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The Gani Ritual of Nupe: A Study in Social Symbiosis1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

S. F. Nadel
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Extract

The gani ceremonial, which I propose to discuss in this paper, is not Nupe by origin but was introduced by a small group of immigrants from Bornu, Mohammedans by religion, who, between 1760 and 1770, settled in Nupe country in and around the village of Kutigi. They still call themselves, after their country of origin, Benú—the Nupe version of the name for Bornu, but are in every other respect completely Nupeized. The historical facts are reasonably certain: moreover, according to two ethnographical accounts, the people of Bornu still practise a ceremonial called gani, though from the reports it is impossible to say how far this ceremonial resembles the Nupe variant. In Nupe the gani is only practised in the few villages where the immigrants now live among the original pagan population, though there it is performed by the whole community together—immigrants and original inhabitants alike. All these facts are important and will receive attention later.

Résumé

LE RITE GANI DES NUPE (NOUPÉ): UNE ÉTUDE DE SYMBIOSE SOCIALE

Le rite gani, aujourd'hui une partie intégrale de la culture Nupe dans la Nigéria du Nord, a ses origines parmi les peuples de Bornou, où, au fait, il survit encore. Combien ce rite fait partie intégrale de la vie culturelle Nupe est attesté par le fait que les noms de deux mois du calendrier Nupe en sont dérivés, et qu'une des institutions centrales des Nupe, le système de classes d'âge, a pour rite de passage particulier le gani. Cependant, tout en étant étroitement tissé dans la vie sociale des Nupe, le rite gani n'est pas exécuté par toutes les sections de la tribu mais reste la prérogative du groupe immigrant de Bornou qui l'ont introduit. L'exécution du rite représente une obligation ‘déléguée’ à cette communauté comme tâche sociale envers la tribu entière. Sur une plus petite échelle, le même principe caractérise d'autres traits essentiels de la vie sociale Nupe, révélant des sections de diverses origines, de cultures différentes, reliées par la dépendance réciproque de leurs activités rituelles. Ce principe, qui semble avoir une application étendue parmi les societés primitives, peut être décrit par le terme ‘symbiose sociale’.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , July 1949 , pp. 177 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1949

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References

page 177 note 1 See Sir Palmer, Richmond, The Bornu Sahara and Sudan, 1936, p. 148Google Scholar. This account concerns the Kanuri-speaking peoples of Bornu, with whom the Nupe-Benu claim common descent. The gani has also been reported from the Shuwalbe ‘clan’ (?) of the nomadic Fulbe (or Fulani), whose grazing-lands are (or were) in Bornu ( Wilson-Haffenden, J. R., The Red Men of Nigeria, 1930, pp. 116, 123)Google Scholar. The latter account mentions one feature of the Fulbe gani which also characterizes the Nupe ceremonial, i.e. period of sexual licence described below on p. 182.

page 177 note 3 For a fuller account I may be allowed to refer to my book on the Nupe (A Black Byzantium, chap. xxii).

page 178 note 1 This method of counting the age-grades seems more convenient than the Nupe method, which follows the reverse order, the most senior grade being called ‘grade I’, &c.

page 180 note 1 The actual word is ndakogi, lit. ‘little grandfather’, by which term the Nupe commonly refer to little boys. All this part of the ceremony is spoken of quite earnestly as the ‘burial of ndakogi’. Once, when there had been some delay in the proceedings, I heard people ask: ‘Has the little boy been buried yet?’ in exactly the same manner in which they might inquire about a real burial.

page 182 note 1 In the classical rites de passage the symbolic death of the novices is followed by their symbolic resurrection, thus dramatizing their separation from one social group as well as their acceptance into another. The lattet aspect receives no formal expression in the gani. What we find is only the tacit implication that the ‘death’, i.e. the social ‘separation’, no longer matters when the mourning ends.

page 183 note 1 See my description of the gunnu ritual in J. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., lxvii, 1937Google Scholar.

page 184 note 1 This is, significantly, true of the modern calendar only; the traditional version uses a different nomenclature containing no reference to the gani.

page 185 note 1 See ‘Social Symbiosis and Tribal Organisation’, Man, 1958, 85.Google Scholar