Borno Music: Ganga Alitama Bornoye

Beautiful music from Borno is always a delight to find. The alita playing is very delightful and seems appropriate in a region like Borno, which enjoyed centuries-long ties to musical styles from the larger Islamic world. The drumming is a little repetitive but this is probably a fair indicator of what music was like in precolonial Borno. In that era, perhaps there were larger bands of instrumentalists and dancers and praise singers. 

Dar al-Kuti and the Outer Periphery

Cordell's history of the Dar al-Kuti Sultanate endeavors to explain the brief state's rise and fall in the context of greater integration of North Central Africa into the wider global, capitalist system of exchange. Beginning from c.1750 and ending with the French assassination of al-Sanussi, Cordell's study situates Dar al-Kuti's rise with an increase in the scale of trans-Saharan trade impacting the area where the Lake Chad, Nile, and Zaire basins intersect, specifically the Ubangi-Shari region. Although pre-1750 contacts certainly existed in some form, and evidence for a Barma or Bagirmi influence can be found in the early Muslim presence in what later became Dar al-Kuti, the Islamic presence and scale of slave raiding grew exponentially over the course of the 19th century. By the early 20th century, the slave trade was so central to the Sultanate that al-Sanussi had no other alternative in order to acquire the firearms, ammunitions and luxury imports to support his state and dependents. 

The expansion of slave raiding and trading for northern partners and the trans-Saharan routes led to unprecedented migrations, relocations, and, gradually, a larger Muslim presence as traders, settlers, and converts participated in this new, centralized state. According to Cordell, the origins of Dar al-Kuti began with a Runga (or someone of Bagirmi and Runga origins) appointed to oversee the region on behalf of the rulers of Dar Runga, itself a tributary to Wadai. Darfur's Sultanate had previously been a major player but lost control of southern trade routes leading to Central Africa while Wadai reaped the benefits. Over time, the region of Dar al-Kuti became more significant in the mid and late 19th century under Kobur and al-Sanussi, who promoted trade. The latter especially supported trans-Saharan trade through slave raiding. Once aligned with Sudanese warlord Rabeh, and massacring a French team in order to acquire firearms, al-Sanussi established an army replenished by slave recruits and imported guns. Cordell sees this as an example of secondary empire as al-Sanusi, like his former mentor, Rabih, used advanced military techniques and newer guns to build better equipped armies that preyed on various societies in North Central Africa for slaves, ivory, and new soldiers. 

However, given the origins of Dar al-Kuti in Dar Runga and Wadai, one can also see the state as inheriting a tradition that ultimately begins with Kanem, Bagirmi, and Borno in the Chad basin. In one sense, the state of Dar al-Kuti resembled those earlier, northern ones in its establishment of a centralized state which relied heavily on the slave trade and war. By preying on Banda, Kresh, Sara, and other groups who lacked centralized states, al-Sanussi was able to procure additional labor for local agriculture as well as exchange with Jellaba or other northern traders for cloth, guns, tea, sugar, beads, and other manufactured goods. In one sense, al-Sanussi accomplished on a smaller scale some of the same things Idris b. Ali of Borno did in the late 16th century. Like his more famous Borno counterpart, he incorporated firearms into his military and engaged in many population relocations or displacements while centralizing authority. Unlike Borno, Dar al-Kuti lacked a cavalry force and did not possess a large livestock, leather, salt or textile industry. Ecological and other factors contributed to this, as did Central Africa being more of a frontier in which Islam was largely restricted to the ruling group. Nevertheless, Dar al-Kuti was certainly also part of a pattern of Central Sudanic states that began long before in the north, one which gradually spread further south as more societies invested in trans-Saharan (and Sudanic) trade. Like its better known northern counterparts, Dar al-Kuti had its core, tributary and predatory zones but time and looming French conquest prevented the process from evolving into a larger state or empire.

So, Dar al-Kuti, despite its brief existence, represented a fascinating fusion of two separate developments that impacted the Central Sudan and Central Africa. One, the "secondary empire" effect, developed as soldiers with experience in the Egyptian conquest of Sudan brought military techniques and updated firearms to new regions. Their military superiority gave them an edge over various local populations, triggering migrations, displacement, and recruitment that reverberated across the vast region between Lake Chad and the Nile. Even centralized states did not always survive the challenge represented by Zubayr and Rabih. Indeed, Borno itself fell to Rabih in the 1890s. The second process was the gradual extension of the Central Sudanic state model further south into Central Africa as the frontier pushed south by the 18th and 19th centuries. The genius of al-Sanussi consisted of his decision to model his army and state on certain aspects of Rabih's destructive empire and build his own slave trading state. Even on the outer periphery of the trans-Saharan trade, itself a periphery of the Mediterranean and European-dominated commerce of his time, al-Sanussi created a large, centralized kingdom. Unfortunately for him, French colonialism and suppression of the slave trade meant his state was not long to last in the 20th century. 

Gult in Solomonic Ethiopia

Donald Crummey's Land and Society in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia: From the Thirteenth to the Twentieth Century has been on our reading list for quite some time. Crummey was one of those scholars interested in the larger "Sudanic" context for Christian Ethiopia, one that is often forgotten or neglected due to the religion and perceived isolation of the Ethiopian highland kingdom from other parts of Africa. For our purposes, Crummey's examination of gult is directly linked to the "fiefs" of Kanuri or Borno "feudalism" that appears in the works of Cohen, Palmer, Brenner, and other specialists. Additional parallels can be found with the Darfur Sultanate of the Keira dynasty and the land charters of the Funj. Where the Ethiopian case differs is in the much larger corpus of surviving written material and the role of the Church. 

Moreover, the case of Borno differs in that the mahrams collected and translated by Palmer do not appear to be represent the type of "fief" allocated to courtiers and the nobility from the central administration. In Borno's case, the recipients of "fiefs" received rights in tribute to the land in question, and were expected to reside in the capital while appointing representatives to maintain order and collect the tribute. A part of the collected tribute was also given to the Sayfawa administration (or that of the al-Kanemi dynasty which followed). The surviving mahrams of Borno, however, do not appear to represent cases like these but separate forms of land charters in which the recipient received tax-free land or territories. These were, presumably, usually distinct from the "fiefs" allocated by the mai to dependents and allies in the provinces.

Nonetheless, the Ethiopian institution of gult clearly resembled that of Kanem-Borno with regards to land grants in the rights of tribute from free peasant landholders. In Borno, the peasantry appeared to enjoy usufruct land rights and a certain mobility was in practice so they could migrate to other areas or fiefs if unhappy or overtaxed by the chima kura or his representatives. In Solomonic Ethiopia, free peasants benefited from rest to inherit land through an ambilineal descent system (at least among the Amhara). Both had to pay tribute, usually in kind, to an overlord (or the church in Ethiopia). While the antiquity of gult probably goes back to the Aksumite era of expansion and military colonies, some Borno mahrams purportedly date from the early centuries of Sayfawa conversion to Islam. Due to the obvious differences between Islam and Christianity, Borno mahrams granted to illustrious or pious mallams and settlements like Kalumbardo might represent the equivalent to Ethiopia's many monastic institutions which spread further across the region under the Solomonic dynasty. 

Additional parallels might be found in the role of elite marriages and class formation of a ruling class that enjoyed its higher status through the exploitation of tribute. Members of the Magumi ruling clan, for instance, sometimes received tax-free land grants and rights of exploitation, according to Muhammad Nur al-Kali. They also formed a distinct group that married among themselves and apparently resisted the alifa of Kanem due to his attempts to tax them. They were probably also distinguished by their sponsorship of Islamic scholars and holymen, such as the noble who paid Ali Eisami's father for his services. Unfortunately, their lives are not as well-documented as their Ethiopian counterparts, particularly during the Gondarine era. Crummey's study includes numerous details of the inheritance, sale, and gifting of gult lands and uses the surviving manuscripts, land charters, and edicts to illustrate how the Ethiopian ruling class did dominate a class-based society. Their lives of luxury and leisurely activity like chess, literacy, hunting elephants, consumption of mead, and the use of silks and expensive imported cloth certainly distinguished them from the average Ethiopian peasant or slaves. Their elite marriages connected them to the Solomonic dynasty and powerful provincial elites while patronage of the church demonstrated the close relations between church and state that was a cornerstone of Solomonic power for most of its 7 centuries of existence. 

Lamentably, we still know far too little about the peasantry exploited by gult. With some suggestive evidence that one Solomonic monarch, Za Dengal, actually tried to align himself with the free peasantry against the regional nobility, thereby threatening gult foundations of the empire, Crummey points to class conflict as a major factor in 16th and 17th century Ethiopia. Susenyos's conversion to Catholicism and religious conflict certainly contributed to this turmoil and instability until the early Gondarine period. Later moments of rural banditry, peasant revolts under Haile Selassie, or the formal end of gult under the Derg administration clearly attest to social conflict in the countryside. Modern Ethiopia's conquest of new territories in the late 19th century and land legislation favoring Amharic-speaking settlers over local inhabitants suggest an ethnic dimension that does not manifest itself in the earlier Gondar era. There is also too little information in the extant corpus on gult and the military in Solomonic history. What differences, if any, existed between military holders of gult and the ecclesiastical organizations who possessed gult lands? Did something akin to the influential mallams of Borno who appealed to the peasantry or the charismatic holymen of the Funj sultanate influence peasant resistance or negotiation of gult conditions? How did gender dynamics shape land ownership or rights in other parts of "Sudanic" Africa? Crummey definitely demonstrates how women could assert gult rights and, in some cases, effect policy on a "national" scale under Mentewab.

Batouala

Rene Maran, the first black writer to win the Prix Goncourt back in 1921, was born to parents from French Guiana. He spent years in French Equatorial Africa during the zenith of European imperialism. His father served in the French colonial administration, which he also did. However, Maran sought to ameliorate some of the worst abuses of the colonial regime in French Equatorial Africa.

Reading Batouala from a 21st century lens, the novel hardly seems anti-colonial or radical at all. Indeed, the novel's main characters, a community of Bantu-speaking peoples of what is now the Central African Republic, carry on their old traditions, rituals, and beliefs in spite of their colonial overlords, who are depicted as cruel alcoholics who use excessive force. The Africans, such as their chief Batouala, however, are arguably portrayed as happy 'savages' who resist the change that comes with modernity, preferring long days of idleness and not too interested in attaining literacy or the technological advances made by the Europeans. Batouala retains his power and influence as chief of their small community, but his authority and the authority of all African leaders prior to the arrival of the whites is under siege.

Surprisingly, Maran does succeed in establishing the worldview of the community he describes. The short novel is full of songs, folktales, rituals, and perspectives on the natural world from the African' point of view. Moreover, this portrayal is neither wholly negative or positive, so all the flawed aspects of Batouala and his community are shown as well as their strengths, including their rules for murder, polygamy, slavery, and their circumcision and fertility rites. Animals, such as Baoutala's pet dog, the panther, and others, also appear as strong characters due to their symbolic role in folklore and hunting, or for providing another lens through which one discovers the world of Batouala and the extreme suffering that results from their way of life.

Perhaps because he so vividly depicted the world of Africa from an African perspective, Maran was scorned and rebuked in France for decades after the publication of Batouala. The simple act of giving Africans humanity at a time when they were conceived of as untutored children and savages in need of Europe's saving grace was inevitably going to spark anger and opposition from some French. Hemingway, however, immediately understood the novel's power and agreed with the message, hence his accolades for Batouala.

West African Food in the Middle Ages

Lewicki's West African Food in the Middle Ages is one of those useful reference books for anyone interested in finding out more about the alimentary factors in the history of Sudanic West Africa before the changes wrought by the introduction of American crops after 1492. It covers the period from the 900s until the early 1500s, mainly drawing from medieval external Arabic sources and later post-Leo Africanus sources from Europe or West African chronicles. For anyone interested in the Western Sudan from Takrur and the Senegambia to Mali and Songhay, there will be some useful information. Even Hausaland, Saharan and Sahelian Tuareg, Mauritania, Kanem, and Borno are included. The societies south of the savanna are usually omitted, though references to kola and Yoruba cuisine will occasionally appear in the text.

Unfortunately, since the book is basically a list of the various types of food and some of the dishes prepared in West Africa's Sahel and savanna lands, there is not too much in the way of analysis. Moreover, since many of our sources are external Arabic geographies or accounts, there is a lot of room for error, doubt, and uncertainty. For instance, Lewicki theorizes from al-Umari's account of Mali that criminals or convicts may have been sacrificed in an annual yam ritual akin to that of the Asante and other groups south of the empire of Mali. He could very well be correct, but there are too many uncertainties and unknown factors in the interpretation of the Arabic sources or the chronology of certain customs or culinary habits. Some dishes and drinks, such as mead, the use of millet for beer and porridges, sorghum, and milk or butter, appear across the region and are probably of very deep antiquity in West Africa. Imported spices and things such as wheat, onions, lemons, peaches, and sugarcane attest to changes in consumption patterns tied to trade, migration, and cultural shifts. One can look at, for instance, al-Bakri's description of Awdaghust, with its North Africans (coming from societies where wheat was an important crop) and its black women slave cooks well-known for their confections as an example of the probable culinary culture that characterized other Sahelian trading towns or centers. 

Despite the structural problems of this book basically consisting of a series of lists and some of the necessarily speculative theories or conclusions, it really does provide greater clarity as to the basic diet of various West African peoples. The ancestors of the Imraguen of Mauritania, who feasted on sea turtles, or the Bambara consumption of dogs is explained adequately. Widespread eating of carrion is also elucidated, bringing more context to Ibn Battuta's negative perception of dietary habits in Mali. Moreover, the early introduction of Mediterranean and Asian crops or domesticates in West Africa raises all sorts of interesting questions. Lewicki was writing at a time when Arkell's theory of Christian Nubian influence in lands west of the Nile was great, but looking at Kanem, one finds early references to sugarcane and Mediterranean crops. Some of these were not common in Borno during the 19th century but one cannot avoid the obvious conclusion that Kanem-Borno was part of a complex pattern of agricultural and cultural change across West Africa. 

Half of a Yellow Sun

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun is a powerful narrative of the Biafran War that surpasses the factual details of the case, as all great fiction does. Part history, part love story, Adichie proves her skills as a writer in crafting a book over 500 pages long but so addicting one cannot put it down. Her style is simple, sweet, and effective. In many ways she is the 21st century Chinua Achebe, the famous Igbo writer of the 20th century, best known for Things Fall Apart. Her narrative, rooted in the 'facts' of the Biafran War, such as the corruption, ethnic conflict, colonial manipulation and starvation of the Biafran masses, tells me more about this war's impact on human lives than any history I could find. And believe me, I've read and seen the pictures of starving children, since the Biafran War of 1967-1970 was everywhere in the international press due to the blockades ordered by Gowon in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, I believe that many unfamiliar with Nigerian history and culture will be unfamiliar with some of the background to the conflict. Adichie wisely chose to begin the story in the early 1960s and avoided giving too much historical background, since the novel would have likely become boring and academic for those unfamiliar with the historical context. Likewise, Adichie's novel focuses on the Igbo perspective, and through the Englishman Richard Churchill, a white man's perspective on Nigeria. It would be nice to read about the Biafran conflict from the perspective of the Muslim North and the non-Igbo minorities within Biafra who worked with the Nigerian state to defeat Biafra, whose flag included half of a yellow sun, hence the title of the novel. The only northern, Muslim Hausa character to play a role in the novel is the wealthy prince, Mohammed, a former lover of Olanna, the Igbo daughter of a Chief who abused his position as a tax collector to amass wealth and purchased property in Lagos, where he and his wife live lavishly. Olanna's former beau still loves her, and helps her escape Kano when the Hausa begin to massacre Igbos after the Igbo led a coup against the Northern-controlled central Nigerian government. In response, the Igbos of southeastern Nigeria, under Colonel Ojukwu, secede from Nigeria, which had only been 'independent' of Britain since 1960. Although the Muslim North and South of Nigeria were never close prior to the unification of the two regions under British colonial rule in 1914, and even then the two regions remained distinct and separate as Southern elites received colonial education and prepared to take over civil administration in the central state, the Igbos had traveled to the North and Lagos to start businesses, purchase property, etc. Indeed, at one point in the novel, the Igbos are referred to as the Jews of Nigeria. 

After the Igbos declared independence, it was inevitable their little republic would face war with Nigeria because of Biafra's oil and the need to maintain colonial borders established by European powers. Indeed, Biafra was never recognized by the imperial powers, and Nigeria received aid and arms from Britain, the Soviet Union and some African countries to force Biafra into submission. It also helped that Biafra's military was corrupt and exploiting its own people in the name of Igbo nationalism and autonomy, commandeering cars, conscripting 'idle' men such as Ugwu, and lying to the people when they knew Nigerian forces were about to defeat their forces and take another Biafran town. The Biafran propaganda and misinformation to their people worked well, since so many people, including Olanna and her Igbo professor husband, Odenigbo, felt cheated when a ceasefire was declared. Ojukwu fled, lying to Biafra on the radio. Ugwu, who was conscripted later in the novel, initially desired, at least partially, to serve in the military to fight for Igbo independence. However, after serving, he experiences the military's corruption, dehumanization of its own soldiers, who are like sheep, and even participates in the rape of a Biafran woman working at a bar with his fellow soldiers. While serving as a soldier, Ugwu comes across Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The symbolism is so obvious, that the Biafran soldiers are akin to slaves, exploited and abused to carry out injustice while supposedly 'doing the right thing' by being patriotic. Ugwu decides to name his own story about the Biafran War after Douglass's Narrative.

Adichie's white character, Richard, is fully developed as one of the main characters (Ugwu, Olanna, and Richard are the main characters whose point of view is explained by the omniscient third person narrator). Richard Churchhill, though on the side of Biafra and in love with Kainene, Olanna's twin sister, remains a white man and part of the former colonial elite regardless of his ability to speak Igbo and serve Biafra with journalistic accounts of heroism, suffering and resilience of the Igbo peoples. His fellow white residents of Nigeria display astounding racism and pro-imperialist beliefs, including Susan, Richard's lover before Kainene. Susan sees Nigerians as violent, savages who are ungrateful despite all the 'civilization' the British brought to Nigeria. Two American journalists Richard shows around Biafra during the War are likewise racist, paternalistic fools who see Nigerians (and all Africans) as savage, starving peoples with the mind of children. Indeed, the Americans care more about dead whites than any of the thousands of dead and dying blacks. This unspoken rule of Western journalism taints all Western accounts of war and deaths in Africa, since any and all whites remaining in those African regions where people are dying are either rescued instantaneously or memorialized in Western newspapers and television news forever. The dying, malnourished Biafran children, suffering from kwashiokor and other deficiencies, become objects for Western journalists to achieve name recognition and become famous. The Red Cross and other relief agencies and churches, despite coming with the right intentions, also reinforce white supremacy and abuse their power. Father Marcel, a priest at the relief center in Orlu, run by Kainene, raped starving young girls until  Kainene discovers the truth and chases him out. 

Richard likes to see himself as Biafran, as African, not European. But his whiteness and the inherent privileges that confers upon him makes it impossible to escape his whiteness in Nigeria/Biafra. He can speak Igbo, study the Igbo-Ukwu civilization (and still express shock that these people had any civilization!), marry an Igbo woman, and endeavor to write about the story of Biafra, but it will never be his story. Ugwu ultimately must tell the tale, since Richard's whiteness makes him forever privileged. He came to Nigeria to find a home, and to write the one brilliant novel that will make him famous, but finds neither. Even when he 'helps' the Biafran cause by writing articles that will get international press, the only reason his stories get so much attention in the West is because he's a white man. Colonel Madu, who asks him to write in the first place, never saw him as anything but a white man who will never understand Igbos of Africans. Although life does not end well for him with the disappearance and presumed death of Kainene, Richard's whiteness will ensure him a life of privilege and comfort in Nigeria. As previously mentioned, his fascination with the Igbo-Ukwu art that dates back to the "time of the Vikings" is rooted in a disbelief, or shock that black Africans could produce magnificent pieces of art, practice long distance trade. Thus, despite his attempts to avoid paternalistic racism, Richard nevertheless succumbs to it. 

Adichie also criticizes those Nigerians/Biafrans, who in the name of nationalism, black power, and progress abuse their power to copy whites and mimic British styles in dress, 'culture' and taste. Olanna and Kainene's parents, for example, have to buy everything European, essentially buying into the material excess of European cultures. Other Nigerian/Biafran elites act similarly, endeavoring to be like the former and current British colonizers, who persist in their racist beliefs and treatment of blacks. The Western ways of Nigerian elites is also sharply contrasted with the lower-class population, who are domestics, peasants, and villagers whose traditions, ways of life, and even dietary patterns are vastly different. The new black elite, despite professing to support and come from the masses, turn their backs to the religious beliefs of Igbo peasants, for example, as Odenigbo does with Igbo beliefs he calls superstitions. The new elites are no more than black skins with white masks, blacks masquerading as whites because they ape European colonial domination, divide and rule tactics, and condescension if not outright hatred for the lower classes.

Adichie's novel here is a masterpiece. She explores issues of gender, love, colonialism, race, and national identity in Nigeria in deep, meaningful ways with a simple prose that is easy for anyone unfamiliar with Nigeria or West Africa to follow. Igbo phrases and words are used throughout the novel, reminding the reader that most of the dialogue is in fact in Igbo between different characters in southeastern Nigeria. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and multiple iconic events of the 1960s to put the Biafran war in a much larger context of decolonization, apartheid in South Africa and white-rule in Rhodesia, the civil rights movement in the United States, and a world in the process of taking the flood in the tide in the affairs of men. Nothing happens in isolation, thus, the Biafran War is part of human history, not solely Nigerian history. The universality of Adichie's novel is why it's so important to read literature from around the world, since all human 'nations' interact with others. Furthermore, one would hope this novel increases foreign knowledge and interest in Nigeria, one of African's most important economies, and the most populous nation in Africa. The effects of the Biafran war linger, and its causes are still replayed in the ethnic/regional conflict for control over the central government. People in the Niger Delta are still oppressed by a central, national government that colludes with foreign oil companies instead of providing for infrastructure and funding for government programs to battle poverty. Moreover, the conflict between the Muslim North and mostly Christian South continues to divide the regions. Nigeria currently has an agreement where the North and South switch off leaders of the central government, so the new leader is Christian, but the previous was a Muslim. 

The Horse in West African History

Robin Law's The Horse in West African History is one of the indispensable studies anyone with an interest in Borno history must read. Although encompassing the entirety of West Africa, Borno frequently appears as one of the centers of the West African equestrian tradition. Not only was the imported, superior horse pivotal in the military expansion of Kanem and later Borno, but Borno became a center of horse breeding that likely was pivotal for the expansion of the Islamic-influenced technology to other regions, like Hausaland. The horse, as Law convincingly demonstrates, permitted a significant enlargement of the scale of political organization. The mounted warriors of states like Kanem-Borno were able to cover more ground quickly, pursue fleeing captives or defeated opponents, and, to at least a limited extent, build the power and prestige of rulers who provided horses or expensive equipment (quilted cloth armor, imported chainmail, saddles, stirrups). While horses must have been known in Kanem before the reign of Dunama Dibalemi in the 1200s, it was the introduction of stirrups and new technology that made the cavalry units of states like Mali and Kanem-Borno so powerful. Law's study elucidates this process with some provocative conclusions on the relationship of technology, tradition, and the state.

Although horses have been in West Africa for several centuries and a pre-Islamic tradition of horsemanship developed in areas of the northern savanna and the Jos Plateau, the widespread adoption of horses for military purposes in even the forested regions of West Africa illustrate the significance of the animal and new technology in the political economy of various states. States created by or at least associated with mounted warriors appeared among the Mossi and other parts of West Africa. Oyo, the subject of Law's dissertation, represents another example. In this case, a large Yorubaland state emerged whose expansion owed much to cavalry forces used with great success. Horses were so important and prestigious in West Africa that they became symbols of status for rituals, ceremonies, and even, as among the Igbo, objects of sacrifice. Due to their expense, especially in the forest regions where a reduced life expectancy meant replacements were always required, the horse became rightly associated with wealth, status, and power. The costs associated with feeding and maintenance could also be astronomical, again conveying the association of horses with political power and wealth. 

In our beloved Borno, where the horse was bred by groups like the Shuwa, the horse was less expensive but a superior one with the finest equipment was still largely the preserve of the wealthy (and their free clients or slaves). After all, if Leo Africanus's confused account of Borno is reliable, fine horses acquired via the trans-Saharan trade were intimately linked to the slave trade, which in turn was linked to the state and its military apparatus in the procurement of captives for export. In fact, Law speculates that access to Dongola breed horses via Arabs migrating into the Lake Chad region may have been an additional factor in the Bulala driving the Sayfawa dynasty out of Kanem in the 1380s. So, clearly horses have played a huge role in the rise and fall of the Sayawa. In order to acquire the best quality of horses and equipment like chainmail, a brutal cycle of horse-slave trading developed. The horse becomes a key component of the political economy of war or the "ownership of the means of destruction" in which kings and powerful nobles armed warriors with the necessary mounts to produce the captives who then brought in more horses or luxury imports that could be redistributed to dependents or re-exported. This may have explanatory value for the "Sudanic" state in other parts of the Central Sudan and the savanna lands, even if it is not a perfect example of Aristotle's oligarchy nor a "feudal" system per se. One finds parallels for sure with Bagirmi, Wadai, and Darfur. 

What is most interesting about this is the pioneer role of Kanem-Borno in the rise and fall of the horse's military importance. Kanem was likely one of the first of the early kingdoms to adopt stirrups and acquire access to North African or Dongola horses. And while Dunama Dibalemi's expansion of Kanem is also mentioned in the context of the vast number of horses he held, earlier rulers of Kanem may have possibly initiated the process of increasingly vital cavalry units for military purposes or lightning-quick raids on decentralized or political fragmented societies. Since Kanem was associated with the trans-Saharan slave trade as early as the 9th century, one would think horses were in use for at least slave raids if not in other military ventures. Unfortunately, until archaeological evidence or new textual sources emerge, our theory of Kanem as a pioneer is impossible to prove. Nonetheless, Kanem was certainly one of the early West African states identified by Law to adopt the mounted warrior as a central component of its army, which occurred by the 13th century. States in the Kanem-Borno sphere of influence in turn adopted or adapted cavalry in ways that reflect Kanuri influence, at least in the case of Bagirmi and perhaps Hausaland.

Borno under the Sayfawa were also pioneers in the early use of firearms. Everyone knows of Idris Alooma's use of muskets and even Turkish specialists brought in to assist with their implementation. Unfortunately, subsequent mais of Borno appear to have lost interest or the resources to maintain an important musketry corps in the army, although the occasional gift of muskets from Tripoli arrived during the reign of Idris Alooma's grandson. Soon, according to Law, the western part of West Africa and the coastal zones were the first to successfully make a permanent transition to firearms in the 1700s and 1800s. But Borno preceded these zones as early as the late 1500s, only to continue its reliance on horse warriors even into the second half of the 1800s. Why did Borno not maintain an active or at least notable musketry corps? The guns were still cheaper than fully equipped horses, and could have been utilized with enslaved soldiers to further centralize political power. Perhaps, as O'Fahey suggested in the case of Darfur, the greater mobility of cavalry was the primary factor. It is interesting, however, to note that the debate on political centralization and its relationship with a dominant cavalry or musketry is more complicated, but Borno, for a moment, was, during at least part of its "Golden Age" able to draw on both. The effective combination of the two could have cemented political centralization under the Sayfawa, although a corps of enslaved musketeers may have been too much of a threat to the dominant position of the cavalry and regional elites who supplied horses.