Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-xm8r8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-23T13:32:47.018Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Christian Traces and a Franciscan Mission in the Central Sudan, 1700–1711

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Richard Gray
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In 1700 reports from Tripoli reached the congregation of Propaganda Fide in Rome that Christians, ‘little or uninstructed in the Faith’, were living in Bornu. Further enquiries revealed that these rumours related not to the kingdom of Bornu, but to a neighbouring, rival kingdom, that of ‘Gourourfa’ or ‘Carnorfa’. Two sons of the ruler of Bornu, interviewed in Cairo, stated that in ‘Canorfa’ there were people ‘who venerate the Cross and erect it over the houses and churches’, while the French Consul at Tripoli reported how he had seen slaves from ‘Gouroufa’ who made the sign of the Cross. In June 1710 two Franciscans, attempting to establish contact with these ‘Christians’, set out from Tripoli, passed through Murzuk and Agades, and were later reported to have died in Katsina in August 1711.

Hausa and Bornu sources indicate that these reports almost certainly referred to the Kwararafa, who on several occasions in the seventeenth century attacked Kano and Bornu. It is then pointed out that a Maltese cross was one of the motifs still used in the twentieth century as a decoration by an Aku of Wukari, a ruler of the Jukun, who are among the principal survivors of the Kwararafa. At least a section of the inhabitants of Wukari also preserved a clearly remembered tradition of having taken part in a migratory journey from the Nilotic Sudan to the Benue. It is suggested therefore that the reports of the French consul and the Franciscans, although garbled and consisting in the main of second-hand evidence, strengthen the possibility that the Maltese crosses used among the Jukun, in Nupe and at Benin indicate an influence which emanated originally from Christian Nubia and is perhaps connected with the Kisra traditions.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , November 1967 , pp. 383 - 393
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 de Turre, A. M. (ed. Chiappini, A.), Orbis Seraphicus, II, pars ii (Quaracchi-Firenze, 1945),Google ScholarOctavus, Liber ‘De Novissimus Apostolicis Missionibus ad regna Fezzàn, Bornò Nubiae et Gorolfae in Africa’, pp. 312–33.Google Scholar

2 Quarterly Review (1818),Google Scholar quoted in Hallett, R., The Penetration of Africa, 1 (1965), 102–3.Google Scholar

3 Bergna, C., La Missione Francescana in Libia (Tripoli, 1924).Google Scholar

4 Archives of Propaganda Fide (A.P.F.), Scr. Cong. Gen. 536, ff. 458, 461. Copy of memorandum by Fr. Maurizio da Lucca, presented by Cardinal Sacripante to the General Congregation of 14 December 1700.Google Scholar

5 Another account gives thirteen days here (A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 557, f. 342).Google Scholar The figure of ten days strangely echoes the tenth-century account by Al Muhallabi of the distance between the kingdoms of Nuba and Zaghawa, quoted in Oliver, R. and Fage, J. D., A Short History of Africa (1962), 47.Google Scholar

6 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 557, ff. 315, 324, 326–43. Copies of two memoranda by Fr Damiano submitted after his return to Italy, and considered at the General Congregation of 22 Feb. 1707.Google Scholar

7 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 552, ff. 422–3. Fr Damiano da Rivoli to Prefect of Propaganda, Tripoli, 4 July 1705. Fr Damiano in his later memoranda changed the spelling of ‘Corurfa’ to ‘Gorolfa’.Google Scholar

8 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 557, ff. 315, 324. Memorandum by Fr Damiano consideredon 22 Feb. 1707.Google Scholar

9 Reports by Lemaire and Delalande quoted in Masson, P., Histoire des établissements et du commerce française dans l'Afrique barbaresque, 1560–1793 (Paris, 1903), 178–9. I most grateful to Mr Robin Hallett of Oxford for drawing my attention to this reference and for those in notes 41 and 51.Google Scholar

10 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. ff. 134–5. Lemaire to prefect of Propaganda, Tripoli, 18 Apr. 1706.Google Scholar

11 A.P.F. Scr. Congressi. Barbaria 3, ff. 505–8. Same to same, Tripoli, 25 May 1707. An Italian translation is at Scr. Cong. Gen. ff. 632–3.Google Scholar

12 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 561, f. 23. Note from the Franciscan procurator, discussed on 9 Jan. 1708.Google Scholar

13 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 561, f. 25. Fr Carlo Maria di Genova to Propaganda Cairo, 28 Nov. 1707.Google ScholarBeccari, C., Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales, XIV (Rome, 1914), 384, quotes a letter from the French consul in Cairo, 18 Jan. 1707, which refers in passing to both Fr Carlo (‘mon chapelain’) and to the visit of the princes of Bornu.Google Scholar

14 Fr Carlo offended both the French Consul and the prefect of the Tripoli Mission by his dilatoriness and the company he frequented: he was even accused of having proposed a toast in honour of the Queen of England. But he pleaded an interruption of the caravans, and he may well have thought that his unprecedented task demanded unorthodox friendships. (A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 569, f. 266, Poullard to Card. Sacripante, Tripoli, 25 Mar. 1709; 573, f. 8, Fr Francesco Maria di Sarzana to Prefect of Propaganda, Tripoli, 19 Jan. 1710; 569, f. 264 and 572, f. 405, letters from Fr Carlo to Propaganda, Tripoli, 26 Aug. 1709 and 18 May 1710.)Google Scholar

15 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 573, f. 41, Fr Carlo to the prefect of Propaganda, Tripoli, 9 June 1710.Google Scholar

16 Agabba, Muhammad (1687–1721).Google ScholarCf.Urvoy, Y., Histoire des populations du Soudan Central (Paris, 1936), 176–8.Google Scholar

17 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 77, f. 325, Fr Carlo to Card. Sacripante, Fezzano da Daraghen, 17 Oct. 1710.Google Scholar

18 The text has ‘verso le parti di Lebechio’. Libéccio = south-west wind.Google Scholar

19 Fr Francesco has ‘harrivati al Sudam capitale di quel Regno, in una Terra chiamata Cassinà’, but subsequently he refers to ‘il commandante di Cassinà’.Google Scholar

20 A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 586, ff. 41–2. Fr Francesco Maria di Sarzana to Prefect of Propaganda, Tripoli, 14 Oct.1712. A copy of this report must form the basis for the account in the Quarterly Review quoted in Hallett, op. cit. 103.Google Scholar

21 A.P.F. Acts 209, ff. 36–7, Fr Venanzio di S. Venanzio to Prefect of Propaganda, Tripoli, 6 Feb 1845. The new Vicariate, established in 1846, included the Central and Western Sudan, but its activities were restricted to the Nile;Google Scholarcf. Gray, R., A History of the Southern Sudan, 1839–1889 (1961), 23–4.Google Scholar

22 Fr Francesco in A.P.F. Scr. Cong. Gen. 86, f. 42.Google ScholarChiappini, A, op. cit. 313, n. I;Google ScholarStreit, R. and Dindinger, J., Bibliotheca Missionum, xvii (Freiburg, 1952), 60.Google Scholar

23 Barth, H., Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa, II (1857), 578.Google Scholar

24 ‘Kornorfa, which embraces about twenty divisions, ruled by one king, who often sallied forth upon Kanoo and Barnoo, and caused much desolation ’—Muhammad Bello's description in Denham, and Clapperton, , Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa, II, 3rd ed. (1828), 451.Google Scholar

25 ‘I have always taken this to be a hill called “Santolo” some miles south-east of Kano, which I believe, like some other hills, was the residence of a particularly powerful iska in pre-Islamic times’ (Professor Smith, H. F. C. in a letter dated I July 1966).Google Scholar

26 Palmer, H. R., Sudanese Memoirs, iii (Lagos, 1928), 104–6.Google Scholar

27 Ibid. 107.

28 Meek, C. K., A Sudanese Kingdom (1932), 28–9.Google Scholar

29 Palmer, op. cit. III, 116, 121–2.Google Scholar

30 Urvoy, Y., Histoire de l'empire du Bornou (Paris, 1949), 85.Google Scholar

31 Meek, op. cit. 253: ‘when the king of the Jukun daily drinks the ceremonial beer, he may be said to offer himself as a living sacrifice. The rites are, in fact, regarded by the Jukun congregation assembled in the precints in much the same way as a Catholic congregation regards a celebration of the mass.’ Cf. also pp 150, 158 n. i, 162, 256, and, although Meek did not draw the comparison, the use of holy water (p. 156), the washing of the hands after the meal (p. 161) and the burial ‘punctuated by sounds reminiscent of the responses of a choir in a vestry’, p. 171.

32 Ibid. 19, 206, and plate I.

33 Mr William Fagg of the British Museum writes that ‘the “Maltese crosses” on the Aku of Wukari's clothing may be illusory, for the technique used is appliqué, in which the easiest designs are combinations of triangles, especially in “solid” appliqué’. (Letter dated I June 1966).Google Scholar

34 Mr Arnold Rubin, who has undertaken field-work among the Jukun, informs me that photographs of Agbumanu I, Ashumanu IV, and Agbumanu IV show a number of motifs on their robes, ‘but nowhere, as far as I can tell, anything resembling a Maltese cross’. Down the sleeve worn by the present Aku is a motif somewhat resembling a Maltese cross, but ‘given the triangular basis of most of the other motifs’, Mr Rubin would be inclined to doubt whether it should be so interpreted. (Personal letter dated 27 July 1966.)

35 Ryder, A. F. C., ‘A reconsideration of the Ife–Benin relationship’, Journal of African History, VI, (1965), 25–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 I am grateful to Professor H. F. C. Smith and Mr Arnold Rubin for their comments on an earlier draft.Google Scholar

37 Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris. MSS. franç. 12220, f. 318.Google Scholar This information is omitted from the extracts published by Ch.de Ia Ronciére, , ‘Une histoire du Bornou au XVIIe siècle par un Chirurgien français captif à Tripoli’, Revue d'histoire des colonies françaises, 7e, ii (1919), 73–88.Google Scholar

38 de Villard, U. Monneret, Storia della Nubia Cristiana (Rome, 1938), 207.Google Scholar

39 Sölken, H., ‘Innerafrikanische Wege nach Benin’, Anthropos, XLIX (1954), 914–5, lists examples relating to ten peoples connected with his ‘Kisra-Zaghawa-Barbar-Volkerkreis’. His inclusion of Kanem-Bornu is not, however, justified by his sources, which include Streit's reference to the Franciscan mission.Google ScholarOther Zaghawa references are mentioned by Sir Palmer, Richmond, The Bornu Sahara and Sudan (1936), 148.Google ScholarSee also Frobenius, L., The Voice of Africa (Eng. trans.), II (1913), chapter xxix for Nupe, Borgu and Yoruba.Google Scholar

40 When Yaji sacked the sacred place at Santulo (see above, note 25) he found a bell and two horns among the sacred relics; cf. the horned figure of the Christian king of Nubia in Arkell, A. J., History of the Sudan to 1821, 2nd ed. (1962). fig. 24, p. 193.Google Scholar

41 P.R.O. F.O. 76/II. Smyth, W. H. to Rear-Admiral Penrose, Lebida, 24 Feb. 1817, enclosed in Admiralty to Goulburn, 8 May 1817.Google Scholar

42 Rodd, F. Rennell, People of the Veil (1926), 275–9, 293–4.Google Scholar

43 Denham and Clapperton, op. cit. II, 450;Google ScholarMeek, C. K., The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, 1 (1925), 72–3;Google ScholarHogben, S. J. and Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., The Emirates of Northern Nigeria (1966), 368–9.Google Scholar

44 For Nupe see Frobenius, op. cit. ii, 634–5. For an illustration of the Agades cross see Rodd, op. cit., plates 36, 37.Google Scholar

45 Sölken, op. cit.Google Scholar

46 For examples of the Maltese cross in Nubia see de Villard, U. Monneret, La Nubia Medievale, iv (Cairo, 1957), plates cxvii, cxxix, cxxxiv–vi, cxl, clxvi, clxxvii, clxxxi-iii. See also the illustrations of Karanog (Nubia) pottery in Palmer, The Bornu Sahara and Sudan, 88, 167. I have not seen any clear illustrations of the Maltese cross among the Tuareg, though Palmer states (p. 767) that they call it ‘the market ornament’. The Agades cross might well derive from the Maltese, but this would hardly explain the presence of clear examples of the Maltese cross far to the south among the Kwararafa and other peoples.Google Scholar

47 Meek, A Sudanese Kingdom, 21.Google Scholar

48 The comet mentioned in the text must have been that seen in Kano during September 1882.Google Scholar

49 Palmer's introduction to Meek, op. cit. xv;Google ScholarSudanese Memoirs, II, 61–63.Google Scholar

50 Arkell, A. J., ‘A Christian church and monastery at Am Farah, Darfur’, Kush, VII (1959), 115–19;Google ScholarKush, xi (1963), 375–79.Google Scholar

51 Palmer, Sudanese Memoirs, II, 96;Google ScholarDenham and Clapperton, op. cit. 1, 294. The ‘Kisara’ passed the rock of Balda in Musgu country.Google Scholar