IV.4. BACK TO DJIMINI: VIOLENCE REAPPEARS

.4.4. Djimini violence reappears

A CENTURY OF PEACE BRINGS ANOTHER CYCLE OF GROWTH

Conflict between new forces and those that are now archaic breaks out again.

Senufo warrior

• New forces menace

• Senufo fight back

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Next,

New forces menace

NEW FORCES MENACE

LONG-DISTANCE TRADERS MULTIPLY AND TAKE OVER   

(FROM ABOUT 1870) 

The Hausa merchant "Mori" settles in the textile center of Marabadiassa; "Karamoko Bassiri" in Bouake, farther west; the father of the 1970's imam of Darhala, a Muslim village on the route to Kong, at the same time.

-- Informants in Muslim villages

William Allen, Narrative of an Expedition to the River Niger, 1848

Hausa dignitaries

The painting reminds me of the village elders who met with me on the order of the sous-préfet Monsieur Texier, dressed in their robes and sitting in a semi-circle around me.

Their advance is part of a general evolution:

• 1820's: Fulani from Northern Nigeria ride south, with white clothing and banners, crying "Allahu Akhbar!" and awaiting paradise should they die in combat. At Oyo's capital they incite Muslim slaves to kill their animist masters and join them. 

-- Clapperton,
 Records of a Second Expedition to the Interior of Africa, 1825-27,
ed. Paul Lovejoy, 203-4.

• 1850's: Bornu Fulani and Kanuri move south, enslaving or killing populations or demanding tribute.  

-- Barth, II, 93.

• 1870's: Segu's Amadu Tall "seems to be less and less interested in his possessions in Kaarta, Fadugu and Bélédugu (in Senegal and Mali), which are in constant revolt... (he) is turning his efforts toward the south..."

-- Dakar archives, 1880.

• 1890's: Northerners reach the coast.

-- Dakar archives, 1894.

# # #

They colonise and enserf:  

•  The indigenous language is disappearing

"The spirits of the land, say the Senufo of Kénédougou, have retreated to certain swamps... Woe to the careless person who should pronounce words in the Bambara language, that of the conqueror, next to those swamps. He will immediately be sucked in. The country is Senufo, and its spirits wish to hear Senufo alone."

-- Dakar archives, 1888.

• Populations are becoming tributary:

North of Djimini: "It is to them (the northerners) that they (the Senufo) give their work and their harvests. In fact they are captives, except that they are not sold."  

-- Dakar archives, 1888.

Within Djimini: "They tried to steal our harvests."

 -- Serisio Coulibali, animist farmer.

The northerners preach Islam,
which in an animist context
means transforming society itself.

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Next,
Senufo fight back 

SENUFO FIGHT BACK

GNAPON'S SON NAMBOLOSSE LEADS THEIR RESISTANCE

seizure of legacy

It is he who is killed in 1878, when "too old to fight."

-- Dakar archives, 1878

He is the Senufo hero:"He made the traders respect us. He forced them to speak our tongue. He pillaged caravans and said, 'If I renounce crime, how will I eat?'

 -- Serisio Coulibali, farmer

Gone from the web

The scars suggest Sonnangui, animist producers for markets who ally with Muslim traders and conquerors (please read on).

After Nambolosse's death the Senufo continue their attacks.They distinguish between local and long-distance traders, assaulting only caravans with donkeys, which are raised in the north.

-- Dakar archives, 1891, confirmed by interlocutors.
Donkeys are not raised so near the forest, with its deadly tsetse flies. 

They leave the Dyula petty traders alone, for they have become part of Senufo society like the marabout whose prayers helped found Bokhala. Their Islam is so "lax" that their elders are often drunk in public.

-- Drunk in public:
Journal de Braulot, Dakar archives, 1893

They will not use Islam to defy the traditional order.

.

• "We let the little Dyula be, but the Soninke were like fish. We did not know where they came from or where they were going, and we caught them like fish."  

-- Bafétigui Coulibali, imam of Dabakalakoro.

• "We:" the imam identifies with the animists against other Muslims: Please read on.

Senufo resistance works. For over 15 years raiders devastate territories to the east and west, but spare Djimini.

# # #

Pillaging the caravans of disruptive producers

has the same goal as stymying their dynamism 

by massacring their labor, forbidding their religion,

 destroying wealth before it can be invested...

Etc.

End of this section.

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Next section,

V.5.

Commercial forces win, then crumble