e - CIFAS

6 GOVERNMEN!J"nf
from the pagan tribes of southern_.
traditionally fonned the legitimate target
have
, the
exaction of tribute, and so forth, and wboae iJ.lilrior tedmology,
smaller settlements, and peculiar modes of organ_dan have left
them relatively defenceless. Traditionally, these pagan. groups
sought security by recognizing the suzerainty of Zazzau and by the
payment oftribute or tax. On the whole, the closer the pagan group
to the limits of Hausa settlement, the more complete was its subjection
to Zaria, and the same alS9 held fot those tribes surrounding
the outlying Hausa enclaves. Subject pagan communities within
the territory of Zazzau were administered through their own elders
or headmen under the supervision of the king's officers.
Government in these kingdoms is conducted through a system
of ranked and titled offices known as sarautu (sing. sarau.ta, literally
title, rank, office), each of which can be regarded as an exelusive
permanent unit, a corporation sole. These titled offices are
characterized by such attributes as fiefs, clients, praise-songs,
allocated farmlands, compounds and other possessions, and are
grouped differently in the various structures we shall be studying,
into orders of rank. Relations between offices of subordinate
and superordinate rank-orders are highly formalized, while those
between offices of co-ordinate status are not clearly laid down.
In Ham; and Fulani Zazzau alike, very few of these offices were
hereditary. In nineteenth-