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SHANGAWA 677
A corpse is buried with monkey skin around the loins and placed in a round
hole 30 inches deep. A tunnel is dug at the bottom, facing north-south. While
drummers pound a slow, mournful beat, mourners, usually a man's wrestling
and brideservice mates, carry the body around the grave three times. The corpse
is lowered into the grave facing the right side of the tunnel with the right hand
under the head. For the Shangawa, as for many African peoples, including
Muslims, the right side is sacred, the left profane. The corpse's feet must be to
the north with the face to the east.
Yauri long ago came under the religious influence of Muslim traders and
religious leaders, mallamai (singular, mallam). In the seventeenth century that
influence came predominantly from the Kebbi, whose Muslim leader, Kanta,
was a legendary but real slave raider. By the end of the seventeenth century,
the Emir of Yauri was a Muslim. Yauri Muslims are Sunni by sect, Maliki in
rite. Indeed, the power of Maliki law to organize the government and administration
of the emirate was a major factor in its acceptance by the ruling Hausa.
Currently, the government sponsors mallamai to effect conversion. The employment
of clear-cut role models is a definite art of Islamic conversion strategy.
These are males who must know how to read and write Quranic Arabic and have
gone through training. The Islamic Education Trust, an association with links
throughout the Islamic world and with headquarters in Mecca, sponsors training
projects and provides literature and other aid.
The mallamai generally live in villages and support themselves through farming.
They interact with the Shangawa in every aspect of life, seeking to demonstrate
that Islam transcends ethnic identity. Additionally, they attempt to convert
groups of people in order to provide a convert with a built-in support group.
They are not hesitant either to show that economic and political advantages
accrue to Muslims over traditionalists.
The work of the mallamai has not been in vain. While today a large minority
of the Shangawa are Muslims, soon the majority will be. Shangawa who are
not yet Muslim have begun to adopt Muslim names, dress and practices. They
consult mallamai in religious and other matters. Some mallamai are also traditional
doctors, and others teach in schools. No strong hostility has marred
relationships between the Shangawa and Yauri's rulers. Many Shangawa have
served as village heads and counsellors. Therefore, there is no natural impediment
in refusing Islam such as the Dukawa, for example, have done. Already the
Shangawa celebrate all the Islamic religious holidays that the Hausa do. They
do so even though they, like the Hausa in Yauri, tenaciously hold on to the old
Bori practices and beliefs and never quite abandon the old religion.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
Meek, Charles K. The Northern Tribes of Nigeria. 1925. Reprint ed. London: Frank
Cass, 1971.