Queen Kufuru is the earliest monarch that ruled the Hausa people, that we know of, dating to either the 5th or 6th century of the Common Era. The Hausa people are among the largest in Africa by population size. The Hausa matriarchal queens that ruled the Hausa people were called Kabara, or Magajiya.
The Kano Chronicle gives a list of matriarchal monarchs that was said to have culminated and ended with the rule of Daurama II, the last Kabara of Daura. The palace of the Kabara dynasty is called the Daurama palace after the last female monarch.
Daura, in Katsina state, northern Nigeria, is the oldest city of Hausaland. It holds historical significance within the Hausa culture. The Hausa of Gobir, also in northern Nigeria, are believed to speak the oldest surviving classical vernacular of the language.
Daurama palace is the oldest palace in Hausaland. The Kabaras are said to have ruled the Hausa City states with headquarter at Daura, which included Kano, Hadejia (Jigawa state), Daura, Katsina, Gobir, Zazzau (in northern Kaduna state Nigeria), and Rano.
The pre-Islamic religion of the Hausa is called Bori. Some Hausa people still secretly practice it. While anthropologists classify Bori as animism, which is the belief that certain forces govern nature and living things, today we ourselves have given names to knowledge (scientia) of nature. These names have connotations that are more advanced and include for instance the water cycle, gravity, evolution, adaptation, genetic disorders, climate change, the biosphere etc. Animism is a phrase that fails to capture what they really believed and their practices. The Hausa in their crude way without modern methods of scientific enquiry were trying to use abstract thinking to understand, predict or tame the world around them. They believed their creator could not be contained or worshipped in physical buildings so they didn’t build temples. Rather they used hills and groves. So they didn’t waste time making monuments.
Religion is the manifestation of various high cognitive functions such as agent detection, etiology, perceiving ontology, inspiration, the mind, perceiving agendas and building social cohesion.
Hausa Land were in a crucial location to export their products and serve as middle men in the west to east and north to south trans-Sahara trade.
The Hausa developed various musical instruments: a one-stringed instrument called Goje, trumpets, kettledrums and Kalangu talking drums. (Other instruments Kalangu is also called Karbi, or Dondo; Garaya, Ganga) Traditional Hausa music falls into two broad categories: rural folk music and urban court music. Along with genres, the Hausa people produced music for various occasions: court music, music to celebrate births, and marriages, music to accompany religious ceremonies of the Bori religion.
List of Kabaras:
Kufuru (also known as Kofano)(c. 500)
Ginu (also known as Gufano)
Yakumo (also known as Yakwano)
Yakunya (also known as Yakaniya)
Wanzamu (also known as Waizam)
Yanbamu
Gizir-gizir (also known as Gizirgirit or Gadar Gadar)
Inna-Gari (also known as Anagiri)
Daurama I(also known as Daura)
Ga-Wata (also known as Gamata)
Shata
Fatatuma (also known as Batatume)
Sai-Da-Mata (also known as Sandamata)
Ja-Mata
Ha-Mata
Zama
Sha-Wata
Daurama II (c. 900).
Sources:
1. Palmer, H. R (1908). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 1908.
2. Stewart, John (2006). African States and Rulers (3rd ed.). London: McFarland & Company, Inc. p. 71. ISBN 9780786425624
Source: Taskar Afrika
No comments:
Post a Comment