4.5. BACK TO DJIMINI: VIOLENCE RETURNS

MENU: 4.5. Back to Djimini: violence returns 

DIVISIBLE CURRENCY BRINGS AN EXPANDING ECONOMY AND NEW SOCIAL CLASSES

Another fight between rising forces and authorities that have become archaic follows.

Senufo warrior

In brief

• New forces menace

• Nambolossé, Senufo hero

• The different deaths of Nambolossé

*      *      *

Next,

4.5.1. 

New forces menace

4.5.1. NEW FORCES MENACE

LONG-DISTANCE TRADERS AND SENOUFO PRODUCERS FOR THE EXPANDING MARKETS APPEAR

They are infinitely more disruptive than the petty Dyula, who on the whole integrate into Senufo society.  

Nigerian dignitaries,"Narrative of an Expedition to the River Niger" by William Allen, 1848 

The picture resembles the elders of Darhala.

Muslims from the Middle Niger and Northern Nigeria invade the animist south.

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

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

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

-- Barth, II, 93.

• 1870's: Segou's Amadou Tall "seems to be less and less interested in his possessions in Kaarta, Fadugou and Bélédougou [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.

For Djimini, archival documents say that the Hausa merchant "Mori" settled in the textile center of Marabadiassa and "Karamoko Bassiri" in Bouake, farther west. The imam of Darhala said that his father arrived at the same time.

*     *

They colonize 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.

*     *

They preach Islam,which in an animist context meant transforming society itself.

When with conscious innocence 

I asked the elders of Darhala about slavery 

they said there had been none, 

and that they had to return to their fields.

*      *      *

Next,
4.5.2. 

Nambolossé, Senufo hero

4.5.2. NAMBOLOSSÉ, SENUFO HERO

GNAPON'S SON AND CHIEF OF BOKHALA RESISTS THE TRADERS

Nambolossé "made the traders respect us. He forced them to speak our language. He pillaged caravans and said, 'If I renounce crime, how will I eat?' " 

 -- Serisio Coulibali, farmer

Gone from the web

 

He is killed in 1878, when "too old to fight."

-- Dakar archives, 1878

After his death Senufo continue their attacks. 

*    *

"Insecurity" is a leitmotif of European records, which assume that travelers (traders) of all kinds are attacked. They do not distinguish between those who are integrated into local society and those that menace it. In Djimini, that difference is clear: 

• The Dyula petty traders, like the bead-selling merchant whose prayers helped found Bokhala, are so much part of Senufo society that their leaders are publicly drunk:

"Biraima Ouattara is not very firm on the Djimini throne. The newly-arrived marabouts bitterly reproach him for having become "Bambara" [pagan]. One must admit that the members of the royal family are all drunkards." 

-- Dakar archives

• The "newly arrived marabouts" have their own leadership, since "Royal power is held in check by the village chief Karamoko Bagui, backed by all the Muslims."

--Journal de Braulot, Paris archives, 1893*

.

*The notebook ended with the explorer writing in circles: He must have lost his mind. I learned that it had vanished from the archives, so this footnote is all of that record that remains.

• The Darhala chief said he knew nothing about Karamoko Bagui and that the elders did not either. That silence suggests that he opposed the Dyula and is a sign among others that lasting hostility between the two groups of Muslims.

Dyula did not use Islam to defy the traditional order and the Senufo did not attack them. They assaulted only caravans with donkeys, raised in the north.*

-- Dakar archives, 1891, confirmed by interlocutors   

 *Bites of the tsetse flies in the nearby forest are mortal for equines as a whole.  

So:

• "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 of Dabakalakoro (old Dabakala), which is Senufo and Dyula, identifies with animists against other Muslims.

*     *

For 15 years after Nambolossé's death long-distance traders and the raiders they back devastate territories to the east and west, but spare Djimini.

Senufo resistance works. 

*    *    *

Next,

4.5.3.

The different deaths of Nambolossé

4.5.3. THE MULTIPLE DEATHS OF NAMBOLOSSÉ

MEMORIES SHOW HOW CONFLICTS ENDURE  

The French record gives what must be the real facts, since the writer has no interest at stake.

• When Nambolossé demands that a Hausa dealer in arms and slaves be yielded up to him, a number of  traders leave Bokhala to found Dabakalakoro ("old Dabakala").* 

* In Old Regime France departure without the permission of the king signaled revolt or when that became impossible, exclusion from help from him. One assumes that the merchants departure, particularly to found a new center, was a very serious affront. 

• Then he seizes the inheritance of a Soninke who has died on his lands, "though his heirs were known." Outraged, a Dyula* chief and his men attack Bokhala when Nambolosse's warriors have left to intercept them by another route. They burn him alive in his hut.

-- Dakar archives, 1878

* The French administrator may not distinguish between Dyula petty merchants and the much more assertive Soninke and Maraba. Local memories say nothing of Dyula in the fight that follows and one of my interlocutors, a Dyula imam, sided with the Senufo.

The Darhala version

Defendants of the disinherited Soninke call in "Mori," the Hausa chief of Marabadiassa, who in the 1870's and 1880's raids in the west. He arrives in Bokhala when Nambolossé's men are gone. They set fire to his hut and when he leaves it, slaughter him and burn his corpse on a prong, "like a roast." 

-- Bakari Coulibali, imam of Darhala

The Senufo version

Nambolossé does not die, but chases Mori out of Djimini. He would have caught him except that Mori has an excellent horse, which vanishes and reappears five kilometers away. On his flight from Djimini he meets Samory (the legendary conqueror the next section describes) and says, "Watch out for Djimini. There are real men there." Later Samory takes revenge for Mori's defeat: It is he who kills Nambolossé.

*     *

Versions by descendants of the long-distance and petty merchants reveal lasting antagonism, 

• Burning Nambolosse "like a roast" indicates Muslim contempt for animists, which my teen-aged interpreter expressed by yelling insults at them from the window of a car. (I told him I'd fire him if he did it again. He didn't.)

• "Watch out for Djimini: There are real men there" expresses animist resistance to the Muslims and pride.

*     *

Mori and Samory are only two of a number of raiders who devastated this part of the savannah. Samory is famous for his resistance to the French (more below) but for others, the longest passage I have seen is "Vakuba Ture, who raids in the east with his sons."

-- Abidjan archives for the Bondoukou region (east of Djimini) 

    Arab slavers in East Africa, publication of 1892 / zoom

Muslims often wore long white robes and slave raiders everywhere must have looked like these.  

*    *

Accounts often leave out

what they think does not concern them. 

End of this section.

*     *    *

Next section,

4.6.

Producers win, then crumble

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