Chapter VII: The City of Kano and Its Market

You are permanently conscious that this country has a history and traditions. Nowhere, perhaps, does the fact impress the new-comer more vividly than at Kano. It is a wonderful place to find in Central Africa, this native city with its great enfolding walls, twelve miles in circumference, pierced by thirteen deep gateways (_kofas_), with platform and guardhouses and massive doors heavily clamped with iron; with its written records dating back nearly eight hundred years. And although incomparably the most important it is not the oldest of these Hausa cities—Katsina, now in the same “province,” is probably older. When the West-Saxon realm fell before the onslaught of the Danes and the first Danish King reigned over England, Hausaland was conquered by an unknown people from the East, and when the prosperity of the English towns was beginning to revive under Henry I., Gijimasu, the third King of the invading dynasty, was building Kano. When Henry VIII. was laying the foundations of personal government, the “rich merchants and most civil people” of Kano were entertaining Leo Africanus. Three hundred years later (1824) Clapperton entered this “great emporium of the kingdom of Hausa,” which Barth forty years afterwards termed the “far-famed entrepôt of Central Africa;” which Lugard was subsequently to describe as exceeding anything he had ever seen “or even imagined” in Africa. Tributary now to this, now to the other, evanescent African kingdom, frequently at war with its neighbours, repeatedly besieged, it has survived every vicissitude. Neither the disastrous struggles with Katsina in the seventeenth, and with Gober in the eighteenth centuries, nor the deposition and defeat of the forty-third (and last) King of the original dynasty by the Fulani early in the nineteenth century, nor yet the occupation of the country by the British seven years ago, have destroyed its influence or impaired its commercial prestige—a tribute to the staying power and to the sterling qualities of the truly remarkable African people whom, in the providence of God, it has now fallen upon us to rule. Its market-place, still the scene of clamorous activity, continues to attract merchants and merchandise from all parts of western Central Africa. It still remains the nerve-centre of a district whose natural fertility, aided by the labour and skill of a hard-working, industrious population, not only supports, as it has done for many centuries, a population of equal density to the square mile as England boasts, but exports large quantities of grain to less-favoured regions; and its looms continue to supply the requirements of an immense area ranging from the Chad to Timbuktu and the borders of Tripoli, and (in part, at least) southwards to the Niger.

Picturesque by day, with numerous and gaily dressed pedestrians and horsemen perambulating its tortuous streets, busy crowds around its markets, dye-pits, tanneries, and looms, Kano is still more so when the moon floods its broad open spaces with light and flings strange shadows across the sandy thoroughfares where they abut upon the dwelling-places of its inhabitants. Then, but for the occasional howl of a dog, this city which has endured so long and withstood so much lies wrapped in impenetrable silence. The ugly sores of Africa—not, assuredly, as ugly or as numerous as those of Europe, but more conspicuous—are mercifully hidden. No one walks abroad. Yet you know as you wander with noiseless footsteps through its curves and labyrinths, escaping for once from your inevitable native attendants (delightful people, but sadly hampering at times), that behind these thick clay walls and closed doors, the mysterious world of Africa is awake and stirring, that social world with its primitive impulses, but also with its many courtesies and refinements, that world of habit and of thought, guarded with jealous reticence from the alien, unfathomed and unfathomable even by the most experienced of Residents. And, again, at sunrise, when from the summit of the minaret outside the Emir’s residence, the pink flush of dawn steals down the sides of the city’s guardian hills, Dala and Goronduchi, flickers upon the fronds of the palm trees, and reveals the seemingly interminable vista of houses, mostly flat-roofed, but varied here and there by others of humbler thatch and conical in shape; when the blue wreaths of smoke from many fires mount perpendicularly into the crisp, still air, mingled with the aromatic scent of burning wood and a confused murmur of awakening life—then, too, the city holds you in the grip of a fascinated interest. It is difficult to explain this fascination, for the architecture of Kano, though imposing in its way, is rude. There are no flashing domes and sumptuous buildings as in the East; yet the few who have visited it, and the handful of officers—all travelled men—who by turn have had responsibility for the good order of the Emirate would be prepared, I fancy, one and all to confess that not even the blunting effects of familiarity can do away with the curious influences it exercises.

A visit to the famous market-place—the _Kasua Kurumi_—which covers a wide expanse, and where anything from 4000 to 7000 persons may be congregated together, according to the day, is a bewildering experience. In this tumultuous sea of humanity, shot with brilliant colours, details are swamped at first in general impressions. You are aware of a vast concourse of men and women, cheery-faced, closely packed together, clad in robes of many hues—white and various shades of blue predominating; of tossing arms and turbaned heads; of long lines of clay-built booths where piled-up merchandise awaits the customer; of incessant movement, the strife of many tongues, the waft of many scents, mostly the reverse of fragrant—over all, blue sky and fierce hot sun. As you move along with frequent pauses necessitated by the crush, and the eye gets more accustomed to the scene, some at least of its component parts stand out more clearly from the ever-shifting view, and the extraordinary variety of human types and the multiplicity of articles on sale is realized.

The home of the Kanawa (people of Kano), whose industry is famed from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, one would naturally expect to find their numbers in the ascendant. Keen-featured men of business, women with elaborate coiffures resembling pictures of old Assyrian helmets, their cheeks often disfigured by exaggerated “beauty spots” daubed on with lead or antimony. Other Hausas, visitors from Katsina, Gober, or Daura, each with the distinguishing facial mark of his clan, six strokes with a dot for Katsina, two for Daura, and so on. Pale-complexioned Fulani from the country, the women wearing their straight hair in ringlets, with silver earrings and gentle eyes. The Nupe, with his characteristic headgear of red, black, and yellow straw. Thick-lipped Kanuris from Bornu. Tall, lithe Tuareg from distant Sokoto, or Asben. The Arab merchant, arrogant and intriguer, making his way through the market to the “Arab quarter,” a quarter of the city remarkable for its Moorish architecture and unpleasantly notorious for its smells.

Each trade has its quarter. Beneath the shelter of the booths vendors sit cross-legged, their wares spread out before them. Cloths of every hue and texture under the sun, it would seem, absorb one whole quarter, and form, perhaps, the most important article of sale, although the more valuable clothes are seldom seen, for the Kano market is essentially a retail one, transactions in objects of more costly worth taking place within the shelter of private houses. You will see enough in the cloth quarter, however, to appreciate the diversity of quality and design, from the beautifully embroidered Kano _riga_ (a sort of hoodless cloak universally worn by the better classes, covering the body from neck to knee) to the common shirting of Manchester, the white _bullan_ or gown from Bornu, the _arigiddi_, or woman’s cloth from Zaria, the _faringodo_, or plain white cloth from Ilorin, the _majai_, or webbing made by the pagan tribes of Bauchi, and used by the Fulani for girths. The products of native looms from towns hundreds of miles distant, enjoying special renown for some attractive peculiarity, are purchasable here, together with the manufactures of Europe. The former are almost infinite in diversity, and each has its particular uses. Black, white, and blue gowns, brocade, striped brocade, striped shirting, white shirting, shirting with a red border, white and black checks, drill, red baft, cloths for turbans, caps, fezzes, expensively embroidered trousers, sleeveless under-vests, velvet—all in endless variety.

In the leather quarter you will find great quantities of saddlery from Tripoli, and also of local manufacture, highly ornamented bridles, stirrup-leathers, despatch-bags, _Korans_ in leather cases, purses, red slippers, sandals, quilted horsecloths, undyed goatskins and cowhides, swords in scabbards, many of them admirable in workmanship. An examination of the latter will disclose the interesting fact that the blades of the most expensive specimens bear the Sölingen mark, a curious example of the conservatism of this interior African trade, for as far back as the middle of the last century Sölingen sword blades were imported into Kano across the desert. Passing out of the leather quarter you will find silver, brass, and tin ware; among the former necklaces and earrings which would not disgrace a London jeweller’s shop-window, ruder bangles and anklets, partly tin, partly silver; brass urns and bowls, and glass bracelets from Bida. Necklaces of beads, Venetian and local, of agates imported from Tripoli and polished and cut at Bida, of cheap European coral, of different kinds of bright-coloured local seeds. Rough pottery, but often of elegant design, such, for example, as the small lamps used for burning ground-nut oil, in the manufacture of which mica enters.

Sheds and stalls, in addition to the booths, are devoted to the sale of numerous merchandise. The store of an elderly white-turbaned Hausa contains a mass of rough silk mixed up with the cocoons; these are produced by the silkworm, which feeds on the tamarind tree. The _rigas_ made from it are very dear, and also very pleasant to the touch, resembling in that respect and in colour tussore. Here is a stall containing the products of the local smithy, stirrup-irons, locks for doors, every kind of agricultural implement used by the native farmer, axes, knives, and skin-scrapers used in preparing goat and sheep skins for export. There a stall filled with native herbs used as medicines, from the _tafarnua_ for rheumatism to the _karijiji_ for colds, the _kula_ and _passakori_ much used by women after child-birth. Much space is taken up by the sellers of foodstuffs, mostly vegetable, such as guinea-corn and millet in variety, beans, yams, sugar-cane, sweet potatoes (in variety), pepper, onions, the fruit of the tamarind, the red flowers of the tobacco plant, cassava, and ginger.

In another direction you will observe on sale European salt and native potash in cakes and cones, zana-mats, firewood, native rope, roofing, sticks with branches, guinea-corn and millet stalks for fencing, native beds, doors made of palm sticks, baskets, mats in great diversity of size and colouring. Round about the booths and sheds on every side sit men and women (mostly the latter) selling articles of local or European origin; by their side, and, apparently, no more carefully watched than the articles themselves, small piles of cowries and sometimes the new nickel coinage we have introduced, and threepenny bits represent the takings of the day. Among such articles are to be observed indigo, antimony, ground-nuts, the inevitable kola-nut, shea-butter, spices, cow-dung in small packets (very precious), raw cotton, henna (_lelli_) for staining hands or feet, fresh honey, cakes and sweetmeats (of a fearful and wonderful composition), native soap from Nupe (_sabouni_), bobbins, shuttles, and other necessities of the national industry, cigarettes, red wool, green wool, crochet-thread, water-pots, and sundry cheap trinkets from Europe. The butchers’ quarter it is best to pass by swiftly; unsavoury in Europe, the flies and tropical sun do not improve it in Africa. Long files of cattle, donkeys, sheep, and goats can be seen winding their way to the cattle market, where many thousands are daily on sale.