Jerma Melei and Assakélé

Another thing we have been contemplating is the question of the identity of the captor of Assakélé, a Bulala princess remembered in a Kanembu song partly recorded by Henri Carbou. Although we have written about our speculative thoughts on this figure and her possible connection with the Aisa Kili of Borno traditions, we should consider other possibilities. For instance, the song identified the Borno official who seized Assakélé as Kaléa djerma Meleï. Kaléa means captive, djerma or jerma (sometimes spelled zerma) was an important officer in the Sayfawa court and Meleï is probably Mele, a Kanuri form of the name Idris sometimes seen in Kanuri girgam lists and other sources translated by H.R. Palmer. Thus, Kanembu tradition remembers a jerma named Idris whose actions here sparked or contributed to the war between the Bulala and Borno. 

Is it possible that the song is actually remembering the Ngizim jerma of Idris Alooma? When mentioned by Ahmad b. Furtu in the context of the Kanem campaigns, his title had risen to wazir. Furthermore, we know from Ahmad b. Furtu's account that women related to the Bulala royal family were indeed seized during the conflict. Perhaps Kanembu tradition here is actually recalling an event right before the Kanem wars of Idris Alooma or one of those seizures of Bulala royal women during the war? Carbou claims that Kanembu tradition remembered Idris Alooma's vizier as Idris b. Harun, but that does not necessarily preclude the possibility of Idris b. Harun also being remembered as a jerma or jarma in other Kanem traditions. 

Of course, without the full song this conjecture remains pure speculation. For all we know, there was a jerma named Idris during an earlier period in Borno who may have seized a Bulala princess. Assuming Kalo, Assakélé's father, was Dunama b. Salma, then we would think Melei was a jerma during the reign of Idris Alooma's grandfather. But it is still possible for the song partly translated by Carbou to have been actually referring to the Ngizim jerma, Idris b. Harun.

The Bulala Sultan of Fitri

Whilst recently perusing a book on Chad, we saw the Bulala sultan of Fitri in Les treize préfectures de la République du Chad by Pierre Gentil (1962). Although we could not find his name in the pamphlet, we wonder if it is Oumar since the book was published in the 1960s. Or perhaps Hassan Absekin who became sultan in 1967 according to Hagenbucher. 

Wild Rice and Lake Chad

Whilst taking another look at Koelle's English-Kanuri dictionary, we noticed a reference to wild rice growing near Lake Chad. According to Koelle, who likely derived this information from Ali Eisami, the region around Dikwa (Digoa) was especially known for the wild rice growing there. This brought to mind al-Umari's description of Kanem from the 14th century (included in Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History). According to an informant who knew an ascetic shaykh named Uthman al-Kanimi, related to the Sayfawa, rice grew without seed in Kanem. Perhaps this early 14th century reference is to the region specifically near Lake Chad, or what Eisami referred to as Pérgi, the region in Borno to the south/southwest of the Lake. 

Agisymba and the Ngizim?

Whilst continuing our early forays into the Teda, Daza and Kanuri languages, we randomly wondered if Agisymba was perhaps a reference to the Ngizim. Lange and others have mentioned this, although Murray Last made the point more explicit through reference to the Teda and Daza languages. If the Garamantes referred to the distant land of Agisymba by a name heard from people speaking an early form of the Teda language (possible due to the Tibetsi region likely being in contact with the Garamantes in some form), it is plausible for the Ngizim to have been the ethnonym in question. Basically, the addition of -ba at the end of word would have meant "people of" (as in the -bu in Kanembu, although modern Kanuri seems to use -wu). So Agisymba would have meant A (perhaps the -ng initial sound was difficult to render in the Berber and Greek languages) + ngisym + -ba. 

This theory, of course, assumes the continuity of the "Ngizim" name for 2000 years, so it is highly speculative. To our knowledge, the earliest written source referring to the Ngizim dates to the 16th century. When a French source mentions them at the end of the 17th, they were referred to as "Enghzeum." If oral traditions east of Lake Chad and clan affiliations are anything to go by, the Nguedjem (or Ngizim) were also once living in what is today Chad, in Kanem (and as part of the Bulala sultanate in Fitri, perhaps contributing to Carbou's confusion about their origins). While some ethnonyms in the Lake Chad region have persisted for several centuries (Kuri, for instance, or Bade), Ngizim would have to had survived as a name for over a thousand years before its attestation in the 1500s and 1600s. 

Naturally, one would also have to account for Ptolemy's description of Agisymba seeming to imply it was near mountains. Was this meant to refer to an area closer to Air? Tibetsi? Assuming the Garamantes would have traveled south through Kawar and reached the Lake Chad area, the land of Agisymba with rhinoceroses and mountains (nearby?) had to have been to the east or west without necessarily traveling too far. The Air massif to the west is an intriguing idea, but presumably the ancestors of the Teda and Daza may have known the region in or near Kanem more intimately if they approached it from the Tibetsi and Borku regions. Again, if one assumes the Garamantes were in contact with peoples who spoke a language like that of the Teda and Daza since the days of Herodotus, and the latter groups likely knew of Kanem or Lake Chad, it is possible the presumably Berber-speaking Garamantes adopted words for southern peoples acquired through them. 

Ultimately, the Agisymba as Ngizim remains just a theory. For it to be true requires one to make a number of unproven assumptions that the current data do not fully support. We assume that ancient peoples who spoke an early form of the Teda, Daza, and Kanuri languages in the central Sahara or Tibetsi were referring to a group as something like Ngizim nearly 2000 years ago. Then, through their contacts with the Garamantes, the latter referred to the Ngizim in a way that was later recorded in ancient sources as Agisymba. If the Ngizim and Bade (Bedde) were perhaps both living near Lake Chad in antiquity, then the name Agisymba could be a deformation of something like Ngizimba, referring to a region near Lake Chad, probably Kanem. One must also assume the Ngijem in Kanem are related to the Ngizim west of the lake, even though traditions in the late 1800s and early colonial period connected them to the Bulala.

KAKRH and Early Kanem

al-Ya'qubi's description of Kanem translated in the Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (edited by Levtzion and Hopkins).

One thing we have been reconsidering is the claim by  Abdelkérim Souleyman Tério about the name of a Kanem ruler written down in the 9th century. In his Origine et évolution des Zaghawa: Du royaume du Kanem aux Etats modernes (VIIIe-XXIe siècle), the author suggests that the name of the Kanem ruler is actually a title. He then proposes the notion that it is etymologically linked to the modern Zaghawa word for king (kireh in Blench's Beria dictionary). If one reads the name recorded by al-Ya'qubi as a title and perhaps Kakira as the best fit, this does bear some resemblance with the Zaghawa word for king. Interestingly, Blench's dictionary suggests that the Zaghawa word for king is rooted in the word for elder, or old age. This is likely related to the Kanuri word for elder, kura. According to Cyffer's dictionary, this word can be used to mean "age" or "big" or related concepts with the use of Kanuri prefixes. Unlike the Beria or Zaghawa language, however, Kanuri does not use the word kura for a chief or king today. Indeed, decades ago Lavers expressed some skepticism about reading the name recorded by al-Ya'qubi as related to the word for elder or great. 

What is perhaps surprising about this is the Teda language using distinct words for the same concept. According to one Tudaga dictionary, the word for old is gibi. This seems to be related to the word for a chief or leader, bugidi (chief or old man). Carbou provided similar information in his work, too. According to Carbou, the word for grand/aged is bo, elder or chef is bougoudi. If Kanuri is more closely related to the Teda and Daza languages than it is to Zaghawa, it is intriguing that Kanuri uses words like kura instead of cognates of the Teda/Daza languages. Indeed, the word in Tudaga bears some resemblance to the Daju word for chief, a language from a distinct branch of the Nilo-Saharan family. Apparently, the Daju word for chief in more than one dialect is buge, so it would be interesting to note if it was based on a word for elder or seniority. In the Barma language of Bagirmi, from a different branch of the Nilo-Saharan family than the Saharan languages of Kanuri, the word for old is bon/o. An old man is gada and a chief is kadal (though the higher status bang or mbang for the ruler of Bagirmi is well-known). In addition, Barma and related Nilo-Saharan languages use ngare or similar words for chief or ruler.

It nonetheless seems likely that Kanuri and the Beria language inherited words of deep antiquity in Nilo-Saharan languages related to age, seniority and great, if one accepts Blench's theories on Nilo-Saharan linguistics. If, however, an early form of kura was used to name early rulers of pre-Islamic Kanem, one still has to explain the k- added to it. Instead, we could be looking at the Kanuri prefix ker- or kə̀r(kura) as in the modern word kermai? But, that seems to be prohibited by the rules of Kanuri grammar which would use nemkura to make the word a noun. Alternatively, it may be following the ki- prefix in Beria identified by Blench as a pronoun. But this may be contradicted by the use of the prefix nem- to form words like bigness in modern Kanuri. It does not seem common to add the k- prefix to the word kura in the Kanuri language (although an archaic form of the language might have done so, perhaps like the Beria kî? or the addition of the initial k- to anem to specify the Kanem region).

Ultimately, the theory that the KAKRH is derived from the Zaghawa word for king (or, alternatively, the Kanuri word kura) remains highly problematic. Perhaps something like kurabe would match older, more senior, as that form may have meant something akin to "the great." Since al-Ya'qubi was writing down what was a word in a language he didn't speak over 1000 years ago, this is necessarily speculative. And as total novices in the study of the Kanuri language, our speculations on this should be seen as purely exploratory.

Writing the Qur'an in Borno

 

Although we have definitely watched this documentary before, we found it fascinating upon our second viewing. Entitled "Borno calligraphy - Creating hand-written Qur'an in northeast Nigeria" and featuring Goni Aminami, Malam Tahir Abba, and Dmitry Bondarev, the scribe explains the process of writing by hand a Qur'an in Borno.

Le christianisme éthiopien

We enjoyed this recent talk with Marie-Laure Derat and Martina Ambu on Ethiopian Christianity. Quite interesting.