Nigeria" (Capetown, Argus Printing and Publishing Co. L t d . ,
1918); C.K. Meek, Northern Tribes of N i g e r i a , (London,
Oxford University Press, 1925), Vol. 1,p p . 85-94; S.G.Hogben and A.H.M. Kirk-Greene, The Emirates of Northern N i g e r i a , 1966; S.J. Hogben, An Introduction to the History of the Islamic States of Northern N i g e r i a , (London: Oxford
University Press, 1967); C.lT Temple, Notes on the T r i b e s , Provinces, Emirates and States of Northern N i g e r i a , 2nd e dition(Lagos: C.M.S. Bookshop, 1922).
level of civilization. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Hausa States were, conquered by the Fuiani, a nomad people who had settled';, in the towns and country of Hausaland, and who,, by their superior intelligence* had acquired great power and influence. Islam reached Hausaland from the West in the m i d fourteenth century, but fifty per cent of the Hausas are said to have been pagans at the time the British occupied the
1 2
Emirates. Today nearly eighty per cent are Moslems.
Queen Amina of Zaria, (one of the Hausa states), is famous in Hausa history. Under her, Zaria rose to be the most powerful state of the Central Sudan. All the towns, including Nupe, paid tribute to her. The Sarkin Nupe sent forty eunuchs
and ten thousand kolas to her. Her conquests extended over thirty four years. Amina is said to have built walled cities, and to have married a fresh husband at each place she stopped, killing h i m when she left. Daura, another Hausa State, also
■5
had a queen.^
(b) The Kanuri
The Kanuri are mainly found in Bornu in the North
East of Nigeria, a kingdom which has survived for many centuries in spite of great vicissitudes. Islam is said to have pen e
t r a t e d into Bornu as early as the eleventh century. It was known to the Portuguese as early as the fifteenth century, and to Arab geographers, several centuries earlier.
During the eighteenth century, Hausaland and Bornu "engaged in a series of wars amongst themselves, and with other
1. J.S. Trimmingham, A History of Islam in West A f r i c a , (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), p . 230.
2. See Population Census: Northern Nigeria, 1963* V o l . 2, p p . 215-71.
3. See H . A .S.Johnston, The Fulani Empire of S o k o t o , 1967*
op.cit., p . 260; the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1975 issued a set of three stamps to commemorate International W o m e n Ts Year, proclaimed by the United Nations. The stamps bear a common motif of Queen Amina of Zaria, and other
national female heroines. The stamps were on sale for six months, see Sunday R e naissance, 24 August, 1975* p . 3.
peoples, oftentimes the defeated town having to seek a new home.1
Of the Bornu Empire Schultze observes as follows:
"It is not generally realized, even in Nigeria, how ancient and powerful the old Bornu Empire w a s . In the fifteenth century it was the greatest power in Central Africa, and its boundaries extended to Pezzan, the Niger, and practically to the Benue. The Hausas of whom one hears so much nowadays, were then a
congerie of obscure semi-pagan tribes, while the Pulani are, of course, politically speaking mere upstarts of a century ago."2
Kanuri women, although they are Moslems, had a
reputation for independence of spirit and freedom in marital a f f a i r s .^
, v A
(c) The Fuiani
The Pulani by origin are light-skinned cattle nomads found in various parts of the Sudan, and the women especially are extremely beautiful. Some settled in Nigeria and lived peacefully with their neighbours. Some even intermarried with the local population, but most of them remained devoted to their traditional religion and to their nomadic way of life. Those who settled in the towns became proselytes of the Moslem
1. See the authorities cited on p. 91 n . 4 above; see also Migeod, Through Nigeria to Lake C h a d , 1924, o p .c i t .%
Louis Brenner, The Shehus of Kukawa: A History of the al- Kanem Dynasty of B o r n u , (London: Clarendon Press, 1973); Arnold Schultze, The Sultanate of B o r n u , edited and
translated from the German with additions, etc. by Askell Benton, (London, 1913).
2.. Schultze, The Sultanate of B o r n u , p . 4. 3. See further, Chapter IX below,pp. 62-65.
4. See Johnson, The Fuiani Empire of S o k o t o , o p . c i t . , esp.
p . 17-26; E.J. Arnett, The Rise of the Sokoto F u i a n i , (Kano, 1922); Heinrich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central A f r i c a , 1849-1885, (London: Frank Cass, 1 9 6 5 ),
3 V o l s .; Edward C. Hopen, The Pastoral Fulbe Family in
Gwandu, (London: oxford University Press, 1958); H .R .Palmer Sudanese M e m o i r s :being mainly translations of a number of Arabian m a n u s c r i p t s , (London: Frank Cass and Co. Ltd., 1967)
religion, and in Hausaland found a niche, for themselves in the courts of the Hausa kings - gaining political and economic wealth. They formed a movement for religious and intellectual reform, ably led in Nigeria by an elderly Moslem scholar, Usman ■ Dan Podio, a Pulani born in Gobir from a clan which had
emigrated to Nigeria from Mali, fourteen centuries before. He became head of a great jihad (holy war) which, within a few years, swept the Hausa kings off their thrones and established Pulani rulers. He pushed forward into Ilorin, the Yoruba town, and contributed to the breakup of the old Oyo Empire. He
nearly conquered Yorubaland itself.1
The Pulanis are divided into Settled Pulanis, who
p
live in the towns and are mainly Moslems, and Nomadic Pulanis who are cattle people and are generally non-Moslems (Maguzawa).
(d) The T i v s ^
The Tivs are by far the largest pagan tribe in Northern Nigeria. They mainly occupy the region bordering both banks
of the Benue River. Tiv is the name these people use to refer to themselves. By the twentieth century, however, writers were referring to them as Munshi, the name by which they are known to
1. See Tucker, Abeokuta or Sunrise within the Tropics: An Outline of the Origins and Progress of the Yoruba M i s s i o n ,
(London, James Nisbet and Co., 1853), p.12; Meek, Northern Tribes of Nigeria, p p . 98-102; Johnson, History of the
Y o r u b a s , p p . 193-205,258-88.
2. See D.J. Stenning, Savannah N o m a d s , (London: Oxford Univer sity Press, 1959); J.R. Wilson-Haffenden, The Red Men of Nigeria: An Account of a Lengthy Residence Among the Fuiani or *TRed Men" and other Pagan Tribes of Central Nigeria" (London: Frank Cass, Ltd., 1930, 1967 r e p r i n t ) ; F.W. de St. Croix, The Fuiani of Northern Nigeria: Some General N o t e s , (Lagos, Government Printer, 1944);
Greenberg, The Influence of Islam on a Sudanese R e l i g i o n , (New York: J.J. Augustin, Publisher, 1946).
3. See generally, R.C. Abraham, The Tiv P e o p l e , 2nd edition, (1934, Lagos: C .M .S .B o o k s h o p ,1940); Akiga, A k i g a Ts S t o r y , translated and annotated by Rupert East(London; Oxford University Press, 1965); S.A. Crowther, Journal of an Expedition up the Niger and Tshadda rivers, undertaken by McGregor Laird... in connection with the British Government in 1854^ (London: Church Missionary House,1855); J .I.Tseayo, ,kThe Emirate System and Tiv Reaction to Pagan Status in
Northern N igeria” , in Nigeria: Economy and Society,
the Hausas. The term Munshi was also used officially until the 1920s when it was. discarded in favour of their own name for themselves.'1'
Pew African tribes can boast of a longer resistance to European influence than these people. Their resistance earned them the reputation of being ’’truculent and almost brutally primitive’’ , a reputation which has today proved palpably false.^
(e) The Nupe
The Nupe is one of the larger groups inhabiting the li
area of the Niger Benue Confluence. Politically, the people of the Niger Benue confluence exhibit widely different systems, ranging from the highly organized state of the Nupe^ with a ruling dynasty of Pulani descent, and the Igbirra and Igala chiefdoms with their ’’divine k i n g s ” to the fragmentary state lets of the Idoma-speaking peoples.
Of these people the Nupe are the only ones to have been Islamized to any considerable extent. The first Nupe king to become a Moslem is thought to have reigned about 1770.
Continuation of footnote 3. from previous page:
edited by Gavin W i l l i a m s ,(London, Rex Collins, 1 9 7 6 ) ,pp.76-89; Migeod, Through British Cameroons, (London, 1925); Mockler- Perryman, Up the Niger, o p . c i t ., pp. 74 et_ al.
1. The term Tiv will be used to designate these people as far as possible throughout this thesis.
2. Perham, Native Administration in Nigeria, 1937, op.cit., pp. 152-53.
3. Laura Bohannan and Paul Bohannan, The Tiv of Central Nigeria (1953, London: International Africa Institute, r e p r i n t ,1969) see also Tseayo, ’’The Emirate System and Tiv Reaction” ,
o p . c i t ., p . 88.
4. Daryll Forde, ed. Peoples of the Niger-Benue ConfliiPnp.P.J (1955, London, Internationa African Institute, 1970).
5. See S.F. Nadel, A Black Bvzantium: The. Kingdom of Nnpe in- Nigeria. (London: Oxford University Press, reprint, 1965). 6. Not more than one-third of the Nupe were even nominally r
Moslem in 1880, today two-thirds at least would claim to be Moslems, and Islamic law is paramount - see Spencer Trimming ham, A History of Islam in West A f r i c a . 1970, p. 230. Cf. other Northern tribes, see Map 8, p . 194.
Although many Nupe women are Moslems., they have a reputation of being ardent, traders, and like Yoruba women, present a contrast to the Moslem women of the. far North, in the degree of freedom of movement-they exercise.^
3. The Elements of Status
A. Introduction
It is necessary at this point to discuss what is meant by "legal status” within the context of this thesis.
Judicial and academic opinions are united in declaring the difficulty of finding a generally acceptable definition
of the term ”status” . Thus Austin remarks:
"To determine precisely what a status is, is in my opinion the most difficult problem in the whole science of jurisprudence.'^
Markby expressed misgivings at having to explain the term "status or condition", "about which much has been written, but as the writers themselves generally confess, without much result"; while Allen was bewildered at the confusion surround ing the topic, and would have been deterred from writing on the subject at all had he noted Austin's discouraging remark before he set out on his own attempt. His diffidence was accentuated by the fact that Continental jurisprudence seems to be
1. See Nadel, A Black Byz.antium, 1 9 6 5 , pp.330-3^.
2. J. Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence or the Philosophy of Positive Law, 5th edition, l o b 5 5 (edited by R. Cambell), Vol.II, p. 351.
3. William Markby, Elements of Law Considered with Reference to Principles of~General J u r i s prudence, 1905 > 6th edition, para. 16b, p. 97.
similarly reticent on the topic.1
The difficulty in defining status is not., confined to . lawyers: sociologists are equally unsucessful in finding a
2