IV.4. BACK TO DJIMINI: VIOLENCE RETURNS

.4.4. Djimini violence returns 

PEACE AND GROWTH MEAN THAT RISING AND NOW-ARCHAIC FORCES FACE OFF AGAIN

Senufo warrior

• New forces menace

• Senufo fight back

• Interpreting legends and documents

*      *      *

Next,

4.4.1. 

New forces menace

4.4.1.NEW FORCES MENACE

LONG-DISTANCE TRADERS MULTIPLY   

(FROM ABOUT 1870) 

In Tofanga and Gnapon's time Dyula imposed a cowrie currency, the first step in transforming communal organization into one that was commercial and class-based. But they were only petty traders, whom the communal system could up to a point absorb. 

Hausa and Soninke traders, with the capital and organization that long-distance trade required, followed them (toward 1870?)...

• The Hausa merchant "Mori" settled in the textile center of Marabadiassa.
• "Karamoko Bassiri" in Bouake, farther west.
• The father of the imam of Darhala, a Muslim village on the route to Kong,  arrived at the same time.

-- Muslim elders of Darhala, interviewed in 1973

They were infinitely more disruptive.

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

"Nigerian dignitaries"

Their irruption was part of a general evolution:

• 1820's: Fulani from Northern Nigeria ride south, wearing white clothing, carrying 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. ,

 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 Amadu Tall "seems to be less and less interested in his possessions in Kaarta, Fadugu 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.

# # #

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.

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

*      *      *

Next,
4.4.2. 

Senufo fight back 

4.4.2. SENUFO FIGHT BACK

NAMBOLOSSE, GNAPON'S SON, RESISTS THE TRADERS

Djimini's hero "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

 

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

-- Dakar archives, 1878

After his death they 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 well integrated into local society and those that menace it. In Djimini, that distinction 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. 

• 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 must be all of that record that remains.

# # #

• I could not learn more about Karamoko Bagui. The imam of Darhala said he knew nothing, and would not let me ask the elders who were present. For the real reason for that silence, please read on.

# # #

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

-- Dakar archives, 1891, confirmed by interlocutors 

 *Because they cannot resist the tsetse files of the nearby forest.  

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 identifies with the animists against other Muslims.

# # #

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

Senufo resistance works. 

*    *    *

Next,

4.4.3.

 Interpreting legends and documents

4.4.3. INTERPRETING LEGENDS AND DOCUMENTS

RAIDERS AND POWERFUL MERCHANTS UNITE

Accounts of Nambolosse's death show how stories are used to strengthen points of view.  

• A French report

When demands that a Hausa arms and slave dealer be yielded up to him, some traders leave Bokhala to found Dabakakoro ("old Dabakala"). 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

*Suggests a tie between the most dynamic local interests and the traders, as shown by the Senoufo producers who back Samori later.

• The Muslim version, by raiders' descendants

There is no mention of the Dyula chief. 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 animist version, by Senufo descendants

Nambolosse 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 farther away. On his flight from Djimini he meets Samory and says, "Watch out for Djimini. There are real men there." Later Samory takes revenge for Mori's defeat: It is he who kills Nambolosse

Muslim and animist Senufo versions reveal lasting antagonism between the two groups, whose villages are separate.

• 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, and he didn't.)

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

The animist version also shows Mori foreshadowing Samory (please continue). Raiders wrack this part at least of the northeastern Ivory Coast: After about 1870, at least four others terrify populations of the northern Ivory Coast. A record in the archives mentions one of them, Vakuba Ture who "raids in the east with his sons."

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

# # #

Except for that phrase and the paragraph on Nambolosse, the records in the Paris or Abidjan mention only raiders they confront. 

Records in general 

leave out what  narrators think

does not concern them.

End of this section.

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Next section,

V.5.

Commercial forces win, then crumble