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GOLD MINING AND JULA1 INFLUENCE IN PRECOLONIAL SOUTHERN BURKINA FASO

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 November 2007

KATJA WERTHMANN
KATJA WERTHMANN
Affiliation:
University of Mainz
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Abstract

The ‘Lobi’ region in what is today southern Burkina Faso is frequently mentioned in historical accounts of gold mining in West Africa. However, little is known about the actual location of the gold mines or about the way gold mining and trade were organized in precolonial times. This article points out that some previous hypotheses about precolonial gold mining, trade and the sociopolitical organization of this region are flawed, partly because ‘Lobi’, as the name for both the region and its inhabitants, is misleading. In fact, the references to ‘Lobi’ merge two distinct gold-producing zones along the Mouhoun river, about 200 km from each other. The present-day populations of southern Burkina who have settled there since the eighteenth century do not know who was mining gold prior to their arrival, and many of them have not been involved in gold mining at all due to conceptions of gold as a dangerous substance.

Keywords

Burkina FasoKongminingeconomic
Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , November 2007 , pp. 395 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2007

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References

2 E. W. Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Moors (London, 1970), 119.

3 McIntosh, S. K., ‘A reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus, Island of Gold’, Journal of African History, 22 (1981), 145–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 ‘Bambuk’, ‘Bure’ and ‘Wangara’ have been located in different regions by different authors, based on often contradictory sources; see, for instance, B. Armbruster, ‘Traditionelle Goldgewinnung in Mali’, in T. Schunk (ed.), Gold aus Mali (Frankfurt, 1991), 181–221; Curtin, P. D., ‘The lure of the Bambuk gold’, Journal of African History, 14 (1973), 623–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; N. Levtzion, Ancient Ghana and Mali (London, 1973); R. Mauny, Tableau géographique de l'Ouest Africain au Moyen Age d'après des sources écrites, la tradition orale et l'archéologie (Dakar, 1961); R. J. McIntosh, The Peoples of the Middle Niger. The Island of Gold (Oxford, 1998); S. K. McIntosh, ‘A reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus’.

5 Farias, P. Moraes, ‘Silent trade: myth and historical evidence’, History in Africa, 1 (1974), 9–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also I. Wilks, ‘The Juula and the expansion of Islam into the forest’, in N. Levtzion and R. I. Pouwels (eds.), The History of Islam in Africa (Athens GA, 2000), 95–6.

6 S. K. McIntosh, ‘A reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus’, 145.

7 Bovill, The Golden Trade, 121.

8 P. Lovejoy, ‘The internal trade of West Africa before 1800’, in J. F. Ade Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. I (New York, 1985 [1971]), 655.

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10 Perinbam, M. B., ‘The political organization of traditional gold mining: the western Loby, c. 1850 to c. 1910’, Journal of African History, 29 (1988), 437–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 This imprecise definition does not correspond to any known precolonial territorial or political unit. Today, the region comprises parts of the provinces of Bougouriba, Ioba, Poni and Noumbiel; the latter two are in fact predominantly settled by ‘ethnic’ Lobi.

12 Other versions: Ouattara, Ouatara, Watara. In this article I retain the more phonetical version ‘Watara’.

13 Ibid. 437, 440.

14 Ibid. 447–9.

15 Ibid. 450.

16 Ibid. 452–5.

17 Archives nationales maliennes à Koulouba, Bamako (ANMKB) I D 46: ‘Renseignements sur les villages de la circonscription de Diébougou, Cercle du Lobi’, 1903; ‘Etudes générales. Quelques notes sur les Oulés, Cercle du Lobi, par le Lieutenant Quégneaux’, 1911; ‘Monographie du Cercle de Lobi: deux notices’, 1903–11; see also K. Werthmann, ‘Bitteres Gold. Historische, soziale und kulturelle Aspekte des nicht-industriellen Goldbergbaus in Westafrika’ (unpublished habilitation thesis, Mainz, 2003), 46–52.

18 In one footnote (440 n. 25) Perinbam actually admitted that it is not clear how ‘resident chiefs’ were installed, because according to Labouret there simply were no chieftaincies in that region in precolonial times.

19 ANMKB I D 46 ‘Etudes générales’, 1911. Other sources she explicitly referred to in fact contradict her hypothesis. In one document, Capitaine Tiffon (Cercle de Lobi) reports to the Commandant in Bobo-Dioulasso, on 24 March 1899, that there are no local or foreign sedentary traders in Lokhosso and Diébougou, only ‘les Dioulas de passage’. Perinbam cited this source in order to back up the following statement: ‘For twenty years, from 1898 to about 1910, gold marketing not only remained almost exclusively in the hands of the Jula from Kong, Bobojulasso, Buna and Bonduku; the number of traders increased as more gold came on the market’. Obviously, the source does not confirm this statement at all. Furthermore, some of the sources Perinbam cited do not even refer to the Cercle de Lobi, but to the Cercle de Bobo-Dioulasso region which, in terms of precolonial sociopolitical organization, settlement structures, etc., was different from the former and had indeed closer relationships with Kong.

20 One scholar, one miner/metal worker and one ‘traditionalist’. Perinbam, ‘Political organization’, 457.

21 C. Lentz, Ethnicity and the Making of History in Northern Ghana (Edinburgh, 2006), 45; M. Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität im bäuerlichen Alltag. Die Jãana und ihre Nachbarn in Burkina Faso’ (unpublished dissertation, Mainz, 2005), 116–19; Şaul, M., ‘The war houses of the Watara in West Africa’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 31 (1998), 537–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As in other West African regions, local clan names can be ‘substituted’ by Jula patronyms; for instance, the Lobi clan name ‘Kambou’ is thought of as being equivalent to the Jula patronym ‘Watara’. The adoption of Jula names in precolonial times probably facilitated marriage and war alliances, or helped in evading slavery. In any case, it was not necessarily connected with conversion to Islam. The twenty Dyan village heads referred to by Perinbam who bore a Jula patronym all had Dyan first names which is further proof that they were not ‘Jula representatives’. Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität’, 118.

22 J.-M. Kambou-Ferrand, Peuples voltaïques et conquête coloniale 1885–1914, Burkina-Faso (Paris, 1993), 16–17.

23 Lentz, Ethnicity, 72–93; Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität’, 50–3.

24 H. Labouret, Les tribus du rameau Lobi (Paris, 1931); M. Fiéloux, J. Lombard and J.-M. Kambou-Ferrand (eds.), Images d'Afrique et sciences sociales. Les pays lobi, birifor et dagara (Paris, 1993).

25 K. Schneider, Handwerk und materialisierte Kultur der Lobi in Burkina Faso (Stuttgart, 1990).

26 U. Bracken, Wie die Leute so reden. Eine Untersuchung von öffentlicher Kommunikation und gesellschaftlichem Wandel bei den Lobi in Burkina Faso (Weikersheim, 2003), 77.

27 Kuba, R. and Lentz, C., ‘Arrows and earth shrines: towards a history of Dagara expansion in southern Burkina Faso’, Journal of African History, 43 (2002), 377–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 C. Lentz, Die Konstruktion von Ethnizität. Eine politische Geschichte Nord-West Ghanas, 1870–1990 (Cologne, 1998), 155; see also Lentz, Ethnicity, 72–103.

29 Names and populations were probably much less bound in precolonial times than they are today. Half of all the present-day Phuo clans, for instance, still remember a different sociocultural origin: R. Kuba, ‘Comment devenir Pougouli? Stratégies d'inclusion au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso’, in R. Kuba, C. Lentz and C. N. Somda (eds.), Histoire du peuplement et relations interethniques au Burkina Faso (Paris, 2003), 137–67.

30 See, for instance, M. Gensler, ‘“Une fois loti … ”: Bodenrecht und Siedlungsgeschichte in einer westafrikanischen Kleinstadt (Diébougou, Burkina Faso)’, in Arbeitspapiere des Instituts für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien 14 (Mainz, 2002, www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/workingpapers/Gensler.pdf); P. C. Hiën, ‘Frontières et conflits chez les Dagara et leurs voisins au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso (XVIIIième–XIXième siècle)’, in Proceedings of the International Symposium 1999/Les communications du symposium international 1999 (Frankfurt, 2001), 427–40; Kuba and Lentz, ‘Arrows and earth shrines’; R. Kuba, C. Lentz and K. Werthmann (eds.), Les Dagara et leurs voisins. Histoire de peuplement et relations interethniques au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso (Frankfurt, 2001); R. Kuba and K. Werthmann, ‘Diébougou: aperçu historique’, in K. Werthmann (ed.), Diébougou, une petite ville du Burkina Faso (Arbeitspapiere des Instituts für Ethnologie und Afrikastudien, 45) (Mainz, 2004 www.ifeas.uni-mainz.de/workingpapers/Diebougouf.pdf), 19–31; Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität’; M. Père, Les Lobi: tradition et changement, Burkina Faso (Laval, 1988); C. de Rouville, Organisation sociale des Lobi: une société bilinéaire du Burkina Faso et de Côte d'Ivoire (Paris, 1987); Şaul, ‘War houses’; M. Şaul, ‘Les maisons de guerre des Watara dans l'ouest burkinabè précolonial’, in G. Y. Madiéga and O. Nao (eds.), Burkina Faso. Cent ans d'histoire, 1895–1995 (Paris, 2003), 381–417; J. Weinmann, ‘Les Dagara-Dioula de Diébougou: identité musulmane dans une petite ville ouest-africaine’, in Werthmann (ed.), Diébougou, 52–65.

31 O. Ouattara, ‘Les Watara de Kong au Burkina Faso’ (unpublished thesis, Ouagadougou, 1990), 99.

32 Ibid. 165.

33 Père, Les Lobi, 515–16.

34 Firstcomers in this region normally claim the ritual authority over the land they settle and cultivate. C. Lentz, ‘Firstcomers and latecomers: indigenous theories of landownership in West Africa’, in R. Kuba and C. Lentz (eds.), Land and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa (Leiden, 2006), 35–56; Kuba and Lentz, ‘Arrows and earth shrines’, 384–5.

35 Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität’, 39, 42. In a list, ‘Tableau généalogique de la famille des Ouattara, qui occupe le pouvoir dans les États de Kong depuis deux siècles environ’, Binger mentions one grandson of Sekou Ouattara, Ali-Ierré (Ali Yèréré), who resided in Diébougou. L. Binger, Du Niger au Golfe de Guinée par le pays Kong et le Mossi (Paris, 1892), I, 326. Ali Yèréré was the ruler of the ‘royaume Watara de Kubo’ who normally resided in Diébougou (or rather Loto). He died after a battle with the Samorians. Y. Person, Samori: une revolution Dyula (3 vols.) (Dakar, 1968–75) III, 1883. According to Person, Kubo was founded by the end of the nineteenth century but did not succeed in subjecting the Lobi, the Dagara-Wilé and the Bwa. Person, Samori, III, 1877.

36 H. Labouret, ‘Monographie du cercle de Gaoua’ 1923, 25.

37 Kuba, ‘Comment devenir Pougouli?’ 142.

38 Interviews with Sanogo Balaji, Loto, 25 Feb. 2001, 16 Mar. 2007.

39 See, for instance, Green, K., ‘Dioula and Sonongui roles in the Islamization of the region of Kong’, African and Asian Studies, 20 (1986), 97–117Google Scholar; S. Hagberg, Between Peace and Justice. Dispute Settlement between Karaboro Agriculturalists and Fulbe Agro-pastoralists in Burkina Faso (Uppsala, 1998); R. Launay, Traders without Trade. Responses to Change in Two Dioula Communities (London, 1982); Y. Person, ‘Precursors of Samori’, in P. J. M. Newman (ed.), Africa from Early Times to 1800 (London, 1969), 90–109; Y. Person, ‘The Atlantic coast and the southern savannahs, 1800–1880’, in J. F. Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa, vol. II (New York, 1984), 262–307; Şaul, ‘War houses’; Şaul, ‘Maisons de guerre’.

40 N. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa (Oxford, 1968), xxv.

41 For the Dagara-Jula and the history of Islam in Diébougou, see Weinmann, ‘Les Dagara-Dioula’.

42 Fabre, ‘Monographie de la circonscription de Diébougou’, 1 Jan. 1904, Archives d'Outre Mer, Aix-en-Provence (AOM) 14 Mi 686 (1G 304).

43 Kambou-Ferrand, Peuples voltaïques, 216.

44 Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität’, 43–4.

45 Several chiefs installed by the French misused their power and abused the local populations. Oberhofer, ‘Ethnizität’, 45–6. For the history of the Dagara in this region see Kuba and Lentz, ‘Arrows and earth shrines’.

46 B. Traoré, Histoire sociale d'un groupe marchande: les Jula du Burkina Faso (unpublished dissertation, Paris, 1996), II, 872.

47 Şaul, ‘War houses’; Şaul, ‘Maisons de guerre’.

48 E. Herbert, ‘Mining as microcosm in precolonial sub-Saharan Africa. An overview’, in A. B. Knapp, V. C. Pigott and E. Herbert (eds.), Social Approaches to an Industrial Past. The Archaeology & Anthropology of Mining (London, 1998), 138–54; J.-B. Kiéthéga, L'or de la Volta Noire. Exploitation traditionnelle: histoire et archéologie (Paris, 1983).

49 S. K. McIntosh, ‘A reconsideration of Wangara/Palolus’, 158; for other centers of gold trade see also Bovill, The Golden Trade, 126; T. F. Garrard, Akan Weights and the Gold Trade (London, 1980), 20; I. Wilks, ‘The Mossi and the Akan states, 1400 to 1800’, in J. F. Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa (New York, 1985), 481.

50 R. J. McIntosh, The Peoples, 217.

51 Schneider, K., ‘Das Gold der Lobi: Aspekte historischer und ethnologischer Interpretation’, Paideuma, 36 (1990), 277–90Google Scholar; see also J. Devisse, ‘L'or’, in J. Devisse (ed.), Vallées du Niger (Paris, 1993), 344–58; Kiéthéga, L'or, 157.

52 Père, M., ‘Vers la fin du mystère des ruines du Lobi?’ Journal des africanistes, 62 (1992), 79–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

53 Binger, Du Niger, I, 316. Binger made the ruler of Bouna sign a treaty with the French government which stated that the ‘Lobi’ belonged to the realm of Kong. Kambou-Ferrand, Peuples voltaïques, 253. About the ‘Lobi’ region, he said: ‘Il aurait certes été bien interéssant pour moi de visiter les territoires aurifères du Lobi, mais je ne me sentais pas suffisamment protégé pour entreprendre ce voyage’. Binger, Du Niger, I., 328.

54 Ibid. 325.

55 Ibid. 316.

56 Ibid. 430.

57 Clearly, Binger made a distinction between ‘Lobi’ and the region around Poura he was traveling through. For these gold-bearing zones lying north of the ‘Lobi’, Kiéthéga uses the name ‘Gurunsi’ which refers to the present-day populations. Kiéthéga, L'or, 40.

58 Ibid.

59 Other such mining pits can apparently be found all over the region, but neither myself nor any other researcher has systematically explored them.

60 Yeri/Nyira is a clan name among the Dagara and the Phuo (Pougouli). These clans possibly originated from Mande-speaking traders who in the distant past settled in the area and assimilated to the local agricultural populations. See J. Hébert, ‘Esquisse d'une monographie historique du pays dagara. Par un groupe de Dagara en collaboration avec le père Hébert’ (Diébougou, 1976), 152; U. Bürger, ‘Installation pacifique ou appropriation violente de terre? Réflexions sur l'histoire de l'installation des Phuo à Bonzan’, in Kuba et al. (eds.), Les Dagara, 131–40; D. Knösel, ‘Migration, identité ethnique et pouvoir politique: les Kufule d'Oronkua’, in Kuba et al. (eds.), Les Dagara, 87–95; Kuba, ‘Comment devenir Pougouli?’

61 Savonnet, G., ‘Habitations souterraines bobo ou anciens puits de mines en pays Wilé?’ Bulletin de l'IFAN, Série B, 36 (1974), 227–45Google Scholar.

62 J. Somé, ‘L'exploitation de l'or dans la région de Guéguéré (le site de Salmabor)’ (unpublished thesis, Ouagadougou, 1990).

63 Hébert, ‘Esquisse’.

64 K. Schneider, ‘Extraction et traitement rituel de l'or’, in Fiéloux et al. (eds.), Images d'Afrique, 195.

65 Labouret, Les tribus, 75.

66 Ibid. 79.

67 Tauxier said about the Kulango in the Cercle de Bondoukou (present-day Côte d'Ivoire), that they had formerly mined gold for the Abron rulers: ‘Actuellement ils n'en cherchent plus, d'une part parce que les gîtes se sont en grande partie épuisés, d'autre part parce qu'ils ont peur que les Européens ne leur sachant de l'or, n’élèvent encore l'impôt’. L. Tauxier, Le noir de Bondoukou. Koulangos, Dyoulas, Abron etc. (Paris, 1921), 46–7. For the history of Bouna, see J.-L. Boutillier, Bouna. Royaume de la savane ivoirienne. Princes, marchands et paysans (Paris, 1993).

68 According to Boutillier, gold was a major source of power for the rulers of Bouna. The gold was mined by slaves and other dependants. The most lucrative deposits were located in the ‘Lobi’, ‘assez mal à propos appelés ainsi, puisque, s'ils sont situés aujourd'hui dans une région effectivement peuplée des Lobi, ces derniers ne s'y sont effectivement installés que depuis moins de deux siècles’. Boutillier, Bouna, 245.

69 Traoré, Histoire sociale, I, 524, 526.

70 M. Şaul and P. Royer, West African Challenge to Empire. Culture and History in the Volta-Bani Anticolonial War (Athens GA, 2001), 16, 238.

71 Père, ‘Ruines du Lobi’, 87.

72 Both Levtzion and Perinbam assumed that the ‘silent trade’ and the ‘strange and savage ways’ of local populations described in Arab and Portuguese sources could have referred to the Lobi people. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs, 139; Perinbam, ‘Political organization’, 456. This assumption is clearly unsustainable.

73 Bantenga, M., ‘L'or des régions de Poura et de Gaoua: les vicissitudes de l'exploitation coloniale, 1925–1960’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, 28 (1995), 563–76Google Scholar.

74 ANMKB 3 Q 7, ‘Rapport sur les gisements aurifères Lobi’, 28 Feb. 1901.

75 ANMKB 3 Q 7, ‘Rapport du Capitaine A. Ruby’, 22 May 1902.

76 ANMKB 3 Q-13, ‘Rapport sur l'industrie minière au Haut Sénégal Niger en 1910’.

77 Père, Les Lobi, 575; Şaul, M., ‘Money in colonial transition: cowries and francs in West Africa’, American Anthropologist, 106 (2004), 71–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; C. N. Somda, ‘Les cauris du pays lobi’, in Fiéloux et al. (eds.), Images d'Afrique, 241.

78 Interview with Gbonferete Kambire, Mebar, 13 Oct. 1999; there was similar information from interviews with Jean-Baptiste Ouattara Kam, Diébougou, 7 Mar. 2000; Popo Sou, Chedja, 21 Feb. 2001; Kuu-baar-yir Somda, Djikologo, 22 Feb. 2001; and others. Women seem to have done most of the gold panning, but sometimes men were involved, too.

79 Schneider, ‘Extraction et traitement rituel de l'or’.

80 Werthmann, ‘Bitteres Gold’.

81 Lentz, C. and Erlmann, V., ‘A working class in formation? Economic crisis and strategies of survival among Dagara mine workers in Ghana’, Cahiers d'Études africaines 113 (1989), 69–111CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Labouret, Les tribus, 81; Schneider, ‘Extraction et traitement rituel de l'or’; R. E. Dumett, El Dorado in West Africa. The Gold-Mining Frontier, African Labor, and Colonial Capitalism in the Gold Coast, 1875–1900 (Athens GA, 1998), 60.

83 Interview with a group of Dagara in Guéguéré, 31 Mar. 2000. Interviews were carried out in 25 Birifor, Dagara, Dyan, Lobi, Phuo and Vigué villages between 1999 and 2001 and translated into French by Joël Somé.

84 Interview with Césaire Somé Dafiele, Dimouon, 7 May 2000.

85 Interview with Nieb Babor Birfuore, Salimbor, 20 May 2000.

86 Interview with Luc Sami Tam, Diébougou, 12 Mar. 2000.

87 Interview with Sami Kam, Milpo, 24 Oct. 1999.

88 Interview with Sou Sami Dassanga, Moulé, 20 Feb. 2001.

89 Interview with Sami Palenfo, Djasser, 25 Sept. 1999 and with Kambire Gbonferete, Mebar, 13 Oct. 99.

90 Werthmann, K., ‘Cowries, gold and bitter money: Non-industrial gold-mining and notions of ill-gotten wealth in Burkina Faso’, Paideuma, 49 (2003), 105–24Google Scholar. Similar beliefs exist not only in Southern Burkina Faso, but also in other regions of the country from where many present-day gold diggers originate. Moose and Gurunsi, for example, claim that all household property must first be moved into the courtyard before gold can be brought in. Only then can gold attract further wealth. A failure to take such precautionary measures before bringing the gold into the house will have the opposite effect of attracting misfortune (Kiéthéga, L'or, 187). These notions about the origin and nature of gold are by no means extraordinary. Ideas about a ‘mountain spirit’ characterize mining folklore all over the world.

91 Group interview in Koukana, 14 Mar. 2001. See K. Werthmann, ‘Gold diggers, Earth priests, and district heads: land rights and gold mining in south-western Burkina Faso’, in R. Kuba and C. Lentz (eds.), Landrights and the Politics of Belonging in West Africa (Leiden, 2005), 119–36. More recently, in July 2006, one Lobi man was killed during confrontations between gold diggers and local populations (le faso net, 18 Sept. 2006, www.lefaso.net/article.php3?id_article=16382, download 7 Dec. 2006).

92 Şaul, ‘War houses’, 565.

93 Ibid. 537, 541.

94 Ibid. 541.