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The Kisra legend and the distortion of historical tradition*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Phillips Stevens Jr
Phillips Stevens Jr
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo
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Extract

The presence of the ‘Kisra legend’ in certain western Sudanic societies has long puzzled historians and anthropologists. Attempts by many to explain the phenomenon have been seen as unsatisfactory. In Section I of this study we noted the fact that the Arabic Kasra or Kesra, having been derived from the title of one or the other of two Persian kings of the sixth and seventh centuries, denotes, in von Grunebaum's phrase, ‘a truly royal style of life’. The profound influences of Perso-Arabic elements on many cultures of the southern and western Sudan, even before the spread of Islam in these areas, strongly suggests the possibility that, rather than by any specific migration, the idea of ‘Kisra’ was borne across the Sahara, to the areas where it took root in the form of the Kisra legends. When the geographical situation of those societies having fully-developed Kisra legends is considered, noting that the most detailed and strongly held legends obtain among societies who were constantly threatened by others who were recognized as technologically, and possibly felt as culturally, superior, and among whom the Kisra idea also existed, the origins and distribution of such legends becomes more plausibly explainable. It has been suggested that, through a selective altering of historical tradition, over time, societies who felt so threatened were able to (1) assert their equality to, if not superiority over, the threatening power; (2) justify their successful maintenance of independence in spite of this threat; and/or (3) thus re-establish a basis for societal unity.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 185 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 For recent assays and overviews see especially Curtin, Philip D., ‘Oral Traditions and African History’, J. Folklore Institute, VI, 2/3 (1969), 137–155CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dorson, Richard M., ‘The Debate over the Trustworthiness of Oral Traditional History’, in Dorson, R. M., ed., Folklore: Selected Essays (Bloomington, Indiana, 1972)Google Scholar; and Vansina, Jan, Oral Tradition, Wright, H. M., trans. (Chicago, 1965).Google Scholar

2 Vito Signorile has suggested that a similar process might occur to explain the felt inferiority of one society or group to another.

3 It must be stated at the outset that this term is coined for the purposes of this paper only; I do not presume that it will come into general usage.

4 West African villages, areas, and societies mentioned in the text are indicated on the map. I have been unable to locate Karissen; it is an Achifawa town. The Kisra legend in Karissen is recounted in O. and Temple, C. L., Notes on the Tribes, Provinces, Emirates and States of the Northern Provinces of Nigeria (Cape Town, 1919), 30Google Scholar. An account of the ‘Kisra relics’ at Karissen is given by Mathews, A. B., in ‘The Kisra Legend’, African Studies, IX, 3 (1950), 144–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Hogben, S. J. and Kirk-Greene, A. H. M., The Emirates of Northern Nigeria (London, 1966), 419, 577ff.Google Scholar

6 Palmer, H. R., Sudanese Memoirs, II (Lagos 1928), 61–3.Google Scholar

7 Meek, C. K., A Sudanese Kingdom (London 1931), 22.Google Scholar

8 ‘The Kisra Legend’, 147.

9 Emirates, 68.

10 Frobenius, Leo, The Voice of Africa, Blind, Rudolf, trans., II (London, 1913), 617.Google Scholar

11 Emirates, 517 ff.

12 In describing the progress of this migration the name ‘Kisra’ is variously applied to the man himself, or to his followers. Palmer's account, for example, states that the migration took at least 300 years, during which time ‘the Kisara’ had broken up into several different branches.

13 Heath, D. F., ‘Bussa Regalia’, Man, XCI (1937), 77–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 ‘The Kisra Legend’, 147.

15 Sudanese Memoirs, II, 62.

16 Jeffreys, M. D. W., ‘The Origins of the Benin Bronzes’, African Studies, X, 2 (1951), 87–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Ibid. 90–1.

18 Sudanese Kingdom, 23.

19 ‘The Divine Umundri King’, Africa, VIII (1935), 346–54.Google Scholar

20 Emirates, 579.

21 See Westcott, R. W., ‘Ancient Egypt and Modern Africa’, J. Afr. Hist., II, 2 (1961), 311–12, 314–16, 320–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Posnansky, Merrick, ‘Kingship, Archaeology, and Historical Myth’, The Uganda Journal, 1 (1966), 1–12.Google Scholar

22 Voice of Africa, II, 623.

23 Meek also argues for an Egyptian origin of the nobler aspects of West African culture, but takes an etymological tack to suggest that the name ‘Kisra’ derives from a corruption of certain Egyptian words denoting royalty and divinity, Ki and Se Ra. These were twisted to form the Hausa word for chief, sarki, which was itself twisted to form ‘Kisra’.

24 ‘Kisra, Chosroes, Christ, Etc.’, Afr. Historical Studies, 1, 2 (1968), 255–77.

25 The Northern Tribes of Nigeria, I (London, 1925), 72.Google Scholar

26 In Temple and Temple, Notes, 495.

27 Alef Shah Zadran and Soraya Noland, personal communication, 1972.

28 A History of Persia, 2nd. ed., I (London 1921), 458.Google Scholar

29 ‘Khosrau’, in Encyclopedia Britannica, XIII (1968), 334.Google Scholar

30 History of Persia, I, 458.

31 Hitti, Philip K., History of the Arabs, 9th ed. (London 1967), 65Google Scholar. But Sykes (History of Persia, I, 455)Google Scholar suggests that Anushirwan's expulsion of the Abyssinians from the Yemen was incidental to his desire to expand his realm.

32 Voice of Africa, II, 623 ff.

33 Mathews terms such an argument ‘an ingenious blending of metathesis and inductive reasoning to fit the premises which their author essays to prove’: in ‘The Kisra Legend’, 144.

34 ‘Khosrau’, 334.

35 This sentiment was conveyed to me by Soraya Noland (cf. n. 27, above), and is extracted from a publication used in schools in Teheran: Rahnama, Zein-al-Abedeen, Payambar: A Biography of Mohammad (Beirut, 1935).Google Scholar

36 von Grunebaum, G. E., ‘The Beginnings of Culture Consciousness in Islam’, in Islam: Essays on the Nature and Growth of a Cultural Tradition, American Anthropological Association Memoir No. 81 (57, 2, Pt. 2, 04 1955), 36.Google Scholar

37 ‘The Kisra Legend’, 144.

38 Ibid. 145.

39 The Voice of Africa, II, 625.

40 ‘The Kisra Legend’, 154.

41 ‘Kisra, Chosroes, Christ’, 275.

42 See Bovill, E. W., The Golden Trade of the Moors (London 1958), 100ff.Google Scholar; and Hogben, and Kirk-Greene, , Emirates, 67ff.Google Scholar

43 Mathews, , ‘The Kisra Legend’, 147.Google Scholar

44 Introduction by Palmer, in Meek, , A Sudanese Kingdom, xii ff.Google Scholar

45 Hogben, and Kirk-Greene, , Emirates, 582.Google Scholar

46 Ibid. 82.

47 Ibid. 239.

48 ‘The Kisra Legend’, 145.

49 ‘Origins of the Benin Bronzes’, 91.

50 A Sudanese Kingdom, 24.

51 Oral Tradition.

52 For what is perhaps the best history to date of the Fulani presence in Adamawa, see Abubakar, Sa'ad, The Emirate of Fombina, 1809–1903: The Attempts of a Politically Segmented People to Establish and Maintain a Centralised Form of Government. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of History, Ahmadu Bello University (1970).Google Scholar

53 One account asserts that the name of their first king at Sokoto was ‘Yungfa’, whose descendants were responsible for the founding of one of the original zomye, Impang. No further details could be elicited, except that ‘Impang’ is directly derived from ‘Yungfa’ (the substitution of ‘p’ for ‘f’ and vice-versa is a common feature of Hausa, the lingua franca of Adamawa). It is significant to note that the single precipitating factor in the declaration of the Jihad by Usman dan Fodio was the abortive plot against him by one Yunfa, Sultan of Gobir. Yunfa was alarmed at the prospects of the introduction of Islam. He attacked the Shehu's headquarters ot Degel, whence the Shehu was forced to flee; this flight was the famous Hijra of 1804. The Jihad began, and Yunfa was killed in the fall of Alkalawa, the capital of Gobir, in 1808.

All other accounts agree that ‘Impang’ is derived from the generic term for a large and formidable wild animal, impa.

54 Tribal Studies in Northern Nigeria, I (London, 1931), 2.Google Scholar

55 This observation is based on interviews with eastern Bata in Nigeria; I did not visit Bata areas in Cameroons. But Bertrand Lembezat, who traces Bata migration ‘from the north’, makes no mention of Sokoto or, indeed, of any area west of the Mandara Mountains (‘Les Bata’, in Les populations paiennes du nord-Cameroun et de l'Adamaoua, Paris, 1961, 189–92).Google Scholar

56 In fact, one did, but I later learned that some argument had been raised over its recitation; it seems that a stand-in had acted for the official historian who had become a Christian. The latter individual, no longer observing the old taboos, gave me his version on another occasion. In it the starting-point for the Bachama migration is ‘Kurangyi’, explained as a now-defunct village ‘east of Mubi’; Sokoto is not mentioned.

57 Based on my own investigations in these areas.

58 Oral Tradition, 80.

59 Such freedom of speculation about privileged information has led to popular stories about other mysteries, such as the mode of burial of chiefs, the meaning of certain religious rites, and the description and histories of some of the more important relics to which the laity is denied access. Much of Meek's descriptions of Bachama customs (Tribal Studies) is faulty, apparently because of the fact that he admittedly conducted most of his fortnight's investigations in Numan, the Divisional Headquarters, instead of visiting the centre of the customs he describes. He paid no visit at all to Bachama (named Lamurde by the Fulani), the traditional headquarters. I have discussed elsewhere some of the risks involved in attempting traditional ethnography in such a politically-conscious tribal melting-pot as Numan is—and was in Meek's day (‘The Anthropologist in West Africa Today; Some Observations from Recent Field Work’, African Studies Review, XV, 2, 09 1972, 255–69).Google Scholar

60 It is curious that ‘Yemen’ is named, even among the elderly who know only the Kona dialect. This might have been simply an introduction by some educated individual, as Meek might suggest. But another possibility lies in the fact that Adama, when granted authority over the conduct of the Jihad in the southern areas, was given the title Aminu Yemen, ‘Lord of the South’ (Hogben, and Kirk-Greene, , Emirates, 428)Google Scholar. He rejected this and other titles, preferring to be known only as the Modibbo, ‘Learned’.

61 Two other African cases are illustrative. In ‘Folklore as an Agent of Nationalism’, African Studies Bulletin, V, 2 (1962), 3–8Google Scholar, James W. Fernandez describes how active nationalist elements among the Fang seized upon a traditional migration legend and used it for their own ends, to foster a sense of community and political unity. He further notes that the glorification of folkloric elements elsewhere provided the bases for such concepts as négritude and ‘African personality’. An East African case of the selective re-interpretation of traditional history in response to the felt need for a re-ordering of societal values is recorded by Marcel D'Hertefelt, in ‘Mythes et idéologies dans le Rwanda ancien et contemporain’ (in Vansina, J., Mauny, R., and Thomas, L. V., eds., The Historian in Tropical Africa, London, 1964)Google Scholar. Traditional myths served to sanction the dominant position of Tuutsi and the corresponding servitude of Hutu and Twa; with the move toward a more egalitarian society the reforming elements seize on aspects of the myths which suggest a common origin of the three castes, and those themes which justified social stratification are rejected.