GROWTH, TUMULT AND CHIEFTAINCIES

THE NUMBER OF TRADERS INCREASES.
CHIEFTAINCIES SUCCEED EACH OTHER ON THE TRADE ROUTE

At Kondodugu, a chief replaces the elders:
His wives grow provisions for the traders
and his sons fetch the kola
(toward 1750)

The villages in the story are all on a trade route.

• Two kinds of traders  

° The first are petty traders (Dyula)
 from nearby Kong 

They trade over short distances with little capital or organization, and their gains are correspondingly slight.  

° Then come long-distance traders,

from the Niger (Soninke) and Northern Nigeria (Hausa),
whose networks, capital, profits are much greater --
their ambitions will be too. 

Hausa dignitaries in 1902 / Internet

The Hausa come from farther away and are particularly dynamic. Their village of Marabadiassa ("Maraba," or "people of the east," that is, Hausa) brings weaving to the region. 

Textiles are easy to produce and transport, and the market for them is inexhaustible. They lead to seeking dyes and stabilizers for dyes, beget new sources of capital and bring the emergence of weavers and dyers. 

The appearance of textiles means social transformation. 

 • A conflict leads to a more powerful chief  

Narrators' statements are in italics.

 ° Kondodugu's chief, Tofanga, is captured

but a warrior, Gnapon, rescues him

His opponents take him to their village. But he has a friend, the warrior Gnapon. Gnapon hides behind a tree and signals his presence by singing a pagan song. Tofanga sings back. 

Interlocutors do not remember who the enemy was or what caused the conflict. But though the story's details change from village to village, all mention the "pagan" song. That makes sense only if the village is Muslim, which means merchant: so the fight is between traders and locals, and its cause must be economic. 

° Tofanga voluntarily cedes power to Gnapon,
who as a warrior imposes stronger power 

Gnapon hides behind a tree and howls. When residents of the enemy village leave to see what is happening, Tofanga escapes. He tells Gnapon that he could give him a wife (the traditional reward) but that "a woman might come between us." He chooses to cede power instead.

Here too the words are always the same: "a woman might come between us." The defeated Tofanga has no power to cede, but insisting on the voluntary transfer shows approval of stronger authority. 

° Gnapon's village, Bokhala, becomes a market,
which a marabout strengthens with his prayers

The marabout (an erudite Muslim, by definition a trader) sells beads and other articles of little value.  

So he is a Dyula, or petty local trader. The Soninke and Hausa have no importance yet.

 • The change takes place toward 1800

° That's a guess:
Peasant time is based on seasons

Narrators may say that an event happened at noteworthy time: after the traders came from Kong, before Samory appeared (please read on), or, as in this case, do not know.   

° A French document 

says Gnapon's son was killed in 1878, 

when he was "too old to fight." 
So it makes sense to place Bokhala's founding toward 1800...

  -- Death Gnapon's son, Dakar archives, 1878

when Gnapon would have been young and energetic. At least, it could not have been much before 1780 or later than 1820.

At about the same time,
Hausa traders are expelled from certain kingdoms
and millenarian movements begin:
The upheaval in Djimini is part of wider change.

*     *     *

Next,
The implications of barter and currencies