ABSTRACT
The use of Cap by the Hausa and Yoruba and its significant has been an issue of interest to people and researchers.
This project was based on Hausa conversation between the Hausa and Yoruba men.
CHAPTER ONE
1.0 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 PREAMBLE
This study aims at comparing the different caps used in the Hausa and Yoruba people with its significant.
HISTORY OF HAUSA
According to Mukhtar Abdul-Kadir Yusufu, sptember, 2011 Hausa is one of the best known and widely spoken languages in West Africa. It is classified as a member of the Chadic group of the Afro-asiatic family of language. More recently, the relationship of Hausa to Cushitic, Berber and Semitic (i.e. Arabic, and Hebrew) language was widely recognized (of Greenberg, 1973). Hausa is largely and predominantly spoken in Nigeria and the Niger republic. Mukhtar Abdul-Kadir Yusuf, says that.
Sizeable Hausa speaking Communities are also found in Niger, Ghana, Cameroun, Chad, Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Togo, Sudan and many of the major cities of West, North and equatorial Africa. It is estimated that 80-100 million people can claim Hausa as a first language with some one hundred million non-natives speakers demonstrating varying degrees of competence in the language because of its importance in politics, trade and commerce, it is considered as lingua franca of West Africa. In terms of linguistics research, most of the Nigerian universities and others in Africa offer courses of Hausa up to PhD level, there are also other institutions offering various studies in the Hausa language. These includes Stanford university of California at Los Angeles, The university of London (SOAS) Indiana University, University of Leiden, University of Hamburg, University of Warsaw and many others.
In media broadcasting, Hausa is transmitted from Nigerian Niger, Ghana, Cairo and some other African broadcasting co-operations, there are also external broadcasting service transmitting in Hausa such as the BB London, voice of America, Radio Moscow, radio peaking, Germany and a few others. The Kano dialect of which the writer is a native speaker is regarded as the standard form of Hausa used in the media, for teaching purpose and in printed literature.
Zango FM retrieved 4 November 2015 states that the Hausa are one of the largest ethnic group in Africa. The Hausa are a diverse but cultural homogenous people based primarily in the Sahelian and Sudanian Daura area of northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger, with Significant numbers also living in parts of Cameroun, Cote d’Ivoire, chad, Togo, Ghana, Sudan, Gahon and Senegal. He further notes that the largest population of Hausa is concentrated in Nigeria and Niger. Predominantly Hausa speaking communities are scattered throughout West Africa and on the traditional hajj route north and east traversing the Sahara Desert, with an especially large population around and in the town of Agudez other Hausa have also moved to large coastal cities in the region such as Lagos, port Harcourt, Accra, Abidjan, Banjul and Cotonou as well as to parts f North Africa such as Libya over the courier of the last 500 years. He stipulates that most Hausa, however live in small villages or towns in Africa where they grow crops, raise livestock including cattle and engage in trade. They speak the Hausa language and Afro-asiatic language of the Chadic group. The Hausa aristocracy had historically developed an equestrian based culture still a status symbol of the traditional nobility in Hausa society. The horse still features in the Eid day celebrations, known as Ranarsalad, (in English: the day of the prayer) “Horse Talk: Horse Breeding in Niger Esther Garvi: Niger,
West Africa Retrieved 4 November 2015. Dausa city is the origin of Hausa people. The town predates all the major ;Hausa towns in tradition and culture.
According to Hausa tradition, the Hausa people originated from the line of an exiled prince named Nayajida legend tells the story of a snake which allowed the residents of the village of Dausa o drink water from the local well only one day per week.
Babajida killed the snake and in reward, was offered the hand of the queen of Daura in marriage, their seven sons become the founders of the seven states of Hausa land.
Historically organized into a group of feudal city states. The Hausa were conquered from the fourteenth century on by a succession of West African Kingdoms, among the Mali Sunghai, Bornu and Fulani occasionally the Hausa attained enough power ad unity to throw off foreign domination and to engage in local conquest and slave trading themselves.
In the early twentieth century with the Hausa on the verge of overthrowing the Fulani, the British invaded northern Nigeria with their policy of indirect rule, the British supported that Fulani’s political supremacy and the Hausa Fulani ruling coalition, still dominant in northern Nigeria was reinforced. This coalition had its beginning much earlier because the Fulani governed by simply assuming the highest hereditary positions I the well-organized Hausa political system many of the ruling Fulani have become culturally and linguistically Hausa.
HISTORY OF YORUBA
Brooks, George E. (2003) noted that two varying views of creation evolving around a man named Oduduwa exist within the Yoruba culture, one stating that Ile-Ife was the site of human kind’s creation and the other stating that Oduduwa’s extensive family caused the population to spread out from Ile-Ife. The most popular of these two versions is the one based on Oduduwa’s children, as it appears supported by historical fact subscribers to this version of creation hold that Oduduwa sent his descendants out of Ile-Ife to conquer other existing Yoruba people and that many of his children gained leadership positions in other cities. Eventually the flow of his descendants out of Ile-Ife into other Yoruba areas unified a way of life and tied together different culture practices.
He further states that the other main creation myth of the Yoruba focuses on the religious significance of Ile-Ife as the cradle of human kind. In this version, Oduduwa is sent by Olodumare, the creator, in order to form human kind out of the clay of Ile-Ife. While this version endows Oduduwa with a religious role, it keeps his position as a major player in the formation of Yoruba life (brooks, 2003). Some scholars argue that this version of creation is tied to the earth goddess Oduduwa proponents of the connection between the earth goddess and Oduduwa are primarily based on the shared use of the “Odu” meaning knowledge.
He added that when Oduduwa was sent to create human kind he was given only a chicken and a sack of sand. The sand was primarily a preventive measure, because at the time of Oduduwa, Yoruba myth states that the earthy was covered with water while Oduduwa was climbing he realized that his sack of sand has formed a small kill in the water covering the earth and that the chicken was safety seated on top of the sandy mound. From this spot, dubbed Ile-Ife, land begun extending in all directions as the town of Ile-Ife was created.
PRE-COLONIAL YORUBA HISTORY
According to Davidson, basil (1998) Both creation myths of the Yoruba culture articulate the same basic idea newcomers (personified by Oduduwa) settled in Yoruba land had a signif9cnat effect of the pre-existing populations of the area. Archaeological evidence has demonstrated that Yoruba land was already populated by te time of these newcomers, and had probably been populated since the stone Age Falola (2001). Evidence for early inhabitants in the area rests with metal work and fine art techniques on baked clay that are possibly related to Nok Culture.
The question still remains, however regarding the identity of the newcomers into Yoruba land. Linguistic history has proven pivotal in unraveling the mystery, and many Yoruba language experts have agreed that there were in fact two main movements of newcomers. The first movement brought a population boom to Ekiti, Ife, and Ijebu soon after 700C.E.
This movement was followed by a similar increase of population in Oyo to the north. Yoruba’s legends claim that the newcomers hailed from Arabia, An idea substantiated by the high percentage of Yoruba customs that echoes those found along the middle Nile, particularly in the ancient Kingdom of Kush.
Furthermore, the two waves of newcomers brought a flood of new political ideas and methods into Yoruba land, which began to take root almost immediately. Bo 1000 C.E., the Yoruba had developed a political system dominated by town governments. Town themselves were a product of new ways of thinking, as they grew out of increased interdependence among the Yoruba and a rising need to rely on one’s neighbors where once Yoruba land had been primarily a forest farming area, under the influence of the newcomers it becomes a highly urbanized society, known throughout West Africa for the lorry of their capital, or crowned, towns.
The capitaons of Yoruba land where linked together in ancient ties faring a loose confederacy under the senior Yoruba leader, the Oni of Ife. Primarily serving as a mechanism for peace keeping, the confederacy that United Yoruba land left the states to govern themselves and served to minimize conflict among confederacy members. Political through at this time focused on the idea of a kingdom as a large family, the ni as the head and mutual respect among the sibling nations. Each city, state, left to govern itself in most matters was controlled by monarchs (Obas) and councils of nobles, guild leaders, and merchants, commonly known as Egbe in Yoruba.
Often the throe was hereditary, passed through generations Rayal bloodlines alone, however were not enough to secure a position of lower as an eligible contender for the throne would not be allowed to ascend to power if any family member, servant or slave belonging to the family committed a serious crime such as theft, fraud, murder or rape. Some city states abolished the use of royal lineage altogether, preferring to keep the monarchy open to the election of any free-born male citizen. The Kings were almost always polygamous, some boasting up to 20 wives. Political power was often increased through marriage and kings often sought women of royal families as their wives. A few female Obas rose to power in Ilesa and Ondi, but these were comparatively rare. There was no set power balance between the monarch and the council throughout the confederacy an cities were left to decide for themselves whether to weight the two opinions equally or to cost more weight to one. For the Egba of Yoruba land, the leadership council exercised extreme control over the monarch and carefully guarded against any excesses of royal authority. While the extreme level of control that the council could exercise over the king was not the mode across all of Yoruba land, many other cities fostered a political sense of unity between the monarch and the council. For example, even in Oyo, the most centralized of the pre-colonial kingdoms, the Alaafin consulted on all political decisions with a prime minister (the Basorun) and the council of leading nobles known as the Oyamesi.
When not exercising a political voice in the council of nobles, Yoruba could join in many of the other peer organizations in the region. One of these organizations was Egbe Aro, a militia group formed in the eighteenth century by Lisbi in opposition to Oyo’s Apele (Appointed administrators). Other convert military resistance leagues such as the Ekiti Parapo and the Ogidi alliance were organized in the nineteenth century for the dramatically opposite reasons; these groups wanted to secure the dominance of the Yoruba and resist advances from Ibadan, Nupe and the Sokoto caliphate.
The political and urban developments in Ife reached their height around 1,300C.E. by this time the Yoruba language had spread across an existence portion of West Africa and ,the amount of Yoruba settlements had dramatically increased. The most notable among the new settlements was Oyo, a town in the Northern part of Yoruba territory. Oyo would become a Kingdom in it’s own right following the decline of Yoruba hegemony in sixteenth century.
The power of the Yoruba confederacy began a slow decline in the sixteenth century, primarily caused by conflicts with the Sokoto caliphate in the savanna region between the Niger River and the forest. The Sokoto caliphate was a militant Muslim empire founded by the Fulani Koranic scholar Uthman Dan Fadipo who seized control of the northern Yoruba town of Ilorin and ravaged the Yoruba capital Oyo-Ile. The early victories of the caliphate caused the Yoruba to retreat to the northern latitudes, above which dramatically harmed the remaining Yoruba populations as tsetse flies in the area killed many of the remaining horses. The caliphate continued to pursue the Yoruba, however, an advance that only stopped when they were decisively defeated by the armies of Ibadan in 1840 for pushing back the advances of the Sokoto caliphate Ibadan was named the “savior of Yoruba land”. (central intelligence Agency, Nigeria retrieved June 22, 2007).
1.2 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The core of the work is to present a cultural study of cap among the Hausa and Yoruba tribes in Nigeria. Hence the study will base its focus on the two cultures in the case of the two culture, the study examines the culture of cap and the types of cap available.
1.3 PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to examine different type of cap worn by the Hausa and the Yoruba and their role in identifying which culture one .belong. cap plays a role in identifying who and where one comes from.
1.4 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
The study will help researchers with more information on the beauty of the two cultures. In fact, when interchange the beauty even — one another.
1.5 RESEARCH LIMITATION
This research work is limited to the Hausa and the Yoruba with particular reference t using caps in the two languages.
1.6 DEFINITION OF TERMS
1. Cap: is called Hula in Hausa and fila in Yoruba cultures
2. Languages: can be defined as verbal, physical, biologically innate and basic form of communication. Eplin (1999).
3. Oduduwa: was the first Ooni King of Ile-Ife with the titles “Olofin Aye” he is ascribed as ancestral of Yoruba land
4. Myth: is an attempt to explain other things as well as a certain custom or practice f a human society.
5. Customs: is a traditional and widely accepted way pf behaving or doing something that is specific to a particular society, place or time.
6. Oba: means king in Yoruba and Benin language of contemporary West Africa.
1.7 CONCLUSION
Cap is a significant cultural practice of dressing and fashion among the Hausa and Yoruba various caps exists with various names and styles among these cultures. Above all, as there are certain similarities of purpose of cap wearing among these cultures, there are also some significant differences. This study will elaborate more on the similarities and differences