Final Flashcards
Themes of Sansom’s paper
- economies of Bantu tribes in Southern Africa can be classified into two types in the basis of different ecological adaptations (Eastern and Western adaptation)
- there are also historical reasons for economic differences in Southern Africa related to the evolution of a dual economy (a combination of market and subsistence economic sectors or spheres)
Southeastern Bantu
- comprises number of cultural groups predominantly settled in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa, with smaller numbers in Mozambique and Zambia
- paper focuses on South Africa: two major groups: Nguni and Tswana
Sansom’s Thesis:
- ecological realities require specific forms of economic adaptation (ecology primary determinant)
- Southern Africa can be divided into 2 broad ecological zones (east and west) and these zones correspond with two types of adaptation (A and B)
- Nguni exemplify type A adaptation and Tswana exemplify type B
Southeastern Bantu traditional economy
- subsistence based digging stick or hoe- cultivation of cereals (sorghum and millet) alongside husbandry (cattle herding) and gathering of wild foods
- activities occurred within tribal units with independent rules
- lack economic specialization
- trade between areas stimulated by unevenness of agricultural productivity (everybody produces same thing, but makes things equal)
- redistribution largely limited to politically defined tribal areas
- populations had some technologies, same knowledge of technologies and their use, and same plants
South eastern Bantu boundaries
chiefs determine spatial and temporal boundaries of economic activities:
- define area for pasture and lands for fields, and declares opening and closing of seasons (e.g. Tiling & harvest)
- served out land to people nut also monitored land and climate
- helped create concerted activity (people work on same tasks at same time; avoid competition land for different purposes)
- controlled access to means of production and thereby set bounds on individual action
South eastern Bantu: adaptive types and economic regulation
- regulation of resources differs between east and west
- east is well suited to decentralized administration while the west is best suited for a centralized form of administration (due to ecological conditions)
- differences between two areas and systems partly explained by need to spread out risk
Southeastern Bantu: how do East and west spread out risk?
East: people spread out risk by diversifying their labour and investment in small area
West: people diversify risk by investing time and energy over a broad area
Southerastern bantu adaptation type A
- east of drakensberg escarpment to the coast we find adaptation type A
- ## characterized by small localities and corporate economic groups, giving rise to an economy of concentrated investment
Southeastern Bantu type B
West Of escarpment
- populations spread.. *
Type A location and tribal groups
Eastern regional Nguni people’s. Some exception western areas
Type B location and tribal groups
Western region. Sotho people’s
Type A vs type B settlement patterns
A: dispersed kraal settlement
B: concentrates residence in large villages and towns
Type A vs Type B unit of exploitation
A: mainly the local district of ward under a headman
B: entire tribal territory under chief
Type A vs Type B regulation of access to resources
A: decentralized- headman prominent
B: centralized in person of the chief
Type A vs Type B modal strategy
A: territorial confinement of investments. Concerted economic relationships. Emphasis on herding corporation
B: dispersal of investments over tribal area. Dispersed economic relationships
Type A tribal territory
tribal territory country of small- scale repetitive configuration that contained a variety of natural resources
Type B tribal territory
people loved in large villages and towns
- concentrated populations moved between towns and countryside as part of their subsistence activities ( west characterized by large expanses of relatively uniform land: tribal area replaces district as unit of exploitation, increasing area exploitation spreads out risk)
- westerners establish social and subsistence relations over large distances (e.g. In Sotho territory, men could gain secondary rights to grazing areas through relations with others
Southeastern Bantu: apparatus for regulation
- both east and west, tribal territory administered as set of estates
- chief or paramount controlled a primary estate …
Southeastern Bantu: administrative estates
Admin heads did not own their estates:
- controlled access to resources, directed work pattern of follows, ensured collective and individual rights to resources
- hierarchy of estatesnreflectsndevolution of political authority
- each admin head estates presided over a specific court where he judges cases involving residents of his jurisdiction
- does not own resources (ie cattle) just controls access to them
Southeastern Bantu: estates of production
- headman also granted rights to estates of production (carved out from EoO from estates of Admin)
- EoP provided an individual claim “for the use of resources, not for regulation of access to resources”
- there was more delegation of rights in east: overseers at diff order within system in east preformed suites reserved to controllers of estates in west
Southeastern Bantu: east vs west admin
West: tribal territory administered as a single unit: resources making living existed in several localities spread across large area; in west estate administration not limited to a single locality
East: wards contained and compact: units could be and were limited to single localities that were controlled by headman
- headman in east were more like Chiefs than their western counterparts (e.g. Eastern head,an received tribute)
Southeastern Bantu: East vs west time
- Differences in regulation included temporal controls
- Throughout Southern Africa harvest and beginning of new tilling seasons major events of year
West: central time: created synchronism in activities of Sotho population
East: district time
Southeastern Bantu: east vs west trespass
Nguni: trespass was a matter Tribe settled by neighbours: rarely became matter for courts (herdboys generally got thrashed)
West: trespass was dealt with in formal courts: when individuals did collide (encroaching on each other’s fields) they were likely strangers
Southeastern Bantu: cattle as capital
Cattle creates greater differentiation in wealth and capital investment
- eastern environment allowed a closer integration of cattle into tribal economy: 1. Milk vied with grain as dietary staple (e.g. Among Zulu diet amasi: curds of milk, less constrained by agricultural food quest) 2. For Nguni cattle meant a dairy industry supported by compact ecological niches
- in west, ecology could not support a perennial dairy industry
Southeastern Bantu: capital, interest, and work
- labour was primary constraint on agricultural productivity (work in = crops out)
- cattle provided a return on investment not predicated on labour input (cattle capital investment: provided capacity to build wealth and led to great discrepancies in wealth)
Southeastern Bantu: Cattle served 3 economic roles
- real capital, money, consumption goods
- use of cattle as market commodity hindered formal rules about distribution of meat on basis of kinship and residential association
Southeastern Bantu: east vs. West return on cattle
West: cattle yielded an annual return - X
East: cattle yields an annual rate of return and provided Milk (X+M)
Southeastern Bantu: grain equality of production
- cattle were primary means of expressing discrepancies in wealth, whereas grain commodity of equality
- too many factors prevented accumulation of significant surpluses of grain: not efficient, labour, principle of reciprocity, fears accusation of witchcraft
Southeastern Bantu: division of labour
Men managed production units once they had married
- family holdings included fields and cattle
- men had to recognize rights of wives & children
- property divided into family property and husband’s property (wives has house filed, granary, hearth, & domestic goods: rights to cattle also appropriated to house members); husband disposed property after consultation with wife
- bridewealth an important factor in determining size of household herd
Mende
- Central and southeastern parts of Sierra Leone
- present day pop = roughly 1000000
- home territory = 12 000 miles squared
- bordered by the…
Mende economy and environment
- Rice farming, with yam and cassava as alternate staple crops, and cocoa, ginger, groundnuts, and palm oil as primary cash crops
- home territory characterized by hills and small streams
- farms located on uplands, some cropping in lowland swamps
- area once covered by dense tropical forest, largely cleared for farming
- seasonal cycle: wet season (April to October), dry season (November to March)
Mende pattern of settlement
- primary settlement types are towns (100-200 houses, 6-8 people per house) and hamlets (satellites located within 1 to 5 miles of towns)
- towns and hamlets linked through kin ties
…
Mende Determinants of settlement
Topography and Socio- historical events
- Latter 16th and early 17th centuries invaders arrive from the north
- subjugation of former inhabitants (farmer/ hunter- gatherers) : enslave resisters (provide labour to produce agricultural surplus of political elites and warriors), assimilate non- resisters (serve as lower classes in political structure)
Mende consequences of invasion
- villages become stockaded forts as warriors establish their political hegemony through the office of Chiefs (Mahei)
- chiefly power is measured by warrior support - attained through gifts of slaves
- slaves = wealth and capital investment (gifts, payments, bridewealth; slavery ultimately weakens the political system?)
Mende rice farm and farming household
- rice is the staple - symbolically significant and magically delicious (food, ritual offering, bridewealth, the means on enhancing social status)
- household farming unit = mawei (has a big farm = kpaa wa (in uplands) and smaller plots (in lowlying swamplands)
Mende: make - up of mawei
- head of mawei (mawei - mum) and his brothers allocate farm land to household members
- 6-8 families: forms the basic labour pool for farming
- largely patrilineal and patrilineal, but membership not confined to male agnates and their immediate families
Mende Big- men
- a large mawei may further sub- divide its lands into plots called nukes
- Bulei are controlled by big- men within the mawei
- Big- men still have to help farm the kpaa wa, but they also get to farm and keep produce from their bulei- surpluses for acquiring wives
- more wives = more kids = more labour = expand area farmed in the bulei = more surpluses = more wives etc.
- once 4 wives reached big man can ask the mawei- mum for more lands to establish a mawei of his own
Mende the bulei and famalui
- a potential point of fission of the mawei but also a way for the mawei to grow in size by way of accretion
- strangers can enter a mawei by way of famalhui - “shake hand”
- if everything goes alright, in time the strangers assimilate to the mawei via affinal ties and residence
Mende Ward and Town
- towns are subdivided into wards (Kuwui); # wards vary 4- 12?
- Kuwui = most compact social group - the group to which people refer when they identify themselves
- each Kuwui has associated hamlets (10-15 huts, 50-100 people, linked to ..)
Mende Ward leaders
- leading families of kuwui belong to the same patrilineage of owners or big men
- head of Kuwui = kuloko, generally the senior male among the patrilineages of the owners
- settles internal disputes, paid tribute to chief, kept up town defences, serve as Kuwui …
Mende Town and chiefdom
- town = mbondawa ji hu (“ a community of bloods”) - 4-6 wards connected by way of kinship and marriage
- larger political structure (chiefdom) same form as wards and towns (6-8 towns with respective hamlets,located in specific category..)
Mende chief
- ability of chief (Mahei) measured by # of wives
- status reflected in size of compounds
- accompanied by. Troupe of drummers and women singers
- carries a sceptre, wears leopard teeth, called Marda - “grandfather”
- accompanied by his “eyes and ears people” : Mahei Mahon gbei bla
Mende tribute and role obligations
- every mawei provides tribute and every Kuwui provides labour to the chief
- in exchange chief: maintains law and order with assistance of other big men and sub chiefs, through his deputy (lavalie) operates a court, …
Mende chiefs and others chiefs
- chief resides in a principle town in the chiefdom, rest of chiefdom divided into 2 or 3 areas ruled by sub chiefs
- sub chiefs usually come from Chiefs lineage
- each town has its own chief who also..
Mende upbringing and marriage - life cycle
- infancy and childhood: no difference between sexes: names after ancestor (boys at four days, girls at 3).. not called by these names
- 6 years of age: spend time with adults of their respective gender and receive gender specific instruction
- 10 years old: boys circumcised and heavy farm training. Girls receive serious training in women’s role
- 15-16: boys initiated into Poor secret society, girls initiated into Sande secret society
Mende upbringing and marriage relations
- relationship between children and elders, lower class individuals and upper class individuals, wife and husband confirm to relations between chiefs and everyone else
- the same ideal applies to relations with the supernatural (deference to seniority and elders, motivated by ritual sanction (cursing)” elders are closest to ancestors, closets to source of magical power (father will curse wayward sons)
Mende type of marriage
- among well- to- dos a matter of bride wealth (mboya) - husband’s family to wife’s family
- a second form = rendering services - husband pays by working for its wife’s family (goes to live with in laws as member of his father in laws household; Hei kpla joe - “sitting down near marriage” amounts to matrilineal marriage)
Mende marriage alliance and chiefship
- men marry up in their first marriage (rendering services) and down in subsequent marriages (bridewealth)
- system links household and ranks them
- at top of social hierarchy paternal cross cousin marriage is allowed - marriage occurs between chiefly lines
- when you marry up you lose labour but gain status
Mende cult of the ancestors
- mawei - mum responsible for “feeding ancestors”
- ngafel = spiritis that were once humans
- humans are spirit (ngafel) and body/ flesh (nduwui)
- other forces can attacked spirit (e.g. Witchcraft)
- ancestors are one with the land - rites correspond with farming calendar
- ancestors mediate relationship between human and Ngewo (high god)
Mende medicines
- Ngewo created everything - but he is otiose (created and walked away)
- all things are infused with the spirit/ power of Ngewo = halei
- medicines are like concentrated packets if the supernatural force of Ngewo
- power is latent, it requires ritual action to make it active
- power is ambivalent - how it works depends upon those who are activating it with ritual (halei
Mende type soft medicines
- medicines are a combination of objects imbued by “medicine men” with power that ultimately co ex from Ngewo
- Sondu wu halei - swearing medicine, used in court cases
- to halei - medicine which is “stood up” to protect gardens or other possessions from thieves
- in either case, medicine cause harm in the form of serious illness or even death
Mende
- Central and southeastern parts of Sierra Leone
- present day pop = roughly 1000000
- home territory = 12 000 miles squared
- bordered by the…
Mende economy and environment
- Rice farming, with yam and cassava as alternate staple crops, and cocoa, ginger, groundnuts, and palm oil as primary cash crops
- home territory characterized by hills and small streams
- farms located on uplands, some cropping in lowland swamps
- area once covered by dense tropical forest, largely cleared for farming
- seasonal cycle: wet season (April to October), dry season (November to March)
Mende pattern of settlement
- primary settlement types are towns (100-200 houses, 6-8 people per house) and hamlets (satellites located within 1 to 5 miles of towns)
- towns and hamlets linked through kin ties
…
Mende Determinants of settlement
Topography and Socio- historical events
- Latter 16th and early 17th centuries invaders arrive from the north
- subjugation of former inhabitants (farmer/ hunter- gatherers) : enslave resisters (provide labour to produce agricultural surplus of political elites and warriors), assimilate non- resisters (serve as lower classes in political structure)
Mende consequences of invasion
- villages become stockaded forts as warriors establish their political hegemony through the office of Chiefs (Mahei)
- chiefly power is measured by warrior support - attained through gifts of slaves
- slaves = wealth and capital investment (gifts, payments, bridewealth; slavery ultimately weakens the political system?)
Mende rice farm and farming household
- rice is the staple - symbolically significant and magically delicious (food, ritual offering, bridewealth, the means on enhancing social status)
- household farming unit = mawei (has a big farm = kpaa wa (in uplands) and smaller plots (in lowlying swamplands)
Mende: make - up of mawei
- head of mawei (mawei - mum) and his brothers allocate farm land to household members
- 6-8 families: forms the basic labour pool for farming
- largely patrilineal and patrilineal, but membership not confined to male agnates and their immediate families
Mende Big- men
- a large mawei may further sub- divide its lands into plots called nukes
- Bulei are controlled by big- men within the mawei
- Big- men still have to help farm the kpaa wa, but they also get to farm and keep produce from their bulei- surpluses for acquiring wives
- more wives = more kids = more labour = expand area farmed in the bulei = more surpluses = more wives etc.
- once 4 wives reached big man can ask the mawei- mum for more lands to establish a mawei of his own
Mende the bulei and famalui
- a potential point of fission of the mawei but also a way for the mawei to grow in size by way of accretion
- strangers can enter a mawei by way of famalhui - “shake hand”
- if everything goes alright, in time the strangers assimilate to the mawei via affinal ties and residence
Mende Ward and Town
- towns are subdivided into wards (Kuwui); # wards vary 4- 12?
- Kuwui = most compact social group - the group to which people refer when they identify themselves
- each Kuwui has associated hamlets (10-15 huts, 50-100 people, linked to ..)
Mende Ward leaders
- leading families of kuwui belong to the same patrilineage of owners or big men
- head of Kuwui = kuloko, generally the senior male among the patrilineages of the owners
- settles internal disputes, paid tribute to chief, kept up town defences, serve as Kuwui …
Mende Town and chiefdom
- town = mbondawa ji hu (“ a community of bloods”) - 4-6 wards connected by way of kinship and marriage
- larger political structure (chiefdom) same form as wards and towns (6-8 towns with respective hamlets,located in specific category..)
Mende chief
- ability of chief (Mahei) measured by # of wives
- status reflected in size of compounds
- accompanied by. Troupe of drummers and women singers
- carries a sceptre, wears leopard teeth, called Marda - “grandfather”
- accompanied by his “eyes and ears people” : Mahei Mahon gbei bla
Mende tribute and role obligations
- every mawei provides tribute and every Kuwui provides labour to the chief
- in exchange chief: maintains law and order with assistance of other big men and sub chiefs, through his deputy (lavalie) operates a court, …
Mende chiefs and others chiefs
- chief resides in a principle town in the chiefdom, rest of chiefdom divided into 2 or 3 areas ruled by sub chiefs
- sub chiefs usually come from Chiefs lineage
- each town has its own chief who also..
Mende upbringing and marriage - life cycle
- infancy and childhood: no difference between sexes: names after ancestor (boys at four days, girls at 3).. not called by these names
- 6 years of age: spend time with adults of their respective gender and receive gender specific instruction
- 10 years old: boys circumcised and heavy farm training. Girls receive serious training in women’s role
- 15-16: boys initiated into Poor secret society, girls initiated into Sande secret society
Mende upbringing and marriage relations
- relationship between children and elders, lower class individuals and upper class individuals, wife and husband confirm to relations between chiefs and everyone else
- the same ideal applies to relations with the supernatural (deference to seniority and elders, motivated by ritual sanction (cursing)” elders are closest to ancestors, closets to source of magical power (father will curse wayward sons)
Mende type of marriage
- among well- to- dos a matter of bride wealth (mboya) - husband’s family to wife’s family
- a second form = rendering services - husband pays by working for its wife’s family (goes to live with in laws as member of his father in laws household; Hei kpla joe - “sitting down near marriage” amounts to matrilineal marriage)
Mende marriage alliance and chiefship
- men marry up in their first marriage (rendering services) and down in subsequent marriages (bridewealth)
- system links household and ranks them
- at top of social hierarchy paternal cross cousin marriage is allowed - marriage occurs between chiefly lines
- when you marry up you lose labour but gain status
Mende cult of the ancestors
- mawei - mum responsible for “feeding ancestors”
- ngafel = spiritis that were once humans
- humans are spirit (ngafel) and body/ flesh (nduwui)
- other forces can attacked spirit (e.g. Witchcraft)
- ancestors are one with the land - rites correspond with farming calendar
- ancestors mediate relationship between human and Ngewo (high god)
Mende medicines
- Ngewo created everything - but he is otiose (created and walked away)
- all things are infused with the spirit/ power of Ngewo = halei
- medicines are like concentrated packets if the supernatural force of Ngewo
- power is latent, it requires ritual action to make it active
- power is ambivalent - how it works depends upon those who are activating it with ritual (halei
Mende type of medicines
- medicines are a combination of objects imbued by “medicine men” with power that ultimately co ex from Ngewo
- Sondu wu halei - swearing medicine, used in court cases
- to halei - medicine which is “stood up” to protect gardens or other possessions from thieves
- in either case, medicine cause harm in the form of serious illness or even death
Mende Dark Medicines and bush spirits
- Evil doers will take manoni, hair, nail clippings, or things that their targets have come in contact with (earth on which they have walked, cloth from clothing) and connect them with medicine
• Bush spirits (dyina) that, unlike the ngafel, have
never been human and cause psychoses: - They can also provide information about new
medicines - They are capricious, and discordian in nature
Mende Secret Societies
- Medicines are passed down from father to
son, or from medicine man to apprentices •Most powerful medicines are attached to the
secret societies (Poro, Sande, Humui,Nyajei) - Poro and Sande respectively initiate boys
and girls into adulthood:- Rites held in lodges located in bush-lands
- The Poro spirits consume the initiates, and then the initiates are reborn into their new statuses
Mende: political function of poro
Society is made up of independent lodges
– Based in each leading town of a district and it’s various residential
units
• Control in the hands of an inner circle comprised of hereditary office holders and big men (those who have paid extra fees to the society)
- Executive council makes all decisions effecting lodge
• Juridical and economic actions
– Hear cases dealing with witchcraft, homicide, and issues involving
big men
- Manage palm fruit harvest and fishing
Mende: power of poro society
- A counterpoint to chiefship • Power in hands of inner circle •Inner circle a major influence in election of chiefs • Monitored chief to ensure his actions conformed to customary practice
Mende: Humui
- Society with certain medicines to deal with
violations of rules pertaining to marriae and
sexual behaviour
• Breaking of these rules is called simongama
or incest
• A wide range of behaviours fall under this label
Poro vs other secret societies
Social sanction at the core of sercret
societies:
– Poro had special political role
– Bradfield suggests poro was initially like other
secret societies but changed as a result of
historical factors occuring 300 to 400 years in
the past
- His argument focuses on violations of
communal law or covenants
• The state of kaye and cleansing rites
Mende - Sapes and manes:
The Mende are a product of two merged
traditions
– Sapes “were there first” and Manes “came
later” (Exact nature of Manes’ arrival is open to debate)
• Each group provides particular attributes or
elements to Mende society
Mende: Manes contributions
- Chiefship
- ?..
Sapes contribution and characteristics
- ancestor cults - nomoli
- secret societies: masks, dances, initiations
- unwarlike
- open and unfrotified villages, non- hiearchal politics
- bring counterbalance to cheifship (counterbalance to centralized political authority)
Songhai
- an empire that existed for roughly 140 years (1464 (Sonni Alli) a 1590 AD)
- military forces from Moroccan empire attacked and sacked Timbuktu: took control of trade routes and brought end to Songhai
- European interests favoured coastal trade - bypass Muslim commercial interests that controlled internal trade
Hausa States
- 7 Hausa states: Hausa Bekwai/ Hausa 7
- trace their emergence to end of first millennium in an area called Hausaland
Hausa Fulani emergence of states
- States rise an influx of soldiers from north and east of Hausaland
- soldier class asserts political authority over the Hausa farmers
- a dual political institutional structure develops
- soldiers serve as political leaders…
Pastoral Fulani Nomads
- movement patterns result from ecological (seasonal) variation and social relations (within and between groups of different size and order)
- the Fulani schedule and meet social notes according to the constant needs of cattle: the first priority is to meet needs of cattle, and secondary (social) priorities are met as part of the seasonal cycle of cattle herding
Fula place or people
Gambia and Sierra Leone
Fellah place or people
Arabs of the Western Sudan
Peuls play or people
French
Fulbe peoples
German or fulbe themselves
Stenning’s study population
Four social divisions among the Fulani: ruling dynasties, settled urban/town dwellers, semi- sedentary farmer/ herders, pastoral Fulani
- pastoral Fulani Stenning focuses upon: Wodaabe and Wewedbe or Bornu State, wewedbe of plateau province, wewedbe of Katsina
- groups live in regions that differ in terms of geography and history: stunning increases the heterogeneity of his sample as a means of validating his conclusions
Fulani households
- basic residential and economic unit, independent
- in minimum terms, a man his wife/ wives and their children
- range in size from the theoretical minimum to 15 members
- on average, there are 10 cows per household member
Fulani household labour and capital
- male heads own and have responsibility for cattle, take care of herding duties: sons are herd boys (more boys = more labour)
- wives have mailing rights over cattle and use surplus milk to acquire other produce and commodities (assisted by unmarried daughters, more daughters = more labour)
- households are small corporate units, and cattle are the capital investment that sustains the continued growth and prosperity of the corporation
- cattle not exchanges as bridewealth, rarely killed or sold: ritual occasions and taxes are major reasons for taking …
Fulani agnatic lineages
- comprised of households
- membership based on shared descent from a common male ancestor (3-5 generations in the past)
- range in size from 5-20 households (25-100 people)
- endogamous for 1st marriages and some subsequent marriages
- head of the group is called ardo
Fulani role of agnatic groups
- provides extended social and economic ties that household,do draw upon for assistance in times of need, spouses, and general alliance against external and common threats
- individual households disperse in dry season, but form a common camp as large group during wet seasons
- ardor mediates between group and larger political authorities: chosen from among head..
Fulani clans
- made up of aganatic lineage groups whose ancestors were related
- endogamous for 1st marriages and some subsequent marriages
- does not fulfill a formal political function
- a “unit of pastoral cooperation”: widow inheritance, loosely coresidential in wet season, common performances of rituals of increase, fertility rites, rites of passage
- both Islam and British rule ended the influence and power of the clan
Fulani Tribes
- largest grouping to which Fulani self- identify
- share behaviour and ideas pertaining to cattle and herding
- also share other cultural traits (hairstyles decorations in material culture, repertoire of songs, same sub- dialect, a common cycle of puberty rites)
Fulani patterns of movement
- movement is largely explainable as an adjustment to the changing physical and social environments
- transhumance (Kodol: ‘to come round, like the seasons)
- migratory drift (eggol - ‘to wander’
- migration (perol- ‘to flee’)
Fulani: transhumance - ecological zones
- regular seasonal movements
- Fulani have terms for six types
- have to understand movements in terms of climatic variations between the different regions that make up the physical environment, and seasonal variation
Fulani cattle adaptations n to savanna
- Zebu cattle are best adapted to herding in the savanna zone, so cattle herding is limited to the savanna: open woodland or orchard bush, interspersed with grassland
- zone divided into guinea savanna (higher average rainfall, thicker forest cover, and fewer fire resistant trees) and Sudan savanna
Fulani north south movement
- general pattern: north during wet season, south during dry season: south for water, north avoid tsetse
- timing if these movements varies by area and by year
Fulani: local conditions influencing movement
- the duration of the wet and dry seasons
- the size of herds
- the presence of other herds
- the density of sedentary populations
- the availability if suitable markets where dairy products may be sold or exchanged
Fulani dry season vs wet season
Dry season: a period of intense work with minor amounts of interaction between larger social groups
Wet season: a time of plenty and easier work, and a time for social gatherings
- puberty rites,
Fulani- Migratory drift: eggol
- a gradual displacement of customary transhumance tracks and orbits, resulting eventually in a completely new orbit, often in different surroundings in which many factors in the total environment ..
Fulani: example from the Jos Plateau
- has an elevation of 4000 ft, is well watered, and tsetse free
- Fulani populations herding cattle near the plateau in the dry season
- Sura pagans prevented Fulani from moving further south to use rich pasture lands near the Alegre river
- British pacified the Sara, and the Fulani moved onto pasturelands on the plateau
- they could keep their cattle there Year round
Fulani: migration: gerol
- not usually precipitated by environmental factors
- perol= flight from intelorable political conditions (Muhammads Hijra as an archetype)
- relations with
Fulani economic and social factors
- Fulani do not own land, they are minorities in the areas they live, they have to secure their rights to land from majority between and among whom they live
