Zarma

ETHNONYMS: Djerma, Djermis, Dyabarma, Dyarma, Dyerma, Zabarmas, Zabermas, Zabirmawa, Zabramas, Zabrima, Zerma

Orientation

Identification. The Zarma are, after the Hausa, the second-largest ethnic group in the Niger Republic, in West Africa, and they have close cultural affinities with the Songhay.

Location. Zarma country covers an area of about 60,000 square kilometers in western Niger between the Niger River and the Dallol Mawri, a dry river valley in Dosso Department. The geography consists primarily of plateaus of sandy and poor lateritic soils, covered with Sudanian vegetation. Water is deep beneath the surface and scarce on the plateaus, which are traversed in a north-south direction by two wide valleys (the Dallol Bosso and the Dallol Mawri) of what were once tributaries of the Niger River. The valleys have heavier soils, shallower groundwater tables, widespread thickets of Doum palm (Hyphaene thebaica ), and large populations of winterthorn (Acacia albida ), interspersed with semipermanent ponds. During the long dry-season months, these valleys provide an oasislike contrast with the plateaus. The climate is Western Sahelian, with a single rainy season beginning in June and ending in August or September. Average rainfall varies from 50 centimeters in the north to 80 centimeters in the south. The average high temperature is 36° C, with temperatures reaching the mid-40s shortly before the rainy season; the average low temperature is 22° C.

Demography. The Zarma number more than 800,000, and, together with the related Songhay to the west (see "History and Cultural Relations"), they account for about one-fifth of Niger's population of 8.05 million. The Zarma are largely rural village dwellers, but some also live in larger towns in western Niger (e.g., Dosso, Koygolo, Loga, Say, Simiri, Ouallam, Tondikwindi, Tillaberi) and in the capital, Niamey. Population densities in Zarma country range from an average of 14 persons per square kilometer in Niamey Department to 23 persons per square kilometer in adjoining Dosso Department, whereas rural densities in the northern Dallol Bosso may exceed 100 persons per square kilometer. Life expectancy at birth is about 45 years (as of 1988), but an estimated 13 percent of newborn children die before attaining their first year (per 1987 reports).

Linguistic Affiliation. Zarma is a tonal dialect of the Songhay dialect cluster (with Songhay and Dendi) and is generally considered to be unrelated to any other known language or language group. Greenberg (1963) considers it to be a part of the Nilo-Sahelian language family; it has also been classified as Congo-Kordofanian.

History and Cultural Relations

The Zarma are widely believed to have originated in the Lake Debo area of the Niger River's "interior delta," between Mopti and Gundam, in the western margin of the former Songhay Empire, in what is now Mali. Their historical proximity accounts for the high degree of linguistic continuity between Zarma and Songhay and for similarities in religious belief and political institutions. The Zarma and the Songhay treat each other as cousins, have a joking relationship, and intermarry.

Following repeated raids on the Lake Debo area by Tuareg, Fulbe, Mossi, and Soninke as early as the fifteenth century, the Zarma left for the area around Gao, and then moved into southeastern Mali. They continued to move southward during the mid-to late sixteenth century, settling in Anzourou and Zarmaganda, north of Niamey. During the seventeenth and eigthteenth centuries, some Zarma moved from Zarmaganda into the dry river-valley areas east of Niamey and into the Fakara and Zigui plateaus of Zarmatarey to the southeast.

At each stage, the Zarma settlers encountered indigenous groups, which they displaced or assimilated: Ki, Lafar, Kalle, Goole, and Sije in the dallols and plateaus of Zarmatarey. The Zarma, in turn, suffered intrusions by Mawri and Kurfeyawa from the east, but these outsiders are now assimilated. Strife between ethnic groups subsided until the early nineteenth century, when Zarmatarey was subjected to frequent raids by Lissawan and Kel Nan Tuareg from Tagazzar and Imanan in the north, and by Fulbe, who had migrated into Dallol Bosso from Say. The situation became so difficult by the late nineteenth century that the Zarma chief of Dosso, Zarmakoy Attikou, requested assistance in 1898 from French military troops stationed in Karimama (Benin). The French quickly responded, but, to the great dismay of Zarmakoy and his followers, they occupied Dosso and refused to leave, intitiating a period of nearly sixty years of French colonialism in Niger.

Settlements

Zarma villages are typically nucleated settlements made up of round mud or thatched dwellings with straw roofs and and also of occasional rectangular houses built of dried-mud bricks.

Economy

Subsistence and Commercial Activities. The Zarma are dryland farmers who cultivate varieties of millet as their principal subsistence crop. Only small amounts of the grain are sold following the harvest, but poorer families may have to sell grain at low prices shortly after the harvest to obtain needed cash. Typically, millet is intercropped with cowpeas, sorrel, and Bambara and other groundnuts. Sorghum and manioc are also widely cultivated in areas with heavier soils. Some dry-season gardening is also practiced in low-lying areas where the groundwater table is sufficiently shallow. Garden production is varied and includes a range of tree crops (such as mangoes, guavas, citrus fruits, papayas, dates, bananas, and nitta trees [Parkia africana ]), together with vegetables, (tomatoes, carrots, peppers, lettuce, cabbages, squashes, sorrel, and okra), root crops (manioc, sweet potatoes), and some grains and pulses (rice and cowpeas).

Zarma agriculture is characterized by its heavy reliance on household labor, its widespread use of simple hand tools and very limited use of animal traction, and a production system that combines extensive annual cultivation of crops in nearby infields (which are fertilized with animal manure and domestic refuse) with cultivation for periods of from three to five years of unfertilized distant bush fields, which are then fallowed.

Household fields are divided between those fields that are managed by the household head (windi koy ), in which all household members are required to do some communal work, and the fields that are allocated by the household head to family members to farm individually. Women cultivate sesame, tiger nuts, Bambara and other groundnuts, sorrel, and okra on their plots and often sell some of their produce.

The Zarma frequently raise small ruminants and poultry; they raise cattle less frequently. Livestock are left to multiply and are occasionally sold to raise cash; they are slaughtered but rarely, to provide meat for religious ceremonies, baptisms, and the like.

Industrial Arts. Women make both plain and brightly colored mats and round covers and hangers for storage containers from Doum-palm leaves; men use the leaves to make rope. Blacksmithing, leatherwork, and some woodworking (manufacture of mortars, pestles, and tool handles) is done by descendants of the servile Tuareg caste. Blanket weaving is done by descendants of domestic captives and, occasionally, by Fulbe (Rimaibe). The Zarma also make pottery.

Trade. Zarma men are well known throughout Sudano-Sahelian West Africa for their practice of migrating south each year to distant towns and cities in the forest areas along the Guinea Coast, where they engage in ambulant petty trade and where "Zarma" has become synonymous with "cloth trader." The Zarma refer to these migrants as "children of the forest" or "children of the south." Women are also active in trade, largely within Niger, where they often specialize in sale of condiments and palm-leaf mats.

Division of Labor. In the household fields, men have the primary responsibility for clearing, sowing, weeding, guarding against pests, and harvesting. In addition to shouldering a full range of demanding domestic tasks, women participate in the sowing and harvesting of the household fields, and they often cultivate small dry-season gardens in river-valley areas. In Zarmaganda, women work alongside their husbands in cultivating millet; in Zarmatarey, they do not.

Land Tenure. Almost all of the rural land in Zarma country is owned and managed by a corporate body consisting of the males who claim descent from the first settlers in the area. Household members gain usufruct rights to lineage land by virtue of their consanguineal or affinal ties with the patrilineage. Outsiders obtain access to community land through long-term loans, occasional rental, gifts, pawning, or, more rarely, purchase. The Zarma are adamant that, unlike their Hausa neighbors to the east, they do not sell their land. Whereas land sales in the countryside are scarce, some do occur in areas where shallow water tables make commercial gardening possible or in areas adjoining the main feeder roads and highways that connect with larger towns.

Kinship

The patrilineage and lineage segments are the most significant kinship groupings. Descent is patrilineal. Iroquois cousin terminology, with bifurcate-merging terms, is used.

Marriage and Family

Marriage. Polygyny is highly valued among Zarma men, but monogamy is more common statistically, accounting for 70 to 80 percent of all households. The incidence of polygyny is higher among older and wealthier men; it is considered evidence of social success. Residence is patrilocal.

Domestic Unit. The basic domestic social unit is the household (windi ), which combines the functions of coresidence, production and consumption, and reproduction. It is headed by a male, who also heads one or more of the conjugal families within the household. Wives in polygynous households have individual dwellings within the household compound for themselves and their children. Households clustered together within larger compounds may embrace as many as three generations: the household head, his father's family, and his son's families.

Inheritance. Inheritance is patrilineal among the Zarma. Fathers bequeath their land to their male children, but the absence of primogeniture and the influence of Islamic law contribute to a parceling up of land across generations. A woman inherits land only if she is the sole survivor of a deceased husband or older brother.

Socialization. Zarma parents indulge their children through early childhood, although they do discipline them occasionally. Relations between firstborns and their parents are tempered by a degree of avoidance, an expression of a sense of shame or timidity (hawi ), which is also expected of the young in their relations with their elders and superiors. This expression is manifest in social interaction as a looking away or down on the part of the younger person who is being addressed. From about 6 years of age, when their potential for using reason and good judgment (hkkal ) begins to show itself, children are initiated through play and light work into their future gender roles as adults. Children accompany their parents to the fields at sowing time to watch, and they follow along, learn the movements, and help carry seed. Boys are assigned to watch after goats and sheep and to cut grass and branches for fodder. Girls care for younger children, often carrying them on their backs as older women do; they play at pounding millet and sell cola nuts or prepared foods in the village for their mothers. Boys are circumcised at an early age, but circumcision is not a rite of passage, and little is made of it. Girls do not undergo clitoridectomy.

Sociopolitical Organization

Social Organization. Significant social units beyond the household include the village quarter (kurey ), whose households are headed by members of a lineage segment and who elect a quarter chief (kurey koy ), and the village (kwara ) itself, whose chief (kwara koy ) is elected by the council of quarter chiefs. Village chiefs are accorded deference, but they occupy a status of first among equals and have little power to enforce decisions for the community. Age classes are not significant social categories among the Zarma, owing to the lack of emphasis given to coming-of-age. Cooperative endeavors are most frequently but not exclusively organized on the basis of agnatic or affinal ties. The most common form of community cooperation is the boogu, a short-lived collective-labor group that is organized to assist kin or neighbors with a variety of tasks ranging from clearing, planting, or weeding fields to building houses.

Precolonial Zarma society was divided into two classes: freemen, consisting of nobles (who were members of ruling families) and commoners, and captives. Captives were of two kinds: domestic captives, who were considered semikin, and captives who were seized in war and could be sold or traded. Slavery has been legally abolished in Niger, but the social distinction between the descendants of freemen and captives persists. Descendants of freemen and captives do not marry; some artisanal activities are practiced solely by descendants of captives or servile castes.

Political Organization. The most important chief in Zarma country is the Dosso Zarmakoy. The second level of authority comprises the canton chiefs, who are elected by councils of village chiefs. Village chiefs have tertiary authority; quarter chiefs report to them, and so on.

Social Control. Enculturation and the social pressure that comes from the transparency of personal life are quite effective as social-control mechanisms (see "Religious Beliefs"). Significant deviations and conflicts are handled initially by the village assembly or village elders, and then by the canton chief, who may, if the case warrants, call in government representatives.

Conflict. An essential part of Zarma history and ideology consists of the exploits of Zarma warriors in the precolonial period. Conflict, particularly with the pastoral Fulbe and Tuareg, is an essential element of the Zarma past. Despite the presence of indigenous mechanisms and a civil-court system for adjudicating disputes, conflict with the pastoral Fulbe, and occasionally with other Zarma from nearby villages, remains a part of the Zarma present. Disputes between Zarma villagers over land and with Fulbe over incursions by cattle and crop damage caused by livestock can be violent and occasionally fatal.

Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. Zarma religious beliefs are syncretic, combining some elements of Islam, which are most manifest in public life (in prayers, fasting, sacrifices, the hajj), with pre-Islamic beliefs that have strong ties to nature (e.g., earth and sky, thunder and lightning, water, and the bush). Among the latter, spirits, spirit cults, and spirit worship, as well as healing, magic, and sorcery, figure prominently. The major spirit "families" consist of those that control the sky and the forces of the Niger River; "cold" spirits, which are often ghosts; white, pure spirits; those that are responsible for misfortune and illness; those that control the forces of the soil; and the spirits of colonization and modernization. They manifest themselves through trances and the possession of individuals who thus become spirit priests and healers.

Religious Practitioners. Marabouts, Islamic leaders who have studied the Quran, lead Islamic observances. The priests of spirit-possession cults are often individuals who have been possessed by particular spirits and given healing powers thereby.

Ceremonies. Most Zarma participate both in Muslim ceremonies (daily and weekly prayer, Ramadan fast and prayer, and Tabaski) and in spirit-cult ceremonies, the most important of which is yenendi ("cooling off"), held toward the end of the long hot season (May/June). This a time of dancing and music, when the spirits are asked to provide good rains and ample harvests.

Arts. The most notable arts among the Zarma are their basketry (particularly the colorful, hand-dyed mats, covers, and hangers of storage containers, which are made by women from Doum-palm leaves); their pottery; and their woven blankets.

Medicine. Sickness can be somatic or behavioral. The former is treated by traditional and/or modern remedies. The latter has spiritual causes and must be treated by a healer or a marabout.

Death and Afterlife. The living person consists of three elements: the body (ga ); the invisible double (biya ), which gives each person his or her singularity; and the life force (fundi). These elements break up at death, which may be looked upon as having "natural" causes, or as having been caused by the actions of "cold" spirits.

See alsoSonghay

Bibliography

Diarra, Fatoumata-Agnes (1971). Les femmes zarma du Niger. Femmes Africaines en Devenir. Paris: Éditions Anthropos.

Greenberg, Joseph H. (1963). The Languages of Africa. Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics, Publication no. 25. The Hague: Mouton.

Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre (1982). Concepts et conceptions songhay-zarma: Histoire, culture, société. Paris: Nubia.

Olivier de Sardan, Jean-Pierre (1984). Les sociétés songhayzarma (Niger-Mali). Paris: Karthala.

Painter, Thomas M. (In preparation). "The Political Economy of Social Change and Peasant Response in West Africa: The Zarma of Niger, 1875 to 1985."

Rothiot, Jean-Paul (1984). "Zarmakoy Aouta: Les débuts de la domination coloniale dans le cercle de Dosso, 1898-1913." Thèse de dotorat de 3e cycle, Université de Paris VII.

Stoller, Paul (1989). Fusion of the Worlds: An Ethnography of Possession among the Songhay. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Tersis-Surugue, Nicole (1981). Économie d'un système: Unités et relations syntaxiques en Zarma (Niger). Bibliothèque de la SELAF, 87-88. Paris: Société d'Études Linguistiques et Anthropologiques de France/ACCT.

THOMAS M. PAINTER