Revisiting Cillum Aouami

Part of Palmer's list of Magumi rulers in Bornu Sahara and Sudan.

While perusing Landeroin and Maikorema Zakari yet again, we noticed the appearance of a Sayfawa mai named Cillum Aouami (Hawami). In this case, he was said to have been the Sayfawa king whose daughter was married to the Atari Gumsumi, the Sayfawa prince who established the local dynasty of Kelle in Kutus. We found this interesting since a mai of the same name was remembered in Tunjur tradition as the one to whom they first received the kadmoul, Tschoulloum Aouami. Our weak, tentative theory was that this mai may have been Muhammad b. al-Hajj Hamdun, a mai whose mother was named Hawa in a Kanuri praise song translated by J.R. Patterson. Furthermore, a girgam translated by Palmer does refer to this mai as a "black prince with the white mouth-veil" (Bornu Sahara and Sudan 253). We suspected that the Tschoulloum or Cillum was actually a Kanuri word for dark-skinned people, perhaps functioning as a nickname rather than meaning the sultan was actually named Tsilim or Salma. However, the late date for the reign of Muhammad b. al-Hajj Hamdun, c. 1729-1744 in Lange's chronology, is rather late for the establishment of the royal dynasty of Kelle. Furthermore, a girgam names this king's mother as Fanna, a local variant of Fatima from what we could gather.

Lange's translation of the Diwan entry for Salma, a 14th century mai considered by Palmer to have been the son of a woman named Hawa. One cannot help but wonder if this Salma was confused with the earlier Salma, the father of Dunama Dibalemi.

In other words, we are now thinking that the memory in Tunjur tradition and Kutus oral history of the Sayfawa mai  named Cillum Aouami, or Tsilim Hawami, is meant figuratively. Perhaps distant memories of two earlier Sayfawa rulers named Tsilim or Salmama were used to suggest a deeper past or antiquity of chiefly lineages. Even the salter Salma, who likely reigned in the 1330s in Lange's chronology, possibly became the subject of later legends that connected his death with N'Difu, near Dikwa. According to oral sources presented by Palmer, Tsilim Hawami died in N'Difu but anachronistic elements such as the reference to the mai leaving Birni Gazargamo raise questions. 

Alternatively, the appellation of tsilim as a nickname and possibly 17th century or 18th century Sayfawa rulers with mothers named Hawa is worthy of exploration. Based on the limited sources available, it seems highly unlikely that Atari Gumsumi arrived in Kutus in the 1700s, so we cannot confidently use the reign of Muhammad b. al-Hajj Hamdun to date it. But is it possible that Idris b. Ali, the son of Ali b. Umar, was the child of a Hawa? Either way, the second Sayfawa named Salmama was, if the traditions collected by Palmer are reliable, the first Sayfawa to die in war with the Sao. The Sao near Dikwa must have been very powerful in this period.