Academic literature on the topic 'Mandara Mountains region-Northern Cameroon/Northern Nigeria'

ABSTRACTWhile from the sixteenth to the early twentieth century there was a lasting and elastic demand for slaves in Central Africa, the practices by which they were acquired had to be adapted to the physical and human terrain, the technologies available and the socio-cultural postures of the predator and prey societies. In this paper, I sketch the changing patterns of these variables in six slaving zones in and around the northern Mandara Mountains. Using historical sources, information from the diary of Hamman Yaji, a Fulani chief and active slaver, and data gathered in the course of ethnographic research in three of these zones by myself and colleagues, I show that in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the extraction of slaves from particular sub-regions within these zones was highly variable, as is evident in the interfaces between the decentralized prey societies and the predatory states. Besides providing fresh perspectives on slaving and evidence for evaluating the constructions of historians, such studies open the way for research on the mutual accommodations to slaving affecting the societies and cultures of both prey and predators.

Did Africans once independently invent the smelting of metals or did they obtain this technology from Europe or the Middle East? This continues to be an unresolved and hotly disputed issue, mainly because the dates for the earliest appearance of smelting in Africa south of the Sahara remain inconclusive. All the earliest sites in Western and West-Central Africa from Walalde in Senegal to the Tigidit cliffs and Termit in Niger, the firki plains south of lake Chad, Taruga, and perhaps Nsukka in Nigeria, Ghwa Kiva (Nigeria), and Doulo (Cameroon) in the Mandara mountains, Gbabiri (Ndio district) in the Central African Republic, and a few sites in Rwanda, Burundi, and Buhaya cannot be dated more closely than between 840 and 420 BCE. Greater precision is impossible because the C14 curve runs flat during these four centuries, hence all these sites yield the same date. (Alpern, Killick, Me Eachern, Holl, Jézégou/Clist, Kanimba Misago). If the earliest “real” dates fell before 800 BCE, they would support independent invention, while later dates strengthen the case for borrowing. Still, this information does tell us that ironworking was adopted in the northern parts of West and West -Central Africa and in the region of the Great Lakes within the span of a mere four centuries.The emergence of ironworking must have left linguistic traces in the relevant terminology irrespective of whether it spread by borrowing or by independent invention—hence historical linguistics can contribute to this debate. That approach is best tested by an examination of the relevant vocabulary in Bantu languages because the historical study of those languages is further advanced than that of any other language family in Africa (Nurse/Phillipson). Moreover Bantu-speakers occupy a large portion of the continent.

In 2008, a number of iron artefacts were recovered from an interior courtyard on the DGB-1 site during fieldwork in 2008. DGB-1 is a large multi-function site located in the northeastern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon, and dating to the mid-second millennium AD. The iron artefacts recovered included a cache of spear/arrow points found buried under a living floor, as well as a local hoe and a chain and a ‘barrette’ probably not of local provenance. This discovery has a number of points of interest: (1) ethnoarchaeological reenactments of iron smelts in the 1980s in the same region provide a rare opportunity for comparison of iron-working techniques over about five centuries in sub-Saharan Africa; (2) the variability in different forms of iron (including eutectoid steel) used in these artefacts; and (3) the welding of different forms of iron to produce composite artefacts.

It really was a chance occasion, just before Christmas 2003. On my way to the Dogon area I had greeted my friends in Sangha, and was speaking with a Dutch friend, when a French tourist lady suddenly barged into the hall of the hotel and asked me: “There should be a cavern with a mural depicting Sirius and the position of all the planets. I saw it in a book. Where is it?”. My friend smiled wrily, amused by the irony of situation: by chance the lady had fallen upon the one who had spent decennia to disprove this kind of “information”. “In what book?” I asked, and named a few. It was none of these, and she could not tell me. Cautiously (maybe she had planned her whole trip around this Sirius “experience”) I explained to her that though there was a lot to see, this particular mural did not exist. She left immediately, probably convinced she stumbled on a real ignoramus.In retrospect I never meant to criticize Marcel Griaule, it just happened as a consequence of other choices, which eventually led me to Dogon country. After completing my PhD thesis on the Kapsiki/Higi of northern Cameroun and northeastern Nigeria, I started scouting for a second area of field research. For two reasons, I wanted a comparable setting: to allow myself to feel at home easily because I seemed to have less time, and to use in general the approach of controlled comparison. In my first field research I had made a more or less classic ethnography of a group of comparable size (150,000) in a similar environment, living in the Mandara Mountains south of Lake Chad and straddling the border between northern Cameroun and North Eastern Nigeria.

The Cameroon Volcanic Line, a mountain chain located between West and Central Africa, is a region of numerous endemic diversifications, including of puddle frogs (Phrynobatrachus). This study reviews the phylogeny and taxonomy of puddle frogs of the “Cameroon radiation,” which is a clade containing mainly montane but also at least three lowland species. Molecular data revealed a novel evolutionary lineage from high altitudes in the northern part of the mountains. Puddle frogs from the new, minute-sized (SVL < 20 mm) lineage are identified using molecular, morphological and acoustic data and described as two new species, Phrynobatrachus arcanus sp. nov. (Gotel Mountains, Cameroon–Nigeria) and P. mbabo sp. nov. (Tchabal Mbabo, Cameroon). The tadpole of the first species is also described. Phylogenetic analyses placed the new lineage to the proximity of the recently described lowland small-sized taxa (P. horsti, P. ruthbeateae). Based on the inferred phylogeny, we propose five species groups within the Cameroon radiation: P. arcanus, P. chukuchuku, P. ruthbeateae, P. steindachneri, and P. werneri. The taxonomically enigmatic P. hylaios is proposed to be a member of the P. ruthbeateae species group. The basal radiation evolved during the late Miocene with subsequent diversifications occurring during the Pliocene, while closely related terminal taxa originated during the Pleistocene. We recommend that the newly described species are categorized as Critically Endangered due to their limited ranges and because recent surveys did not identify any individuals at the type localities. This further supports the need for conservation interventions in the mountains of Cameroon and Nigeria.

Indigenous beers are very popular and widely consumed by people from northern Cameroon because of its low cost. Despite their appeal, microbial quality of these beverages remains a serious call for concern. This work was aimed to investigate microbial changes and hazards of contamination during the processing of two special sorghum beers brewed in northern Cameroon. Producers were observed during the production and samples were collected at different stages for analysis of microbiological parameters such as total count, fungi, spore-forming bacteria, Coliforms and E. coli using referenced methods. Total count ranged from 13.5 x 103 to 195 x 103 CFU/mL and 0.16 x 103 to 660 x 103 CFU/mL; fungi from 0.26 x 103 to 22 x 103 CFU/mL and 0.22 x 103 to 85 x 103 CFU/mL; E. coli from 0.69 x 102 to 13.6 x 102 CFU/mL and 0.65 x 102 to 3.8 x 102 CFU/mL during the production of the red “té” and white “mepdli” beers, respectively. Spore-forming bacteria and Coliforms (total and fecal) were detected in all the collected samples. Bacterial spores were also enumerated in red (38 x 103 CFU/g) and white (62.5 x 103 CFU/g) sorghum grains used as the main raw materials for the production of “té” and “mpedli” beers. The results suggest that the processing of both turbid beers using the traditional method are exposed to microbial contamination. Increase of microbial loads after soaking, adding of the supernatant (red beer only) and malted flour (white beer only) after the heating step means that control measures are needed to prevent contamination after these sensitive stages. Proper handling of raw materials, adequate implementation of heating and fermentation were found as effective critical control points. Training of producers on the hazards analysis and good manufacturing and hygiene practices have been suggested as strategies to improve the safety of indigenous beers.

The Muri Mountain range is located in the area formed by the boundaries between the federal states of Bauchi, Taraba, and Adamawa in Northern Nigeria. Various small, linguistically, and partly culturally distinct ethnic groups inhabit this mountain region. The Muri Mountains may be counted among those regions of Africa about which academic knowledge was rather scarce until recent times. Here I shall recount the experiences of two nineteenth-century German explorers of Africa, Eduard Vogel and Eduard Robert Flegel, who played an important part in the history of research on the Muri Mountains. Approaching the region from different directions, Vogel and Flegel were the first Europeans to gain detailed knowledge of vthe area and its inhabitants. The Muri Mountains, in themselves, were not a focus of attention for the two travelers, but just an incidental issue on which they touched during their voyages.Most European travelers of that time bypassed the Muri Mountains. This becomes obvious when looking at contemporary maps, on which one can hardly find any geographical information on the area between present-day Gombe and the river Benue until the 1870s (compare the two maps in Rohlfs 1872). Previously, in 1851 Heinrich Barth had arrived at Yola, coming via the Mandara Mountains. After a short stay, however, he had to return to Borno. In the itineraries he collected at Yola, the names of Tangale and Chongom are mentioned as stations on the way from Yola to Dukku (cf. Barth 1857, 2: 701, 708-09, 601-02).

Depuis au moins 500 ans, au sud du bassin du lac Tchad, la région des monts Mandara représente la rencontre géographique et culturelle entre deux mondes aux modes de pensée opposés : les populations des montagnes, égalitaires et non-islamisées, et celles des plaines environnantes, vivant sous le contrôle hiérarchique d’États islamiques, tels que Bornou et Wandala. Cette thèse s’inscrit dans une longue tradition de recherches archéologiques et ethnologiques entreprises depuis une quarantaine d’années dans cette région du monde afin de documenter le rapport ambigu qui existe entre ces deux systèmes sociopolitiques, au passé et au présent. Entre 1993 et 2012, les équipes d’archéologues du Projet Maya Wandala (PMW) et du Projet DGB (Diygyd- bay) ont mis sur pied l’une des plus grosses bases de données céramiques uniformisées de la région. Suivant une approche holistique, diachronique et régionale de la question des contacts culturels en zone frontalière, cette étude porte sur le décor céramique de 150 000 tessons issus de ce corpus. Provenant de huit sites clés du Nord-Cameroun et du Nord-Nigéria, ces petits objets racontent plus de 3000 ans d’histoire de cette région, du Néolithique jusqu’à la fin de l’Âge du Fer Final. Les méthodes d’analyses statistiques de classement (cluster analysis) par nuées dynamiques (k-moyennes) et d’agrégation Ward ont été mises à profit afin d’explorer les similarités et les différences de ces collections, à travers le temps et l’espace. Par la comparaison de mes résultats avec les données archéologiques, ethnologiques et historiques de notre région d’étude, une histoire chronologique de chacun des sites est proposée. Sur le site DGB-1/-2, plus important témoin à ce jour de l’occupation préhistorique des montagnes, les lieux de vie quotidienne, cooking area par exemple, se distinguent de ceux qui servent à l’aménagement physique, entre autres les remblais, malgré la similitude des décors céramique qu’on y retrouve. L’identification de quatre groupes aux décors céramiques particuliers met en exergue les différences qui apparaissent entre les populations des plaines et des montagnes, ainsi qu’entre les populations des plaines associées à l’élite étatique de Wandala, et les autres. Dans le contexte de la mise en place des premiers États centralisateurs dans la région, nous voyons donc comment ce phénomène historique d’importance a eu des répercussions non seulement sur l’occupation et la perception du paysage, mais également sur l’identité céramique.
For the last 500 years at least, in the southern area of Lake Tchad, the Mandara Mountains region represents the geographical and cultural meeting point of two contrasting ways of thinking: the egalitarian and non-Muslim populations of the mountains; and the populations of the surrounding plains—dominated by the hierarchical authority of Islamic states, including Bornou and Wandala states. This thesis is the continuation of a long tradition of archaeological and ethnological research completed during the last 40 years in this region. Its aim is to document the ambiguous relationship that exists between these two socio-political systems, in the past and the present. Between 1993 and 2012, teams of archaeologists working on both the Projet Maya Wandala (PMW) and the Projet DGB (Diy-gyd-bay) established one of the largest ceramic databases in the region. Following a holistic, diachronic and regional approach regarding the issue of cultural contacts in the border area, the present thesis focuses on the analysis on ceramic decoration from this dataset. These potsherds (n=150,000), originating from eight key archaeological sites located in Northern Cameroon and Northern Nigeria, tell the story of the region spanning more than 3000 years, dating from the Neolithic to the end of the Late Iron Age (LIA). Methods of statistical analysis, such as cluster analysis by dynamic clustering (K-Means) and Ward aggregation, have been used in order to explore both similarities and differences present in these collections, through time and space. After a comparison of my results with the archaeological, ethnological and historical data of the study area, a chronology of these sites is proposed based on the ceramic data. On the DGB- 1/-2 site, the most important evidence of prehistoric occupation of the mountains, the domestic spaces, such as the cooking area, are differentiated from those used for redeposited materials, despite the similarity of ceramic decorations found there. The identification of four groups of distinct ceramic decorations underlines the differences that arise between the lowland populations and those from the mountains, as well as between the lowland populations associated with the Wandala elite, and other groups. In the context of the emergence of the first centralised states in this region, we can see how this important historical phenomenon had consequences, not only on occupation and the use of the landscape, but also on ceramic identity.

The northern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon have been a focus of slave raiding for the past five centuries, according to historical sources. Some captives from the area were enslaved locally, primarily in Wandala and Fulbe communities, while others were exported to Sahelian polities or further abroad. This chapter examines ethnohistorical and archaeological data on nineteenth- and twentieth-century slave raiding, derived from research in montagnard communities along the north-eastern Mandara Mountains of Cameroon. Enslavement and slave raiding existed within larger structures of day-to-day practice in the region, and were closely tied to ideas about sociality, social proximity and violence. Through the mid-1980s at least, enslavement in the region was understood as a still-relevant political and economic process, with its chief material consequence the intensely domesticated Mandara landscape.