* Based on papers presented at the Symposium by M Awogbade and J E Ekpere and discussion led by C E Hopen and further notes by G Philippson.
Population
Agricultural groups
The Fulani pastoralists
It is difficult to obtain precise population figures for the subhumid zone, though in general the region is sparsely populated. The coastal area to the south has one of the highest population densities on the African continent. In the coastal regions of Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Benin and Nigeria population densities are in excess of 300 per km2. Relatively high population densities are also found in the dry Sudanian zone to the north, reaching 250 to 350 per km2 in north-central Nigeria and north-eastern Ghana.
The subhumid zone, on average, probably has a population density of less than 20 per km2. This relatively low population is partially attributable to environmental conditions such as seasonal climatic extremes, vigorous woody vegetation and the relative poverty of the soils. The incidence of sleeping sickness has also undoubtedly played a role, as well as the history of slaving. According to Morgan and Pugh (1969):
to the north-west of Nupe country are almost empty areas of savanna woodland, depopulated by the slave raids of the Sarkin Sudan (the Emir of Kontangora) at the end of the 19th century. Although rainfall in this area is relatively low (about 1 015 mm per annum), reliability is above average; and there seems to be no reason why a normal population density should not be supported.
The current annual rate of population increase is estimated at over 2% for West Africa as a whole, and it is inevitable that immigration into the subhumid zone from the more densely populated areas will be substantial. In some areas this trend is already apparent, for instance in Nigeria. Rates of immigration are difficult to predict, but it seems likely that all the land in the subhumid zone of Nigeria suitable for cultivation will be occupied in 30 years, and that a similar situation will occur within 40 years in Sierra Leone, Ghana and Togo.
The agricultural people of the zone tend to belong to small, fragmented ethnic groups. They are distinct from the large clusters of state-building peoples to the north and south, except for the people of the Malinke heartland around Kankan and Siguiri in Guinea. In the western part of the zone, about a dozen groups speak West Atlantic languages, including Fulani. In the centre of the zone, there are numerous small groups, mostly speaking languages of the Gur family. The groups of the Nigerian subhumid zone mostly speak Benue-Congo (i.e. Bantoid) or Chadic languages, with a few Kwa-speaking groups who have probably come into the region from the south (e. g. Nupe-Gwari).
Many of these groups display archaic forms of social organization and cultural life which have led some authors to classify them as 'paleonigritic' (Baumann and Westermann, 1967; Frolich, 1969). The ethnic pattern of the zone suggests a history of weaker groups pushed back into this region from the south and the north. In this respect, the 19th century slave raids may just have been one last stage of a longer-term pattern, in which the subhumid zone, handicapped by its remoteness from both the trans-Saharan and the Atlantic trade routes, has served as a -refuge for relatively weak population groups.
The agricultural people of the subhumid zone sometimes keep a few domestic animals, but any discussion of livestock production must focus on the Fulani pastoralists whose flocks and herds account for nearly au the livestock kept in the region.
Fulani-speaking groups are found throughout the subhumid zone, though their total numbers are not known. They originated in Senegal, and are thought to have reached the Hausa areas of Nigeria during the 15th century. Traditionally, they bring their animals only into the subhumid zone during the dry season, when they come from the north to take advantage of the considerable grazing resources available.
Although they share a common language, the Fulani vary widely in their social organization and modes of production. There are pastoralist Fulani groups in the western parts of their range, but these are less well known than the powerful settled groups, such as the Fouta Djallon Fula of Guinea and the Tukulor of Senegal, who keep livestock but also practice agriculture. Most of the published information on pastoralist Fulani comes from the areas further east, including Niger, Nigeria and Cameroon. This discussion will concentrate on these pastoralist groups, particularly those found in Nigeria. Their livestock production systems are described in the later chapter on livestock resources and management systems.
Fulani Social Organization
The primary social unit among the pastoralist Fulani is the household camp. Fulani households are not fixed entities, but are subject to fission and recombination in response to social factors and seasonal shifts in ecological conditions. Such a household camp normally consists of a core of related males with their wives and children, but it is not always based on kinship. These household groups also do not stand in precisely defined relation to others in terms of lineages or clans. Affiliation to the larger lineage and clan groups is recognized only in rather general terms.
The composition and size of the Fulani pastoralist camps vary. For example, Dupire (1970) determined from a sample of about 300 camps (qure) of Wo'daa'be Fulani in Niger that 46 to 60% consisted of single polygynous families (one man with his wives and children), 20 to 25% consisted of groups of married brothers with their families, 13.5 to 21% consisted of fathers with one or more married sons and their families, and 3.5 to 7% consisted of other combinations of male kinsmen.
The household camps combine during the dry season to form transhumant lineage groups. The size of these groups varies from year to year, or even within one season, but some observers believe they are generally associated with a given territory which remains stable, though it may be shared with other groups. Stability is also encouraged by a strong preference for endogamous marriages: in some instances up to 80% of all marriages take place among members of the transhumant lineage group. Out of a sample of 371 marriages recorded by Dupire, 57 men married the daughter of their father's brother, 27 married the daughter of their father's agnatic cousin, 19 married the daughter of their father's sister, and 28 married the daughter of their mother's brother.
Two larger groupings are also recognized, both called lenyol (pl. lenyi) in Fulani, but distinguished according to how they were formed. The first grouping, called primary lineage by Dupire, consists of a former transhumant lineage group which no longer moves together. Individuals may be affiliated with such groups through agnatic kinship, cross-cousin relationships or collective oaths. The second larger grouping, called maximal lineage by Dupire and clan by Stenning (1959), probably corresponds to a political unit of the pre-colonial era (see Stenning, 1959), but has lost all significance beyond a vague awareness of common origin. These groupings have no specific territorial basis.
The Subsistence Economy of the Fulani Household
A domestic group among the Fulani begins with a marriage within the agnatic kinship group, usually based on infant betrothal in the case of a man's first marriage. A domestic unit can only become independent, however, when it has enough members to carry out the basic economic activities necessary for subsistence. The concept is expressed by Stenning (1959) as follows: 'Such a domestic unit is viable when the labour it can provide is suitable for the exploitation of its means of subsistence, while the cattle are adequate for the support of the members of the domestic unit'.
Within the household group, a number of cattle are distributed to the various 'huts' (ful. suudu, pl. cuu'di), each occupied by a wife and her children. Each wife receives cattle from her husband at the time of her marriage, and she may also have received a few animals from her father. The milk produced by this herd belongs exclusively to the woman and her children, whether used for consumption or for sale, and the children inherit these animals from their mother. However, while the family is together the father usually manages these animals as well as his own herd. The milk from his cattle is generally needed to help meet the consumption needs of his wives and children. He distributes his animals to his sons as they grow older and marry.
Young boys and adolescents are responsible for herding and men are responsible for milking among the settled groups and women among the transhumants. Married women sell milk and purchase grain, and both men and women do minor craft work at a relatively undeveloped level. The general management of the herd is the exclusive responsibility of the household head, particularly in regard to decisions on where and when to move.
The management of the herd requires almost constant attendance at markets and other gathering places where information is obtained on such vital factors as pasture conditions, rainfall and the incidence of disease. Because of this, the household head who must herd his own cattle is at a serious disadvantage in making management decisions. For this reason, a man will not leave his father's household until he has a son eight or nine years old who can look after his cattle, even though he may have a viable herd of his own. He may act as his father's assistant in planning the management of the herds, while his own cattle are tended with those of his father by a young unmarried brother.
As a man's sons grow older, they gradually produce their own sons and leave him. By the time his last son marries and raises a son of herding age, all the father's cattle will have been distributed and his domestic group will cease to exist. In fact, the father often dies before all his sons have established their own households. When this happens, his remaining herd is shared among his heirs according to complex rules (Dupire, 1970).
It is very difficult to obtain reliable figures on the size of Fulani herds. Such information is concealed for cultural and economic reasons, most importantly to evade cattle tax. It is sometimes argued that, for cultural reasons, the Fulani keep more cattle than their economic needs would require, hut more precise calculations suggest that Fulani herds are barely large enough to meet the pastoralists' minimum subsistence requirements. Van Raay (1975) estimates that the nomadic Fulani keep an average of 10 cattle per person, which corresponds closely with Stenning's calculations of an average of 50 cattle for a household of 5.1 members. According to Dupire, the average number of cattle per person varies from 4. 5 to 5. 0, though these figures are likely to be underestimated because they are based on notoriously unreliable cattle tax returns. Among the semi-nomadic Gwandu Fulbe, Hopen (1958) found an average household size of 5. 57 persons keeping 30 cattle, or roughly 5.3 cattle per person.
The basic sources of subsistence among the Fulani are milk and grain, though meat is also consumed on special occasions. The most important cereal is bulrush millet (Pennisetum typhoideum). De St. Croix (1945) describes the Fulani diet as follows:
An undoubted preference is shown by the Fulani for preparations made from bulrush millet, with other grains used only when this one is scarce.... Meat is seldom eaten except on festive occasions... nor are quantities of meat considered to be of great value in the diet: the 'Fulani's meat' consists of milk and butter.
On the other hand, Van Raay (1975) considers meat a fairly important component of the diet:
It is true that the killing and slaughter of animals predominantly occurs in a ritual and ceremonial context... but it should be remembered that crowds of fellow Fulani are always invited to such occasions and take advantage of the unusual opportunity to supplement their monotonous diet with meat. Given the fact that many occasions will be held annually in the direct surroundings, such opportunities will offer themselves quite frequently.
The supply of milk comes from the family herd, meat is shared among a larger group of pastoralists, and grain is obtained by cultivation or by purchase from farmers. Thus, although Fulani households produce primarily for subsistence, they must almost always exchange products with others to overcome deficiencies in their own internal resources, at least at certain times of the year. Two production models can be hypothesized: one which includes the cultivation of grain crops at some time during the year and one which does not. However, as Hopen (1958) asserts in reference to the Gwandu Fulbe Fulani, 'only a small percentage indeed... have never farmed within their memory'.
Van Raay's (1975) surveys in the Katsina and Zaria areas of Nigeria reveal the following typical herd structures:
|
|
Adult Females |
Adult Males |
Bulls 1-3 yrs |
Heifers 1-3 years |
Calves |
|
Katshina |
43. 9% |
10. 5% |
13. 4% |
15. 3% |
17. 9% |
|
Zaria |
40. 5% |
8. 4% |
13, 4% |
17. 5% |
20. 2% |
Assuming that just under half the adult cows in a herd are in milk at any one time, then 18 to 20% of the total number of animals would be cows in milk. Assuming an average daily yield per cow of about 1.0 litre during the rains and 0.5 litre during the dry season, Stenning's household herd of 50 would produce about 9.5 to 10.0 litres of milk for human consumption during the rains, dropping to around 5 litres at the peak of the dry season. Hopen's herd of 30 would include about six cows in milk at any one time, producing not more than 6. 5 litres per day during the rains and as little as 3.0 litres at the driest time of year.
Dahl and Hjort (1976) calculate that a pastoralist family of six consuming only milk would need about 16. 6 litres daily, so that a family of 5.1 would need 14.1 litres. It is clear that a typical Fulani family cannot live on milk alone, even during the wet season. A family of average size would require 70 cattle to subsist on milk during the rains, though only about one-fourth of the Wo'daa'ba households surveyed by Stenning kept herds of this size. To subsist on milk alone during the dry season, a family would require more than 140 cattle, though none of the households in Stenning's sample had such large herds. The households in Hopen's sample could expect to obtain only one-half to one-fifth of their daily nutritional requirements from milk.
Awogbade (1977) carried out a linear regression analysis to determine the number of cattle necessary for a pastoralist family to subsist wholly on milk under conditions prevailing on the Jos Plateau in Nigeria. His results are indicated by the expression
y = 30.5 + 9.3 x
where y is the expected herd size for a household of x members. This suggests that a household consisting of a man and one wife would require about 50 cattle, with an additional 9. 3 head needed for each additional household member, coming to about 78 cattle for a household of five people. Of the 31 households surveyed in connection with this study, none had any surplus cattle beyond those required for their subsistence needs.
The shortfall in milk consumption must be compensated by the consumption of meat and grain. Dahl and Hjort (1976) estimated that an annual offtake of about 8% is possible without reducing a 'basic herd' which is growing at a normal rate. This is approximately the proportion of a normal herd composed of old cows and old bulls which are no longer productive plus young bullocks in excess of the number required for reproduction. In other words, about four cattle could be slaughtered or sold every year out of a herd of 50. Small stock are slaughtered more regularly, but there is no reliable information on actual offtake rates.
Given a livestock production system primarily oriented towards milk production, it can be assumed that most of the animals sold or slaughtered would be excess steers or cull cows. However, in recent years several observers have noted an unusually high proportion of females in Nigerian markets, including those of breeding age. The cattle observed in Kano abattoir in January 1976 were 80% female, and averages of over 50% are common. At Maradi, Agades and Diffa in Niger, over 60% females were reported slaughtered in 1974, and this situation still continues in markets further south. There is not enough information available to determine why this situation has occurred or what it implied for the status of pastoralist production systems.
The quantities of grain purchased or cultivated and consumed are also difficult to calculate. Incomes were quoted during the Symposium of about US $ 557 in 1974 from the sale of milk, rising to about US $ 1 120 by 1979. These incomes compare favourably with general rural income levels and would permit the pastoralists to purchase sufficient quantities of grain and other items to meet their subsistence needs, providing these commodities are available. One advantage of a transhumant system which brings pastoralists and their livestock into agricultural areas during the dry season is that milk can be sold and grain purchased at the time of year when grain is most needed to supplement the diet of the pastoralists.
Sedentarization Among the Fulani
Most development plans for the subhumid zone call for at least partial settlement of the traditional livestock producers. For this reason, the process of spontaneous settlement which has already occurred among some Fulani groups is of considerable interest.
It is difficult to estimate the proportion of Fulani who have become settled, particularly as census figures are unreliable. In Nigeria, Van Raay (1975) estimates that 12% of the Fulani are fully nomadic, 38% are semi-settled and 50% are settled, though the settled pastoralists own proportionately fewer cattle, accounting for only about 40% of the total herd.
There seems to be no doubt that settled Fulani tend to keep smaller herds than the transhumant pastoralists, and that they rely more heavily on agriculture to meet their subsistence needs. Modern industrial consumer goods are also more in evidence among settled communities, such as watches, radios, enamel and plastic ware, bicycles and motorcycles.
Very little information is available, however, on the factors which lead to sedentarization. A number of possibilities have been hypothesized, including:
- political or religious events,
- loss of cattle due to epidemics or drought,
- reduction of grazing land due to the expansion of the agricultural population,
- desire for consumer goods (perhaps most important among the younger generation).
Only the first case has been relatively well documented. Stenning mentions that some leaders of migratory household camps were made village heads by the local government administration in Nigeria. These individuals settled and became haa'be, which means that they lost many of their cattle, either through redistribution to their followers or simply because it was not possible to maintain substantial herds without practicing transhumance. The village areas over which they were appointed were initially set out by the administration in line with traditional wet-season grazing areas, but, in fact, the needs of the transhumant Fulani, whose movements shift according to rainfall and other environmental conditions, could not be accommodated in these fixed areas. According to Stenning (1959), the more southerly a village area, the less will be its utility in a year of good rainfall and vice versa. Thus, the appointed village heads and their households inevitably adopted a sedentary life style and became assimilated with the local Hausa or Kanuri agricultural populations.
One of the duties of the village heads was to collect the cattle tax, out of which a certain proportion was returned to the local government. These leaders tended to make agreements to collect the taxes of specific transhumant groups, perhaps from the same lineage, although the pastoralists were not necessarily in a particular village chief's area at the time of tax collection. Apparently it has been advantageous for transhumant Fulani groups to have a kinsman as a village head, as shown by the fact that the lineages with such a connection have not moved permanently out of Borno State in Nigeria since 1918, while other lineages are now found in the area only occasionally in scattered groups.
There is little information on the incidence of settlement due to loss of cattle. Some authors have suggested that once settled pastoralists have expanded their herds they tend to revert back to a transhumant lifestyle, but no cases of this reversion have been documented. If loss of cattle is an important factor influencing settlement, this would suggest that the settled pastoralists have been the least successful in terms of animal husbandry.
There is also very little information on the size of settled pastoralist groups. It is not known whether individual households decide to settle independently or whether the decision is taken by the larger transhumant lineage group, though most authors consider that settlement occurs by individual household units.
