Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T02:34:23.088Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Nineteenth-Century Gold ‘Mithqal’ in West and North Africa*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Marion Johnson
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the units in which prices and exchange-rates are expressed by nineteenth-century travellers is the gold mithqal. This paper is an attempt to discover, and if possible to make some sense of, the various values of the gold mithqal at different times and places in West and North Africa during the nineteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 9 , Issue 4 , October 1968 , pp. 547 - 569
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1968

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Encyclopaedia of Islam, III (1936): Mithqal. The following general sources have been consulted:Google ScholarRidgeway, W., The Origins of Metallic Currency and Weight Standards (Cambridge, 1892); Encyclopaedia of Islam, articles on Mithqal, Kharub and Habba; Chambers Encyclopaedia (1967),Google Scholar article on weights and weighing by Skinner, F. G. and Davidson, C. St C.; Kelly, P., The Universal Cambist (London, 1835). None of these deals with the West African mithqal, but all throw much light on the grain/ounce weight systems, and the second has interesting material on the Arab mithqal and its subdivisions.Google Scholar

2 Barth, H., Reisen und Entdeckungen im Nord- und Zentral-Afrika, German, ed. (Gotha, 1857), English ed. (London, 1857); vol. v of German edition, pp. 22–23.Google Scholar

3 Skinner, F. G., article on Weights and Weighing in Chambers Encyclopaedia (London, 1967).Google Scholar

4 Leo, Africanus, Description of Africa, III (Hakluyt, Society ed.,London, 1896), 825.Google Scholar

5 Jackson, J. G., Account of Morocco (London, 1809), 59.Google Scholar

6 Mauny, R., Tableau géographique de l'ouest africain au moyen age, IFAN (Dakar, 1961 ), 418.Google Scholar

7 Ch., Monteil, Djenne (Paris, 1903), 251–3.Google Scholar

8 Lyon, G., Narratives of Travel in Northern Africa in 1819 (London, 1821), 277–8.Google Scholar

9 Dupuis, J., Journal of a Residence in Ashantee (London, 1824), Cxiii.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 P. Kelly, op. cit.

11 Binger, L. G., Du Niger au golfe de Guinée (Paris, 1892), 241.Google Scholar

12 Dupuis, J., op. cit. cxi.Google Scholar

13 See general note in footnote I above.

14 G. Lyon, op. cit.

15 Hornemann's, Journal in Missions to the Niger, II, 99 ff.Google Scholar

16 A. Ott, The Historical Significance of Akan Gold-weights (forthcoming).

17 J. Dupuis, op. cit.

18 Dupuis, J., op. cit. cxiii.Google Scholar

19 Mungo, Park, Journal of a Mission to Africa (London, 1815), 162.Google Scholar

20 J. G. Jackson, op. cit.

21 Wolf, , Mitteilungen aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten (1881), I ff.Google Scholar

22 Barth, H., op. cit. (English ed. of 1858), IV, 556; v, 22–3.Google Scholar

23 Binger, L. G., op. cit. 165.Google Scholar

24 Dr I. Sellnow, personal communication to the writer.

25 Lenz, O., Tombouctou (French, ed.), I (Paris, 1887), 451.Google Scholar

26 Caillié, R., Journal d'un voyage à Temboctu et à Jenné, II (Paris, 1830), 67.Google Scholar

27 Laing, A. G., letter in Missions to the Niger (Hakluyt Society, London, 1964), 301.Google Scholar

28 ‘The Tartar Wargee’, from the Royal Gold Coast Gazette, 31 12 1822.Google Scholar (quoted in Philip, D. Curtin (ed.), Africa Remembered (University of Wisconsin Press, (1967) 175–89.Google Scholar

29 Caillié, R., op. cit. I, 451.Google Scholar

30 Barth, H., op. cit. I (English ed.), 467.Google Scholar

31 Rabbi, Mordekkai in Petermanns Mitteilungen (Gotha, 1870), 336.Google Scholar

32 Lenz, O., op. cit. II, 162 ff., 98.Google Scholar

33 Mordekkai, loc. cit. 336.Google Scholar

34 Lenz, O., op. cit. I 451.Google Scholar

35 Barth, H., op. cit. II (English ed.), 142.Google Scholar

36 Lenz, O., op. cit. II, 162 ff.Google Scholar

37 Caron, E., De St Louis au port de Tombouctou (3rd ed.Paris, 1893), 278.Google Scholar

38 Dupuis, J., op. cit. cxii.Google Scholar

39 Ibid. cxiv.

40 Lenz, O., op. cit. I, 451.Google Scholar

41 Rohlfs, G., Adventures in Morocco (1861), 167.Google Scholar

42 Caillié, R., op. cit II, 67.Google Scholar

43 Barth, H., op. cit. I (English ed.), 467.Google Scholar

44 Funk, and Wagrall's, New Standard Dictionary, 1913.Google Scholar

45 Dickson, C. H., ‘Account of Ghadames’, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, (London, 1860), 255.Google Scholar

46 Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, Proceedings, I, 105ff. quoting Mr Lucas.Google Scholar

47 Lyon, G., op. cit. 277–8.Google Scholar

48 C. H. Dickson, loc. cit.

49 Association for promoting the discovery of Africa loc. cit. 169.Google Scholar

50 O. Lyon, op. cit.

51 Barth, H., op. cit. V (English ed.), 23.Google Scholar

52 Monteil, P., De St Louis à Tripoli (Paris, 1895), 279.Google Scholar

53 Levens, M., letter of 1725, printed in Voyages dans Ia Faléné et la Bambouk, Bibi. Nat. Ms. F. Fr. N. acq. no. 9555, pp. 141ff.Google Scholar

54 Gallieni, J. S., Deux campagnes au Soudan français 1886–1888 (Paris, 1891), 600.Google Scholar

55 Ibid. 595.

56 Ibid. 435–7.

57 Monteil, P., op. cit. 279.Google Scholar

58 Caron, E., op. cit. 278.Google Scholar

59 Mauny, R., op. cit. 414ff.Google Scholar

60 Mungo, Park, Mission of 1805 (London, 1815), 205.Google Scholar

61 Ibid. 58.

62 Raffanel, A., Nouveau voyage dans le pays des nègres (Paris, 1856), 89.Google Scholar

63 Mungo, Park, Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa (London, 1899), 306.Google Scholar

64 Idem, ‘Mission of 1805’, 58.Google Scholar

65 Ibid.

66 Soleillet, P., Voyage à Segou 1878–1879, ed. Gavrier, G. (Paris, 1887), 93.Google Scholar

67 Mage, E., Voyage dans le Soudan occidental (Paris, 1868), 191.Google Scholar

68 Mungo, Park, Mission of 1815, 162.Google Scholar

69 Ba, A. H. and Daget, J., L'Empire peul de Macina (Paris, 1962), p. 80.Google Scholar

70 Binger, L. G., op. cit. I, 375.Google Scholar

71 Ibid. II, 803.

72 Ibid. 165.

73 Binger, L. G., op. cit. 1, 375.Google Scholar

74 Ibid. 142.

75 e.g. Berbain, S., Le comptoir français de juda, (IFAN, Dakar, 1942).Google Scholar

76 Adams, J., Sketches Taken during Ten Voyages to Africa, 1786–1800 (London, 1802).Google Scholar

77 M. Johnson, The Cowrie Currencies of West Africa (forthcoming).

78 Bowdich, T. E., Mission to Ashantee (London, 1819).Google Scholar

79 Binger, L. G., op. cit. II, 165.Google Scholar

80 M. Johnson, op. cit.

81 Binger, L. G., op. cit. I 308.Google Scholar

82 Ibid. II, 241.

83 Monteil, Ch., op. cit. 251ff.Google Scholar

84 Hacquard, A., Monographie de Tombouctu (Paris, 1900), 57ff.Google Scholar

85 Dupuis-Yakouba, A. V., Industries et principales professions de la région de Tombouctou (Paris, 1921), 39, 149.Google Scholar

86 Mauny, R., op. cit. 414ff.Google Scholar

87 Traore, D., Notes Africaines, VII, no. 43 (1949), 81–2.Google Scholar

88 Leriche, A., ‘Mesures Maures’, Bull. de l'IFAN, series B (1951), 1247–8, where danaq is wrongly equated with the kharub.Google Scholar