The coming of the Fulani: a Bachama oral tradition

J. Carnochan

doi:10.1017/S0041977X00132082

The coming of the Fulani: a Bachama oral tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 December 2009

J. Carnochan

Article contents

Extract
References

Get access

Rights & Permissions

Extract

In 1963 I was given leave by the School to make a preliminary study of Bachama, a language spoken in the east of Northern Nigeria, and in parts ofthe adjacent territory of the Cameroons Republic. In general the topics onwhich people were most willing to talk freely to me, and to record, were storiesabout the folk-lore and their history. Besides being good language material, some of these accounts may be of interest to historians and others working inthe Nigerian field. The text given below is from a tape recording made at Lamurde on 3 May of that year, by Nikodimu Sondo Bukumdi, a local manof some 50 years or more. Lamurde, or Bácámá as the Bachama call it, is thenormal home of the chief of the tribe, and is one of their most important cultural centres. It is here that a new chief is elected, and given instruction in his duties. It is here that many of the objects connected with the religious festival of Nzeanzo at Farei are kept during the rest of the year. Recently, the chiefhas found it more convenient for his administrative duties to live at Numan, and he is now seldom at Lamurde. In his absence on the occasion of my visit, the head of the town assembled a number of elders in the open air who sataround and talked together of the remembered history of their people.

Type: Articles
Information: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , October 1967 , pp. 622 - 633

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0041977X00132082 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 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 The spelling Lamurde, is taken from the Administrative Map of Nigeria, issued by the Surveyor-General, Nigeria, 1924, revised by Federal Surveys, Nigeria, 1960, scale 1: 1, 000, 000. The town itself is not marked, but ‘Lamurde H[ill]’ is marked. This spelling also represents the local pronunciation. The name is from the Fula word, lāmorde, meaning ‘the capital’, derived from the verb lāma ‘to rule’, or ‘to reign’, from which comes lāmīdo, the title of the chief of the Fulani in Adamawa, who has his headquarters at Yola.

² For an account of this festival see Appendix C in Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., Adanmwa past and present, published for the International African Instituteby Oxford University Press, 1958.Google Scholar

³ The Hausas have similar folk-tales about Bawa Jan-Gwarzo, and a teacher, as given byEdgar, F.in Littafi na tatsuniyoyi na Hausa, I, 62. He is described as the chief of Gobir, one of the seven Hausa states, in the north-west of Nigeria.Google Scholar

⁴ Bwàará, masc. sg., , fern, sg., and , pi., are the Bachama words by which they refer to themselves; they do not call themselves Bácámá, but reserve this for the town of Lamurde. These words are also used for ‘human beings’, or ‘person’, ‘man’, ‘woman’, ‘people’.

⁵ The word kiwa functions here as a verb; it means variously ‘to throw (a spear) towards’, ‘to come round to the starting-point’. The noun from it, kiwatθ, is used for ‘a year’, starting from any particular day, right round to that point again. There is another word, wdnte ‘a year’, which is not derived from any verb.

⁶ It may be of interest to collect here the various forms of this word occurring in the text. The simple form is hemθn ‘king’, as in Sentence 41, Heθmθn Pwá ‘Kong Heaven’. In S 143, Háma Bacáma ‘Chief of Bachama’ shows the form used in genitive relation. In S 32 one has the derived form hemne ‘chieftaincy’, ‘kingdom’, ‘kingship’. The form hθmnáa, here in S 10, is the deictic form, ‘this chieftaincy’.

⁷ The form mbáran here, and mbara in S 16 are plural forms, the corresponding singulars being mbran, mbra. The plural form is used to imply that the fire cannot be extinguished by one single act. These forms are transitive, the intransitive forms being mbrè, sg., as in S 52, hθmθn a mbúrė ‘the chief died’, and mbθrè, pi., as in tėn mberė, ‘they died’. There are many Bachama verbs which have singular and plural forms where the differences of grammatical number are shown by different stem vowels. Some have concord with singular and plural subjects, others with singular and plural objects, others again with either, and yet others which agree with the action or actions in the situation, as with this present verb.

⁸ This is borrowed from the Hausa form, Jumma'a ‘Friday’. It is likely that the Fulani teacher and his servant were Muslim; the teacher speaks of a message from Mecca, in S 22, and he chooses Friday on which to go and greet the Chief. This is a common habit among the Muslims in Northern Nigeria.

⁹ The word gàlíkθ is singular in form, but á su lákė means ‘in great number’, ‘in plenty’. This is the singular form that goes with the following adjective, dèembúne. The form gdlikda in S 30 is the relative form, ‘crow which its neck is white’. The simple form corresponding to both is gáltkey.

¹⁰ The form lyèń sė implies sending a message away. The form for sending towards is lyàná fe. In S 58 there is myé á lyànéu se ‘a message should be sent to you’, where the husband and the wife (the ‘you’ here) are together. The form myė á lyèn se, ‘a message should be sent to you’, implies that the speaker and the ‘you’ are in different places.

¹¹ The'i functions as a defining particle with feminine words and with plural words. In S 112 the 'a functions similarly with a masculine word; kpàné is ‘big’, or ‘old’, masculine, and kpàńtė is the feminine; 'ȧ kpàné, in S 112, means ‘the elder’, or ‘the eldest son’, while here in S 48, 'i kpàńté means ‘the eldest daughter’.

¹² This sentence might be loosely translated as ‘She got dressed’, but the translation given ‘She took her cloth and tied it tightly round her belly’ is preferred as the Bachama indicates how she did it. Because she was going on a journey, she tied it tightly, pushing the knot inwards to hold the cloth secure. Many old women still do this, although the modern tendency is to roll the knot outwards, which requires frequent adjustment. This would be described by using instead of the used here.

¹³ This is probably a false etymology: see translation at this point. The Hausa verb (with tones high low) means ‘to get lost’. The Hausa name for the tribe, has high level tones, and is perhaps their pronunciation for the Bata masculine singular form ; feminine ; plural .