MYTHOLOGIES OF THE HAUSA TRIBES

The Hausa (autonyms for singular: Bahaushe (m), Bahaushiya (f); plural: Hausawa and general: Hausa; exonyms: Ausa; Ajami: مُوْتَانَنْ هَوْسَ) are a native ethnic group in West and Central Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language after Arabic in the Afro-Asiatic language family. The Hausa are a diverse but culturally homogeneous people based primarily in the Sahelian and the sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria respectively, numbering around 76 million people with significant indigenized populations in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Togo, Ghana, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal and the Gambia. Predominantly Hausa-speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara, with an especially large population in and around the town of Agadez. Other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, Port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts of North Africa such as Libya over the course of the last 500 years. The Hausa traditionally live in small villages as well as in precolonial towns and cities where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle as well as engage in trade, both local and long distance across Africa. They speak the Hausa language, an Afro-Asiatic language of the Chadic group. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture. Still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society, the horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranar Sallah (in English: the Day of the Prayer). Daura is the cultural center of the Hausa people. The town predates all the other major Hausa towns in tradition and culture

Hausa, people found chiefly in northwestern Nigeria and adjacent southern Niger. They constitute the largest ethnic group in the area, which also contains another large group, the Fulani, perhaps one-half of whom are settled among the Hausa as a ruling class, having adopted the Hausa language and culture. The language belongs to the Chadic group of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family and is infused with many Arabic words as a result of Islāmic influence, which spread during the latter part of the 14th century from the kingdom of Mali, profoundly influencing Hausa belief and customs. A small minority of Hausa, known as Maguzawa, or Bunjawa, remained pagan. Hausa society was, and to a large extent continues to be, politically organized on a feudal basis. The ruler (emir) of one of the several Hausa states is surrounded by a number of titled officeholders who hold villages as fiefs, from which their agents collect taxes. Administration is aided by an extensive bureaucracy, often utilizing records written in Arabic.

The Hausa are a Sahelian people chiefly located in the West African regions of northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger. There are also significant numbers found in northern regions of Benin, Ghana, Niger, Cameroon, and in smaller communities scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route from West Africa, moving through Chad, and Sudan. Many Hausa have moved to large coastal cities in West Africa such as Lagos, Accra, or Cotonou, as well as to countries such as Libya, in search of jobs that pay cash wages. In the twelfth century, the Hausa were a major African power. Seven Hausa kingdoms flourished between the Niger River and Lake Chad, of which the Emirate of Kano was probably the most important. According to legend, its first king was the grandson of the founder of the Hausa states. There were 43 Hausa rulers of Kano until they lost power in 1805. Historically, these were trading kingdoms dealing in gold, cloth, and leather goods. The Hausa people speak the Hausa language which belongs to the Chadic language group, a sub-group of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family, and has a rich literary heritage dating from the fourteenth century. The Hausa are a major presence in Nigerian politics. The Hausa people are heirs of a civilization that has flourished for over a thousand years in West Africa. The Hausa also have an architectural legacy represented by the Gidan Rumfa, or Emir’s palace in Kano at the center of what is the economic capital of Nigeria and the remains of the old walls around the city. Thus, culture deserves a wider exposure outside of West Africa, since it testifies to the existence of a sophisticated, well organized society that predates the arrival of the European colonizers, who saw little if anything admirable, interesting, cultured or civilized in what they persisted in calling “the Black continent.” The traditional homeland of the Hausa was an early location for French and British interests, attracted by the gold deposits and the possibility of using the Niger for transport. Some of the earliest British explorers in Africa, such as Mungo Park and Alexander Gordon Laing gravitated to the Niger. Little thought was given to the preservation of indigenous culture or systems, although Mary Henrietta Kingsley, who also explored this region, championed the African cause.

With a population of over 30 million, the Hausas are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. They are a people of diverse cultural practices with similar homogeneous beliefs and customs exclusively found among their people. Here’s everything you need to know about their diversity. The Hausas are concentrated mainly in the northern part of Nigeria, as well as the adjoining south eastern Niger. They also populate parts other countries including Cameroon, Ghana, Chad, Togo, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan and Gabon. The Hausa states, also known as the Hausaland, were independent political entities founded by the Hausa people, and situated between the River Niger and Lake Chad. It was a political entity with no central authority, isolated up until the mid-14th century. Irrespective of their placements, they had a common language, laws, and customs. The Hausas specialized in blacksmithing, fishing, hunting, agriculture, and salt-mining. By around the 1500s, the northern city of Kano had become the most powerful, and was a major trading center in ivory, gold, slave trade, salt, cloth, leather, and grains. Due to their lack of military expertise and a central governing body, they were regarded as loose alliances by the neighboring towns—which made them prone to external domination. All the states remained independent until they were conquered by a prominent Islamic scholar, Usman dan Fodio, in a Holy Jihad (war) between 1804 and 1815, which created the Sokoto Caliphate. It was later abolished when the British defeated the caliphate in 1903 and named the area Northern Nigeria.

Hausa states, group of neighbouring African states, occasionally interconnected from the mid-14th century by loose alliances. Their territory lay above the confluence of the Niger and Benue rivers (in present-day northern Nigeria), between the Songhai empire in the west and that of the Kanem-Bornu, or Bornu, in the east. The seven true Hausa states, or Hausa Bakwai (Biram, Daura, Gobir, Kano, Katsina, Rano, and Zaria [Zazzau]), and their seven outlying satellites, or Banza Bakwai (Zamfara, Kebbi, Yauri, Gwari, Nupe, Kororofa [Jukun], and Yoruba), had no central authority, were never combined in wars of conquest, and were therefore frequently subject to domination from outside. Isolated until the 14th century, they were then introduced to Islām by missionaries from Mali. Conquered early in the 19th century by Fulani, in whose jihad, or “holy war,” many Hausa peasants had voluntarily combined, they were organized into emirates. At the beginning of the 20th century, the British took over the administration of the former emirates, to which they attached Bornu to form the northern provinces (subsequently the Northern Region) of the Protectorate of Nigeria.

The Hausa people make up the largest ethnic group in the African continent. The Hausa are mainly in western Africa, and they are found in Nigeria and Niger, where they number about 70 million people. The Hausa people also found in the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Republic of Congo, Togo, Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gambia, Gabon, and Senegal. Nigeria has the highest number of Hausa people, which number about 55 million, and they are found in the northwestern part of Nigeria, which has been referred to as the Hausaland. The Hausa are among the largest community of people in towns and cities in Nigeria such as Kano, Abuja, Kastina, Bauchi, Birnin Kebbi, Sokoto, Makurdi, Lafia, and Suleja, among others. The Hausa people are predominantly Muslim; the Islam religion is widespread in North and West Africa, which was introduced in the region by traders from Mali, North Africa, Guinea, and Borno. Other minority Hausa people practice a more traditional way of life. Hausa traditional religion is known as Maguzawa. The Hausa language is the most popular language in sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that about 35 million people have Hausa as their first language, and about 20 million speakers use Hausa as their second language. The majority of Hausa speaking people are concentrated in the north of Nigeria and Niger. The language is also widely used by ethnic groups such as the Tuareg, Fulani, Gur, Kanuri, Arabs, Shuwa, and other Afro-Asiatic communities. The Hausa language uses Arabic characters in writing, and almost 1/4 of the words in the language are borrowed from Arabic, and consequently, most of the Hausa people can read and write in Arabic because of the similarity. The language is also the lingua Franca among the Muslims in non-Hausa regions.

Hausa (/ˈhaʊsə/; Harshen/Halshen Hausa (listen); Ajami: هَرْشَن هَوْسَ) is a Chadic language spoken by the Hausa people in the northern half of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Benin and Togo, and the southern half of Niger, Chad and Sudan, with significant minorities in Ivory Coast. Hausa is a member of the Afroasiatic language family and is the most widely spoken language within the Chadic branch of that family. Ethnologue estimated that it was spoken as a first language by some 47 million people and as a second language by another 25 million, bringing the total number of Hausa speakers to an estimated 72 million. It is often said that you will find Hausa speakers from Dakar to Port Sudan, from Leopoldville to Fez. The explorer Heinrich Barth in the 1840’s is said to have had his first Hausa lesson in Tunis. In 1890, Bishop Tugwell of the Church Missionary Society went to study Hausa in Tripoli before undertaking their missionary into the emirates of the Sokoto Caliphate. In Nigeria, the Hausa-speaking film industry is known as Kannywood.

The Hausa are the largest ethnic group in all of West Africa. Thirty percent of all Hausa can be found in the north and northwest regions of Nigeria, an area known as “Hausaland.” The Hausa have been heavily involved in long distance trading for many centuries. Traders exchanged gold from the Middle East for leather, crafts, and food. Hausa communities can also be found in other West African nations such as Chad, Ghana, and the Ivory Coast. Although English is recognized as the country’s official language, Hausa, the native language of the Hausa people, is rapidly becoming the chief language of northern Nigeria. The Hausa are very influential in West Africa, both culturally and politically. God’s heart is to see them become a strong Christian influence as well. Hausa belongs to the West Chadic languages subgroup of the Chadic languages group, which in turn is part of the Afroasiatic language family.

The Hausa are the largest ethnic group in Sub-Saharan Africa. While many of them settled in Northern Nigeria, a majority are also in adjoining south-eastern parts of Niger. The Hausa are also in Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Sudan, and Togo. Although the Hausa people occupy a large area geographically, many are currently in Nigeria. According to the CIA World Factbook, Nigeria has a population of over 200 million as of 2020. The Hausa make up 30% of the people, which translates to over 60 million people. In Niger, with a population of over 22 million people, the Hausa make up 53% of the citizenry or 12 million people. By calculating their number in other African countries, they consist of about 80 million people, making them the largest ethnic group in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Originally from West Africa, the Hausa have lived in Sudan for centuries, often settling there on the long and arduous land journey to or from Mecca for the Hajj. All Muslims who are able to do so should try to visit the holy city in Saudi Arabia at least once in their lifetime to perform the pilgrimage. British colonisers in Nigeria were also responsible for the movement of many Hausas eastwards – when they defeated the defiant sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate in 1903, many of his followers and descendants eventually settled in Sudan. Estimates about their population today vary wildly. At independence in 1956 it was thought to be 500,000 – and now ranges from three to 10 million out of Sudan’s more than 44 million residents. They tend to live and work in central Sudan in agricultural schemes and farms along Sudan’s rivers – but most cities around the country have Hausa communities.

With about 197 million people belonging to any of the 300 ethnic tribes present in Nigeria, this West African country is the most diverse nation in modern Africa. Nigeria as a nation has a rich and complex history which can be traced to when it first became a British protectorate in 1901. As a colony, it was initially divided into the Southern Nigeria Protectorate and Northern Nigeria Protectorate. The southwest has always been dominated by the Yoruba people, descendants of the Oyo Empire, while the southeast has always been dominated by the Igbo people from the Nri Kingdom. Most of the north is inhabited by the Hausa and Fulani people who are descendants of the Hausa Kingdom, Fulani Empire and Songhai Empire. The Hausa people are the largest tribe in Nigeria, making up approximately 25% of the population. Hausaland is concentrated in northern Nigeria, situated between the River Niger and Lake Chad.

The Hausa traditionally reside in tiny villages and precolonial towns and cities where they graze animals, including cattle, and engage in local and international trade. But, there is more to learn about the Hausa tribe than just that. As a result, in addition to the Hausa tribe, we’ll also talk about their language, people, culture, traditional dress, the states they inhabit the most, their music, religion, and gods in this article. The focus of our first illumination will be the tribe itself. The Hausa traditionally reside in tiny villages and precolonial towns and cities where they graze animals, including cattle, and engage in local and international trade. But, there is more to learn about the Hausa tribe than just that. As a result, in addition to the Hausa tribe, we’ll also talk about their language, people, culture, traditional dress, the states they inhabit the most, their music, religion, and gods in this article. The focus of our first illumination will be the tribe itself. The Hausa traditionally reside in tiny villages and precolonial towns and cities where they graze animals, including cattle, and engage in local and international trade. But, there is more to learn about the Hausa tribe than just that. As a result, in addition to the Hausa tribe, we’ll also talk about their language, people, culture, traditional dress, the states they inhabit the most, their music, religion, and gods in this article. The focus of our first illumination will be the tribe itself.

The Hausa are a West and Central African ethnic group. They speak the Hausa language, which is the second most spoken language in the Afro-Asian language family after Arabic. The Hausa are a diverse but culturally homogeneous people who live primarily in the Sahelian and sparse savanna areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria. There are approximately 75 million Hausa people in Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Togo, Ghana, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal, and the Gambia. Due to their enduring traditions, sense of cultural pride, and effective pre-colonial native administration, Hausa cultural practices are unmatched in Nigeria and have weathered the test of time. Because of this, and despite fierce competition from the western European culture that their southern Nigerian counterparts have adopted, they have maintained a rich and distinctive mode of dressing, food, language, marriage system, educational system, traditional architecture, sports, music, and other forms of traditional entertainment.

The Hausa are the largest ethnic group of West Africa, with a population of some 22 million, with another wider regional 15 million bilingual speakers of Hausa from northern Cameroon to northern Ivory Coast. Because of their wide geographical distribution and intermarriage and interaction with different peoples, the Hausa are a heterogeneous people, with a variety of cultural and physical features as well as diverse histories. The Hausa generally recognize a common origin. They acknowledge a common mythical ancestor (Bayajidda) who, according to tradition, migrated from Baghdad in the 9th or 10th century ad. Along the way, he stopped at the kingdom of Bornu (now in northeast Nigeria) and married the daughter of the king, but was forced to leave her behind. He then fled west and helped the king of Daura slay a snake that was depriving his people of water, and he was given the Queen of Daura in marriage as a reward. Bayajidda succeeded as the king of Daura, and his son, Bawo, who founded the city of Biram, had six sons who became the rulers of other Hausa city-states. Collectively, these are known as the Hausa bakwai (“Hausa seven”) and include Kano, Katsina, Rano, Zazzau, Daura, Gobir, and Biram. Bayajidda is said to have borne another son with a concubine, and this son fathered seven other children. Each established city-states far away from Daura, which became known as the banza bakwai (“bastard seven”). They include Kebbi, Zamfara, Gwari, Jukun, Yoruba, Nupe, and Yauri. Thus, by the 15th century, a number of relatively independent city states had emerged, which competed with each other for control of trans-Saharan trade, slaves, and natural resources. From that point, the various city-states trace their history independently of each other, each with its lists of kings who have ruled since that time.

Nigeria is home to many ethnic communities. All are rich in culture and traditions. Among the three largest communities is the Hausa ethnic group. The Hausa culture is heavily influenced by the Islamic religion. Although westernisation and urbanisation have eroded the traditional values and lifestyles in many African communities, the Hausa culture is still practised in rural communities. Many people from this community follow the way of life of their ancestors. According to the Hausa culture and tradition, it is believed that the community’s mythical ancestor is Bayajidda. Bayajidda migrated from Baghdad in the 9th or 10th century AD. He stopped at the Bornu Kingdom. People from this community are mainly found in northwestern Nigeria. Over the years, they have become widely distributed geographically due to urbanisation. Many have intermingled with other ethnic communities. Persons from this community speak the Hausa language, which belongs to the Chadic group of the Afro-Asiatic family. The language is heavily infused with Arabic words due to Islamic influence.

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