The essence of this essay is to explain the controversies surrounding the origin of the Fulani and describing the nature and organization of the society established by the Fulani in the areas in which they settled. However, the essay will start with explaining the controversies surrounding the origin of the Fulani, and then will describe the nature and organization of the society they established. Thereafter a comprehensive conclusion will be drawn.
The Fulani peoples also known as Fulbe or Peuls lived in West Africa. Their origin is believed to have begun with the Berber people of North Africa around the 8th or 11th century AD. As the Berbers migrated down from North Africa and mixed with the peoples in the Senegal region of West Africa the Fulani people came into existence. However, in course of a widespread migration, the Fulani spread in the Sudan zone from west to east, from Senegal to the upper Niger region.
Fulani tribe were regarded as been in baguirmi into Cameroon highlands and the Middle Belt region of Nigeria is regarded to be the area, which since 1967 belongs to various states which earlier belonged to the provinces of Plateau, Niger and Benue Rivers, Kwara States as well as the Southern part of Zaria, and now in Nigeria. Many Fulani trace their early period back one thousand years to the Senegambia area. These are areas where the Fulani are predominant as regards cattle breeding. These are also areas of diffusion resulting from a spontaneous heavily scattered propagation of nomadic or semi sedentary full time cattle breeders without adequately fixed legal ownership or usufruct rights to the land they use.
However, According to Agbegbedia (2014) the Fulani people are believed to be in populated group mainly found in the northern part of Nigeria, as well as the middle belt region. Over a thousand year period from AD 900 - 1900, they spread out over most of West Africa and even into some areas of Central Africa. Some groups of Fulani have been found as far as the western borders of Ethiopia. As they migrated eastward they came into contact with different African tribes. As they encountered these other peoples, they conquered the less powerful tribes.
The language of the Fulani is known as Fulfulde (or Fula or Pulaar). There are at least five major dialects: Futa Toro, Futa Jallon, and Masina in the west and Central Nigeria; and Sokoto and Adamawa in the east. Although they have similarities in grammar and vocabulary, communication among Fulani from different regions is difficult. As Muslims, many Fulani were able to read and write Arabic.
Over 99% of Fulani are Muslims. It is said that to be a Fulani is to be a Muslim. There are a small group of Fulani called the Mbororo, or Wodaabe, found in Niger and Cameroon, who resisted Islam, and have kept much of their pre-Islamic way of life and beliefs. And in different places, small groups of Fulani are choosing to follow the way of Christ. However, the vast majority are Muslims, most practicing a version of folk Islam, integrating animistic practices into their Muslim religious duties.
By the 1840s the effects of Islamization and the Fulani expansion were felt across much of the interior of West Africa. New political units were created, a reformist Islam that sought to eliminate pagan practices was spread, and social and cultural changes took place in the wake of these changes. Literacy, for example, became more widely dispersed and new centers of trade, such as Kano, emerged in this period. Later jihads established other new states along similar lines. All of these changes had long-term effects on the region of the western Sudan.
The Fulani diet usually includes milk products such as yogurt, milk, and butter. Each morning they drink milk or gruel (gari) made with sorghum. Their main meals consist of a heavy porridge (nyiiri) made of flour from such grains as millet, sorghum, or corn. They eat it with soup (takai, haako) made from tomatoes, onions, spices, peppers, and other vegetables.
The Fulani people have a strict division of labor based on age and sex. The males tend the cattle, work the fields, or work full-time in the city. Many males are scholars or teachers of the Muslim religion. Women manage the household, cook, clean, and care for the children. The majority of the married women are housewives, but a few do work.
Women milk cattle and sell dairy products. The adolescent males move the herds, and the elders make political decisions and negotiate with others to ensure the safe movement of the herds through various farmlands.
During the non-farming seasons, men spend their time repairing their home, digging/re-digging wells, and preparing their fields for planting. They also weave items such as leaves into ropes, tall grasses into the tops of huts, and other plants to make the walls of huts. A woman does the household tasks and can take hours preparing the family’s dinner. Water is necessary to be retrieved for the meal, so a woman goes to a well, which can be over a mile away, and carries one or two full buckets over her head all the way back to her home. Women also do laundry, collect wood, shop for ingredients that go into the meals, and care for children. They also weave dried grass to make items such as mats.
Art and music are a part of daily life for the Fulani, and music is played often, from singing to drums to flutes to horns. Decorative art is usually in the form of architecture, and Fulani women make many handicrafts such as weaving and knitting. Dancing is very popular among Fulani children, and the dances are performed for close friends and kin or in the marketplace. Additionally, the Fulani also enjoy sports and games, such as a traditional form of wrestling and boxing.
The Fulani marred at an early age bride is not present at the marriage ceremony. The ceremony occurs when the bride’s father gives one of his herds to the groom then that legalizes the marriage. They also had typical Islamic wedding ceremony, called kabbal. Here, neither the bride nor groom may be present. A marriage is publicly acknowledged when the bride moves to her husband’s village, which is called bangal. The women of her new village come to welcome her to the village. An important public acknowledgment of the marriage is the movement of the bride to her husband's village, teramed as bangal. The women of that village come to greet her, and the welcome is a rite of passage for the bride. The bride's status increases with each child she has, especially with the birth of males
They had a centralized structure which is organized in descending size the ethnic group, clan, lineage, family, and Ruga. The ethnic group is the entire Fulani population who all share the same common ancestor. The clan consists of between 1000 and 5000 members, and they share historical ancestry and traditions. The lineage is comprised of 500 to 1000 members and has closer historical ancestry than the clan. The family is made up of 5 to 15 members and is the smallest political unit organized around a matrilineal homestead. Finally, the Ruga is the household, which consists of a man, his wife/ wives, their unmarried children, and dependent parents. The Ruga is headed by the oldest, strongest male of the family.
The organization of the Fulani the Fulani political systems are based off of clientage and competition. A powerful Fulani man, in order to gain political office, must compete among other men for the right to rule. This can be done through showing his large following of both individuals and families. When a person agrees to become a client of this man, he or she offers gifts and political support in exchange for the security of knowing that a person with political power would be looking out for the interests of the subject.
The pattern of the spread of the Fulani in Nigeria throughout the nineteenth century was primarily through military conquest, followed by the immigration of pastoral groups. In the twentieth century, the pattern has been inverted and expansion has primarily been the result of pastoralists seeking new grazing.
Agricultural expansion led to a division among the Fulani, where individuals were classified as belonging either to the group of expansionist nomadic group of Fulani who found it more comfortable to abandon traditional nomadic ways and settle in towns. Fulani towns were a direct result of a nomadic heritage, and were often founded by individuals who simply chosen to settle in a given area instead of continue on their way.
The Fulani also engaged in long-distance trade, generally involving cattle, with their Hausa Colleagues. Often the Hausa are also butchers who control West African cattle markets by controlling access to Fulani cattle.
The Fulani also conquered different towns and people; they would take captives from those tribes. Those captives became their slaves, adopting the language and life class of the Fulani, and working in their fields.
The movements of religious, political, and economic motives were not unchanged by the external pressures on Africa. They fed into the enduring processes of the external slave trades and the development of slavery within African societies. Large numbers of captives resulting from the wars were exported down to the coast for sale to the Europeans, while another stream of slaves crossed the Sahara to North Africa. In the western and central Sudan the level of slave labor rose, especially in the larger towns and along the trade routes.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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