Fulani people

“ The absence of any corporate government, civil or military, among the Pagans makes getting into touch with the people a slow and tedious process. They never, like the Fulani and Hausa tribes, had police, prisons and other adjuncts for ruling. ”

“ In a subsequent chapter the method and manner of ruling these Pagan tribes is explained. They, unlike the Fulani, the Hausa and cognate people, have no corporate life.
A single instance is rendered to show the spirit which animates the Government of Northern Nigeria in dealing with the inhabitants of the country. ”

“ The people do not thank us for them. They would infinitely prefer to be without taxation and to take their chance. They say that over very large tracts of country, particularly on and around the Bauchi Plateau, they were well able to take care of themselves against Fulani, Hausa and the kind, who would not venture in the area; whilst as to fighting among themselves, why, it was that which made life worth living.
[267]
Efforts of the Residents have been to persuade unwilling tribes to accept the principle of taxation ”

“ They are the rulers of all this great empire, and have for a hundred years exercised a tyrannical rule over the Hausas and the pagan peoples whom they had succeeded in enslaving before British rule in turn overcame them. The Fulani women are many of them olive-colored; some are beautiful and all have the small features, thin lips, straight nose, and long straight hair associated with the Asiatic. The Fulani rulers, following the Eastern fashion, have large harems and keep their women very secluded. ”

“ Still, it is desirable that, either as tribes or individuals, they should pay. It is the most convincing lesson of the power of the ruler. They have value for the impost. Peace and security for life and property are maintained. The Fulani and others are prohibited from swooping down with armies of cavalry to raid the country for slaves, and inter-tribal warfare among the Pagans themselves is sternly forbidden. ”

“ If we have the imagination to grasp the true significance of the events which led, a century ago, to the break-up of the Hausa dynasty by the Fulani, we shall find the key to the moral side of permanently successful government in Northern Nigeria. ”

“ It is true that the Fullans are great slave-dealers, but so are nearly all the princes of Africa. The mild and equitable administration of the kingdoms of Kanou, Succatou, Kashna, and other immense centres of population, as carried on by the Fullans, is notorious throughout The Great Desert. No people of Nigritian Africa has so profoundly excited my best sympathies as the Fullanee races [55] .
The Moors do not fondle and dandle their children on their knees, as parents are accustomed in Europe; and when grown up, the children appear as distant from their parents as strangers. ”

“ The men turn from their work in the fields to bow to the white men. The Hausa villages and Fulani farms are not far from the dwelling-places of their aforetime prey, for slaves, and sworn enemies. Cultivation of the land, though not general, is fairly frequent. Pagan villages, instead of always being made in rocky heights where they were safe from the raiding Fulani horsemen, are now seen pitched lower, and not infrequently in the valleys. The British power [155] ensures them protection and peace. ”

“ The motive of the Fulani jihad has usually been attributed either to mere religious fanaticism or to personal and racial ambition; or, again, as an incident in the prolonged struggle for power on the part of this or that ruler or dynasty which has destroyed the fertile uplands of Western Africa south of the Sahara since the shattering of the ancient Niger civilizations by the Moorish invasion at the end of the sixteenth century. ”

“ Now-a-days the Fullans are supposed to be the people who are the most advanced in intelligence and knowledge, compared with the other black populations of the centre of Africa. They themselves pretend to be of the blood of the illustrious Ammar, son of Yasir, one of the celebrated and virtuous companions of Mohammed. ”

“ And the whole organisation is an example of what can be done by courage, energy, force of character and extreme cunning allied to ferocity and cruelty; for the redoubtable Buba Gida, the owner—body and soul—of tens of thousands of slaves, is no scion of a kingly race. Mothered by a slave of the Lakka tribe and fathered by a Scrub Fulani of sorts, everything he has and is he owes entirely to his own ability. ”

“ But the more the Protectorate is organized the more ill at ease will the nomad Fulani become, especially as he dislikes most intensely the jangali or cattle-tax, at the best of times an unsatisfactory tax to enforce, and one which, moreover, operates unfairly towards the small herdsman. ”

“ Except for tending cattle they do no work themselves, being decidedly indolent. The housework and any farm work are entirely done by slaves, or servants. Slaves are well treated by them, and many slaves stay with their masters in serfdom in preference to taking their liberty, which they can do at any time they wish, by making a statement to this effect before a French Commissioner.
The Fulanis are all fervent Mohammedans. Wherever there are Fulanis there will be found a mosque. ”

“ There are, therefore, more than 250,000 square miles, a population much over 9,000,000, many of whom were first-class fighting men in the shape of formidable cavalry, and 424 Englishmen officials. Most of these are in the political department and termed Residents. They advise the Emirs on matters which need assistance and they generally supervise, seeing that the Government is continued without those mischiefs and tragedies which stained the old rule of the Fulani, but interfering as little as can be in the routine of internal affairs. ”

“ And the Viceroy goes with him, to inspect the behaviour of the Alkadi, or Governor of each village. The Fulis are governed by their chief men, who rule with much moderation. Few of them will drink any thing stronger than water, being strict Mahometans. The government is easy, because the people are of a quiet and good disposition; and so well instructed in what is right, that a man who wrongs another is the abomination of all.—They desire no more land than they use, which they cultivate with great care and industry: if any of them are known to be made Slaves by the white men ”

“ I have said that the country inherited an ancient civilization, and it will perhaps be well to describe in a brief word the salient points of that civilization, which was not introduced by the Fulani, but adopted by them from their predecessors, and has its origin in remote antiquity. ”

“ III.) that non-Negro elements are found throughout the Sudan from Senegal nearly to Darfur, nowhere forming the whole of the population, but nearly always the dominant native race. These are the Fulah (Fula, Fulbe or Fulani) , whose ethnic affinities have given rise to an enormous amount of speculation. ”

“ That is likely to be avoided if the policy followed by Sir George Taubman Goldie and Sir Frederick Lugard with the Fulani and the Hausa population of Northern Nigeria be scrupulously continued: that of encouraging and fostering all which is good in tribal life, repressing only those features which violate the principles of human existence. ”

“ So natural does this division into two factions appear to the Fulahs that they group foreign nations in the same way, calling the French Sorya and the English Alfaya. But the true rulers are the families of the notables, who on all serious occasions meet in council, and communicate their decision to the almaney. Nor are the Fulahs in other respects a difficult people to govern. So great is the universal respect for the laws, that the accused when ordered by their judges proceed to the place of appeal without escort, even at the peril of their lives. Ordinary theft is punished with the lash ”

“ Although the king understands Aku well, and therefore could converse directly with our interpreter, yet the customs of his court require, that all that is said be communicated to him in Fulanee by Dungari, who as before re-marked, (see page 61) is, except the king, the most important personage of Ilorin. He is by birth a Fulanee, but of the blackest type of Negroes, as are indeed ninety-five per cent of them; those who are lighter in complexion, or differ in physiognomic conformation, being more or less of Arabian intermixture. ”

“ The fortunes of the Fullans, emerging filthily from the dregs and offscouring of The Sahara, have become as great as the old Romans formerly in Europe, but they will always have powerful and vindictive rivals in the Touarghee and pure Arab and Berber races. The Revd. Mr. Schön has given a too unfavourable report of the Fullans, in his Notes and Journal of the Niger Expedition, biassed against them in [313] his Missionary zeal, simply because they are Mahometans. ”

“ This, no doubt, is in a great measure owing to that physical inferiority which this people certainly exhibit in as great a degree as almost any other race of men known. Their isolated and scattered position, their roving mode of life, their unwarlike character, their rude and all but harmless weapons, the utter absence of anything like concert in their habits and operations, have ever rendered them unimportant neighbours and feeble and insignificant enemies. ”

“ The Pagans of Southern Soudan stretch, as I have said, far to the west, even to Dar-Mella, or empire of the Fullans. These Fullans were formerly considered to be the most contemptible of the people of Nigritia. In Soudan, it is related that they descend from a chameleon, and, consequently, never had a human father. The woman from whom they sprang was found sleeping by a chameleon and bore a child, from whom all the Fellatahs descended. ”

“ Follen could not be indifferent to any movement tending to liberate more than three millions of people in the country, of which he had become a citizen, from the most abject cruel slavery, and his fellow-citizens from the awful iniquity of keeping them in such bondage. ”

“ The first portion of his life was passed in slavery, at first under the Lydian philosopher Xantus, and then under Iadmo at Samos, where he had for a companion the celebrated courtesan, Rhodope. Having been freed by Iadmo, he went to the court of Crœsus, where he enjoyed great favour. Employed by this prince to convey his presents to the temple at Delphi, and certain liberalities to the inhabitants, the perfidy and resentment of the people, whom he had not deemed worthy of his master's gifts, were the cause of his death. ”

“ The thought that all the Indians, every tribe that had lived since the foundation of the world—those who were now the most implacable enemies to each other, the French, English and Americans—the thought of these living together in the Spirit Land in perfect brotherhood and good-will, was too startling for him to accept until Fluellina again spoke:
"It is only the good Delaware, Mingo, Chippewa, Miami, Ottawa, Pottawatomie, Shawnee, Huron, and white man that shall live there." ”

“ Fella ́tah, Fulbe, or Fulahs, a remarkable African race of the negro type, the original locality of which is unknown, but which is now widely diffused throughout the Sudan, where they are the predominant people in the states of Futa-Toro, Futa-Jalon, Bondu, and Sokoto. Though of the negro family, they have neither the deep jet colour, the crisped hair, flat nose, nor thick lips of the negro. In person they are decidedly handsome, and mostly of a light copper colour. They are shrewd, intelligent, and brave, and are mostly Mohammedans. Their influence is continually spreading. ”

“ This class of men have not their equals in enchantments, juggling, spells, and magic. Their king, if his mother be not of royal blood, is by them called Arghún, and not considered their true king; whoever of this sect belongs to the worldly people, does not abstain from killing animals, eating flesh and meats forbidden by religion, and associates with every body in eating. When the author of this book conversed with a learned man of this sect by means of an interpreter, whenever a question about some subtilty occurred, the translator could not always by his interpretation satisfy him. ”

“ What Christian missionary takes a negress to wife or sits with the negro wholly as an equal at meat? Their relations remain at best those of teacher with taught, master with servant, grown man with child. The Mohammedan missionary from Morocco meanwhile stands on a different footing. He says to the negro, "Come up and sit beside me. Give me your daughter and take mine. All who pronounce the formula of Islam are equal in this world and in the next." In becoming a Mussulman even a slave acquires immediate dignity and the right to despise all men, whatever their colour, who are not as himself. ”

“ Tradition says that of old every Fula boy and girl was a scholar; but during the decadence of their power towards the close of the 19th century education was not highly valued. Power seems to have somewhat spoilt this virile race, but such authorities as Sir Frederick Lugard believe them still capable of a great future. ”

“ They bought and sold whatever promised to bring them a good profit. They were not troubled by a conscience. If we are to believe all their neighbours they did not know what the words honesty or integrity meant. They regarded a well-filled treasure chest the highest ideal of all good citizens. Indeed they were very unpleasant people and did not have a single friend. Nevertheless they have rendered all coming generations one service of the greatest possible value. They gave us our alphabet.
The Phoenicians had been familiar with the art of writing, invented by the Sumerians. ”