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Nupe State and Community

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

S. F. Nadel
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Extract

In central Nigeria, between 8° 30' and 10° 30' N. lat., lies Nupe-land. Two rivers form its boundaries, the Niger to the south and west, the Kontagora river to the north. Another river marks its central axis: the Kaduna. The boundary to the east is formed by the gradually rising land, which eventually reaches the hills of Gwari country. It is a low, open, fertile country, covering roughly 7,000 sq. m., inhabited by a population who were known from the ancient days, and all over Nigeria, as an industrious and able people. The census of 1931 gives their number as 326,000, but for various reasons one may safely take it to be considerably higher, probably up to half a million.

Résumé

L'ORGANISATION POLITIQUE DES NUPÉ

Les Nupé, dont l'organisation politique est étudiée ici, vivent en Nigéria septentrionale dans la contrée entourant le confluent du Niger et du fleuve Kaduna. Nupé désigne d'abord l'unité tribale et en second lieu l'unité politique, le royaume Nupé, c'est-à-dire l'organisation issue de la culture nupé durant environ quatre siècles. Les frontières, pas plus que la structure interne, ne coïncident dans ces deux entités. En conséquence une analyse sociologique de la civilisation nupé doit considérer chaque unité comme une société à part et observer, parmi les principes et facteurs agissant, ceux qui ont été empruntés ou développés dans la structure sociale de l'état. Notre enquête à porté surtout sur les facteurs, base de l'organisation politique, et, par suite, fondement du contrôle social. Les répercussions de ces forces couvrent naturellement un champ très étendu, dans lequel on doit considérer la parenté, la religion, les mythes, l'économie, l'éducation. En d'autres termes, il s'agit d'analyser les forces qui maintiennent la cohésion de la société, et leurs effets dans toutes les unités intégrées par la communauté indigène, de la plus petite à la plus grande, de la famille à l'état en passant par le village, la fraction de tribu, la tribu. Nos observations ont révélé un antagonisme marqué entre les forces sociales constituant le village et la tribu et celles qui intégrent la société dans l'état. Quelques-unes de ces forces ont une signification particuliére: dans l'évolution présente elles ont leur effet sur les problèmes de l'administration européenne, du développement urbain et en général sur les phénomènes de contact avec la civilisation européenne.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 8 , Issue 3 , July 1935 , pp. 257 - 303
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1935

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References

page 261 note 1 According to the (not always identical) genealogies of the Nupe kings which have been preserved in the books of the first Mohammedan historians of Nupe, Tsoede's rule over Nupe was established at about A.D. 1500.

page 262 note 1 Dynastie rivalry led to the establishment of two small independent Nupe ‘kingdoms’, the old etsuship of Zuguma, now under Kontagora, and the more recent Emirate of Patigi, now under Ilorin. In their organization they are strict copies of the ancient Nupe kingdom out of which they both sprang. Other Nupe communities which became independent Emirates under the Fulani only are Agaie, and the small districts of Lafiagi and Shonga.

page 262 note 2 Barth, , Travels in Central Africa, ii, Appendix V.Google Scholar

page 263 note 1 Toennies, F., Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, 1926.Google Scholar

page 267 note 1 There is no definite limitation to the number of ranks in a village. Yet everywhere the number four seems a prominent characteristic. We have four ranks, or twice four ranks, or, under certain conditions, four primary ranks, separated from the rest. The latter type is frequently correlated to the organization of village-wards, or efu, of which again there would be four, each of them comprising a number of compounds. The four primary ranks would be placed, as ward-heads, efutsózhi, over the ordinary family-heads, emitsózhi (see p. 291).

page 274 note 1 This political co-operation was still active in the times of the Fulani wars. When the Fulani army attacked Bida, then one of the 12 Beni villages, the ‘town-king’ of Bida sent for help to the chief of Tafiẽ. Tafiẽ then organized the auxiliary army to which each of the Beni villages contributed, and this army eventually, relieved Bida.

page 275 note 1 There are two sections among the Kyedya, the Kyedya Gbéde on the upper Niger, and the Kyedya Táko, the ‘down-stream’ Kyedya. We refer here only to the latter and their political organization.

page 281 note 1 A third type, of a slightly different order, will be dealt with later; it embraces settlements founded by, and accordingly privately controlled by, members of the feudal nobility.

page 284 note 1 I have described such an ancient judicial system which was bound up with religious and mythical ideas in an article which will appear in Man.

page 289 note 1 Let us not underrate the element of plan and purpose in this: for these songs and stories are composed by the court musicians and the king's ‘bards’, and from the court they spread, together with fashions, and other factors of (conscious and unconscious) propaganda, all over the country.

page 290 note 1 Meek, C. K., in his book The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, stresses this social aspect of Islam in Nigeria.Google Scholar

page 293 note 1 These titles also express an interesting state control which the king exercises over the guilds. For the man who holds the title of the guild-head is at the same time the one to whom all orders from the court are addressed, and who is responsible for their execution. We have here a state tutelage of the professional classes which evidently had the purpose of guaranteeing the constant urgent demand of the large city, the huge court, and the ever active army.

page 293 note 2 One word about the titles as such. Some of them are new—non-Nupe, Hausa, Fulani, or even Bornu, in origin. But the majority of the titles, and, above all, the system as such, is essentially Nupe. It existed in the same form in the pre-Fulani capital Rabá, and exists to-day as a true copy in Parigi and Zuguma, where the descendants of the Rabá dynasty rule over their petty emirates.

page 294 note 1 This type of succession, frequently leading to the necessity of a regency for an infant king, weakened the king's position, and eventually (under Etsu Maazũ and Jimada, about 1800) caused those feuds and civil wars which, in the end, enabled the Fulani to seize the power over a disunited, fratricidal Nupe dynasty.

page 294 note 2 These three branches of the royal dynasty have clearly a clan character, and form an interesting example of the tenacity of an original clan organization. The clan-structure which dominates the social organization of the nomadic Fulani herdsmen has disappeared almost completely among the settled, town-dwelling conquerors, overshadowed by the new principle of grouping which originated in the Fulani jihad (Holy War), namely, the religious and military leadership of proselytizing and Conquering Fulani emissaries. But in Bida the old principle of social organization reappears, revived perhaps by the indigenous custom of rulership in rotation.

page 296 note 1 Three such ‘private’ settlements, excellently organized, exist just outside the town walls of Bida. They are called ésozhi, and are the property of the three ruling houses of Nupe.

page 296 note 2 During my stay in Bida it happened for the first time, and was duly commented on amongst the natives, that a peasant refused to suffer the injustice of one of the Fulani landlords, and applied to the native court for arbitration in a matter of his lease.

page 297 note 1 For some of these titles the ‘modern’ Hausa name has replaced the old Nupe title, e.g. the head of the military class is to-day generally called maiyaki, instead of the old Nupe tsádza.

page 298 note 1 These highest titles would be sõfáda and mljindádi. Linguistically the difference between bara ranks and ‘real’ ranks, i.e. ranks granted by king and council, is marked by the additional -kó (the suffix meaning great) or 'tsu (i.e. ‘of the king’), e.g. sõfáda and sõfadakó.

page 302 note 1 Lugard, Lady, A Tropical Dependency, p. 458.Google Scholar