Limba 'deep rural' strategies

Journal of African History

Volumn 39, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 15-38

  Fanthorpe, Richard ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BIRIWA; MORAL COMMUNITY; RICE PRODUCTION; RURAL SOCIETY;

SIERRA LEONE;

EID: 0031817084     PISSN: 00218537     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0021853797007135     Document Type: Article

References (132)

1. I would like to thank Professor Philip Burnham, and the anonymous J. Afr. Hist. reader, for their comments on earlier drafts of this article. Robert Aitken also lent generous assistance in the production of the maps.
2. For a general account, see Peter Kup, A History of Sierra Leone, 1400-1787 (Cambridge, 1961);
3. Walter Rodney, A History of the Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800 (Oxford, 1970);
4. Yves Person, 'Ethnic movements and acculturation in Upper Guinea since the fifteenth century', African Historical Studies, IV (1971), 669-89,
5. and 'The Atlantic coast and the southern savannas', in J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa (2 vols.), (London, 1971) ii, 262-307;
6. Allen M. Howard, 'Big-men, traders and chiefs: power, commerce and spatial change in the Sierra Leone-Guinea plain, 1865-1895' (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1972);
7. George Brooks, Landlords and Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630 (Boulder, 1993). Paul Richards has also analyzed aspects of the recent civil war in Sierra Leone with reference to historically deep-seated strategies of 'frontier' exploitation.
8. See Paul Richards, Fighting for the Rainforest (Oxford, 1996).
9. E. F. Sayers, 'Notes on the clan and family names common in the area inhabited by the Temne-speaking people', Sierra Leone Studies, X (1927), 14-108;
10. Warren d'Azevedo, 'Some historical problems in the delineation of a Central West Atlantic region', Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, XCVI (1962), 512-38,
11. and 'Uses of the past in Gola discourse', J. Afr. Hist., III (1962), 11-34;
12. Charles Bird, 'The development of Mandekan (Manding): a study in the role of extra-linguistic factors in linguistic change', in David Dalby (ed.), Language and History in Africa (London, 1970), 146-59;
13. G. E. Currens, 'The Loma avunculate: an exercise in the utility of two models', Ethnology, XI (1972), 111-21;
14. Allen Howard, 'The relevance of spatial analysis for African economic history: the Sierra Leone-Guinea system', J. Afr. Hist., XVII (1976), 365-88;
15. Michael Jackson, The Kuranko: Dimensions of Social Reality in a West African Society (London, 1977);
16. William P. Murphy, 'Secret knowledge as property and power in Kpelle society: elders versus youth', Africa, L (1980), 193-207;
17. Gustav Deveneaux, 'The turbulent frontier: aspects of relations between the colony of Sierra Leone and Koya, 1787-1890', Africana Research Bulletin, XV (1981), 81-125;
18. I. Hancock, 'Manding lexical behavior in Sierra Leone Krio', in I. R. Dihoff (ed.), Current Approaches to African Linguistics, 1 (Dordrecht, 1983);
19. Allen M. Howard and David E. Skinner, 'Network building and political power in Northwestern Sierra Leone, 1800-65', Africa, LIV (1984), 3-28;
20. William P. Murphy and Caroline Bledsoe, 'Kinship and territory in the history of a Kpelle chiefdom (Liberia)', in Igor Kopytoff (ed.), The African Frontier (Bloomington, 1989), 123-47.
21. Howard, 'Big-men', 186-297.
22. See, for example, Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, 1991);
23. Ulf Hannerz, Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organisation of Meaning (New York, 1992);
24. Jonathan Friedman, Cultural Identity and Global Process (London, 1994);
25. M. Redclift and T. Banton (eds.), Social Theory and the Global Environment (London and New York, 1994).
26. See, for example: Jean Comaroff, Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People (Chicago, 1985);
27. Roger Keesing, Custom and Confrontation: The Kwaio Struggle for Cultural Autonomy (Chicago, 1992);
28. Kajsa Ekholm-Friedman and Jonathan Friedman, 'Global complexity and the simplicity of everyday life', in Daniel Miller (ed.), Worlds Apart: Modernity through the Prism of the Local (London, 1995), 134-68;
29. Arjun Appadurai, 'The production of locality', in Richard Fardon (ed.), Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge (London, 1995), 204-25;
30. Michel Maffesoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society (London, 1996).
31. Substantial numbers of Muslim Fula and Mandingo also live in Limba country. The former are mainly semi-nomadic pastoralists, calling themselves Kebu Fula. The latter also tend to specialise in livestock and produce trade.
32. Ruth Finnegan, Survey of the Limba People of Northern Sierra Leone (London, 1965), 123-43;
33. K. P. Moseley, 'Land, labour and migration: the Safroko Limba case', Africana Research Bulletin, VII (1979), 14-44,
34. and 'The Safroko Limba of Freetown. I: taingains time', Africana Research Bulletin, XV (1985), 41-80.
35. Kup, A History, 124, and Sierra Leone: A Concise History (Newton Abbot, 1975), 24;
36. Person, 'Les Kissi et leurs statuettes de pierre dans le cadre de l'histoire ouest-africaine', Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, XXIII, Ser. B, I (1961), 13, 20-5, 47-57;
37. Rodney, A History, 9-10. Cf. John H. Atherton, 'Early economies of Sierra Leone and Liberia: archaelogical and historical reflections', in Vernon R. Dorjahn and Barry L. Isaac (eds.), Essays on the Economic Anthropology of Liberia and Sierra Leone (Philadelphia, 1979), 27-43.
38. Finnegan, Survey, 14.
39. Hulimba was originally classified by Westermann and Bryan as a member of the 'Kissi-Landoma' branch of the 'West Atlantic' family of 'class' languages (later reclassified along with Temne/Bolem and Gola as 'Mel'), although they noted that it 'differed somewhat from other units'. David Dalby later argued that hulimba is a 'North-Western Class' language, most akin to the fulfulde spoken by the Fula. See D. Westermann and M. A. Bryan, The Languages of Africa (London, 1952), 12-14;
40. David Dalby, 'The Mel languages: a reclassification of southern "West Atlantic"', African Language Studies, VI (1965), 1-17;
41. Joseph Greenberg, Languages of Africa (Bloomington, 1996).
42. Bird, 'Mandekan'; Adam Jones, 'Who were the Vai?', J. Afr. Hist., XXII (1981), 159-178. Throughout this paper, 'Manding' refers to this linguistic/cultural complex and Mandingo (the name given to Mandinka in Sierra Leone), Yalunka, Soso, Kuranko etc. to specific Manding groups.
43. Winston McGowan, 'The establishment of long-distance trade between Sierra Leone and its hinterland, 1787-1821', J. Afr. Hist., XXXI (1990), 30, n. 17.
44. André Arcin, Histoire de la Guinée Française (Paris, 1911), 92.
45. Alexander Gordon Laing, Travels in the Timmanee, Kooranko, and Soolima Countries in Western Africa (London, 1825), 29-31, 283.
46. Sierra Leone Royal Gazette, no. 142, 24 Feb. 1821; no. 171, 8 Sept. 1821.
47. Public Record Office, London: CO 267/53, Grant to Secretary of State, 24 Sept. 1821.
48. Laing, Travels, 438.
49. These included Rowula, Kambia, Kukuna, and Samaia in the west, Musaia and Kabala in the north, and Madina and Karina in the east. See Fig. 1.
50. W. Winwood Reade, The African Sketch-Book, Vol. 2: The Swanzy Expedition (London, 1873), 389-97, 411; PRO, CO 267/316, Pope Hennessy to Kimberley, 1 Sept. 1872.
51. Reade, Sketch-Book, 370-2.
52. Reade, Sketch-Book, Ibid. 393.
53. Reade, Sketch-Book, Ibid. 397.
54. Sierra Leone Government Archives (SLGA), Freetown: untitled letter dated 20 Jan. 1873, Local Letters to Governor 1872. Even in the early colonial period a British governor visiting Limba country reported - somewhat nervously - that a local chief had only recently given up the habit of murdering all passing strangers, and disposing of the bodies in a deep pit in the bush. 'Sierra Leone Report by Governor Sir Charles King-Harman, KCMG, on his visits to the protectorate', Accounts and Papers, LXVI (1902).
55. Alvares d'Almada, Tratado Breve dos Rios de Guiné (1594), extract translated in Kup, A History of Sierra Leone, 140. Cf. Rodney, A History, 39-70,
56. and Jean Boulègue (with Jean Suret-Canale), 'The western Atlantic coast', in J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds.), History of West Africa (2 vols.) (3rd ed., Harlow, 1985), i, 516-8.
57. Rodney, A History, 46.
58. Finnegan, Survey, 55-7, 58-61, 109-113.
59. Finnegan, Survey, Ibid. 52-3, 57.
60. Finnegan, Survey, Ibid. 77-9.
61. Several examples are discussed in Richard Fanthorpe. 'Settlements and networks in Biriwa Limba chiefdom, northern Sierra Leone' (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1994).
62. Vernon R. Dorjahn and A. S. Tholley, 'A provisional history of the Limba, with special reference to Tonko Limba Chiefdom', Sierra Leone Studies, XII (1959), 273-83.
63. See also N. C. Hollins, 'Précis of events in the Safroko Limba chiefdom. Sierra Leone Protectorate', Sierra Leone Studies, VII (1925), 35-8,
64. and Michael Banton, 'The ethnography of the Protectorate: review article', Sierra Leone Studies, IV (1955), 245.
65. Finnegan, Survey, 15, 52-4. Examples given by Finnegan include the chiefly titles alimami and santigi, saraka ('sacrifice'), and fureni ('ancestors'). I also recorded numerous words and word stems in the hubiriwa (Biriwa Limba) dialect which seem to be of Manding origin. Examples include: biri ('enclose', 'seclude'), donso ('hunter'), karanke ('leather worker'), konko ('room', 'abode'), kure ('blacksmith/woodcarver'), kuru, kuru kuru ('circle', 'compound'), sebe ('charm'), si ('life', 'generation'), sobe ('adept'), thon ('rule', 'formal association', hence mathono).
66. The regional distribution of gbangbani and kufon can be traced with reference to F. Butt-Thompson, West African Secret Societies (London, 1929), 248-49, 255-56;
67. Michael Jackson, The Kuranko (London, 1977), 228-29, 236 n. 26;
68. R. Parsons, Religion in an African Society (Leiden, 1964), 68-71. Bundu/sande is general to Sierra Leone.
69. E. F. Sayers, 'Notes on the native language affinities in Sierra Leone', Sierra Leone Studies, X (1927), 113. The colonial tax levied on rural communities at this time was calculated according to the number of dwellings in each settlement. The Limba people Sayers encountered therefore had reasons to be reticent, albeit no more so than members of other groups in the protectorate.
70. Sayers, 'Notes on the clan and family names', 87-94 (Warra Warra Yagala, Kasunko, Kakiling, Kalantuba, Tamiso, and Warra Warra Bafodia chiefdoms).
71. See also, Dorjahn and Tholley, 'A provisional history', and Finnegan, Survey, 147-9.
72. H. C. Warren, DC, 'A note on history', (mimeo, n.d.), Sierra Leone Ministry of the Interior, SPA 416/1. Copies of Warren's report can be found in the files pertaining to the deaths of early Biriwa Limba PCs and the 'crowning' of their successors. In 1985, several of these were still kept for official use at the Bombali District Office, Makeni.
73. Later official sources collated by Finnegan tend to identify Woseya's father, Sarawa, as the apical ancestor of the Konte ruling family of Biriwa. These also indicate that Woseya was succeeded by his son, Sankelay, who was in turn succeeded by his brother, Bubu, who was in turn succeeded by Sankelay's son, Suluku (the first colonial PC). However, all members of the ruling family I interviewed agreed that Sankelay, Bubu, and Suluku were brothers: sons of Woseya by different mothers. Pre-colonial documents collated by Fyle also tend to identify Suluku and Bubu as brothers. Fyle also questions the Bubu's status as a ruler, although further discussion on that point is beyond the scope of this article. See Finnegan, Survey, 147-9;
74. C. Magbaily Fyle, Almamy Suluku of Sierra Leone c. 1820-1906 (London, 1979);
75. and Oral Traditions of Sierra Leone (Niamey, 1979), 18-20.
76. Nothcote W. Thomas, Anthropological Report on Sierra Leone, Part 1: Law and Custom of the Timne and Other Tribes (London, 1916), 114-7.
77. Finnegan, Survey, 123-5.
78. Michael Banton, West African City (Oxford, 1957), 54.
79. Finnegan, Survey, 12, 124-5.
80. Finnegan, Survey, Ibid. 113-16.
81. Ruth Finnegan, 'Speech, language and non-literacy: the Limba of Sierra Leone', in Ruth Finnegan, Literacy and Orality (Oxford, 1988), 47.
82. Ruth Finnegan, Speech, language and non-literacy: the Limba of Sierra Leone Literacy and Orality Ibid. 47-8.
83. Ruth Finnegan, Limba Stories and Storytelling (Oxford, 1967), 8.
84. Zweifel and Moustier reported that although Suluku of Bumban in Biriwa could not read or write, he spoke six languages (Limba, Loko, Safroko, Temne, Mandingo, and Fula) and employed 'des secrétaires Foulahs et Mandingues'. J. Zweifel and M. Moustier, Expédition C. A. Verminck: voyage aux sources du Niger (Marseilles, 1880), 29.
85. Woseya of Biriwa, styled as 'Wusie, king of Limba', was numbered among the hinterland rulers who signed a trading convention with Acting Governor Campbell in 1836. A sketch map of the hinterland brought back by Jeremie's expedition to Port Loko in 1841 indicates that the town of 'Wussy, king of Limba' lay on a trade route passing up the eastern arm of Limba country to reach Futa. Suluku also refers to his 'father Woosie's treaty with the British in a letter to the Sierra Leone governor'. See PRO, CO 267/132, Campbell to Glenelg, 2 May 1836; PRO, CO 267/163, Jeremie to Russell, 20 Feb. 1841; SLGA, Aborigines Department Minute Paper, 1 July 1885.
86. PRO, CO 267/132, Campbell to Glenelg, 2 May 1836; CO 879/318, Hay to Governor-in-Chief Bathurst, 18 July 1887; SLGA, Lawson to Governor, 4 Jan. 1879, Government Interpreter's Letter Book.
87. Howard, 'Big-men', 53-64, 150-60.
88. See n. 37.
89. Fyle, Almamy Suluku, 13-51.
90. Fyle, Almamy Suluku, Ibid. 30-40;
91. Yves Person, Samori: une révolution dyula (Dakar, 1968), 460-9;
92. Samori: une révolution dyula 484 n. 80; 2108-9.
93. PRO, CO 879/37/447, Lt. Lendy's report from Kamia, 27 Mar. 1893, enclosed in Crooks to Ripon, 6 May 1893.
94. Foday I. S. Kallon, 'A history of Islamic penetration in Biriwa Limba, c. 1800-1906' (unpublished B.A. dissertation, University of Sierra Leone, 1977), 27.
95. These data are taken from a population survey conducted by the aid agency Primary Health Care in Nov.-Dec. 1978. The results were printed on a map, a copy of which was kindly given to me by Father Angelo Aguirre of the Roman Catholic mission in Kamabai.
96. Unlike Finnegan, I found no evidence that marriage between Limba individuals sharing the same clan name was forbidden or even met with disapproval. Among the Konte in particular, individuals who are patrilineally descended from the same grandfather often marry, and are also often related through their mothers' lines.
97. Dinki usually refers to the act of bringing up a small child prior to initiation. The 'trainer' usually sponsors that child's circumcision ceremony. Nahulu ba is a catch-all term for 'wealth' in materials, knowledge, political power etc., but is often used euphemistically to refer to power in unseen realms. Put the two together, and one has a glimpse of an initiation 'association' personally controlled by the historic Konte rulers of Bumban. Banton, writing about the Limba in general, also states that: Each village used to send one hukodohno to live in the chief's town and he could call upon them to work upon his farm, to clean his compound, repair his houses and carry loads. The name hukodohno means 'for ever', and suggests that this twelve month period of duty was regarded with apprehension by some, though I am told that in latter days some men used to take this on as a permanent occupation. See Banton, 'Ethnography', 245.
98. These historical accounts are analyzed in detail in Fanthorpe, 'Settlements and networks', 188-219, 268-97. They also find corroboration in documentary sources. For example, following protracted Samorian Sofa campaigns in the north, Suluku's country was reported to be 'full of refugees from Sangara, Kuranko, and Houbou', See PRO, CO 879/37/433, Fleming to Knutsford, 11 July 1892.
99. The names of several Biriwa villages appear to have been formed by the attachment of the hulimba locative prefix ka to names of well-known towns or localities in the areas claimed as the original homes of village founders. Examples include: Ka-Timbo (Futa), Ka-Falaba (Solima), Ka-Dwako (Sankaran), Ka-Yifin (Nieni Kuranko) and Ka-Kolifa (Temne). Mande lexical elements, including the locative ya suffix, seem to abound in other Biriwa village names. Examples include bu ('open', 'commodious') in Bumban, dala ('exposed') in Kadala, yele ('opened') in kayele, wure ('corral') in Kawure, Kamawure, and Kawurebatu, kenema ('unfettered', 'public') in Kakenema, sendugu ('farm/bush settlement') in Kasendugu, and dagbana ('pepper') in Kadagbana. The name biriwa also suggests politico-ritual 'association'. In the hubiriwa dialect, the stem biri usually means 'enclose', in the sense of demarcating a farm; wa is a passive pronoun. Informants often stated that 'Biriwa' referred to the land allocated to the Konte by the Manko Limba. Yet in Manding languages the same term has explicit ritual connotations. Delafosse translated biri from Manding as 'courbure', 'voûte', dome, 'couverture', etc, but noted that in Mandingo especially it was a term meaning 'hanger ou enclos dans lequel se tiennent les nouveaux circoncis en attendant la cicatrisation'. Biriye is the term for Kuranko circumcision rituals. The corresponding hulimba term is bure, and it is noteworthy that Delafosse also identifies a similar word (buri) as a cognate of biri, found in some Manding languages. See Maurice Delafosse, La langue mandingue et ses dialectes, Vol. 2: Dictionnaire mandingue-français (Paris, 1955), 59-60;
100. Jackson, The Kuranko, 181-217.
101. J. K. Trotter, The Niger Sources and the Borders of the New Sierra Leone Protectorate (London, 1898), 25.
102. It is also noteworthy that the chain of Konte villages follows the line of the above-noted trade route which passed southwards from Timbo through Limba country.
103. S. Gregory, 'Rainfall' in J. I. Clarke (ed.), Sierra Leone in Maps (2nd ed., London, 1969).
104. One Manko politician complained bitterly that the chiefdom is called 'Biriwa' and not 'Manko'. He also claimed that everyone knew that the Konte were 'strangers' because they still spoke hulimba 'like Mandingos'. Yet not even he could bring himself to deny that the pre-colonial Konte were 'kings' (gbakuin be).
105. See n. 48.
106. Some clues can nevertheless be found. In Bumban, the names of two of Suluku's warrior captains are remembered as 'Kapri Gbetha' and 'Kapri Sanka'. Kapr is a Temne title. I also accompanied Section Chief Yaya Konte of Bumban (Suluka's grandson) on visits to PCs in Mabonto (Kafe-Simira chiefdom) and Bumbuna (Diansogoia chiefdom) respectively. Both PCs were grandsons of Suluku's daughters. Fyle also draws attention to pre-colonial sources indicating that two of Suluku's daughters were married to leading men in Port Loko; he discusses a report from the early colonial era which states that the leaders of several villages now found in Safroko Chiefdom were personally appointed by Suluku and thus owed him allegiance. See Fyle, Almamy Suluku, 27, 52-7.
107. PRO, CO 879/24/318, 'Report of Major Festing's mission to Bumban-Limba', enclosed in Rowe to Holland, 1 July 1887.
108. Fyle, Almamy Suluku, 22-3.
109. Banton, West African City, 41-8;
110. Finnegan, Survey, 81-6. Nowadays, swamps tend to be sown and harvested later than rice farms prepared on rain-fed land.
111. PRO, CO 879/42/481, Cardew to Ripon, 25 Mar. 1895.
112. Gaspard Mollien, Voyage dans l'intérieur de l'Afrique aux sources du Sénégal et de la Gambie, fait en 1818 (Paris, 1820), 109, 182, 188-9.
113. Paul Richards, Indigenous Agricultural Revolution (London, 1985), 92-6.
114. Michael Johnny, John Karimu, and Paul Richards, 'Upland and swamp rice farming systems in Sierra Leone: the social context of technological change', Africa, LI (1981), 599.
115. Michael Johnny, John Karimu, Paul Richards, Africa, Ibid. 606-15.
116. Finnegan, Survey, 38
117. , and Limba Stories, 11.
118. Garrett's diary, quoted in T. J. Alldridge, A Transformed Colony (London, 1910), 296-7.
119. Northcote Thomas, Report, 29-31.
120. Sayers, 'Notes on the clan and family names', 91-4.
121. Both Sanda Temne and Sanda Loko chiefdoms share borders with Limba country, the latter lying adjacent to Biriwa Chiefdom's northern upland quarter.
122. Sayers, 'Notes on the clan and family names', 91.
123. David Moore-Sieray, 'Pre-colonial history of Tonko and its neighbours: a study in the nature of Soso-Limba relations in the nineteenth century' (unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Sierra Leone, 1983), 74-5.
124. Murray Last, 'Conservative change', paper presented to the conference on change in rural Hausaland, Baguada, 29 Feb.-1 Mar. 1980,
125. and 'The early kingdoms of the Nigerian savanna', in J. F. A. Ajayi and Michael Crowder (eds.), A History of West Africa, (3rd ed., Harlow, 1985), i, 167-224.
126. PRO, CO 267/176, Macdonald to Stanley, 12 Oct. 1842. See also n. 47.
127. See Fyle, Almamy Suluku, 22-9.
128. This term was first used by Edwin Ardener in his article 'Language, ethnicity, and population', Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, III (1972).
129. In his previously-noted letter to the Sierra Leone governor, Williams claimed that the Madina people were mainly warriors with little knowledge of farming, and therefore forced to follow a predatory existence. Informants in Karina cited the names of several villages nearby - some still existing - which they claimed were inhabited by descendants of their former Loko, Limba, and Mandingo slaves. Informants in Bumban admitted to the former existence of three 'slave villages' (kafombaalin) in the surrounding valley. They had apparently been abandoned shortly after 'domestic slavery' was legally abolished by the British colonial authorities in 1927/8. All three were said to have been inhabited by 'Bambara' (i.e. non-Muslim Mandingo). It was impossible to make an estimate of the size of the former slave population of Biriwa, and one can only suspect that the living conditions of Suluku's 'free' subjects differed little from those of these slaves.
130. Informants in both Madina and Karina cited the following instruction, allegedly given by Samori Ture to the Sofa captain garrisoned in Biriwa: 'Does the hyena (suluku in Manding) call in the bush or in the town? Bring me the head of the hyena so I can find out'.
131. During the dry season of 1981, Section Chief Yaya Konte of Bumban was much in demand as a guest in village bure ceremonies.
132. E. A. Turay, 'Suluku of Biriwa Limba and the Church Missionary Society expedition of 1876: an episode in Euro-Limba relations', Africana Resarch Bulletin, X (1981), 81-91.