Information about Hausa People

Hausa
Total population
30-35 million (Newman 2000, Schuh 2001)
Regions with significant populations
Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Chad, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Sudan
Languages
Hausa
Religions
Sunni Islam

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 regions of Sudan, Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, and Chad and smaller communities scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional Hajj route across the Sahara Desert and Sahel. Many Hausa have moved to large coastal cities in West Africa such as Lagos, Accra and Cotonou, as well as to countries such as Libya, in search of jobs that pay cash wages. However, most Hausa remain in small villages, where they grow crops (Hausa farmers time their activities according to seasonal changes in rainfall and temperature) and raise livestock, including cattle. They speak the Hausa language, a member of the Chadic language group, itself a sub-group of the larger Afro-Asiatic language family.

History and culture

Kano, Nigeria is considered the center of Hausa trade and culture. In terms of cultural relations to other peoples of West Africa, the Hausa are culturally and historically close to the Fulani, Songhai, Mandé and Tuareg as well as other Afro-Asiatic and Nilo-Saharan groups further East in Chad and Sudan. Islamic Shari’a law is loosely the law of the land and is understood by any full time practitioner of Islam, known in Hausa as a Mallam (see Maulana).

Between 500 CE and 700 CE Hausa people, who had been slowly moving west from Nubia and mixing in with the local Northern and Central Nigerian population, established a number of strong states in what is now Northern and Central Nigeria and Eastern Niger. With the decline of the Nok and Sokoto, who had previously controlled Central and Northern Nigeria between 800 BCE and 200 CE, the Hausa were able to emerge as the new power in the region. Closely linked with the Kanuri people of Kanem-Bornu (Lake Chad), the Hausa aristocracy adopted Islam in the 11th century CE. By the 12th century CE the Hausa were becoming one of Africa's major powers. The architecture of the Hausa is perhaps one of the least known but most beautiful of the medieval age. Many of their early mosques and palaces are bright and colourful and often include intricate engraving or elaborate symbols designed into the facade. By 1500 CE the Hausa utilized a modified Arabic script known as ajami to record their own language; the Hausa compiled several written histories, the most popular being the Kano Chronicle.

In 1810 the Fulani, another Islamic African ethnic group that spanned across West Africa, invaded the Hausa states. Their cultural similarities however allowed for significant integration between the two groups, who in modern times are often demarcated as "Hausa-Fulani", rather than as individuated groups and many Fulani in the region do not distinguish themselves from the Hausa.

The Hausa remain in preeminent in Niger and Northern Nigeria. Their impact in Nigeria is paramount, as the Hausa-Fulani amalgamation has controlled Nigerian politics for much of its independent history. They remain one of the largest and most historically grounded civilizations in West Africa.

Religion

Hausa have an ancient culture that had an extensive coverage area, and long ties to the Arabs and other Islamized peoples in West Africa, such as the Mandé, Fulani and even the Wolof of Senegambia, through extended long distance trade. Islam has been present in Hausaland since the 14th century but it was largely restricted to the region's rulers and their courts. Rural areas generally retained their animist beliefs and their urban leaders thus drew on both Islamic and African traditions to legitimise their rule. Muslim scholars of the early nineteenth century disapproved of the hybrid religion practised in royal courts, and a desire for reform was a major motive behind the formation of the Sokoto Caliphate.^[1] It was after the formation of this state that Islam became firmly entrenched in rural areas. The Hausa people have been an important vector for the spread of Islam in West Africa through economic contact, diaspora trading communities, and politics.

Maguzawa, the animist religion, was practiced extensively before Islam. In the more remote areas of Hausaland Maguzawa has remained fully intact, but as you get closer to more urban areas it almost totally disappears. It often includes the sacrifice of animals for personal ends, it is thought of as illegitimate to practice Maguzawa magic for harm. What remains in more populous areas is a “cult of spirit-possession” known as Bori (religion) which still holds the old religion's elements of animism and magic.

Population

Table of Hausa population by country ^[2]

Country	Population, 1000s
Algeria	9
Benin	34
Burkina Faso	2
Cameroon	238
Central African Republic	29
Chad	158
	8.1
	108
Equatorial Guinea	11
Gabon	8.4
Gambia	7.3
Ghana	202
Niger	5,598
Nigeria	21,000
Sudan	550
Togo	14

See also

• Hausa-Fulani
• Bayajidda

References

External Links

• Hausa Information at Art and Life in Africa Online