Writing trans-Saharan history: Methods, sources and interpretations across the African divide

Journal of North African Studies

Volumn 10, Issue 3-4, 2005, Pages 293-324

  Lydon, Ghislaine ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL TRADITION; HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY; METHODOLOGY;

AFRICA; SAHARA;

CAMELIDAE;

EID: 31044441621     PISSN: 13629387     EISSN: 17439345     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13629380500336664     Document Type: Review

References (188)

1. Contract between Mulay Mahdi wuld Mulay 'Abdalqadir and Muhammad Fal wuld Arwili (27 November, 1925). Hammuny Family Library, Shingītī (Mauritania).
2. Based on information derived from numerous interviews with Mulay Hashim, family members and others in Mauritania (1995-2003).
3. That Noble Dream: The "Objectivity Question" and the American Historical Profession (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1988), p. 220
4. cited in Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press 2002), Preface.
5. Joseph Miller, 'Africa in History - History in Africa', American Historical Review 104:1 (1999), p. 27.
6. Lydon, On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Practice, Trade Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Western Africa (manuscript in preparation).
7. Jan Vansina, Living in Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1994).
8. Michel de Certeau, L'Ecriture de l'histoire (Paris: Gallimard 1975), pp. 53-65.
9. For him history is and must remain a 'scientific discourse'. By 'scientific' he means 'the possibility of establishing an ensemble of rules allowing "control" of operations commensurate with the production of defined objects or subjects'. Ibid, 64 n. 5 (trans. mine).
10. For an excellent discussion of De Certeau's position on the scientific nature of the discipline of history see Wim Weymans, 'Michel de Certeau and the Limits of Historical Presentation', History and Theory, 43 (May 2004), pp. 162-278.
11. La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris: Librairie Armand Colin 1949).
12. Since Paul Gilroy's pioneering publication, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1993), there has been a growing body of literature on the subject.
13. The most recent addition being Bernhard Klein and Gesa Mackenthun (eds.) Sea Changes: Historicizing the Ocean (New York: Routledge 2004).
14. Herodotus, The Histories, I, 67 and IV, pp. 181-185.
15. Admittedly, this expression, and the Bidān ethnonym, are problematic. Yet it is undeniable that this region of the Western Sahara, where Hasaniya is the lingua franca, continues to be relevant as a culturally homogenous space. Terms such as Sūdān or Bidān, John Hunwick submits, are 'referents of cultural practices rather than of skin colours', Timbuktu & the Songhay Empire (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 2, fn 3.
16. E. Ann McDougall, 'Salts of the Western Sahara: Myths, Mysteries and Historical Significance', International Journal of African Historical Sources, 23.2 (1990), pp. 231-257.
17. When the French were preparing to invade Timbuktu in 1894, the notables there would appeal to the Moroccan Sultan for support.
18. For a discussion of the spread of Islamic knowledge and scholarship in the area see Lydon, 'Inkwells of the Sahara: Reflections on the Production of Islamic Knowledge in Bilād Shinqīt.', in Scott Reese (ed.) The Transmission of Learning in Islamic Africa (Leiden: Brill 2004), pp. 39-71.
19. I take the liberty of translating the French word caravanier here to mean those who outfit and run caravans.
20. This movement was initiated by the publication of Alphonse Duponchel's, The Chemin de Fer Trans-Saharien (Paris: Hachette 1879).
21. While in the midst of organizing the conquest of the Saharan colony that he would name, Xavier Coppolani was assassinated in 1905 by a Saharan resistance fighter. Mohamed Said ould Ahmedou. 'Coppolani et la conquête de la Mauritanie', Masādir: Cahier de sources de l'histoire de la Mauritanie, Cahier no.1, 1994, pp. 101-114.
22. This project was based on misinformation about the untapped mineral resources of this 'empty' land. A Saharan colonial entity was even more unrealistic without inclusion of Morocco and Tunisia. The plan labeled a Sahara "Alaska" français, along with a map of the planned colonial project, was advertised in Le Figaro (08/01/51). Despite over half a century of French occupation, the Sahara continued to be thought of as 'empty, vacant and without masters, peopled at most by a negligible handful of Bedouins or Tuareg'. See the critique by French ethnographer and expert Saharanist Théodore Monod 'Notes et Documents: Autour de l'Alaska Saharien', Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire 14/2 (1952), p. 683.
23. Valentin Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa of Africa: Gnosis Philosophy and the Foundation of Knowledge (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1988), p. x. It is erroneous, however, to attribute this 'invention of Africa' to European templates alone. As explained in the beginning of this section, the expression Bilād al-Sūdān or 'the land of the blacks' gained currency in medieval times among Andalusian and Maghrebi geographers to designate 'black Africa' or what is also commonly referred to as Sub-Saharan Africa. Europeans would build on these notions to reinvent Africa on their own terms.
24. http://www.elysee.fr/documents/discours/1997/MAUR972.html for Jacques Chirac's speech in Nouakchott.
25. http://www.malitourisme.com.
26. That I. William Zartman recognized this problem more than forty years ago is emblematic of how deep-rooted this perception remains. Sahara: Bridge or Barrier? (New York: International Conciliation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, no. 541, January 1963).
27. De Certeau (note 7), p. 216.
28. The father of oral history, Jan Vansina, explains that his main purpose in writing his autobiography of a 'life of learning' genre, was to show 'how the practice of African history often differs from others'. Living with Africa (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press 1994).
29. Philip Curtin 'Field Techniques for Collecting and Processing Oral Data', Journal of African History 9/3 (1968), p. 369.
30. Jacques Derrida, Mal d'archive: Une impression freudienne (Paris: Galilee 1995), p. 13.
31. Vansina, Oral Tradition. A Study in Historical Methodology, translated into English by H. M. Wright (Chicago: Aldine 1965) was originally published in French (De la tradition orale: Essai de méthode historique, Tervuren: Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrale 1961), Curtin.
32. A griot, in the French language, is a professional oral historian and praise-singer. As Joseph Miller explains, some oral traditions can contain outright fabrications. For a useful discussion of the various layers of useful of oral traditions see his 'Introduction: Listening for the African Past', In The African Past Speaks: Essays on Oral Tradition and History (Kent and New York: Dawson and Archon 1980), pp. 1-59.
33. Also the seminal work of David Henige, Oral Historiography (London: Longman 1982)
34. Karin Barber and P. E. de Moraes Farias (eds.), Discourse and its Disguises: The Interpretation of African Oral Texts (Birmingham: Centre for West African Studies, University of Birmingham 1989)
35. Elizabeth Tonkin, Narrating Our Pasts: The Social Construction of Oral History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1992)
36. Carolyn K. Adenaike and Jan Vansina (eds.), In Pursuit of History: Historical Method in Africa (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann 1996)
37. and Luise White, Stephen Meischer and David Cohen, (eds.), African Words, African Voices: Critical Practices in Oral History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press 2001)
38. Part IV 'Oral Tradition' in Toyin Falola & Christian Jennings, (eds.) Sources and Methods in African History: Spoken, Written, Unearthed (Rochester: University of Rochester Press 2003), pp. 239-328.
39. Luise White provides an excellent discussion of oral history and methodology in Speaking with Vampires.Rumor and History in Colonial Africa Studies on the History of Society and Culture (Berkeley: California University Press 2000).
40. On the silences or misremembering in the oral record, see also Richard Roberts, 'Reversible Social Processes, Historical Memory and the Production of History', History in Africa 17 (1990), pp. 341-349.
41. B. Jewsiewicki and V. Mudimbe 'African's Memories and Contemporary History of Africa', History and Theory 32/4 (1993), pp. 1-19.
42. Oral Traditions as History ((Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1985)
43. 'Memory and Oral Tradition', in The African Past Speaks, pp. 262-279
44. and 'On Combining Evidence', in Nkparom Ejituwo (ed.) The Multi-Disciplinary Approach to African History. Essays in Honor of Ebiegberi Joe Alagoa (Port Harcourt: University of Port Harcourt Press 1998), pp. 45-57.
45. Jack Goody, The Interface Between the Written and the Oral (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1990), especially chapters 9 & 10
46. Henri Lhote, Les Touaregs du Hoggar (Paris: Gallimard 1984)
47. Ayele Bekerie, Ethiopic: An African Writing System, its History and Principles (Lawrenceville, NJ: African World View Press 1997)
48. Maude Southwell Wahlman, Signs and Symbols: African Images in African American Quilts (New York: Tinwood Books, 2001)
49. Diane White Oyler, 'The N'ko Alphabet as a Vehicle of Indigenist Historiography', History in Africa, 24 (1997), pp. 239-256
50. Jean-Loup Amselle, Branchements: Anthropologie de l'universalité des cultures (Paris: Flammarion 2001).
51. Some of these manuscripts were taken to Paris, and can be consulted at either the Institut de France (Fonds Gironcourt; Fonds Terrier) or the Bibliothèque Nationale (Fonds Archinard).
52. A recent collective volume claiming to 'represent the current state of the art in African historical research' pays no attention to the use of documentation in Arabic for reconstructing African history (Falola & Jennings, Sources and Methods in African History, p. xx). Even Joseph Miller, in his presidential address, failed to acknowledge the intellectual traditions of Muslim Africans ('Africa in History', note 4). He mentions the spread of Islam in Africa from the eighth century onwards only in passing (p. 19) and notes that Muslim merchants or 'foreign visitors also left the documentary records from which historians can now derive evidence of African agency' (p. 21). But while he recognizes that written sources available to historians are not just 'European documents', he only discusses in a footnote (fn 66) documents in other languages, namely Ethiopian sources and 'Arabic-language documentation' referring the reader to the works of Nehemia Levtzion and John Hunwick.
53. Excerpts of their descriptions of Africa were published in the seminal volume of works by North Africans, Andalusians and Muslims of Africa and the Middle East: Nehemia Levtzion and J. F. P. Hopkins (eds.) Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1981).
54. For example, David Henige claims that 'Historians of tropical Africa are favored neither with an abundance of good primary sources, nor with reasonable expectations of uncovering many more, at least for the [precolonial] period with which we are concerned', in 'The Race is not Always to the Swift. Thoughts on the Use of Written Sources for the Study of Early African History,' Paideuma, xxxiii (1987), p. 54.
55. For an overview of these Islamic traditions in Africa see The Transmission of Learning.
56. Hunwick, 'The Islamic Manuscript Heritage of Timbuktu'. Unpublished paper given at Vassar College, November 8, 2002.
57. Levtzion, Muslims and Chiefs in West Africa (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1968)
58. Hiskett, The Sword of Truth (New York: Oxford University Press 1973),
59. Robinson, Chiefs and Clerics: Abdul Bokar Kan and the History of Futa Toro, (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1975).
60. Hunwick's exceptional travails to promote the study of Arabic sources for Africa are well-known. These include excellence in scholarship - Sharī'a in Songhay: The Replies of al-Maghīli to the Questions of Askia al-Hajj Muhammad (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1985)
61. and Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire (Leiden: Brill 1999) - as well as a tireless effort to build scholarly institutions (from the 'Centre for Arabic Documentation' at University of Ibadan in the 1960s to his recent 'Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa' at the Program of African Studies, housed at the Program of African Studies of Northwestern University.
62. Sean O'Fahey's seminal work focuses on the East African history - State and Society in Dar Fur (London: C. Hurst & Co. 1980)
63. Enigmatic Saint: Ahmad ibn Idris and the Idrisi tradition (Evanston: Northwestern University Press 1990).
64. Both Hunwick and O'Fahey have published three volumes of Arabic Literature in Africa (Leiden: Brill, 1994, 1995, 2003).
65. An excellent example is Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack, Collected Works of Nana Asma'u (Lansing: Michigan State University 1995) on Nana Asma'u, the scholar of early nineteenth century Sokoto (Northern Nigeria) who wrote poetry and treatises in Arabic and several African languages including Hausa and Tamachek using the Arabic script.
66. See also White Oyler's work on N'ko ('A Cultural Revolution in West Africa: Literacy in the Republic of Guinea Since Independence', International Journal of African History 34/3 (2001), pp. 585-600.
67. E. Ann McDougall, a pioneer in the economic and social history of the region which concerns us, discusses the state of the field in a review article 'Research in Saharan History', Journal of African History 39 (1998), pp. 467-480. Most historians at the history department of the Université de Nouakchott (Mauritania) specialize in the Sahara. The most accomplished Mauritanian scholar is Abdel Wedoud Ould Cheikh, now teaching at the Université de Metz (France). In Europe, most Saharanists work out of France. In June 2004 an exceptional conference entitled 'Sahara Past and Present' was hosted by University of East Anglia (Norwich) which brought together over 50 international scholars. In North America, scholars of the Sahara tend to be members of the Saharan Studies Association founded by John Hunwick and Ann McDougall in 1992.
68. I visited five national archives and about thirty private libraries. Over two hundred interviews were conducted in several languages including Hasaniya, classical Arabic, Wolof and French (with some assisted interviews in languages foreign to me such as Songhai, and Fulfulde). It is important to note that less than half of the interviewees belonged to the two targeted groups (Tikna and Awlād Bū Sibā'). Most informants agreed not to be anonymously cited. For a more detailed discussion of my oral history methods, see Chapter One of On Trans-Saharan Trails (manuscript in preparation).
69. Weymans (note 7), p. 174.
70. For a useful discussion oral sources see Curtin who recognizes that there could be overlapping of categories (1968, p. 374). In his esteemed Oral Tradition, Vansina establishes an alternate categorization in which he focused on oral tradition (as different than 'eyewitness accounts' and 'rumors'), p. 21. In a revision of this work, Vansina expanded his definition of oral tradition to: 'verbal messages which are reported statements from the past beyond the present generation', Oral Traditions as History, 27.
71. For a discussion of Saharan chronicles, see my 'Inkwells of the Sahara', (note 13), pp. 63-64.
72. On the chronicle of Wadan, see Ahmad b. Ahmad Salim (ed.) Tārikh Ibn Tuwayr al-Janna (Rabat: Centre d'Etudes Africaines 1995).
73. On the Walāta chronicle, see Timothy Cleaveland, Becoming Walāta: A History of Saharan Social Formation and Transformation (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann 2002), pp. 169-173.
74. Some Saharan chronologies are published in French translation (Paul Marty, 'Les Chroniques de Oualata et de Néma', Revue des Etudes Islamiques, Cahier III (1927), pp. 355-426 & Cahier IV (1930), pp. 531-575
75. and Vincent Monteil, 'Chroniques de Tichite (Sahara Occidental)', Bulletin de l'Institut Français d'Afrique Noire, tome 1, no. 1 (1939). The Mauritanian Ministry of Economic Planning, Office of Statistics, has compiled lists for year names in each of the twelve départements. These are guidelines for demographic census purposes which are not always accurate. Still other year names were gathered orally.
76. On the problems of dating oral information see David P. Henige, 'Oral Tradition and Chronology', Journal of African History 12 (1971), pp. 371-389.
77. This opinion was repeatedly stated in interviews and is a fact most Mauritanians agree upon. This critical piece of information obtained orally determined the focus of my research project. That the Tikna and Awlād Bū Sibā' played such an important role in trans-Saharan trade was only recently recognized. See anthropologist Pierre Bonte's 'Fortunes Commerciales à Shingīti (Adrar Mauritanien) au Dix-Neuvième Siècle', Journal of African History 39/1 (1998), p. 9.
78. James Walvin, 'A Taste of Empire, 1600-1800; Tea, Sugar and Tobacco Trade and Britain', History Today 47 (January, 1997), pp. 11-16
79. Jean-Louis Miège, Le Maroc et l'Europe (1830-1894) tome II L'Ouverture (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1961), pp. 71-74.
80. Most oral sources confirm that the event occurred during the 'peaceful reign' of the Emir Ahmad wuld Lamhaymmad. For variants of this oral tradition see Albert Leriche, 'De l'origine du thé en Mauritanie', Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire, t. 13, no.3 (1951), pp. 868-871 and Chapter Six of my On Trans-Saharan Trails (manuscript in preparation).
81. According to one source, the Awlād Bu Sibā' were the first to import tea, but the Tikna were responsible for spreading its use. Interview in Shingītī with Abdarrahman wuld Muhammad al-Hanshi (02/ 29/97). The Senegalese explorer Léopold Panet (discussed below) visiting Shingītī in 1850 described tea making implements in the house of an Awlād Bu Sibā' trader. Première exploration du Sahara occidental: Relation de voyage du Sénégal au Maroc 1850 (Paris: Le Livre Africain 1968), p. 45.
82. Their identities are not specified, but at least one of these traders was originally from Tafilalt (Morocco). René Caillié, Journal d'un voyage a Temboctou et a Jenné, dans l'Afrique Centrale, Tome II (Paris: Imprimerie royale 1830), pp. 212, 223-224.
83. This intrepid traveller, who was served tea in the Sahara, will be discussed below. But, according to James Riley's narrative (also discussed later) tea was unknown to inhabitants in Wad Nun region in 1815. Sufferings in Africa: Captain Riley's Narrative: An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce Wrecked on the Western Coast of Africa, in the Month of August 1815. Edited and with an Introduction by Gordon H. Evans (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc. 1965), p. 187.
84. Four years later, Charles Cochelet was offered tea in Guelmim, the largest town in the Wad Nun. Cochelet, Naufrage du Brick Français La Sophie (Paris: Librairie universelle de O. Mongie Ainé 1821), vol. I, p. 309, and vol. II, pp. 37 and 45.
85. Interviews in Shingīti with Abdarahman wuld Muhammad al-Hanshi (02/27/ 97), Muhammad al-Amin wuld Mamad wuld 'Ababa (02/27/97), Ruqaya mint Taqla wuld 'Ababa (10/03/97), and in Tamshakatt with Abdawa wuld 'Ababa (05/21/98; 05/22/98; 05/24/98).
86. Interview in Shingīti with Muhammad al-Amin b. 'Ababa (02/27/97-02/28/ 97). Mhaymad was the youngest on the caravan he joined from Gulmīm to Ndar (a town the French would name St. Louis du Sénégal). Somewhere on route, he purchased ostrich feathers and when he arrived, the price of feathers was very low on the Ndar market. His fellow caravaners poked fun at him along the way by arguing that the demand for ostrich feathers was very low in this region as they were usually sold in Morocco. Rather than despair and sell at a loss, Mhaymad decided to head further south to Dakar, then a small trading port (it became the largest city and capital of Senegal in the twentieth century), where he received a great price for his feathers.
87. Mint is the Hasaniya equivalent of the Arabic bint meaning 'daughter of'.
88. Khnatha mint Ahmayda (with her two daughter Fatimatu and Mariam daughter of Muhammad al-Farha) in Atar (10/5/97). On the Saharan women and commerce, see On Trans-Saharan Trails (manuscript in preparation).
89. Private library of Dāddah wuld Īdda in Tishīt.
90. Stories about her reputation were collected in Mauritania and Mali where interviewees often referred to her as a 'saint' (sāliha).
91. Compiled from interviews in Nouakchott with Mulay Ghaly wuld Yazid wuld Mulay 'Aly (07/24/97) and in Atar with Sidi Muhammad wuld Daydi wuld al-'Arabi wuld Mulay 'Aly (10/20/97).
92. Archives Nationales de la République Islamique de Mauritanie (hereafter ANRIM), Série Militaire, N92 (Carnet de Route, Colonel Gouraud).
93. I discuss the history of this important figure and his involvement with the French conquest of Mauritania in 'On Trans-Saharan Trails: Trading Networks and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Western Africa, 1840s-1930s' (Ph.D. Dissertation, Michigan State University 2000).
94. It is worth pointing out here the convergence of prescribed Islamic practice and economic behavior. The Arabic word nafaqa meaning charitable gift, handout, also translates into expenditure, allowance, while the derived word nāfiq means selling well, easily marketable. J. M. Cowan (ed.) Arabic-English Dictionary: The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. 4th Edition (Ithaca: Spoken Languages Services, Inc 1994), p. 1158.
95. Hagiographic is used in the sense of a 'discourse of virtues', De Certeau, (note 7), p. 282.
96. For example, a descendant told me the same story about Mhaymad wuld 'Ababa. In such instances, the historian must obtain a sufficiently varied source-base to determine the origin of tropes. Another common trope, or 'cliché' to use Miller's language ('Introduction', pp. 7-8), is the successful story of the search for water, when an animal (sometimes a horse, other times a camel) miraculously scratches the sand's surface to reveal a source, saving a caravan expedition from thirst. This cliché originated from the epic of 'Uqba ibn Nāfì', the seventh century Muslim conqueror of North Africa, and is repeated by individuals to color their past.
97. Following Miller, 'Introduction', pp. 50-51.
98. Interview in Nouakchott with 'Abdallah b. Muhammad Sidiyya (10/16/97).
99. It must be noted that astronomy was one of the favorite subjects of scholars of the Sahara who collected books on astrology. The Habbut library of Shingīti holds many such manuscripts which contain colorful diagrams of the constellations.
100. Interview in Atar with Fuiji b. al-Tayr (10/09/97).
101. Interview with Kara Jami'a mint 'Abaydna b. Barak, Liksabi (08/01/99). Kara Jami'a was born to two slaves and stolen when she was very young by the Awlad Djarrir, then sold in Morocco to the Haha before the family of al-Mukhtar b. al-Najim bought her. She is in her late 80s.
102. It is ironic that Western geographers would imagine the Sahel (from the Arabic for shore) to be located on the southern desert edge, when the inhabitants clearly know it as the north, with the 'ahl Sāhil' designating the nomadic groups circulating in the northern region of Western Sahara. Such a misunderstanding warrants a rethinking of the continent's geographic regions.
103. This orientation of the gibla is even more unique, since for most Arabs it points to Mecca; a decidedly easterly direction. Likewise, the Berber word till refers to the north for some, while for others it designates a northeastern direction.
104. For the people of the Adrar region (Northern Mauritania) the Pole Star is 'the star of the East' (najmat al-sharg). Note that the letter qāf tends to be pronounced as a 'g' in the Sahara.
105. For a discussion of the trade in books and paper see my 'Inkwells of the Sahara', (note 13) pp. 54-56.
106. There are, of course, little known exceptions, including Denise Maran Savineau who was in charge of a mission of inquiry in 1937-1938 and Odette Du Puigaudeau who wrote ethnographic reports in the same period mainly on Morocco and Mauritania. See my 'The Unraveling of a Neglected Source: Women in Francophone West Africa in the 1930s', Cahiers d'Études Africaines, vol. 147, XXXVII (1997), pp. 555-584.
107. Notable examples include: The turn of nineteenth century prosopography of over 200 Saharan scholars by Al-Talib Muhammad b. Abi Bakr al-Baddiq al-Baritalli al-Walati, Muhammad Ibrahim al-Kattani & Muhammad Hajji (eds.) Fath al-Shakūr fī ma'rifat a'yān 'ulamā' al-Takrūr. (Beirut: Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī 1981)
108. the classic nineteenth century historical account by Ahmad b. al-Amin As-Shinqiti, Al-wasīt fi tarājim udabā'Shinqīt (Cairo: Maktaba al-Khajī 1911)
109. 'Abd al-Waddud b. Ahmad Mawlud b. Intaha's history of the Adrar region compiled in the 1930s (copy of original manuscript in author's possession) translated by H. T. Norris, Saharan Myth and Saga (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 126-159
110. and the Hayāt mūrītāniya encyclopaedic collection of Mukhtar b. Hamidun, of which three volumes are published. The notes of this eminent twentieth century historian are archived at the Institut Mauritanien de Recherches Scientifiques (Nouakchott). For an overview of Saharan sources and literature see my 'Inkwells of the Sahara' (note 13).
111. Mahmūd Ka'ati's Tārīkh al-fattāsh and Al-Sa'adi's Tārīkh al-sūdān. See Hunwick, Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire, for a translation of the latter and discussion of the former.
112. Even today, scholars in Mauritania, for example, censor their own writings for fear of reprimand. In the 1990s, a female scholar who mentioned a contentious historical event was physically assaulted after the publication of her work.
113. Rihla min al-qarn 13 H./19 M. lijāmi'ha wa munshi'ha al-Tālib Ahmad b. Tuwayr al-Janna, 'Abdalqadar Zamamih, (ed.). Majalla al-Bahth al-'ilmī, vol. 28 (1977), pp. 291-304.
114. H. T. Norris, who photographed the original manuscript in Wādān in the 1960s, wrote a very useful annotated translation: The Pilgrimage of Ahmad Son of the Little Bird of Paradise, An Account of a 19th century Pilgrimage from Mauritania to Mecca (Warminster: Aris & Phillips 1977).
115. Note that the regional pilgrimage caravan, organized regularly until the late 1870s, used to congregate either in Shingītī or in Tishīt. It would then connect with other pilgrims along the way before their meeting point in Morocco. See A. Coyne, Journal de route des Adrariens, étude géographique sur l'Adrar et une partie du Sahara Occidental (Alger, 1889), p. 1.
116. Norris provides copies of the European newspapers which reported these encounters (pp. 91-93, pp. 101-102).
117. Muhammad Yahya b. Muhammad al-Mukhtar al-Walati, Al-Rihla al-Hijāziya, edited by Muhammad Hajji (Beirut: Dar al-gharb al-islāmī 1990).
118. It is interesting to note that by this time, tea was being served in several Saharan encampments between Shingītī and Wad Nun and not just exclusively among wealthy Moroccan urbanites as during Talib Ahmad's trip. But the fact that, especially in the very beginning of his travelogue, Muhammad Yahya noted each time they were offered tea seems to indicate that such indulgences were less common for a Saharan resident of Walāta.
119. Muhammad Yahya, (note 77), pp. 87-100. In sum, he opined for the use of the older more historic mosque on Fridays, and the use of the newer mosque for regular prayer. Upon his return from Mecca, Muhammad Yahya again stayed in Guelmim with Dahman b. Bayruk, who asked him to issue a second fatwa on the matter. It would seem that the ruler of Guelmim there was having trouble imposing his will on the people with regards to where they all should congregate for the Friday prayer (Ibid., pp. 388-396).
120. This fatwa on the exchange of coins which covers southern Morocco, western Algerian and northern Malian markets, is an extremely important document which was unfortunately left out of the publication of al-Walāti's rihla. I thank Professor Muhammad al-Mukhtar b. Sa'ad of the Department of History of the Université de Nouakchott for alerting me to the existence of this fatwa. Its transcription and commentary was the subject of his student's master's thesis named Mariam bint 'Abaydallah ("Fatwā al-Walāti bi Sha'in al-tafāadil bayna al-Sakk fi al-Sūs wa Tindūf wa Arawān" (MA thesis, Université de Nouakchott, 1993-1994).
121. Miège, Le Maroc et l'Europe, pp. 117-119. The devalued Spanish coin imported en masse into Morocco in the 1880s and 1890s further destabilized an already depressed regional economy.
122. Myths, Emblems and Clues. Translated by J. and A. Tedeschi (London: Hutchinson Radius 1986), p. 159.
123. Sidi 'Abdallah b. al-Haj Ibrahim Nawāzil (personal manuscript copy).
124. Shaykh b. Hammuny library (Shingītī).
125. The doors of these libraries were opened to me as a result of chance meetings with library owners or their relatives, as well as through the guidance and assistance of several Mauritanians. I am especially grateful to Abdel Wedoud ould Cheikh, Mohamed Said ould Hamody, Deddoud ould Abdallah, Mohamed Yehdih ould Tolba, Mohamed al-Mokhtar ould Saad and Mohamed ould Mohamedan.
126. The following examples come from the private papers of the Buhay family in Shingītī (Mauritania). I am extremely grateful to the family for sharing these informative commercial letters.
127. By 'Futis' is meant the Halpulaar inhabitants of the Futa Toro region at the confluence of present-day Senegal, Mauritania and Mali. Al-Haj 'Umar Tal was a well-known Muslim leader of the nineteenth century who organized a prolonged jihad. He has commercial and political relations with the French, located in Senegal. But the rumor that he has joined them was not entirely accurate. See David Robinson's The Holy War of Umar Tal (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1985).
128. To be sure, there existed several secret alphabets in the region used for the purposes of producing amulets or talismans, and for writing encrypted messages. Since traders were often scholars, they may have used cryptography to communicate sensitive or precious information. On this fascinating subject, see Vincent Monteil, 'La Cryptographie chez les Maures; note sur quelques alphabets secrets du Hodh', Bulletin de l'Institut Fondamental d'Afrique Noire 13/4 (1951).
129. Ironically, the first Westerner to visit Timbuktu and write about it may have been an American held in captivity by Saharans in the 1810s (see below).
130. The British conceded to France's right of conquest over the Sahara in exchange for the East African islands of Zanzibar and Pemba. The settlement reached in 1890 defined the limits of France's Saharan occupation to Niger and Lac Chad.
131. Three anthologies on this subject are particularly useful. For the British captives of the eighteenth century: Daniel J. Vitkus (ed.) Piracy, Slavery and Redemption: Barbary Captivity Narratives from Early Modern England (New York: Columbia University Press 2001).
132. For the American captives in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, excluding Riley's narratiAe: White slaves, African masters: an anthology of American barbary captivity narratives, edited and with an introduction by Paul Baepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1999).
133. For an excellent collection of biographies and excerpts from a selection of travelogues, including captivity tales, see Maurice Barbier (ed.), Voyages et Explorations au Sahara Occidental au XIXe siècle (Paris: l'Harmattan 1985).
134. Cochelet, Naufrage, pp. vii-viii. He explains that in 25 years he knew of thirty vessels from various nations that shipwrecked on the Saharan coast of Africa. Moreover, Cochelet counted over 50 graves of Christians buried in Guelmim, where many 'white slaves' were sold and ransomed (p. 322).
135. Riley, Sufferings in Africa, p. 209. It is interesting to note that, unlike New England captivity narratives, or the rihlas of Muslim pilgrims, these accounts contain surprisingly little religious interjection.
136. Samuel Cook, The narrative of Robert Adams, a sailor who was wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the year 1810, was detained three years in slavery by the Arabs of the Great Desert, and resides several months in the City of Tombuctoo (London: William Bulmer & Co. Cleveland-Row 1816).
137. Benjamin Rose, alias Robert Adams, spent three years in the Sahara. Because his description of the famed city of Timbuktu did not match the grand expectations of European merchants, his presence there was questioned. See, for instance, Cochelet, Naufrage, vol. I, pp. ix-x and vol. II, p. 24.
138. See also the critique by Jacob Graberg as relayed in W. W. Riley, Sequel to Riley's Narrative (Columbus, OH: George Brewster 1851).
139. Sufferings in Africa. It would be difficult to overstate how the popularity of the countless editions of Riley's account contributed to propagating negative stereotypes about Africans, Arabs, Muslims, and the Sahara. It is interesting to note that this was one of Abraham Lincoln's favourite books and may have influenced his position on slavery (Baepler, White slaves, p. 2). Riley described the hardships endured by Saharans, and provided evidence that tea was unknown to many of the inhabitants of the Wad Nun. However, his information must be used carefully, especially since he expects the reader to believe that he acquired proficiency in Arabic during his months-long captivity. Riley soon resumed his merchant career and made Mogador (Morocco) one of his primary ports of trade. Riley's son, named after the British consul in Mogador who ransomed him and would became his business partner, published a most informative annotated anthology of his father's letters.
140. William Willshire Riley, Sequel.
141. Ibid., pp. 262-293.
142. Also, for a critical evaluation of Sidi Hamet's narrative by Jacob Graberg, see W. W. Riley, Sequel, pp. 413-434.
143. Sufferings in Africa, pp. 268-272. In the end, out of a caravan numbering over 1000 men and about 4000 camels, only 21 men and 18 camels finally reached Timbuktu.
144. For most of his captivity, Cochelet was in the hands of Sidi Hamet and his brother Seid, the very same Awlād Bū Siba' nomads who captured Riley's crew. Cochelet, Naufrage, vol. II, p. 25-26.
145. Naufrage, vol. I, especially pp. 239-241 and p. 267 et sq.
146. Like Riley, Cochelet claims to have held unproblematic conversation with Saharans in Arabic. See, for example, his transcriptions of discussions with Shaykh Bayruk (vol. I, pp. 332-333 and vol. II, pp. 59-63).
147. Ibid., vol. I, pp. 239-240, 336.
148. Like Riley, he transcribed (in a conversation based on gesticulations and use of a few words in Arabic) an interview containing secondhand knowledge about Timbuktu which resembles both Sidi Hamet's and Adams' accounts. Ibid., pp. 342-344
149. and Naufrage, vol. II, pp. 1-26. Cochelet was familiar with both these previous narratives and goes as far as to claim that neither Adams, nor Sidi Hamet (!) actually visited Timbuktu, but that their information was based on hearsay (pp. 24-26).
150. Only the letters of Laing, who was murdered upon his return from Timbuktu, are available. For Laing's records see E. W. Bovill, Missions to the Niger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1964), pp. 121-365
151. and Théodore Monod, De Tripoli à Tombouctou: Le dernier voyage de Laing, 1825-1826 (Paris: Société Française d'Histoire d'Outre-mer 1977).
152. John Davidson's very detailed travelogue was published by his brother. Notes Taken during travels in Africa (London: Cox & Sons 1839).
153. Moreover, like Cochelet before him, he also described the arrival of a party of West African musicians from Timbuktu who entertained in Shaykh Bayruk's house. Davidson, Notes, pp. 109-110.
154. Caillié, Journal;
155. Heinrich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa in the Years 1849-1855, 3 volumes (New York: Harper & Brothers 1859)
156. Oskar Lenz, Timbouctou: Voyage au Maroc, Au Sahara et au Soudan,2 volumes translated by Pierre Lehaucourt(Paris: Librairie Hachette 1887).
157. Excerpts of his travelogue were published that same year in the Revue Coloniale, vol. 5 (November and December 1850). Later it was republished in book form thanks to the initiative of Robert Cornevin (Panet, Première exploration du Sahara occidental).
158. Panet, Première exploration du Sahara occidental, pp. 155-156.
159. Notable examples include: Capitaine Henri Vincent, 'Voyage dans l'Adrar et Retour à St. Louis', Tours du Monde (1860)
160. Camille Douls, 'Cinq mois chez les maures nomades du Sahara Occidental', Tour du Monde (1888), pp. 177-224
161. Gaston Donnet, Une Mission au Sahara Occidental du Sénégal au Tiris, Chargé de mission du Ministère des Colonies (Paris: Augustin Challamel 1896).
162. The most notable Spanish traveler was Joachin Gatell who served in the Moroccan army in the 1860s in order to visit the Sus and Wad Nun regions, published several decades after his death. Joachim Gatell, Viajes por Marruecos, el Sus, Uad-Nun y Tekna. (Madrid: Memorias de la Sociedad Geográfica de Madrid 1882).
163. An excerpt was later published in French 'L'Ouad-noun et le Tekna, sur la côte occidentale du Maroc', Bulletin de la société de géographie (October, 1889), pp. 257-287.
164. Donald Mackenzie, The Flooding of The Sahara: An Account of The Proposed Plan For Opening Central Africa to Commerce and Civilization from the North-West Coast, with a Description of Soudan and Western Sahara, and Notes of Ancient Manuscripts (London: S. Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington 1877).
165. In the words of Valentin Mudimbe, 'colonialism and colonization basically mean organization, arrangement. [...] It can be admitted that the colonists (those settling a region) as well as the colonialists (those exploiting a territory by dominating a local majority) have all tended to organize and transform non-European areas into fundamentally European constructs'. The Invention of Africa, 1.
166. Pathé Diagne has a similar argument in 'Introduction to the study of ethnonyms and homonyms', African Ethnonyms and Toponyms (Paris: UNESCO 1984), p. 11.
167. Said, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon Books 1978)
168. Hannoum, '"Faut-il Brûler L'Orientalisme?": On French Scholarship of North Africa', Cultural Dynamics 16 (July 2004), pp. 71-91.
169. This dichotomy was further developed in Morocco, where Arabs were thought to be under the Sultanate's jurisdiction (bilād al-maghzin , while the Berbers remained outside its control (bilād al-siba). For a discussion of this dichotomous colonial construct see Edmund Burke III, 'The Image of the Moroccan State in French Ethnographic Literature', in Ernest Gellner and Charles Micaud (eds.) Arabs and Berbers, (Lexington, MA: Lexington Publishers 1972), pp. 175-200 as well as other articles in this seminal volume.
170. Blacks appeared at the bottom of this racial grid, followed by Moors, Arabs and then Berbers, considered closer to Caucasians in physique and intellect. David Robinson, 'Ethnography and Customary Law in Senegal', Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, vol. 126, XXXII-2 (1992), p. 223.
171. First devised by French colonial ethnographer and islamologue Paul Marty (Etudes sur l'islam maure, Cheikh Sidia, les Fadelia, les Ida ou Ali (Paris: Editions Leroux 1916), this classification would profoundly shape colonial racial constructs in francophone Africa.
172. David Robinson Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and Colonial Authority in Senegal and Mauritania, ca. 1880-1920 (Athens: Ohio University Press 2000), pp. 941-995.
173. For a discussion of Delafosse's legacy see Jean-Loup Amselle & Emmanuelle Sibeud (eds.) Maurice Delafosse. Entre orientalisme et ethnographie: L'itinéraire d'un africaniste 1870-1926, (Paris: Maisonneuve & Larose 1998),
174. especially the article by Jean Schmitz, 'L'Afrique par défaut ou l'oubli de l'orientalisme', pp. 107-121.
175. For example, Joseph Ki-Zerbo (ed.) Unesco General History of Africa Volume 1: Methodology and African Prehistory (Paris: UNESCO 1980).
176. Robinson (Note 113), p. 50.
177. Interview in Ndar (Senegal) with his great grandson of Bu al-Mughdad, Abou Latif Seck (11/05/97).
178. 'Voyage par terre entre le Sénégal et le Maroc', Bou-el-Mogdad, assesseur au cadi de St. Louis, Revue Maritime et Coloniale (mai 1861, 1er trimestre), pp. 477-494.
179. Saharans composed numerous poems about Bu al-Mughdad family. Several poems were shared by Mauritanians including Muhammad Yahdi wuld al-Tolba, Nouakchott (05/97), others were collected in Senegal. For instance, a poem describes his home in St. Louis which was never empty as the cracks in the walls attest (created by the crowds that leaned against them). In fact most notable Muslim visitors - especially those from the Trarza region - would stay there when visiting the French capital. In another gāf, or praise poem, Bu al-Mughdad is described as a thin man who serves all his food and 'eats' with his ears (i.e. he lives on the information which circulated through the mouths of his numerous guests).
180. ANRIM, E1/3. 'Mémoires de Bou el Mogdad jusqu'en 1903'. It is important to note that since my first visit to the Mauritanian national archive in 1996, this document has vanished.
181. For a discussion of the structure and composition of the colonial archives of French West Africa see Robinson, Paths, pp. 37-57.
182. Interview with Mohamed Said ould Hamody in Nouakchott (1997). Most of Ba's articles were published in the French journal Renseignements Coloniaux. See, for example, 'Une Grande Figure de l'Adrar: L'Emir Ahmed ould M'Hamed, 1871-1891', Renseignements Coloniaux 10 (October 1929).
183. In the highly disorganized and dilapidated national archive of Mauritania, these letters are scattered across the numerous files. See ANRIM Série E1, especially E1/73 and E1/100 for the largest collection of letters translated by Bu al-Mughdad II and his assistant Hamet Fall. In the Archives Nationales du Sénégal, the 'native correspondence' is located in the Ancienne Série 13G (Senegal) and 15G (Soudan).
184. William Ponty, 'Circulaire no. 29 au sujet de l'emploi de la langue française dans la rédaction des jugements des tribunaux indigènes et dans la correspondence administrative, Dakar 8 mai 1911', Journal Officiel du Sénégal et Dépendances (18 Mai 1911), pp. 346-7 ('L'arabe...langue étrangère à notre pays...est pour le noir la langue sacrée. Obliger même indirectement nos ressortissants à l'apprendre, pour entretenir avec nous des relations officielles, revient donc à encourager la propagande des sectateurs du Coran.'). The wide-ranging implications of Ponty's radical decision, which was taken in the context of a French fear of a Pan-Islam, surely deserve scholarly attention.
185. Indeed, it was important to understand primary sources not as '"abstract" objects of knowledge', 'isolated' and 'denatured', but within their organic setting. De Certeau (note 7), pp. 84-89,
186. in reference to Jean Baudrillard's ('La collection', in Le Système des objects (Paris: Gallimard 1968), pp. 120-150) discussion of the placement of documents in a 'marginal system'.
187. In the past few years, several workshops and post-doctoral fellowships were organized at Columbia University, New York University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the American University in Cairo to promote this rethinking.
188. Miller (note 4), p. 24.