e - CIFAS

vi PREFACE CONTENTS vii
however, we differ from the historians in certain important ways.
The two theoretical chapters and the general organization of this
study illustrate my view ofan anthropological approach to history,
and the accountofthe growth of this bookshows how this approach
and the theories associated with it have developed.
To Professor Daryll Forde lowe far more than Tcan acknowledge
for his tireless interest and careful criticism of all the drafts
of this book. He has always insisted on clarification and fullness of
detail, and even when disagreeing with my interpretations, has
given generous constructive criticism. It is not too much to say
that withont his interest the manuscript might not have got much
further than the first draft.
Dr. Esther Goldfrank and her husband, Professor Karl A.
Wittfogel, have also criticized the manuscript at different stages,
and I have drawn much encouragement from their stimulating
comments.
To Mallam Hassan and hi8 brother MaUam Shu'aibu, whose
books on the Habe of Abuja initially made this endeavour p088ible,
lowe the warmest appreciation and thanks. Mallam HaSBan taught
me Hausa at the School of Oriental and Mclean Studies, and I had
the good fortune to meet Mallam Shu'aibu in Katsina Province,
Nigeria, where he was Provincial Education Officer, in February
1959. We discussed his text in detail, and he gladly answered
certain critical questions about the pattetn8 of recruitment to
Abuja offices which my further experience in Nigeria had raised.
A paragraph in the text summarizes this new information.
My Fulani infonnants are too many to name individually. The
chief of them were the Madaki Sa'idu, son of the Emir Aliyn, the
Galadima Hayatu, the Mada.uci Ibrahim, the Fagaci Muhammadu,
MaDam Abdulkadiri of Tukur-Tukur, and especially Mallam
Ibrahim Mijiniya, who has since died. To these and all others who
taught me the cultural significance of their history, I am most
sincerely indebted. I also drew on District Notebooks and other
administrative records.
The fieldwork on which this study is based was carried out in
1949-50 on a Fellowship of the Colonial Social Science Research
Council. Since completing work on this manuscript, I have also
had the opportunity to return to Northern Nigeria to carry out
comparable studies of political history in the emirates of Kana,
Katsina, Daura, and Sakata as a member of the staff of the
Nigerian Institute of Social and Economic Research. I am most
grateful to Professor R. H. Barback and the Institute for providing
me with this opportunity. and to the University College of the
West Indies for granting an extension of leave for this purpose. My
object in returning to Northern Nigeria and studying the history
of these states was simply to test those generalizations about the
process of governmental change with which this book concludes
against new bodies of data. For if, to the social anthropologist,
history may permit or require theories of change, these theories
must be stated explicitly and must be subject to comparative tests.
M. G. SMITH.
LoNDON, SeptembIT 1959.