o - Aceh Books website

566 NUPE
language of these classes, Islam was strongly associated with "foreignness."
Later in the century, as the Nupe element became stronger and the rulers began
to identify themselves as Nupe, Islamic prayers and observances were translated
into Nupe, and, indeed, Bida became a well-known locus of Islamic scholarship
in the late nineteenth century. The Muslim legal system was Maliki.
Islam made little impression on the rural areas in this period for the simple
reason that the urban Nupe/Fulani were raiding the countryside for slaves. Virtually
all hinterland settlements were atop the inselbergs and mesa hill formations
that abound in this area. Relations with the towns were hostile. Only with the
suppression of slaving did Islam begin to penetrate the countryside, mostly
through the agency of traders, but also through the conversion of villagers who
had gone to cities to work. As a result, it was diffused principally along the
roads, and today there is a strong correlation between the distribution of Muslims
and the accessibility of the villages.
Another factor inhibiting the spread of Islam was Christianity. Mission stations
were first established at Lokoja in the 1860s, and with the establishment of the
authority of the Royal Niger Company at the end of the century they began to
have a broader impact. The initial response to Christianity in Bida was entirely
negative, but in the nearby villages it was widely adopted at a ceremonial level.
Its expansion continues today. Part of the reason, undoubtedly, is the need for
rural populations, who have defined themselves in opposition to the town for a
century, also to define themselves ideologically. Christianity provides a coherent
means of doing this.
A small Nupe village consists of a number of interlinked compounds, and
these are structured so as to accommodate the extended family. All married men
have their own rooms, and normally each of their wives also has a separate
room. These rooms are single circular or rectangular chambers, built into or
surrounded by an exterior wall. Traditionally, there was a single entrance to
each compound through a large circular building, the katamba. The head of the
household would meet and talk with his guests in this building, and only women
were allowed to pass through to greet their relatives. When a son of the compound
married, he might either reside patrilocally, if both farmland and housing were
available, or else begin a new nuclear compound elsewhere. This neolocal tendency
has become more common in recent years, both in the towns, where space
is at a premium, and in rural areas, where access to fertile land is presently more
important than defensive needs.
Children normally sleep in their mother's room until they are adolescents.
Male children then sleep in the room of one of their male relatives, most commonly
an older brother. Unmarried girls may sleep in the room of any female
relative. Although there is ideally a premium on virginity among girls, it is not
very strictly obeyed, and the custom of exhibiting the blood-stained underclothes
of a newly married girl among urban Muslims was forbidden earlier in the
century. Circumcision is practiced throughout Nupeland and is normally done