Chapter III: The Indigenous Civilization of the North

An attempted reconstruction of the prehistoric period—considered locally—of that portion of Western Central Africa, now known as Northern Nigeria, would take up many chapters, and would be largely founded upon conjecture. It suffices to say that in the course of ages, through the influences of Moorish, Semitic, and probably pre-Semitic Egyptian culture, fused in later times with Mohammedan law, learning and religion, there has been evolved in this region a civilization combining a curious mixture of Africa and the East, to which no other part of the tropical or sub-tropical continent offers even a remote parallel. And this is the more remarkable since these territories have been separated from the east by inhospitable, mainly waterless stretches, and from the north by vast and desolate sandy wastes; while southwards the forest and the swamp cut them off from all communication with the outer world by sea. The peoples responsible for the creation of this civilization did not acquire the art of building in stone, but, at a cost of labour and of time which must have been gigantic (slave-labour, of course, such as built the pyramids) they raised great cities of sun-dried clay, encompassing them and a considerable area around, for purposes of cultivation and food-supply, with mighty walls. These walls, from twenty to fifty feet high and from twenty to forty feet thick at the base, in the case of the larger cities, they furnished with ponderous and deep towered entrances, protecting the gates with crenellated loop-holes and digging deep moats outside. They learned to smelt iron and tin; to tan and fabricate many leather articles durable and tasteful in design; to grow cotton and fashion it into cloth unrivalled for excellence and beauty in all Africa; to work in silver and in brass; to dye in indigo and the colouring juice of other plants; to develop a system of agriculture including (in certain provinces) irrigated farming, which, in its highest forms, has surprised even experts from Europe; to build up a great trade whose ramifications extend throughout the whole western portion of the continent; to accumulate libraries of Arabic literature, to compile local histories and poems, and, in a measure, to become centres for the propagation of intellectual thought.

That is the condition in which Leo Africanus found them in the sixteenth century, when he first revealed their existence to an incredulous and largely unlettered Western world; in which the pioneer explorers of the nineteenth century found them; in which the political agents of Great Britain found them ten years ago when destiny drove her to establish her supremacy in the country. That is the condition in which they are to-day in this difficult transition stage when the mechanical engines of modern progress, the feverish economic activity of the Western world, the invading rattle of another civilization made up of widely differing ideals, modes of thought, and aims, assailed them.

Will the irresistible might wielded by the new forces be wisely exercised in the future? Will those who, in the ultimate resort, direct it, abide by the experience and the advice of the small but splendid band of men whose herculean and whole-hearted labours have inscribed on the roll of British history an achievement, not of conquest, but of constructive statesmanship of just and sober guidance nowhere exceeded in our management of tropical dependencies? Will they be brought to understand all that is excellent and of good repute in this indigenous civilization; to realize the necessity of preserving its structural foundations, of honouring its organic institutions, of protecting and strengthening its spiritual agencies? Will they have the patience to move slowly; the sympathy to appreciate the period of strain and stress which these revolutionary influences must bring with them; the perception to recognize what elements of greatness and of far-reaching promise this indigenous civilization contains? Or will they, pushed by other counsellors, incline to go too fast both politically and economically, impatiently brushing aside immemorial ceremonies and customs, or permitting them to be assaulted by selfish interests on the one hand and short-sighted zeal on the other? Will they forget, amid the clamorous calls of “progress” and “enlightenment” that their own proclaimed high purpose (nobly accomplished by their representatives) of staying the ravages of internal warfare and healing open wounds will be shamed in the result if, through their instrumentality, the seeds of deeper, deadlier ills are sown which would eat away this fine material, destroy the lofty courtesies, the culture and the healthy industrial life of this land, converting its peoples into a troubled, shiftless mass, hirelings, bereft of economic independence and having lost all sense of national vitality? Thoughts such as these must needs crowd upon the traveller through these vast spaces and populous centres as he watches the iron horse pursue its irrevocable advance towards the great Hausa cities of the plains, as he hears the increasing calls from the newly opened tin mines for labour, from the Lancashire cotton-spinner for cotton and markets; as he takes cognisance of the suggestions already being made to break the spirit of the new and admirable land-law, and of the efforts to introduce a militant Christian propaganda; as he listens in certain quarters to the loose talk about the “shibboleths” and “absurdities” of indigenous forms and ceremonies, the cumbrousness of native laws and etiquette.