Hausa animism

Hausa animism or Bori is an African traditional religion of the Hausa people of West Africa which involves spirit possession.

Terminology

Bòòríí is a Hausa noun, meaning the spiritual force which resides in physical things, and is related to the word for local distilled alcohol (borassa) as well the practice of medicine (boka).[1] The Bori religion is both an institution to control these forces, and the performance of an "adoricism" (as opposed to exorcism) ritual, dance and music by which these spirits are controlled and by which illness is healed.[2]

Pre-Islamic Hausaland

An aspect of the traditional Maguzawa Hausa religious traditions, Bori became a state religion led by ruling class priestesses amongst some of the late pre-colonial Hausa States. When Islam started making inroads into Hausa land in the 14th century, certain aspects of the religion like idol worship were driven underground. The cult of Tsumbubura in the then Sultanate of Kano and many other similar Bori Cults were suppressed, but Bori survived in 'spirit-possession' cults by integrating some aspects of Islam. The Bori spirit possession priestesses maintained nominal influence over the Sultanates that replaced the earlier Animist Kingdoms. Priestesses communed with spirits through ecstatic dance ritual, hoping to guide and maintain the state's ruling houses. A corps of Bori priestesses and their helpers was led by royal priestess, titled the "Inna", or "Mother of us all".[3] The Inna oversaw this network, which was not only responsible for protecting society from malevolent forces through possession dances, but which provided healing and divination throughout the kingdom.

Post-Islamic and contemporary practice

Muslim scholars of the early nineteenth century disapproved of the hybrid religion practised in royal courts, overzealous Muslims were to use this hybridization as an excuse to overthrow the Sultanates and form the Sokoto Caliphate.[4] With the birth of the Caliphate, Bori practices were partially suppressed in Fula courts. Bori possession rituals survived in the Hausa refugee states such as Konni and Dogondutchi (in what is today southern Niger) and in some rural areas of Nigerian Hausaland. The powerful advisory roles of women, exemplified in the Bori priestesses, either disappeared or were transferred to Muslim women in scholarly, educational, and community leadership roles. British and French colonialism, though, offered little space for women in the official hierarchies of indirect rule, and the formal roles, like the Bori, for women in governance largely disappeared by the mid 20th century.[5]

In modern Muslim Hausaland, Bori ritual survives in some places assimilated into syncretic practices. The pre-Muslim "babbaku" spirits of the Maguzaci have been added to over time with “Muslim” spirits ("farfaru"), and spirits of (or representing) other ethnic groups, even those of the European colonialists. The healing and "luck" aspects of Bori members performances, almost entirely women, give new social roles for their rituals and practitioners.[6] Bori ritual societies, separated from governing structures, provide a powerful corporate identity for the women who belong to them through the practice of traditional healing, as well as through the performance of Bori festival like the girka initiation ritual.[7]

Homosexuality

Bori has a remarkably visible homosexual aspect. Northern Nigerias LGBT community called Yan Daudu is a clear reference to 'Daudu' one of the many spirits in the pantheon of Bori.[8] The Karuwai guild, a class of mostly lesbians and renegade women that refused to subscribe to cultural customs sometimes practicing prostitution also held substantial capital within the cult. These female husbands and boy wives continued to exercise a significant influence in Hausa society throughout the 70's and 80's[9]

Homosexual practices once common within Hausa society continued to survive and found legitimacy in Bori. Since the 1970s the slow radicalization of Northern Nigeria has witnessed continued suppression of the Yan Daudu and Karuwai[10]

References

  1. ↑ H. R. Palmer. "Bori" Among the Hausas. Man, Vol. 14, 1914 (1914), pp. 113-117
  2. ↑ Lewis, Al-Safi, Hurreiz (1991)
  3. ↑ Variations included Iya, Magaram, and Magajiya. See Bergstrom (2002).
  4. ↑ Robinson, David, Muslim Societies in African History (Cambridge, 2004), p141
  5. ↑ See Bergstrom (2002)'s discussion of this, particularly under the Zinder caliphate in Niger.
  6. ↑ Umar Habila Dadem Danfulani. Factors Contributing to the Survival of the Bori Cult in Northern Nigeria.
  7. ↑ Masquelier, Review (1992)
  8. ↑ Abdullahi, Sulaiman. The institution of ‘dan daudu’ in Hausa society.
  9. ↑ Gaudio, Rudolph (1998). Male lesbians and other queer notions in Hausa Society.
  10. ↑ Mark, Monica. "Nigeria's yan daudu face persecution in religious revival". Retrieved 2014-04-20.
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