Gidan Makama Museum, Kano

Photography and video making are not my strengths, but this is the place I visited.

"Once upon a time in 1440 AD, a magnificent structure known as Gidan Makama was built by the powerful Sarki (King) Abdullahi Burja. Initially intended as a temporary palace, this architectural wonder has since transformed into a captivating museum. The story of Gidan Makama begins with its creation for Prince Rumfa, who later became the legendary Sarki Muhammadu Rumfa.

Over the centuries, the original Gidan Makama has been divided into three distinct sections. One part now houses the Gidan Makama Museum, where visitors can marvel at the rich history of the Hausalands and beyond. Another section is home to the Gidan Makam Primary School, educating the young minds of Kano. The final part remains a residence for the successive Makaman Kano, carrying on the legacy of this historic site.

The Gidan Makama boasts a stunning display of traditional Hausa architecture, making it an iconic landmark in Kano. Today, it proudly serves as a national museum and reference library, boasting an extensive collection of manuscripts and historical artifacts that offer a fascinating glimpse into the past."

Courtesy Kano Chronicle on X

African Vernacular Architecture

When Africa adopts modern technology devoid of external cultural influences.

Excerpt

"The walls could use hybrid construction systems that guarantee durability over time and that, in turn, maintain the appearance and thermal properties of rammed earth and raw mud; evoking the vernacular and ancestral, but modern at the same time. As well as including the use of beautiful external and internal murals designed by local artists.

The native plant species of the area will be respected, as well as taking advantage of the surrounding trees to generate shade, and the use of outdoor pots to give a human scale, a more welcoming appearance, and a more interesting route. It is essential to involve the community so that a project of these characteristics can be successful..."

Source: https://www.instagram.com/midjourney.../p/CvhPPsWshbA/...

And here https://parametric-architecture.com/rolo-creates.../

A return to the original African outlook on life. Traditional African societies were deeply rooted in a community-based outlook. Life was centred on shared responsibilities where the welfare of the collective outweighed individual interests. These are ideals we should never have left behind. We could have adopted aspects of modern civilisation that were beneficial to us, while holding fast to what was uniquely ours, that which had served us well for thousands of years. We could have adopted modern technology not to ape others, but adapt it to suit our own purposes.

.

Tubali

It was unexpected and surprising to me when I heard greetings shouted out in the Hausa language at Poto Poto market in downtown Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, where French and the local Lingala language were the only languages I had heard spoken for weeks. I also noted that Hausa was the language of choice in Ghana's Northern and Upper East regions during my visits there. 

I read somewhere that the civilisations of the Pharoahs of Egypt borrowed some of their technology from sub-Saharan Africa. The famous cities of Timbuktu and Jenne, in particular, are cases in point. What is clear is that the exchange of knowledge and ideas has been taking place for millennia.

'Tubali' is the Hausa architectural style

"The Hausa are the largest ethnic group in West and Central Africa made up of a diverse but culturally homogeneous people, predominantly based in the Sahelian and savannah areas of southern Niger and northern Nigeria. Today, with close to 82 million descendants and significant indigenised populations spread across Benin, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Chad, Sudan, The Republic of Congo, Togo, Ghana, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Senegal and Gambia, the Hausa were once best known for fishing, hunting, agriculture, salt-mining, and blacksmithing. Historically, the communities resided in small villages as well as in precolonial towns and cities where they would grow crops, raise livestock, including cattle, as well as engage in trade, both locally and long distance across Africa.

While in more recent times the penchant for foreign tastes, in terms of building form aesthetics and materials underpinned by colonial influences and the modern trends of the time has come to the forefront of African architecture, the Hausa style remains a vital and influential traditional mode of building in the continent. Hausaland, historically a collection of states started by the Hausa people, situated between the Niger River and Lake Chad, boasts countless inventive building forms, bursting with colourful motifs, decorations and innovative uses of interior space. Characterised by vaults and piers, beautifully decorated walls, slashes and punctures, archways, and motifs in various proportions, Hausa buildings are impressive feats of both art and design.

For millennia, the main materials used in traditional African construction have been earth stone and straw, which have been skilfully utilised respectively and in combination. Though few original earth structures remain, aside from a number of carefully preserved monuments temples and mosques, this method of building continues to be an enduring cultural practice among rural communities throughout the continent. Traditionally, Hausa builders have considered the roof as the most challenging part of the construction, both owing to the technology required to support the structure and the decoration that is applied to it. The conventional method of building saw walls being made thicker to meet the structural requirements of the roof; this was done partly to be safe and partly because the thick walls kept the inside rooms cooler.

Customarily, the architectural decorations which envelop Hausa structures are carried out by accomplished engravers, traditional builders who like artisans are highly skilled at handwork and can draw out freehand patterns directly onto the surface of walls before carving out their designs. Consequently, the complexity of a facade decoration usually demonstrates the wealth and social standing of the property’s owner. Another key element of Hausa architecture are the pinnacles, or Zankwaye. Zankwaye are a classic feature of the Hausa building, manifesting in various shapes and sizes, and giving the structures their characteristic form. Like the horns of a bull, Zankwaye were originally reinforced vertical projections around the parapet wall of the roof, handily providing builders with a way to climb up onto the roof during construction or repairs.

Taking into account spaces for social activities as well as lighting and ventilation, a traditional Hausa residence is ideally split into three parts, following a layout that includes an inner core, designated as the private area, a central core, which is considered as semi-private, and an outer core, which is deemed public and is open to visitors. At the centre of the compound is an open courtyard, where the family spends the best part of their days, providing the setting for various household activities as well as important ceremonial rituals. The inner core also connects with a backyard space to keep animals and manage the disposal of household waste. Thought to have been derived from the domestic schemes of ancient Egypt, these principals of living continue to influence contemporary architecture today."    

https://somethingcurated.com/2022/01/11/a-history-of-hausa-architecture/

Welcome

It is a deeply rooted, widespread tradition across many African cultures to be welcoming, hospitable, and respectful towards strangers. This practice is often rooted in indigenous philosophies like Ubuntu and others similar to it, where greeting and assisting anyone, regardless of whether they are known, is considered a duty, showing respect, and extending community kindness.

Key aspects of this tradition include:

Proactive Greetings: In many communities, it is customary to greet everyone you pass, even strangers, to show acknowledgment and respect.

Hospitality as Duty: Historically, travellers could rely on being offered food, water, and shelter in villages.

Formal Welcome: In some cultures, villages had specific, designated people or, in some cases, specific homes in the centre of the village, to receive and welcome visitors.

Shared Resources: Visitors were often treated as part of the community and permitted to use available resources. 

Cultural Significance: This, in part, stem from a belief that hospitality is good manners, enhances social reputation, and brings potential blessings.

It is this proclivity that was misinterpreted as timidity by early European visitors to the continent, for the Europeans were themselves more inclined towards aggressiveness. This clash of attitudes between Europeans and indigenous communities is repeated around the world wherever Europeans arrived for the first time. 

My own interpretation of the attitudes of indigenous African societies is that those attitudes reflected the fact that at the time of first contact with Europeans, indigenous African societies were socioculturally more highly evolved than their European counterparts. Anestral Africans had attained a high level of socio-cultural advancement, there was a high degree of social harmony.

 Sign at the London Zoo

Sex, Lies and Black Magic

Channel 4's Unreported World last evening broadcast this about how human traffickers are using black magic to coerce and trap Nigerian women into a life of prostitution in Europe. I am informed via Twitter by Krishnan Guru Murthy, @krishgm, a news anchor at the channel, that the Unreported World programme is the only show on 4oD (4 on Demand) that is not geo-blocked.

krishgm @anengiyefa yes it's the only show on 4OD not geoblocked

about 2 hours ago via web in reply to anengiyefa

Follow the link and watch the film, it is available for 29 days yet. Click here to see it.

Basically, the film shows Nigerian women who are made to swear an oath of loyalty to their traffickers in an elaborate ritual that compels them to pay back extortionate sums of money. They feel bound by this oath and fear that should they break it, they will be cursed. It is suggested that as many as 20,000 Nigerian women work as prostitutes on the streets of Italy.

I think that the film provides valuable insight into a really important subject, but the attempt by the film's makers to blame this heinous activity on indigenous African spiritual tradition misses the point completely, and perhaps also plays into culturally oppressive stereotypes. Prostitution in Europe by African women is nothing to do with indigenous African cultural tradition. The real reasons for it are poverty, coupled with the demand in Europe for prostitutes.

There are prostitutes working in Western Europe who come from Russia, Moldova, Belarus and the Ukraine, and as far afield as the Philippines and Vietnam. But to suggest that all of those women too have been subjected to an oath of loyalty by a babalawo (an African witch doctor) would clearly be nonsensical. The motive for all of these women, yes, including those from Nigeria, is money, the search for a better life, and for many, the ability to support the families they leave behind in their home countries.

And while this may be their original intention, I did not see from the film that the lives of the families the women left behind in Nigeria were improved in any way at all, since the families seemed still to be living in abject poverty, despite having relatives who are working abroad.

The truth is that all over the world, poor people are being taken advantage of by the wealthy, through a globalised system of capitalism, which forces people to sell their souls in order to put food on the table. In Bangladesh, Afghanistan and others, it is normal for poor families to put to work children as young as 7 years of age, to contribute to the family income. In parts of Africa, out of poverty, some mothers are forced to sell their own children into slavery. This is the harsh reality for the poor in today's world.

I think the makers of the film, rather than trying to blame African spirituality for prostitution in Europe, should have taken the time to explore the true causes of the problem. It is not surprising, nor is it unreasonable that the particular manifestation of this misfortune in Edo State in Nigeria, would be articulated in a characteristic and localised form, i.e., through a distortion of juju, which in fact is a part of the local traditions of the people.

See also Human Trafficking, the Nigerian Connection

Yetunde's blog

A couple of weeks ago, my neighbour who attends the same church as I do gave me some food to take home. In the food container that she handed to me was ayemashe (or ayamashe), a particularly spicy but extremely delicious traditional stew of the Ijebu people, among Nigeria's Yoruba population. Its not unusual for me to receive gifts of food from ladies at church, since perhaps they think that not having a wife must mean that I am under-nourished. They seem to have a desire to ensure that I receive proper nourishment and get all the vitamins that I need. Well, I don't know anyone who turns down perfectly good home-cooked food when its so freely offered. And I do not wish to be the first person I know who does. So of course such gifts are gladly (and gratefully) accepted, even if the ultimate benefit to me is that I'm spared having to shop for and cook food until all that free food has run out. This last time it was ayemashe.

Ayemashe is unique. For me while growing up was a mystery. Nothing that we ate at home, at our friends' or relatives' houses, at parties, or anywhere, even came close to tasting like ayemashe, that greenish-brownish stew with little pieces of meat in it, usually served with white rice. For many years it was offered mainly at small informal eating places known as buka, (or bukateria, a play on the word cafeteria), and was available with rice for a small amount. As far as I knew ayemashe was a delicacy that was consumed only once in a while. It seemed to me that only a relatively small number of people knew how to prepare it, and that they kept their secret close to their chests.

I have recently observed, however, that ayemashe has become more readily available, and is served at many Nigerian restaurants at home and abroad, sometimes appearing on the menu as "designer stew". What this means of course is that more and more people have learned how to cook it. So after joyfully consuming all of the ayemashe that Bisola (my neighbour) gave me, the next time we were in the car together on the way home from church I asked her for the recipe, which when it was revealed to me turned out to be surprisingly simple. And from that moment on I was determined to cook ayemashe for myself, but I thought I should search online to see if anyone else had done something similar and posted it. In doing so I happened upon Yetunde's blog, which I must admit I'm now totally hooked on.

The photo at the top of this post is ayemashe on rice, but its not mine. It's borrowed from Avartsy Cooking, Yetunde's blog. I haven't summoned the courage to cook mine yet, but going through her blog has opened my eyes to all kinds of possibilities and the kitchen beckons now more strongly than ever before. I should be keeping you posted.