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1 Fiddling in West Africa: Understanding the Culture Area

Soon after [they] appeared in another Squadron, all the young Men, divided, like the Women, into Companies with Drums and Fiddles. They made their Procession round the Fire, and quitting this Dress and Weapons, began to wrestle singly with great Agility. . . . This Exercise was followed by a Sort of Ball to their Violins, both Sexes showing their Skill in Dancing, which is their favourite Diversion, and of which they never tire.

—Jean Baptiste Labat, 1728. Quoted in Astley (1968:298)

Musically, West Africa is perhaps the best- known and least- understood culture area on the African continent. Although as the quotation above clearly dem- onstrates, West African musicians have used the fi ddle for at least three hun- dred years, the region is usually identifi ed with drumming. In spite of recent scholarly publications on various ethnic groups, much of the general public continues to regard West African music as homogenous, as opposed to a locus of diverse cultural and performance traditions (DjeDje 1998).

The one- stringed fi ddle (or bowed lute) is found primarily in an area called the Sudan that extends across the African continent from Senegal to Ethio- pia. Historians usually divide the Sudan into three sections: the Western Sudan (Mauritania, Senegal, The Gambia, Guinea- Bissau, Guinea, Mali, and parts of Burkina Faso), the Central Sudan (parts of Burkina Faso, Ghana, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, and Chad), and the Eastern Sudan (parts of Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea). My discussion here concerns primarily Sudanic West Africa, which includes the Western and Central Sudan (see Map 1.1).

A History of Sudanic West Africa

The peoples of Sudanic West Africa belong to several language families ( Niger- Congo, Songhai (or Songhay), Saharan, Chari- Nile, Berber, and Chad) and have resided in this region for thousands of years.1 While some common- alities existed among them historically, their religious and political systems were not identical. The indigenous religions of most groups were monotheistic with a single divine force identifi ed metaphorically with the sky and symbolized by lightning. In some ancient states, the political structure was based on a sacral kingship with people believing in an afterlife for their leaders. This idea prob-

DjeDje, Jacqueline Cogdell. Fiddling in West Africa : Touching the Spirit in Fulbe, Hausa, and Dagbamba Cultures, Indiana University Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/usca/detail.action?docID=348667. Created from usca on 2017-09-29 19:41:12.

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12 Fiddling in West Africa

ably originated in the east and was introduced by the Songhai peoples to the states immediately east and west of the Niger Bend.2 Among the Niger- Congo people, however, kings were not considered sacred; instead they served as ritual leaders of clans or lineages (Oliver and Fage 1970; Ehret 2001:240, 249).

The economy of most peoples living in the Sudan was organized around spe- cialization. Starting in the third millennium bce, fi shing and rice farming be- came the major means of subsistence in the Western Sudan. By the last century bce, rice cultivation had spread south and west to other Niger- Congo peoples living in the forest where it became the staple crop. When the Bongo- Bagirmi ( Chari- Nile speakers) migrated into the Central Sudan from the East during the fi rst millennium bce, not only did they use iron and were fully agricultural, but they also tended cattle, sheep, and goats and raised a wide range of crops (Ehret 2001:250–251; 2002:220–221).

A second stage of productive specialization, based on occupation, started around 1000 bce and resulted in a new residential pattern: village clusters or a set of satellite settlements were organized around a larger, central town. Each village became the site of a different kind of manufacturing activity. “One would be the village of the smelters and smith, another the residence of leather workers, another the place of cotton weaving, and still another the potters’ abode. The products of each occupation were then taken to the central market in the larger town around which the artisans’ villages clustered. There they were bought by local consumers and also by traders, who might carry the items to more distant markets in other localities” (Ehret 2001:259).

Out of this pattern emerged a social system of occupational classes started by ironworkers.3 When iron metallurg y developed early in the fi rst millennium bce, the ironworkers protected their activities with taboos and special rituals to ensure the success of their efforts. Whether consciously or not, they man- aged to secure a monopoly over the production of iron. As time passed, other specialists (e.g., leather workers, weavers, and potters) began to claim the same type of status for themselves and their activities. Their jobs and their skills were passed down from father to son or mother to daughter. People in these occupa- tional groupings eventually began to marry solely among themselves (a practice known as endogamy) (Ehret 2001:259).

The fi nal step in the creation of a socio- occupational class system took place when clan rulers and sacral kings seized power and combined large areas into the fi rst real states of the region. To make their positions of power permanent, the new kings and their followers claimed that ruling was their birthright, just as members of the ironworking classes were born to be smelters and smiths. Among the Mande and Atlantic peoples,4 an occupational group of professional bards arose under the patronage of nobles. The great majority of the population— who continued to farm and keep livestock— formed by default a residual group consisting of free people who did not belong to any of the groups with more restricted membership. Slaves, who formed the lowest stratum within the social system, originated as captives taken in the wars of the noble class. As more people in the Western Sudan were affected by the class system, the positions of some

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