

19. a) Shege (m.)/Shegiya (f.). Bastard is a common word of abuse in Hausaland. The use of it is actionable in Muslim courts and al-Hajj ʿUmar noted that the punishment for calling someone a bastard, who was not, was eighty strokes of the bulala or hippopotamus hide whip. Mischlich, , “Uber Sitten,” 11 (1909), 228.Google ScholarAbraham, R. C., Dictionary of the Hausa Language (London, 1973), 806.Google Scholar Known bastards were—and are—treated with some contempt by Hausa people. There is a superstitious belief that if there is a bastard in the house and one sets eyes on him/her in the morning before one has breakfasted, one will experience all kinds of misfortune. See Madauci, Ibrahim, Isa, Yahaya, and Daura, Bello, comps., Hausa Customs (Zaria, 1968), 85.Google Scholar

The feminine form—shegiya (T/42) and dan shegiya (T/11), (lit. son of a female bastard)—is used in the poem. While the feminine -ya ending is necessary for poetic reasons in both lines, it would perhaps be a mistake to see this purely as a poetic usage. In a patriarchal society the abuse of women by men was commonplace and unremarkable. Whereas another man might retaliate, a woman was at a disadvantage for both physical and cultural reasons, but see Appendix B in Part 1 of this paper and the commentary on Wakar Abinda. The use of the term dan shegiya is of additional interest in that it imputes immoral conduct to a grandmother. It is possible that a Hausa audience would relate this to folk wisdom of the kind enshrined in several proverbs that emphasize the inheritance of character, for which see Kirk-Greene, , Hausa, 8, 11, 33-34, 38.Google Scholar

There are also several traditions in the sayings of Muhammad that were current in the early years of this century in Hausaland that touch on the subject of transmitted or inherited character. These are of interest in that one of them suggests that it is the mother's influence that is paramount in shaping character, while the other two suggest the predetermination of both character and life chances from the moment of conception. See Edgar, F., Litafi na Tatsuniyoyi (Belfast, 1911), 2:427–50Google Scholar, nos. 18, 65, and 63; Skinner, Neil, Hausa Tales and Traditions: An English Translation of Tatsuniyoyi Na Hausa Originally Compiled by F. Edgar (Madison, Wisc., 1977), 3:329–62Google Scholar, nos. 18, 65, and 63.

b) Rural Simpletons. As happens elsewhere in the world, Hausaland townsmen scorn country people. Kanki or kankiya are among the many scornful epithets that Hausa townsmen have for country people. All have meanings like simpleton, bumpkin, uncouth rustic, or yokel. There are also expressions like bagidaje futuk, which Abraham equates to Bagwari futuk, meaning stupid clodhopper or something equally derogatory. See Bargery, , Hausa Dictionary, 58Google Scholar, etc. and Abraham, , Dictionary, 57, 275Google Scholar, etc.

The stereotype of the stupid Gwari man–Bagwari–is legendary in Hausaland and it would certainly be considered insulting to apply it to a Muslim Hausaman. At the least the use of the expression Bagwari futuk would imply that the person thus addressed was a stupid yokel unable to speak proper Hausa. It could also imply that the person spoken of was a pagan. However, the alleged stupidity of the Gwari people is not confirmed in the majority of the tales and traditions collected by F. Edgar, in which they are mentioned.

However, in the same collection there are a number of tales that do focus on the ignorance, naivété or stupidity of country people and non-Hausa, especially Buzaye and Fillani. Conversely, there are also tales in which country people, especially Maguzawa (pagan Hausa) outwit the townsfolk who try to take advantage of them. See Skinner, , Hausa Tales, 176-77, 196-200, 204–05.Google Scholar

c) Promiscuous sluts. The representation of the young woman as a slattern is considered elsewhere in this commentary, in note 50 to the Hausa text, and in the commentary on the poem Wakar Abinda.

20. It will be clear from Darho's presentation that in the Hausa society of his day, the poor were perceived as being second-class citizens, or from a more extreme but tex-tually justified position, as sources of moral pollution (see lines 19-21 of Talauci). In this context see Douglas, Mary, Implicit Meanings (London, 1975), 240.Google Scholar

In the poem there are no direct accusations of witchcraft or sorcery, though there are allusions to both. What we have is a recommendation of direct action to eliminate or control the poor and prevent them from multiplying. The justification for such action rests, I would suggest, not on any supposition of witchcraft or sorcery but rather on real or fabricated evidence concerning the character and behavior of the poor that allow accusations against them that would lead to expulsion from the community if proven. If it was possible to ascribe to the poor those characteristics that the moral community (jama'a) attribute to infidels (kafirai) or apostates (riddaddu), then a justification was available to the community that would allow them to persecute, even enslave and execute, the poor, without formal legal process. Further analysis of this process is outside the scope of this discussion, but metaphorically linking the poor with wild and domestic beasts is widespread. In early modern England the propertied classes and intellectuals typically spoke and wrote of the poor and the uneducated as beast-like. Depending on time and circumstance the poor were characterized either as useful beasts or as dangerous vermin, to be treated accordingly. See the discussion in Thomas, Keith, Man and the Natural World. Changing Attitudes in England, 1500-1800 (Harmondsworth, 1984), 43–48.Google Scholar As we have noted, excluding the poor from the community may require that they be stigmatized as sources of moral pollution. To this end and in this cultural context an imputation of infidelity or some other form of religious deviation may be the most expedient means of creating an appropriately hostile mood. If the poor can also be linked by metaphor with animal (or vegetable) categories in the socially constructed world of nature, they are well on the way to exclusion from the human community. The dehumani-zation of the poor or other social groups in other contexts is probably an essential part of the preparation necessary before an assault on them can be made by those in the community who are outraged by their continued presence within it. See Davis, Natalie Z., Society and Culture in Medieval France (Stanford, 1975)Google Scholar, ch. 6.

21. Several Hausa proverbs refer to the isolation of the poor man in one way or another. The first one cited deals directly with the situation referred to in lines 13-14 of Talauci, the second to the general lack of respect for the poor man and his low standing.

i) Talaka ba aboki ko ka so shi, ran biki ka ki shi. A poor man is not a friend, though you like him you will hate him on a feast day.

See Whitting, C. E. J., Hausa and Fulani Proverbs (Lagos, 1940), 97.Google Scholar Cf. Merrick, G., Hausa Proverbs (London, 1905), 53.Google Scholar My own reading is: “A poor man cannot be your friend, even though you like him, on a feast day you will reject him.”

ii) In da abinka a ke kamnarka in babu abinka kare ya fi ka daraja. If you possess something you will be loved, if you have nothing even the dog will be better respected.

Kirk-Greene, , Hausa, 8, 34.Google Scholar My own reading is: “If you have property people will respect you but if you have nothing then even the dog will have greater respect than you.”

22. In Edgar's collection there is one rather chilling story of a wealthy leper and his servant, in which the idea of poverty as disease, indeed the worst of diseases, is brought to the fore. It rests on the idea that a poor man will accept even physical intimacy with a rich leper in return for a share in his wealth. The final paragraph of the story is worth quoting in full:

“Then said the leper ‘Good fellow, in this world, poverty is the disease. Look - see my stumps of hands, all covered with pustules.’ He continued ‘Yet when tuwo is brought, and I put my hand into it and stir it, you come and eat together with me - yes, and scramble to do so. If you all had any money, you wouldn't let me treat you so. Poverty is the biggest disease.” Skinner, , Hausa Tales, 244–45.Google Scholar

23. For a discussion of revolutionary tendencies in Islam, see Rodinson, Maxime, Islam and Capitalism (London, 1974), 68–75.Google Scholar

24. It seems appropriate to refer to two Hausa proverbs here:

i) Talauci kankanci. Poverty is disgrace. (Whitting, , Proverbs, 89Google Scholar). I prefer to read kankanci as “humiliation.”

ii) Idan kaskastu sun yi iko mafifita sun halaka. If the wants get power the haves are undone. (Ibid., 84).

While Whitting has certainly caught the general sense of the proverb, I would prefer an alternative and, I think, a more literal translation: If the humiliated obtain power then the elevated will perish.

Taken together these proverbs constitute as clearcut a statement of class enmity as one could wish for. The mafifita —those with power, property, and status—feel threatened by the majority—the kaskastu—the despised, humiliated, propertyless, and powerless, in other words the poor. In fear and loathing of the kaskastu, the mafifita can be expected to use force (and fraud) to intimidate them and keep them in subjection. This is the message that should be read into lines 32-34 of Talauci.

In line 35 of Talauci, there is what may perhaps be understood as a veiled threat or warning to those who would assault the poor. From line 34 to line 35 we move from personification to a botanomorphic metaphor, poverty now being presented as grass to be rooted out and burned. This abrupt and somewhat anticlimactic, shift from murder to a routine agricultural activity may perhaps signal an allusive reference, particularly as the metaphor is not sustained into line 36. Grass does feature in several Hausa proverbs, but there is one that seems particularly relevant in this context—Hakin da ka rena, shi kan tsokane maka ido. The thing that you despise may do you mcuh damage (lit. The grass that you despise may poke you in the eye.) Cf. Bargery, , Dictionary, 437.Google Scholar Any Hausa who had worked in clearing land would understand this proverb, for the tough and sometimes thorny grasses of the savanna, if handled carelessly, can inflict severe and painful wounds particularly to delicate organs like the eyes. If this allusion was intended, then it is to be understood as a warning to those who despise and assault the poor. The poet may have hoped to suggest, through the metaphor and proverbial allusion, something on the following lines: “You who despise and ill-treat us had better watch out for yourselves, go too far and you risk incurring severe damage yourselves.”

Grass as a metaphor reappears in line 50 of Wadata as a reference to dirty old thatching grass at the house of the poor man. This could remind a Hausa audience of the proverb—Kowa ya rena tsofon bunu ya ci karo da mai kari. Whoever despises old thatch may bump into a scorpion. Kirk-Greene, , Hausa, 14, 42Google Scholar (lit., “Whoever despises old thatch may bump into/encounter one with a sting.”) While Kirk-Greene's translation is satisfactory and accurate—for dirty old thatch is exactly the kind of location where one might expect to encounter a scorpion–the ambiguity of the expression mai kari may be noted. The suggestion here could be that the poor, who reside beneath the thatch, are like the scorpion found within the thatch; they too can inflict a painful wound when provoked. There is the possibility of a further allusion in the words mai kari. Since we know that the poor man of the poem is Darho himself, it is possible that he sees himself as mai kari, the one with the sting, using his poetry as a weapon against those who humiliate and assault him and other poor people.

25. On safara see note 55 to the Hausa text. For a discussion of economic practice and business ethics in the Muslim world, see Rodinson, Islam and Capitalism, chs. 2-4. Much of the argument here is heavily indebted to Rodinson.

26. E.g., see al-Ghazali as cited in ibid., 111.

27. As cited in ibid., 112. Cf. Skinner, Hausa Tales, nos. 336, 337, 467.

28. See Rodinson, , Islam and Capitalism, 108ff.Google Scholar Cf. Skinner, , Hausa Tales, 148, 184, 403.Google Scholar

Other hadisai in this collection refer to almsgiving or specific charitable actions, such as feeding the hungry or feeding orphans, for which a man may gain a spiritual reward (nos. 80-83, 86-87,198, 266). There is a general social expectation among the Hausa that wealthy men will display an open-handed generosity (baiwa) toward the poor. Such conduct is commended in the proverbial literature, while conversely—and as one would expect—miserly behavior by the wealthy is roundly condemned. Kirk-Greene, , Kirkii, Mutu min: The Concept of the Good Man in Hausa (Bloomington, 1974), 5–6.Google Scholar

29. For a Hausa tale that illustrates this perfectly see Skinner, , Hausa Tales, 1:243.Google Scholar The tale ends with the proverb: “The remarks of a penniless man are in vain. Even when true, they become false.”

30. For a Hausa view of the character of all Hausa people, see ibid. 1:210-11. This is a highly critical view and gives emphasis to the more malicious and deceitful characteristics of Hausa people, in particular their fondness for slander, perjury, and character assassination. This short, and rather exaggerated, sketch may be read in conjunction with Kirk-Greene's analysis of the Hausa concept of ‘the good man,’ where some characteristics of the Hausa conception of ‘the evil man’—mutumin mugu—are also delineated, or from which they may be deduced. Among the qualities Kirk-Greene lists are essential to the Hausa concept of the good man is that of mutunci, treating others with respect for their feelings. See Kirk-Greene, M. A. H., Mutumin Kirkii, 1–12Google Scholar, esp. 10-11.

31. There are many Hausa proverbs and several hadisai that are relevant to deceit-fulness, pride and miserliness or domestic parsimony but space does not permit a comprehensive examination. For some of these see Kirk-Greene, , Hausa, 10, 14 and 37, 43Google Scholar; and Skinner, , Hausa Tales 3: nos. 58, 98,107, part 262, part 263, 271.Google Scholar

32. Relevant to any reference to a handsome or beautiful appearance in men or women is the Hausa proverb: Idan da hali, muni kyau ne: idan babu hali, kyau muni ne. Where there is a good character even ugliness is pleasing, but where there is no goodness in the character even beauty becomes ugly. A very insulting gloss can be put upon the word silliya since siili has the same tone pattern (low/high) as the first two syllables of silliya. The word siili is a Sokoto and Katsina dialect word for foreskin or uncir-cumcised penis. While the -ya ending is necessary for poetic reasons, its effect is to feminize the word siili–a masculine nominal. The allusions here are very insulting and seem designed to suggest that the wealthy man is remote from manliness.

33. There is a saying or proverb cited by Abraham, , Dictionary, 657Google Scholar, which gives expression to this idea–In ka ji maraya, rago. Scratch an orphan and you will find a wastrel. Rago can also mean slacker, sluggard, lazy person or physical degenerate; ibid., 715; Bargery, , Hausa Dictionary, 832.Google Scholar

34. Strategic investment through giftgiving would be called gaisuwa in Hausa. Literally gaisuwa means a greeting but it is also a euphemism for a ‘customary’ offering to a superior or a bribe to secure position or advantage. Abraham, , Dictionary, 287–88.Google Scholar For a discussion of gaisuwa and other corrupt and extortionate practices in the Sokoto Caliphate and northern Nigeria, see Smith, M. G., “Historical and Cultural Conditions of Political Corruption Among the Hausa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 6 (1964), 164–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

35. Khaldun, Ibn, Muqaddimah (London, 1967), 313–14Google Scholar, commented on the need of the merchant for a good relationship with the judiciary. For a study of the symbiotic relationship between a military aristocracy and a group of urban notables and the relationship of this elite with the common people in the great Middle Eastern cities in medieval times, which offers interesting points of comparison for any study of the social history of cities such as Kano in Islamic west Africa in the relatively recent past, see Lapidus, I. M., Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).Google Scholar

36. The collection of hadisai contains numerous recommendations to engage in good works as well as admonitions against conduct contrary to the spirit of these recommendations.

37. There are relatively few published studies of the roles and activities of women in Hausa society and these are written mainly from an ethnograhpic perspective. In many respects the account of her life given by Baba of Karo to Mary Smith remains the outstanding source for historians: see Smith, , Baba of Karo (New York, 1964).Google Scholar Other studies include Saunders, Margaret O., “Women's Role in a Muslim Hausa Town (Mirra, Republic of Niger)” in Bourguignon, E., A World of Women (New York, 1980), 57–86Google Scholar; Barkow, Jerome H., “Hausa Women and Islam,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 6 (1972), 317–28Google Scholar; Barkow, Jerome H., “The Institution of Courtesanship in the Northern States of Nigeria,” Génève-Afrique, 10 (1971), 58–73Google Scholar; Barkow, Jerome H., “Muslims and Maguzawa in North Central State, Nigeria: An Ethnograhpic Comparison,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, 7 (1973), 59–76.Google Scholar An important monograph which contains much of relevance to the approach I have adopted in this study is Nicolas, G., Dynamique sociale et appréhension du monde au sein d'une société Hausa (Paris, 1975).Google Scholar

38. See Hiskett, , Hausa Islamic Verse, 80–87Google Scholar for English translations from three nineteenth-century Hausa poets, ‘Abdullah b. Muhammed, Malam Shi'itu, and Aliyu dan Sidi.

39. A hostile and unfriendly attitude to women seems to be a widespread characteristic of Islamic societies, as is the idea that women have a special relationship with evil supernatural powers. See Westermarck, E., Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco (London, 1914), 338–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The study by Nicolas, referred to in note 37 contains much of interest on Hausa perceptions of the relationship of women to the natural and supernatural orders, see esp. 223-35.

40. For all practical purposes women were excluded from significant participation in the formal political and religious life of nineteenth-century Hausaland. However, it is known that earlier in Daura (and quite possibly in Zaria), women played an active, and not insignificant, part in the political process, holding titled offices with administrative, fiscal, and constitutional responsibilities. They also exercised control over territorial fiefs. See Smith, M. G., The Affairs of Daura (Berkeley, 1978), 42-43, 56, 83-85, 123-25, 134Google Scholar; idem., Government in Zazzau, 1800-1950 (London, 1978), s.v. Iya and Sarauniya in index. Other studies on various aspects of the public, and especially the religious and educational role(s) of women in Hausa society are: Jean Boyd and Murray Last, “The Role of Woman as ‘Agents Religieux’ in Sokoto,” seminar paper, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, December, 1985; and Boyd, Jean, “An Interim Report on the Yan-Taru Movement in the 20th Century, with an account of its origins,” conference paper, “Popular Islam in 20th Century Africa,” University of Illinois-Urbana, April 1984, 1–4.Google Scholar

On the role of women in the bori spirit cult, see Smith, Baba of Karo, passim; Greenberg, J. H., “Some Aspects of Negro-Mohammedan Culture Contact Among the Hausa,” American Anthropologist, 43 (1941), 51–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem., The Influence of Islam on a Sudanese Religion (New York, 1946); Onwuejeogwu, M., “The Cult of Bori Spirits among the Hausa” in Douglas, M. and Kaberry, P. M., eds., Man in Africa (London, 1969), 279–305Google Scholar; Krieger, K., “Notizen zur Religion der Hausa,” Paideuma, 13 (1967), 96–121.Google Scholar

In principal Hausa women could engage in farming, craft manufacture, and, above all, in commerce. However, in the nineteenth century, as now, the economic activities of all but a very small minority of Hausa women focused on the household economy, with small scale production of commodities and petty trading being geared to immediate and/or relatively short term personal and domestic needs. Women seldom controlled or had access to land, labor and capital on a scale that would allow them to become significantly involved in the market economy. However, the existence of feminine forms of the words for broker, itinerant traders of at least two types, caravan leader, and wealthy merchant (dillaliya, farkya/farkiya, ‘yar jagale, maduga/madiya, attajira) suggests that women engaged in these commercial activities and that some of them prospered but we cannot say much more than that. For successful businesswomen in the vicinity of Kano, probably in the early twentieth century, see Hill, Polly, Population, Prosperity and Poverty: Rural Kano, 1900 and 1970 (Cambridge, 1977), 162-63, 178–79.Google Scholar See also Saunders, , “Women's Role,” 79.Google Scholar One feature of trade in Hausaland in which women play an important part is that described by Polly Hill as “house trade.” See her “Hidden Trade in Hausaland,” Man, n.s. (1969), 392–409Google Scholar; and “Two Types of West African House Trade” in Meillassoux, Development, 303-18.

41. On the nature/culture dichotomy in Hausa thought as it relates to women, see Nicolas, Dynamique sociale.

42. See notes 38 and 39.

43. An extraordinary example of the dehumanizing representation of women in Hausa literature is the prose piece Labarin bayanawar maza da mata, an unpublished manuscript in the Edgar Collection, Nigerian National Archives, Kaduna, in which one Umarul Kaisi is asked by one Umarul Ajidafi to explain the character of woemn. Urnami Kaisi responds by saying that there are twenty different kinds of woman, most of them directly comparable with certain animals. To give some idea of the flavor of this material I translate what is said about two of the types, “the camel woman” and–the only one who receives a recommendation from Umarul Kaisi—“the sheep woman.”

Umarul Kaisi said that the camel woman has much patience. There are none to compare with her for patience. She is slow to anger but when she does get angry she will not stay [with you]. You may give her everything that you own and she will accept it and still go to her parents.

The sheep woman is one of long silence [uncomplaining may be understood]. If her husband does her wrong/ignores her, she conceals the fact and she sprinkles soil on her own head. She is to her husband like his female slave. Hold on to her, oh my brother, do not leave her.

The extent to which “the sheep woman”—long-suffering and uncomplaining, self-abasing, used and abused as a slave might be—represents a Hausa male stereotype of the ideal wife can only be surmised. The representation of the twenty female characters is negative; the observations focus on immorality, dishonesty, greed, indolence, untrust-worthiness, foolishness, and a propensity for scandalmongering and slander. Men are urged to leave women who exhibit nine of the characteristics described. There are no examples in which a male in described in like terms, although what is said about the character of men is often critical in tone.

The fourteen-page manuscript is handwritten in Hausa (Roman script) and appears to be entirely in Edgar's hand, and is almost certainly a translation of an Arabic original. In the same archives is an anonymous Arabic M.S. Kitab Ala-Matun Nisa-i Zarprof D/ AR 30/3, the text of which is very similar to the Labarin bayanawar maza da mata.

The abuse and derogation of women in language and literature is, of course, not unique to Hausa. For a brief discussion of the representation of women as creatures in popular attitudes and speech in England see Thomas, , Man and the Natural World, 43.Google Scholar

44. On the household roles of women and some references to clothing and personal adornment, see Smith, Baba of Karo, passim.

45. An outline of the male Hausa ideal of female beauty is included in Edgar's collection. Skinner, , Hausa Tales, 1:289.Google Scholar

46. It is not entirely clear whether the Utiya in line 18 of Wadata is a mythological, legendary, or historical figure, or a creature of the supernatural order. However, the young woman's links with the supernatural order are firmly established by the simile of the pods of the marga tree, known as sandan mayu—stick/rod of the sorcerers. See note 83 to the Hausa text.

47. For an approach to the study of Hausa conceptions of the relationship of women to the supernatural order see Nicolas, , Dynamique sociale, 223–35.Google Scholar

48. It was the responsibility of the caravan leader to make suitable provision for the care of sick people and sick animals while on the march. For more on this see Lovejoy, Paul E., Caravans of Kola: The Hausa Kola Trade, 1700-1900 (Zaria, 1980), 101–12Google Scholar; Duffill, M. B. and Lovejoy, P. E., “Merchants, Porters, and Teamsters in the Nineteenth Century Central Sudan” in Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch and Lovejoy, P. E., eds., The Workers of African Trade (Beverly Hills, 1985), 141–43.Google Scholar

49. Dishonest behavior by some caravan leaders and scribes is referred to by Flegel, E. R., Löse Blatter aus dem Tagebuche meiner Haussa-Freunde und Reisegefahrten (Hamburg, 1885), 17, 28Google Scholar; Duffill, M. B., The Biography of Madugu Mohamman Mai Gashin Baki (Los Angeles, 1984), 7, 13.Google Scholar

50. Amputation of a hand or in the case of repeated offenses, of a foot, is the traditional punishment prescribed by Islamic law for certain kinds of theft. See Mischlich, A., “Uber Sitten,” 227–28.Google Scholar For a fuller discussion of the Maliki code of Islamic law as it relates to the different kinds of theft for which amputation was the prescribed punishment see Ruxton, U. F., Maliki Law (London, 1916), 335–411.Google Scholar It would appear from this that the breach of trust or embezzlement being alluded to in the poem, could have been punishable by amputation. Ibid., 337.

51. Leaders of caravans in Hausaland are known to have had full judicial powers granted to them by the Sultan of Sokoto. See Flegel, , Löse Blatter, 15Google Scholar; Duffill, , Madugu Mohamman, 5.Google Scholar

52. For examples of the different forms of Hausa praise song see Gidley, C. G. B., “A Hausa Praise Singer's Account of His Craft,” African Language Studies, 16 (1975), 93–115Google Scholar; idem., “Karin Magana and Azanci as Features of Hausa Sayings,” African Language Studies, 15 (1974), 81-96.Skinner, N., Allen, T., and Davis, C. N., “Wakar Bushiya: A Hausa Satirical Poem by Isa Hashim” in Lindfors, B., ed., Critical Perspectives on Nigerian Literatures (Washington, 1976), 61Google Scholar, deals with distinctions between zambo and habaici.

53. Makerim/makeram baki are but one variety of professional praise singers/ musicians who are collectively referred to by the Hausa as maroki/marokiya (m./f. sing.), maroka (pl.). Gidley, “Hausa Praise Singer's.” More generally on Hausa praise song and Hausa music, especially in their sociological aspects, see Smith, M. G., “The Social Functions and Meaning of Hausa Praise Singing,” Africa, 27 (1957), 26–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ames, D. W. and King, A., Glossary of Hausa Music and its Social Context (Evanston, 1971)Google Scholar; Ames, D. W., “A Sociological View of Hausa Musical Activity” in D'Azevedo, H. L., ed., The Traditional Artist in African Societies (Bloomington, 1972), 128–61.Google Scholar

54. See notes 105-108 to the Hausa text of the poem.

55. See note 49 above.

56. Skinner, N., “The Slattern–a theme of Hausa poetry” in Six, V.et al., eds., Afrikanische Sprachen und Kulturen: Ein Querschnitt (Hamburg, 1971) 288–97.Google Scholar

57. In addition to escape and flight, female protest at enslavement—and more particularly at concubinage—could have taken several forms, ranging from suicide to self-mutilation, induced abortion or miscarriage, infanticide, and murder of the master. It is known that both male and female slaves, especially the newly-enslaved in transit, would sometimes seek out poisonous plants and ingest lethal quantities of them. On slave escape and flight in Hausaland, see Smith, , Baba of Karo, 39, 43.Google Scholar On suicide see Passarge, S., Adamaua (Berlin, 1895), 262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar On the evidence for induced abortion or miscarriage and infanticide by female slaves and the interpretation thereof, see essays by Harms, and Meillassoux, in Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, Martin A., eds., Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, Wise, 1983)Google Scholar, and Cooper, Fred, Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa (New Haven, 1977).Google Scholar On the murder of masters by concubines, see Bovili, E. W., ed., Missions to the Niger, IV (Cambridge, 1966), 717Google Scholar; Clapperton, Hugh, Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa from the Bight of Benin to Soccatoo (London, 1829), 171.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

For an overview of the characteristics of slavery in nineteenth-century Hausaland see Lovejoy, P. E., “Slavery in the Sokoto Caliphate” in Lovejoy, , ed., The Ideology of Slavery in Africa (Beverly Hills, 1981), 200–43Google Scholar; idem., Transformations in Slavery (Cambridge, 1983), 184-218.

58. Saunders, , “Women's Role,” 73–77Google Scholar; Onwuejeogwu, , “Bori Spritis,” 289.Google Scholar

59. According to al-Hajj ‘Umar, slaves who ran away were severely beaten if recaptured. There is no evidence that there was any discrimination between the sexes in the matter of punishment: Mischlich, , “Uber Sitten,” 258.Google Scholar

60. See Skinner, Hausa Tales, and the work of the poets mentioned by Hiskett, , History, 156–61Google Scholar, especially Hadeja, Mu'azu, Wakokin Mu'azu Hadeja (Zaria, 1958)Google Scholar and Funtuwa, Hamisu Yaddudu, Wakokin Hausa (Zaria, 1957).Google Scholar

61. Karuwa (.karuwai pl.) can mean thief or profligate man but, applied to a woman, it is often taken to mean harlot or prostitute. However, this description is somewhat misleading since not all women so designated by Hausa men (and women) are engaged in prostitution and some authorities have translated the word as courtesan. Strictly speaking, the term karuwa may only be applied to a woman of childbearing age who does not marry again after being widowed or divorced and who chooses to live an independent life, often with other women, rather than return to the compound of some member of her male kindred. On the life of the karuwai see Barkow, , “Institution,” 58–73Google Scholar, and Smith, Baba of Karo. A woman who returns to the compound of a male relative after being divorced or widowed, and who makes no move to remarry, maintaining a respectable, or at least a discreet, lifestyle, would be known as a bazawara.

62. On Hausa male stereotypes of ideal female behavior see notes 43 and 45 above and Barkow, , “Hausa Women,” 319.Google Scholar

63. Karuwanci. Given as “profligacy” and “harlotry” in the standard dictionaries but may be understood to mean the ways and the life style of the karuwai.

64. Strictly speaking, a concubine who had borne a child to her master was a free woman and, according to Islamic law, could not be sold, though her status was not equal to that of a freeborn woman. See Mischlich, , “Uber sitten,” 257–62Google Scholar; Trimingham, J. S., Islam in West Africa (Oxford, 1976), 168.Google Scholar

65. Chaucer, , The Canterbury Tales (Harmondsworth, 1966), 142–43.Google Scholar

66. Lounsbury has shown that the section of the Prologue in which the miserable life of the poor is depicted derives directly from “De Miseria Divitis et Pauperis,” the sixteenth chapter of the first book of De Contemptu Mundi sive de Miseria Conditionis Humanae of Lotario di Segni (1160/61-1216), who later became Pope Innocent III. Lounsbury, T. R., Studies in Chaucer: His Life and Writings (2 vols.: London, 1892), 1: 425–27Google Scholar; 2: 329-34.

67. Langland, William, Piers the Ploughman (Harmondsworth, 1959).Google Scholar

68. Ibid. See the speech by Lady Study in Book X (152) and more especially the C-text variant in Appendix B (298), as well as the sermon by Patience in Book XIV (esp. 208-11).

69. Ibid. See the Confession of Avarice in Book V (105-07) and the description and Confession of Haukyn in Book XIII (200-01).

70. Ibid. See Book XIII (196-203). The Confession of Haukyn is both a recasting and a development of the earlier Confession of the Seven Deadly Sins in Book V (101-13). Haukyn is the archetype of the sinful man and is also guilty of lechery, gluttony, and sloth, sins that do not feature prominently in the Hausa poem, though there are points that can be made in relation to gluttony and sloth in the Wadata, where the rich man certainly has the opportunity for gluttony even when others are facing famine. There may also be evidence of sloth in the rich man's behavior. Although people flatter him by calling him Shehu, a religious scholar of distinction, it is clear that he is relatively ignorant in matters of religion, barely able to read the Qur'an.

71. Ibid. See the sermon of Patience in Book XIV (209).

72. Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Oxford, 1961).Google Scholar The reforming preachers commented on the misery of the poor and their oppression by the land-owning classes in very strong language indeed, as well as on oppressive and dishonest conduct by merchants and lawyers. Ibid., 300-07, 319-49, 352-61.

73. Ibid., 300-07, 319-31.

74. The reforming preachers were not concerned only to censure the sins and vices of the rich and powerful-craftsmen, laborers, and indeed all social classes, were subject to their scrutiny. Ibid., 361-70.

75. William Dunbar (ca. 1460-1515). Very little is known about Dunbar except that he was employed by James IV in a diplomatic capacity and he held what was probably a minor position at the Scottish court. He was an ordained priest and may have been a Franciscan friar and have studied at the University of St. Andrews in his youth. The edition of Dunbar's poems that I have used, The Poems of William Dunbar (Oxford, 1979)Google Scholar, is that prepared and introduced by James Kinsley. For discussion of Dunbar's work and his place in European literature, see Scott, Tom, Dunbar: A Critical Exposition of the Poems (Edinburgh, 1966).Google Scholar

76. Kinsley, , Poems, 69, 71, 118, 122, 123, 126, 128, 181, 206, 207.Google Scholar

77. Ibid., 118, 123, 126, 207.

78. Ibid., 61, 128, 131.

79. Ibid., 71, 124, 204, 207, 211.

80. Ibid., 201.

81. Ibid., 122, 146, 166, 189, 210.

82. Ibid., 199.

83. Scott, , Dunbar, 94.Google Scholar

84. In this context three Scots poets of ca. 1480-1520–Robert Henryson, Gavin Douglas and Sir David Lyndsay–may be mentioned. The poetry of Dunbar and Lyndsay in particular contributed to and reflected something of the critical ferment that culminated in the Scottish Reformation.

85. Hll, Christopher, Change and Continuity in 17th Century England (London, 1974), 181–204.Google Scholar

86. Joly, M. A., “De la condition des vilains au Moyen Age d'après les fabliaux,” Mémoires de l'Acadèmie nationale des sciences, arts et belles-lettres de Caen (1882), 445–92.Google Scholar

87. Ibid., 460-62.

88. Cited by Mollatt, M. and Wolff, P., The Popular Revolutions of the Late Middle Ages (London, 1973), 89.Google Scholar See also Joseph, , de Lettenhove, Baron Kervyn, Histoire de Flandre (6 vols.: Brussels, 1847–1850), 2: 537–39.Google Scholar “The Kerelslied” and “Le Despit au Vilain” date from a period of considerable peasant unrest.

89. Coulton, G. G., The Medieval Village (Cambridge, 1925)Google Scholar, esp. 231-52, 307-20, 516-26.

90. Yusuf b. Muhammad B. ʿAbd al-Jawad B. Khadr al-Shirbini, Hazz al-quhuf fi sharh qasid Abi-Shaduf (Cairo, 1274/1857-58). The work was written in the second half of the seventeenth century.

91. Baer, Gabriel, Fellah and Townsmen in the Middle East (London, 1982), 3–47.Google Scholar

92. Baer takes issue with several Egyptian scholars who have sought to tackle the problems raised for a radical nationalist historiography by the existence of a major premodern work by a native Egyptian writer, himself of rural origin, that mocks and scorns the peasantry. (The work of the Egyptian scholars—cited by Baer, , Fellah, 44–45Google Scholar—is entirely in Arabic, but one has been translated into English. Abd al-Rahman, ʿal-Rahim, ʿAbd, “Hazz al-Quhuf: A New Source for the Study of the Fallahin of Egypt in the XVII and XVII Centuries,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 18[1975], 244–70.).Google Scholar Baer's criticisms appear to be well-founded in most respects, though perhaps Baer has not given sufficient weight to the apologiae and qualifications in al-Shirbini's introduction. It is plausible to suggest that the work could be read at different levels and had different purposes, among them criticism of the authorities and the ʿulama’.

93. Baer, , Fellah, 15.Google Scholar