Garumele (Wudi) as a Sayfawa Capital

 

Plans of the Garumele site by Binet, Bivar & Shinnie, Haour and the area displayed with geophysics (Source)

One important site in modern Niger, Garumele, is said to have once been a Sayfawa capital. Heinrich Barth, drawing on oral traditions, believed it had been a royal site. Nachtigal and other others similarly believed this. Landeroin, for the Tilho Mission's Notice historique, compiled traditions that referred to the site as a capital of Ali b. Dunama before he established Gazargamo. Palmer, Urvoy, Bivar & Shinnie, Lange, Gronenborn and others have all, in one form or another, argued for Garumele (or Wudi, the name of the successor settlement) as a Sayfawa capital before Gazargamo. Despite its alleged importance in the history of the Sayfawa dynasty, the area was not seriously surveyed or excavated until recently. Fortunately, Haour, Magnavita, Robertshaw, and others have been able to examine middens, find faunal remains and ceramics, engaged in chemical analysis of glass bead finds and get radiocarbon dates from charcoal samples. The best evidence clearly shows use of the site for inhabitants in the 17th and 18th centuries, but was it a Sayfawa capital in the 15th or even late 14th century?

Satellite image of the site (Source)

The historical sources, primarily oral, strongly suggest a deeper antiquity for the site. Landeroin, for instance, was told that the Sayfawa went to Woudi (Wudi) after leaving Kanem (Landeroin 354). However, the site was said to have been unhealthy and caused frequent fevers. In connection to this tradition, a Magumi woman was said to have complained to Ali b. Dunama about Tuareg raiders. So, the mai left Mankinta in charge at Wudi while he attacked the Tuareg from Agram, or Fachi (355). While it is likely that oral tradition may have compressed a number of different reigns of Sayfawa monarchs, Tuareg oral traditions of Air do remember a period of Bornoan attacks and raids. Furthermore, the Kano Chronicle includes a reference to a Bornoan attack on Asben (Air). This suggests that the traditions associating the Mankinta as the leader of Wudi appointed by Ali b. Dunama may be accurate. Furthermore, Bedde traditions reported by H.R. Palmer similarly refer to the Mankinta (makinta) of Wudi in relation to the foundation of Gazargamo. In Palmer's Sudanese Memoirs, leaders named Makinta Baro, Makinta Yatku and Kaloma Arge were remembered as brothers who came to Borno from Wudi. The site of Wudi may very well have been under the administration of a makinta of Bedde origin who served the Sayfawa. This official may have been responsible for provisioning the palace kitchen of the mai. It is possible that in the 15th century, the fired-brick structure was used by the maiwa but a Bedde official was appointed to administer the territory. 

Garumele's outer wall of egg-shaped bricks in "Old Kanuri Capitals"

As for the earlier history of the site, it is currently impossible to determine if it was identical with the Kagha capital of Umar b. Idris (reigned c. 1382-1385) after the Sayfawa left Kanem permanently. Lange has suggested Kagha was likely the Kaka of al-Qalqashandi and the Jaja of Ibn Sa'id, but the bulk of the archaeological evidence points to a later occupation of Garumele. Another historian, Muhammad Nur Alkali, has also described Wudi briefly. Wudi was said to have been attacked by the Bulala in c. 1471, during the reign of Ali b. Dunama (Alkali 88). According to this historian, Wudi, also called Abadam, was a site that grew through its fishing industry (121). This fishing industry may have also been supplemented by a pastoral herding economy in the Sahelian landscape. Linseele's study of animal remains from Garumele noted the greater number of sheep than goats and has proposed that a pastoral nomadic element was a source of livestock for the site. This may have been why the site was said to be under the control of a makinta, an official who may have gathered fish and herds of sheep or cattle for feeding the Sayfawa royal court.

A view of the eastern tubali wall (Source)

What does the archaeological evidence suggest? Haour, using one charcoal sample that requires further confirmation by other types of evidence, has date ranges from 1280-1330 or 1350-1390 for Garumele (Haour 361). This would suggest that Garumele was either the Jaja/Kagha/Kaka of medieval Arabic sources and the Diwan or settled in the late 13th or 14th centuries. Despite this early date, the Garumele pottery was of a more recent type (366). It was also closest in type to the Yobe and Lake Chad sites north of the firki soils (368). Haour has even proposed identifying Garumele with Gatiga, a settlement mentioned by Ahmad b. Furtu (372). The Magnavitas, in "Garumele Revisited: Retracing Vanished Fired-Brick Elite Constructions and New Data on Settlement Foundation," found evidence of Garumele's occupation in more recent times. For example, radiocarbon dating of wood charcoal suggest construction of the town wall between 1459-1644 (166). The finding of a pipe fragment found in a layer was also consistent with a late 1500s or early 1600s foundation of Garumele as an enclosed urban settlement (172). Of course, this does not mean there were no earlier, non-brick structures and use of the site. Further evidence of more recent occupation of Garumele can be seen in the chemical composition analysis of glass beads by Robertshaw et al. Their conclusions suggest a 17th and 18th century occupation based on the European beads (Robertshaw 602). Overall, the bulk of the evidence favors a later date for the site's wall and brick structures. An earlier occupation in the 1400s, or perhaps even the 1300s, is still possible if one recalls the perilous state of the Sayfawa dynasty during an era of internal conflicts and wars with the Bulala rulers of Kanem or the Sao in Borno. Thus, the earlier Sayfawa use of Garumele as a capital or royal settlement may not have included fired-brick structures or walls. Later, however, after the consolidation of Sayfawa power in Borno, subsequent maiwa may have sponsored the brick structures at Garumele or Wudi.

Evidence of the widespread looting of Garumele for bricks (Source)

Despite the chronological uncertainties and the lack of dated bricks from the elite structure, the site of Garumele presents a number of unique features. The use of egg-shaped bricks for the outer wall is more similar to Hausa architectural practices. This raises the question of possible influences from Hausaland in this site, since it differs so markedly from the outer walls of other Borno towns or cities. Furthermore, the Magnavitas noted that the mounds or middens of Garumele included ruins of clay buildings or home structures. In addition, smaller, fired-brick structures outside the elite compound were present (Magnavita 165). This suggests the town included smaller homes of more perishable material as well as circular brick structures like that of Gambaru. The area was, of course, much smaller than Gazargamo, but Garumele's distinctive outer wall and fired brick structures indicate the site was definitely occupied by an elite group and may have had influences from the west. Acquiring dates for the elite brick structure may finally establish when the Sayfawa sponsored elite architecture at the site. Meanwhile, historians should revisit Kanuri and Bedde tradition and the written sources. If Garumele was not the Jaja, Kaka or Kagha of medieval sources, it was likely located nearby and this region near the northern shore of Lake Chad deserves close scrutiny for any understanding of early Sayfawa expansion by the 13th century. 

Bibliography

Alkali, Mohammad Nur. 2013. Kanem-Borno under the Sayfawa: A Study of the Origin, Growth, and Collapse of a Dynasty (891-1846) . Nigeria: University of Maiduguri.

Bivar, A. D. H., and P. L. Shinnie. “Old Kanuri Capitals.” The Journal of African History 3, no. 1 (1962): 1–10. http://www.jstor.org/stable/179796.

Haour, Anne, and Boube Gado. “Garumele, Ville Médiévale Du Kanem-Borno? Une Contribution Archéologique.” The Journal of African History 50, no. 3 (2009): 355–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25622052.

Lange, Dierk. Le Dīwān Des Sultans Du (Kānem-)Bornū: Chronologie Et Histoire D'un Royaume Africain (de La Fin Du Xe Siècle Jusqu'à 1808). Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1977.

Linseele, Veerle, and Anne Haour. “Animal Remains from Medieval Garumele, Niger.” Journal of African Archaeology 8, no. 2 (2010): 167–84. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43135516.

Magnavita, Carlos, and Sonja Magnavita. “Garumele Revisited: Retracing Vanished Fired-Brick Elite Constructions and New Data on Settlement Foundation.” The African Archaeological Review 34, no. 2 (2017): 155–75. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44988621.

Palmer, H.R. Sudanese Memoirs: Being Mainly Translations of a Number of Arabic Manuscripts Relating to the Central and Western Sudan. 1st ed., new impression. London: Cass, 1967.

Robertshaw, Peter, Marilee Wood, Anne Haour, Karlis Karklins, and Hector Neff. 2014. “Chemical Analysis, Chronology, and Context of a European Glass Bead Assemblage from Garumele, Niger.” Journal of Archaeological Science 41 (January): 591–604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.08.023.

Tilho, Jean (editor). Documents Scientifiques De La Mission Tilho. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1910.