Fulani (African Studies)

Introduction

The Fulani—also known as Fulbe, Fula and Peul—constitute one of the largest and most widely spread ethnic groups in Sub-Saharan Africa, living in some twenty African countries from Senegal to Sudan. They speak the Fulani language called Pulaar or Fulfulde, and are known for their pastoral traditions, although in the course of their long migration from the Senegal Basin eastwards after the 10th century many have given up pastoralism and the nomadic way of life and shifted to agriculture or various urban sources of livelihood. In many areas, the pastoral or cattle Fulani—called Fulbe ladde or Fulbe na’i and comprising such subgroups as Mbororo and WoDaaBe—still form a distinct group keen on preserving their indigenous traditions. These include a mobile pastoral way of life and an endogamic marriage system, as well as the Fulani behavior code (pulaaku) emphasizing reserve, fortitude, and forethought. Conversely, the sedentarized town Fulani—called Fulbe wuro or Fulbe siire—have a long history of intermarrying with surrounding groups and adopting traditions and social systems foreign to their own. Due to this intermixing it is often difficult to draw strict lines between the Fulani and related groups. The Tukulor, a farming and fishing people of Senegal, speak Pulaar and partly claim a Fulani ancestry. The Hausa-Fulani live in northern Nigeria, where the Fulani and the Hausa have intermarried for centuries, sharing the Hausa language and customs. There are also other subgroups such as the sheep herding Fulani (Fulbe mbalu), as well as professional groups such as wood carvers (Fulbe laube) and smiths (Fulbe wailbe). The Fulani are predominantly Muslims. Even though there are big intergroup differences in terms of devotion, Islam is one of their major ethnic boundary markers. Their fame as fervent Muslims dates back to their leading role in the 17th–19th century Muslim jihads in West Africa. Although the jihad-driven political and military might of the Fulani Muslim states is history, the Fulani still have a large influence in West/Central Africa. The town Fulani belong to the traditional power elite in many localities, and hold high clerical and administrative posts in Islamic brotherhoods and traditional sultanates. Many have also succeeded in obtaining high positions in national politics. Contrary to that, the cattle-raising Fulani have often remained politically and culturally marginalized, and some have searched for support from international human rights organizations, especially within the global indigenous movement.

History

Due to the vital role of the Fulani in West African history, there are plenty of references to their involvement in the region’s historical periods. One widely debated subject is the origin of the Fulani, which has generated highly imaginative theories of their migration history. Another broadly discussed theme is their 17th–19th century jihads and the ensuing Fulani Muslim states.

Debate on Origin

For a long time the widely shared view was that the Fulani originated outside their main home area in Sudanic Africa. The search for the Fulani origin was based on racial and linguistic criteria, with attempts to link it with classical, Biblical, and Middle Eastern history. These attempts were justified by their physical characteristics—including light copper-colored skin, straight hair, narrow face and nose, thin lips, and slight bone structure—as well as their customs and even mental skills that were claimed to differentiate them from neighboring groups. A comprehensive review listing the various hypotheses of the origin of the Fulani can be found in Tauxier 1937. The most popular theories can be divided into Ethiopian, Berber, and Berbero-Ethiopian. Some writers have suggested Jewish or Syrian origin, others have claimed that they descend from Pelasgians, Gauls or a lost Roman legion. The wildest speculations include Hindu, Malayo-Polynesian, and Romany origin. Recently, Lam 1993 has written a detailed study of the existing theories with his own suggestion of the Egyptian origin of the Fulani. Although scholars did not manage to agree on the origin of the Fulani outside Sudanic Africa, many related their later history to the kingdom of Ghana in Western Sudan in the 7th century. Barth 1859 claimed, on the basis of an Arabic chronicle written in the 17th century, that ancient Ghana was founded around the year 300 ACE by white rulers, possibly Fulani, this assumption being in line with his suggestion of their Ethiopian origin. Delafosse 1912 claimed that Ghana was founded by a group of Judaeo-Syrians who were the ancestors of the Fulani. Barth’s and Delafosse’s theories reflected the colonial way of thinking, according to which the black peoples of the Sudan needed more developed white people to plant civilization for them. This task was attributed to the northern nomadic invaders into which category the Fulani were placed. The idea was buttressed by the popular European view of the “non-black” origin of the Fulani, and the idea of their superior intelligence compared to that of their neighbors. Also the local oral traditions often traced the origin of the Sudanese ruling dynasties to the Middle East. Among the Fulani themselves, along with their Islamization, came the idea of a common descent from an Arab father and an African black mother. In the colonial historians’ descriptions these kinds of mythical ideas were then transformed into actual historiography.

Barth, Heinrich. Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition Undertaken under the Auspices of H. B. M.’s Government in the Years 1849–1855. New York: Harper, 1859.
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The German explorer Barth, in this study based on his travels in West Africa, brings out his view on the Ethiopian (Leucaethiopian) origin of the Fulani and their prehistoric movement westwards, from Ethiopia to western Sudan. In the study Barth does not save superlatives in describing the Fulani character, which he considers distinct from other West African people. Also available online.
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Delafosse, Maurice. Haut-Sénégal-Niger (Soudan Français). Tome 1, Le pays, les peuples, les langues. Paris: Larose, 1912.
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The French ethnographer and colonial officer Delafosse claimed that the ancestors of the Fulani were a group of Judaeo-Syrians who had fled the Romans from Cyrenaica. His theory, which was based on the Fulani oral traditions concerning their descent from Middle Eastern peoples, was dominant among the Fulani origin theories until the 1960s.
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Lam, Aboubacry Moussa. De l’origine égyptienne des Peuls. Collection Préhistoire-antiquité négro-africaine. Paris: Présence africaine, 1993.
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A thorough and quite recent study – probably the first on such a scale after Tauxier – of the Fulani origin theories in different times. Lam, an Egyptologist, divides the theories into imaginary, Asian, Nilotic, and north- and south-Saharan, situating his own views of the origin of the Fulani in the Nile valley and the Egyptian civilization.
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Tauxier, Louis. Moeurs et Histoire des Peuls. Paris: Payot, 1937.
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The French colonial admistrator and ethnologist Tauxier divides the theories of the Fulani origin into Semitic or Judaeo-Syrian, Ethiopian or “lower hamitic”, and mixed Berbero-Egyptian and Berber, along with a bunch of more or less imaginary hypotheses. Tauxier himself considered the Fulani as numbering among the “lower Hamitic” people—Ethiopians, Nubians, or Cushites—who, during their long migration from the east, probably partially blended with Berber elements.
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Migration in Western Sudan

Despite the determined search for the non-African or non-black origin of the Fulani, there is no convincing evidence to link them with historical events outside western Sudan. Rather it can be assumed that they are an outcome of a continued local mixing between the pastoral groups of North African or Mediterranean affiliation and the indigenous black populations. Most contemporary historians agree that, probably around the 10th century, the Fulani were herding their cattle in Futa Toro, an area situated in the Senegal River basin along the border of present-day Senegal and Mauritania. In the 11th century, a large number of the Fulani started to move eastward in search of new pastureland. This Fulani exodus, partly resulting from local political unrest and hostilities, initiated a long historical movement eastward during which the Fulani spread all over West Africa. These movements are described in Delafosse 1912 and Dühring 1926–1927. These and other writers’ reconstructions of the migration routes are mostly based on Fulani oral traditions, partly validated by local western Sudanese chronicles which include summaries of historical events in which the Fulani were involved. Arab and European travelers’ accounts were also used as information sources. Although the details of the migration routes may vary between writers, the outlines of the migration are generally accepted: from Futa Toro the Fulani most probably spread along the Senegal and Niger rivers into the Sahel zone, and continued further east into the kingdom of Bornu, located in the area around Lake Chad. Another migration route was southwards into the highlands of central Guinea. The migrations followed a general pattern; while the pastoral groups reached new pasture areas, the Toroobe, the mixed Fulani clerical clan, settled in towns. The migrations accelerated in the 17th century with increasing resentment against local rulers; the ensuing holy jihads gave rise to Fulani Muslim states in different parts of the Western Sudan. Fulani migrations further east and southeast to Nigerian and Cameroonian Adamawa—migrations that were closely connected to the Fulani expansion during and after their jihads—are well documented in Lacroix 1952 and Kirk-Greene 1958. Detailed descriptions of the more recent migration waves originating from the Hausa states in northern Nigeria and then crossing Cameroon and extending to Central African Republic can be found in Dognin 1981 and Boutrais 1977. The factors behind these waves ranged from political unrest and mistreatment to drought.

Boutrais, Jean. “Une conséquence de la sécheresse: Les migrations d’éleveurs vers les plateau camerounais.” Sécheresse en Afrique, Tome 2, African Environmental Special Reports 6. London: International African Institute, 1977.
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The article deals with the last big migration wave of the Mbororo pastoralists from Nigeria to Cameroon and further southeast to the Central African Republic in the 1970s. As Boutrais brings out, the wave was connected to the drought years of 1972–1974 in the Sahel and the resulting demographic pressure in Nigeria. Available online.
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Delafosse, E. F. M. Haut-Sénégal-Niger (Soudan Francais), Tome 1: Le pays, les peuples, les langues. Paris: Larose, 1912.
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Delafosse’s ethnological study on the people of French West Africa contains a five page chronological list of people’s migrations in the area. It covers the period 200–1861 and includes several references to the migrations of the Fulani.
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Dognin, René. “L’installation des Djâfoun dans l’Adamoua Camerounais: La djakka chez les Peul de l’Adamoua.” In Contribution de la recherche ethnologique à l’histoire des civilisations du Cameroun. Colloque Paris, 24–28 septembre 1973. Edited by C. Tardits, 139–157. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1981.
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Dognin describes the dispersal of the Mbororo Fulani pastoralists from the Kano state in Nigeria in the 19th century and follows the specific migration routes of the Jaafun Mbororo with their leaders through Bauchi and Yola in Nigeria into different parts of Cameroon in 1870–1930. He mentions rinderpest epidemics and restrictions by German and French colonial administration as factors that have affected pastoralists’ movements in Cameroon.
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Dühring, D. F. K. “Über den Ursprung und die Wanderungen der Fulbe.” Mitteilungen aus den Deutschen Schutzgebieten 34.2 (1926–1927): 116–128.
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The German colonial officer Dühring’s short essay on the Fulani migrations includes an illustrative map of their movements in the Sudanic Africa up to the 19th century.
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Kirk-Greene, A. H. M. Adamawa, Past and Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958.
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The British colonial officer and historian Kirk-Greene, in his historical account of the Adamawa Emirate under British rule, looks at Fulani history through the succession of the Fulani emirs from the foundation of the Emirate in 1806 until 1955.
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Lacroix, Pierre-Francis. “Matériaux pour servir à l’histoire des Peul de l’Adamawa.” Etudes Camerounaises 37–38 (1952): 3–61.
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The French colonial administrator and ethnologist Lacroix’s description of the Fulani migrations in Adamawa covers the time span from the foundation of the Adamawa Emirate in the beginning of the 19th century up to the first thirty years of French colonial rule.
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Jihads and the Muslim States

The Islamization of the Fulani probably started before the 11th century in Senegal, and continued when the Toroobe, the mixed Fulani clerical clan, started to move eastwards by the end of the 17th century, recruit members from Fulani and other groups, and unite them by a common language and faith. This finally led to a series of Muslim holy jihads from the late 17th to the middle of the 19th century against the oppression of the local ruling classes with their prevailing pagan practices. The jihads gave rise to Fulani Muslim states such as Futa Toro, Futa Jallon, Maasina, and the Sokoto Caliphate, the governance and economy of which were backed up by the nomadic Fulani herdsmen and the use of slaves. As to religious leanings, the Qadiriyya and Tijaniyya were prominent doctrinal branches, as the central jihad leaders were enthusiastic followers of these Sufi brotherhoods. The rule of the Fulani states was occasionally weakened by their mutual power struggles, the last rule being defeated by French and British troops at the turn of the 20th century. The outbreak of the Fulani jihads has been given various explanations. Smith 1961 pays attention to jihad leaders as men of great learning—especially through their attachment to Sufi brotherhoods—and sees the jihads as an intellectual movement aiming at an ideal society. Hiskett 1976, correspondingly, associates the jihads with the more general trends in the Islamic world at that time, such as the messianic ideas of the coming Mahdi and pursuit of mystical experiences typical of Sufism. Waldman 1965 seeks grounds outside religion: rather than on Islamic faith, the success of Usuman dan Fodio’s jihad in Hausaland was based on the appeal of his preaching against local rulers, which found a response in varied oppressed groups. Robinson 1985 sees the jihad of Al-Hajj Umar Tal in Maasina mainly as an ethnically motivated imperial war in which the aim of the Fulani was to conquer new areas. Rodney 1968, in turn, relates the jihad in the 18th century Futa Jallon to the regional slave trade that went under the umbrella of holy war. As regards the historiography of the Fulani jihad states, Last 1967 gives a detailed account of the establishment and maintenance of the Sokoto Caliphate in Hausaland throughout the 19th century. Njeuma 1978 focuses on Sokoto’s eastern Adamawa Emirate, which the British, French, and Germans divided in 1893–1894, justifying their action by the threat of the Mahdist movement.

Hiskett, Mervin. “The Nineteenth–Century Jihads in West Africa.” In The Cambridge History of Africa. Vol. 5, From c. 1790 to c. 1870. Edited by John Flint, 125–169. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
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Hiskett gives a summary of the three best-documented Fulani Islamic holy wars of West Africa, all of which took place in the 19th century: the jihad led by Shehu Usuman dan Fodio in Hausaland, and the jihads of Shehu Ahmadu and Al-Hajj Umar Tal in Maasina. He relates these jihads to theological ideas of that period that justified the declaration of war on people considered pagan or rebels.
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Last, Murray. The Sokoto Caliphate. London: Longmans, 1967.
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Based mainly on 19th century Arabic sources, Last reconstructs the origin and growth of the Sokoto Caliphate established by the Fulani jihadist Usuman dan Fodio. The study concentrates on metropolitan Sokoto and includes descriptions of the Caliphate’s governmental institutions and the activities of the caliphs, as well as a detailed account of the role of the vizierate.
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Njeuma, Martin. Fulani Hegemony in Yola (Old Adamawa) 1809–1902. Yaoundé, Cameroon: Publishing and Production Centre for Teaching and Research, 1978.
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Njeuma’s study of the Adamawa Emirate on the eastern fringes of the Sokoto Caliphate in the 19th century brings up the dominance of secular elements in its administration, its economy based on slave villages, and its struggle against the socioreligious Mahdist movement. A detailed description is given of the “race to Yola” in which the British, French, and Germans, by partitioning the emirate, overthrew a century of Fulani hegemony in the region.
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Robinson, David. The Holy War of Umar Tal: The Western Sudan in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
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This volume scrutinizes the Fulani warrior leader Umar Tal from Futa Toro and his jihads eastward against the Bambara kingdom in Segu and the Muslim Caliphate in Maasina. Robinson describes the Umarian jihad as an imperialist venture recruiting Fulani to conquer other peoples and regions, in contrast to the revolutionary jihad of Usuman dan Fodio, the aim of which was to purify Islam and create Islamic institutions.
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Rodney, Walter. “Jihad and Social Revolution in Futa Djalon in the Eighteenth Century.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 4.2 (1968): 269–284.
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Rodney’s account of the less explored jihad in Futa Jallon brings up the commercial aspects of the war, which was launched by Fulani and Mandinga merchants enriched by cattle and the slave trade and dissatisfied with the levy of the Jallonke chiefs. Rodney sees the procurement of slaves to be exchanged for European goods as the main objective of many wars that were disguised as religious battles by the Fulani chiefs.
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Smith, H. F. C. “A Neglected Theme of West African History: The Islamic Revolutions of the 19th Century.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria 2.2 (1961): 169–185.
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Smith compares the jihad leaders dan Fodio, Shehu Amadu, and Al-Hajj Umar in terms of their doctrinal differences and the consequences of their respective wars. He emphasizes that they were all learned in Quranic and mystical knowledge, as well as Malikite law.
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Waldman, Marilyn Robinson. “The Fulani Jihad: A Reassessment.” The Journal of African History 6.3 (1965): 333–355.
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Waldman underlines that dan Fodio, the jihad leader in Hausaland, did not actively plan the war but rather unintentionally laid the basis for it through his preaching about the injustices practiced by the Hausa rulers on their subjects. Her main point is that dan Fodio attracted followers not so much because of his religious goals but because his criticism found an echo in ethnically and socially diverse local groups.
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Article Collections

Different aspects of Fulani culture and society have been discussed in several article collections, some of them based on symposia focusing on the Fulani. An edited volume, Adamu and Kirk-Greene 1986, offers a discussion of the Fulani of West Africa ranging from their history, language, and literature to current social and economic conditions of diverse Fulani groups, both pastoral and urban. A selection of papers, Azarya, et al. 1999, looks at the contemporary pressures faced by the Fulani from Senegal to Sudan with an emphasis on changing ecological, economic, and local-political conditions. The collection Botte, et al. 1999 casts light on Fulani identity construction and intra- and intergroup dynamics in different geographical areas, while the edited volume Eguchi and Azarya 1993 focuses on the question of Fulani identity and the related theme of similarities and differences among the Fulani populations across Africa. Finally, Centre national de la recherche scientifique 1981 (CNRS) includes articles on Fulani language, literature, and culture, and Botte and Schmitz 1994 offers a rich collection of articles concerning the changing Fulani world.

Adamu, Mahdi, and A. H. M. Kirk-Greene, eds. Pastoralists of the West African Savanna. Selected Studies Presented and Discussed at the Fifteenth International African Seminar Held at Ahmadu Bello University, 16–21 Nigeria, July 1979. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1986.
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This volume is based on a seminar organized in 1979 by the International African Institute in Zaria. Despite its title the great majority of the articles concentrate on the Fulani populations, but not only on those who practice pastoralism. The collection includes essays on the history, language, and literature as well as the changing social organizations and forms of livelihood in Fulani societies across rural and urban West Africa.
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Azarya, Victor, Anneke Breedveld, Mirjam de Bruijn, and Han van Dijk, eds. Pastoralists under Pressure? Fulbe Societies Confronting Change in West Africa. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1999.
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A selection based on a conference held at the African Studies Centre, Leiden, in 1996, this book investigates the pressures that the Fulani face in contemporary Africa. Central themes include the changing perceptions of Fulani ethnic boundaries, the politico-economic consequences of their movement into humid zones, and social transformations taking place at different levels of the Fulani internal hierarchy. The collection covers nine African countries, most of its articles dealing with pastoral Fulani groups.
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Botte, Roger, Jean Boutrais, and Jean Schmitz, eds. Figures peules. Paris: Karthala, 1999.
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The collection comprises twenty articles that cover a wide range of disciplines and geographical regions from Senegal to the Central African Republic. Challenging the idea of a unified Fulani identity, the topics vary from identity construction to intragroup distinctions and Interethnic Relations.
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Botte, Roger and Jean Schmitz, eds. Special Issue: L’archipel peul. Cahiers d´etudes africaines 34.133–135 (1994).
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The topics of this collection by CNRS on the Fulani world range from geographic expansion and occupational diversification to changing sociopolitical and interethnic relations among the people. Some of the articles make good use of Fulani folklore. The collection covers a wide variety of Fulani groups from Mauritania to Sudan.
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Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS). Itinérances en pays peul et ailleurs. Vol. 2: Littératures, cultures. Mélanges réunis par les chercheurs de l’ERA 246 du CNRS à la mémoire de Pierre-Francis Lacroix. Paris: Société des africanistes, 1981.
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The collection is dedicated to the memory of the French colonial administrator and ethnologist Pierre-Francis Lacroix and contains a diverse range of articles—written mainly by French Africanists—on the Fulani language, literature, and culture.
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Eguchi, Paul Kazuhisa, and Victor Azarya, eds. Unity and Diversity of a People: The Search for Fulbe Identity. Papers Presented at the Thirteenth International Symposium of the Division of Ethnology of the Taniguchi Foundation Held at the National Museum of Ethnology 3–10 September 1989. Senri Ethnological Studies 35. Osaka, Japan: National Museum of Ethnology, 1993.
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A collection based on a symposium organized at the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, in 1989 that looks for similarities and differences among the Fulani. It underlines that, despite such differences as the separation between pastoralists and urbanites or between western and eastern Fulani, a continuity and similarity still exists that allows one to speak of a common Fulani identity. One unifying aspect discussed is the Fulani moral and behavior code pulaaku.
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Bibliographies

Unquestionably the most comprehensive of Fulani bibliographies is Seydou 1977 with 2068 titles and a detailed subject index. Johansson Diaw 1991 is an effort to update Seydou’s bibliography with Fulani literature from the following decade. The Fulbe Bibliography compiled by Mark DeLancey is a diverse online bibliography with twenty-two subject headings. Baumgardt and Tourneux 2011 is an online dictionary focusing on the Fulani linguistics and literature. The Fulani webpage WebPulaaku includes an alphabetically ordered bibliography of miscellaneous literature on Fulani.

Baumgardt, Ursula, and Henry Tourneux. Langue, linguistique et littérature peules. Timtimol. 2011.
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Baumgardt and Tourneux’s online bibliography with 366 titles (as accessed in April 2014) concentrates on Fulani language, linguistics, and literature.
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DeLancey, Mark. Fulbe Bibliography.
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This Fulani online bibliography compiled by Mark DeLancey has twenty-two subject headings and 518 titles. Most of the titles can be found under the headings of anthropology, art and architecture, dictionaries, history, language, and literature.
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Johansson Diaw, Brita. A Fulbe Bibliography (1976–1986). Discussions in Social Anthropology and Culture History 8. Gothenburg, Sweden: University of Gothenburg, 1991.
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The bibliography aims at complementing Seydou’s 1977 Fulani bibliography by covering the years 1976–1986, and includes publications on the Tukulor. The bibliography contains 383 titles.
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Seydou, Christiane. Bibliographie Générale Du Monde Peul. Niamey, Niger: Institut de recherches en sciences humaines, 1977.
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Seydou’s thorough Fulani bibliography, although unfortunately not updated since its publication, contains 2068 titles ordered alphabetically by author. As a helpful tool for using the bibliography there is an index that groups the titles thematically (e.g., general presentations, anthropology, history, and geographical areas). A thirteen-page bibliography of used sources (journals, encyclopedias, manuscripts, etc.) is included.
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WebPulaaku
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The Fulani webpage includes an online Fulani bibliography with 598 titles (as accessed in July 2014) in alphabetical order. A part of the titles are supplemented with links to download the original texts. Available online
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Case and Countrywide Studies

A number of monographs have been written by anthropologists, geographers, and political scientists on the Fulani, especially the pastoralists. These studies include descriptions of specific Fulani communities as well as more general accounts of the Fulani and their situation in certain African nation states. Ba 1986 discusses the efforts of regional development bodies to integrate the rural pastoral Fulani into the Senegalese society. While Tonah 2005 examines the relationships of the pastoral Fulani with their farming neighbors as well as with governmental bodies in northern Ghana, Oumarou 2011 explores the conflictual relations between the state, nomads, and sedentary people in Niger. Boutrais 1995–1996 gives an elaborate account of the pastoral Mbororo Fulani of the Adamawa Highlands, Cameroon, a region that originally afforded exceptional ecological circumstances for pastoralism but is now degraded. De Bruijn and van Dijk 1995 look at the agro-pastoral Fulani of Hayre, Mali, from the point of view of insecurity, and explore their cultural understandings through which they conceptualize and try to cope with their arid environment. Maliki Bonfiglioli 1988 follows the migration history of a WoDaaBe Fulani extended family and their cattle from Sokoto to present day Niger over several generations. The article collection edited in Bierschenk and Le Meur 1997 sheds light on the heterogeneous Fulani population in Benin.

Ba, Cheikh. Les Peul du Sénégal: Étude géographique. Dakar, Senegal: Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1986.
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Ba’s geographic study looks at the situation of the rural pastoral Fulani in different parts of Senegal and their integration into the nation-state. Much space is given to demography as well as to bioclimatic conditions of Fulani pastoralism. The study maps as vehicles for integration the development interventions of regional organizations and also pays attention to responses given by pastoralists’ own associations.
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Bierschenk, Thomas, and Pierre-Yves Le Meur. Trajectoires peules au Bénin: Six etudes anthropologiques. Paris: Karthala, 1997.
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An article collection focusing on the little-studied Beninese Fulani. The articles are written by six anthropologists, each dealing with specific segments of the Fulani population in Benin. The contributions concern such issues as the concept of Fulaniness, economic dimensions of Fulani pastoralism, women’s relation to cattle milk, intragroup negotiations concerning transhumance, the heterogeneous ex-slaves called Gando, and the survival strategies of the Fulani migrants in towns.
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Boutrais, Jean. Hautes terres d’élevage au Cameroun. 3 vols. Études et thèses. Paris: ORSTOM, 1995–1996.
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Boutrais’s three-volume study offers a meticulous description of the pastoral Mbororo Fulani of the Adamawa Highlands, Cameroon, including history, politics, demography, geography, and environmental data. Boutrais brings forward the local processes through which the initially optimal pastoral milieu has been, due to increasing demographic pressure, gradually populated by neighboring farmers and ecologically degraded, forcing more and more pastoralists to sedentarize. The book contains an abundant collection of maps and photographs.
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de Bruijn, Mirjam, and Han van Dijk. Arid Ways: Cultural Understandings of Insecurity in Fulbe Society, Central Mali. Amsterdam: Thela, 1995.
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The study deals with many faces of insecurity—ecological, political, and socioeconomic—in the lives of the agro-pastoral Fulani of Hayre, Mali. Taking into consideration various ecological and historical circumstances, de Bruijn and van Dijk inquire into local cultural understandings through which the Fulani conceptualize and grapple with these insecurities and also find strategies for using natural and social resources in their struggle for survival.
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Maliki Bonfiglioli, Angelo. DuDal: Histoire de famille et histoire de troupeau chez un groupe de WoDaaBe du Niger. Paris: Edition de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, 1988.
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This study of the migration history of a WoDaaBe Fulani family, starting from northeastern Nigeria during the first half of the 19th century and ending up to the boundary of Niger and Mali in the 1960s, is based on an oral narrative told by one of its elders. The story of the family is set into the wider historical context of the Sokoto jihad and its aftermath in the colonial era. Maliki Bonfiglioli links the family history closely with the history of its herd animals, highlighting their social and economic interdependence.
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Oumarou, Boubacar. Pasteurs nomades face à l’état du Niger. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011.
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While scrutinizing the conflict-ridden relations between the modern nation-state, Fulani pastoralists, and farming populations in Niger, Oumarou underlines the continual impoverishment among the pastoralists caused by environmental degradation, oppressive government policies, expansion of agriculture to pastoral areas due to desertification, and severe cattle losses resulting from intermittent droughts.
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Tonah, Steve. Fulani in Ghana: Migration History, Integration, and Resistance. Legon-Accra: University of Ghana, 2005.
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Tonah’s book casts light on the situation of the little studied pastoral Fulani of Ghana. It explores the relationship between the Fulani and the indigenous Mamprusi, a relationship characterized by economic reciprocity as well as conflict and prejudice. Another focus is on the tense relationship between the Fulani and state officials, which has occasionally led to such measures as expulsion of the pastoralists in the aftermath of local farmer-herder conflicts.
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Descriptions of Society and Culture

The early detailed descriptions of Fulani society and culture, written from the 1920s to the 1940s by colonial officers and from the 1950s to the 1960s mainly by French and English anthropologists, largely dealt with the nomadic pastoral groups and their traditional customs and social organizations. Frequently discussed themes included their lineage system, endogamic marriage system, gendered division of labor, their moral behavior code pulaaku, and certain cultural practices often related to youth—all of which distinguish the pastoralists from neighboring groups.

Early Colonial Accounts

Early colonial accounts, though often fragmentary and biased, provide interesting information about the social and cultural practices of the pastoral Fulani from periods when professional anthropologists and other scholars had not yet entered the scene. Often these early colonial writers extensively studied the languages, folklore, and ethnology of regions where they served, and some of them had a genuine urge to understand local cultures far beyond the interests of the colonial administrations of their home countries. Brackenburg 1924 offers scattered notes on various customs of the pastoral Mbororo Fulani of the Yola Province, Nigeria. Reed 1932 portrays different pastoral Fulani groups in the Bornu Province of northern Nigeria and describes their marriage forms and dance traditions, as well as the Fulani behavior code pulaaku. Vieillard 1932 in turn focuses on one celebrated practice of the male youth: the baton-beating contest (soro) of the Jaafun Fulani. The short volume St Croix 1972 provides details of various life spheres of the pastoral Fulani of northern Nigeria, ranging from their pastoral activities and diet to magico-religious beliefs and practices.

Brackenburg, E. A. “Notes on the ‘Bororo Fulbe’ or Nomad ‘Cattle Fulani’, Parts 1 and 2.” Journal of the African Society 23.91–92 (1924): 208–217, 271–277.
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Captain Brackenburg’s short notes, based on his own and his town Fulani informant’s observations of the pastoral Mbororo Fulani in Yola in British colonial Nigeria, provide fragmentary information on Mbororo customs, ranging from their diet, clothes and daily working tasks to their forms of amusement and marriage system.
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Reed, L. N. “Notes on Some Fulani Tribes and Customs.” Africa 5.4 (1932): 422–454.
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Reed casts light on various customs of the pastoral Fulani groups of the Bornu Province, Nigeria, such as the pulaaku behavior code, group specific taboos (mbo’da), first cousin marriage and marriage by elopement (deetuki), the gerewol dance of the WoDaaBe, and the soro stick-beating contest among the Jaafun.
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St Croix, F. D. de. The Fulani of Northern Nigeria: Some General Notes. Farnborough, UK: Gregg International, 1972.
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St Croix was a long-term functionary in British northern Nigeria. His description of the pastoral Fulani of that area mostly concerns people’s diet and pastoral practices, but valuable data is also given about their magico-religious beliefs and customs. These include practices connected to the spirit world, which often contain cattle-related symbolism. The material is mostly from the 1930s; better contextualization would have helped the comparative use of the information. Originally published in Lagos, Nigeria in 1945.
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Vieillard, G. “Note sur deux institutions propres aux populations peules d’entre Niger et Tchad: Le soro et le gerewol.” Journal de la Société des Africanistes 2.1 (1932): 85–93.
DOI: 10.3406/jafr.1932.1526Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Vieillard, a French colonial administrator who specialized in Fulani culture and language, describes soro, a Jaafun Fulani manhood test during which a young man should stand immobile while being flogged. His description is based on the narrative of a Fulani herdsman from Tahoua, Niger. A few words are also said about the gerewol dance, a beauty contest of young WoDaaBe men during which the young women choose their favorite dancers.
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Classical Ethnographies

In the 1950s three anthropologists—Canadian, British and French—set out to conduct intensive fieldwork among the pastoral Fulani in the British protectorate of northern Nigeria and the Niger province of French West Africa. Even though the Fulani had long inspired Europeans to write patchy mentions and descriptions of their customs, the ethnographic monographs that resulted from these three field researches were the first systematic studies published of the Fulani society and culture. These pioneering monographs were written by C. Edward Hopen, Derrick Stenning, and Marguerite Dupire. The first of them, Hopen 1958, examines the dynamics within a pastoral Fulani family in Sokoto, Nigeria, and looks at how the interdependence between the pastoral family and its herd has altered through changing politico-economic climates. Stenning 1959 is an outstanding enthnographic study of the WoDaaBe Fulani of the Bornu in Nigeria, not least for its historical sensitivity and keen exploration of Fulani group formation. Finally, Dupire 1962, one of the key Fulani studies, offers a meticulous description of the WoDaaBe Fulani of Niger, an analysis firmly based on social institutions: the clan and lineage system, marriage forms, and the interrelation between the two. A succeeding study, Dupire 1970, extends this analysis to a comparative level by providing extensive data on the social organizations of diverse pastoral Fulani groups throughout the West African savanna zone.

Dupire, Marguerite. Peuls nomades: Étude descriptive des Wodaabe du Sahel Nigerien. Paris: Institut d’ethnologie, 1962.
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Dupire underlines the centrality of cattle for the WoDaaBe of Niger as a means of both material survival and social status in the group. Her study goes through the WoDaaBe residence mode, patrilineal kinship and pre-inheritance system, the meaning of paternal versus maternal kin, and marriage endogamy. She concludes by describing the interlineage relations and how these are represented in the annual wet season worso gathering with its flamboyant gerewol dance.
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Dupire, Marguerite. Organisation sociale des Peul: Étude d’ethnographie comparée. Paris: Plon, 1970.
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This is a comparative ethnography of Fulani social organization in three distinct groups: the eastern pastoral Fulani (Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon); the western pastoral Fula (Guinea, parts of Senegal); and the sedentary Fula (Senegambia, Mauritania). A central focus is on the strategic use of endogamic/exogamic marriages for political ends, that is, for excluding or including certain kin fractions. Domestic, descent and age grouping, and social stratification are also discussed.
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Hopen, C. Edward. The Pastoral Fulbe Family in Gwandu. London: Oxford University Press, 1958.
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Hopen describes the pastoral Fulani intrafamily dynamics, as well as the relationship of the family with its herd and with the wider sociopolitical setting in Sokoto, comparing the situation before and after jihad and during the colonial era.
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Stenning, Derrick. Savannah Nomads: A Study of the Wodaabe Pastoral Fulani of Western Bornu Province, Northern Region, Nigeria. London: Oxford University Press, 1959.
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Through historical analysis Stenning’s study sheds light on the processes at work in WoDaaBe Fulani group formation. He elaborates on WoDaaBe marriage forms, especially the highly valued betrothal marriage, bringing up its political significance. The study also introduces the concept of household viability through which Stenning links together the interdependent processes of household formation and family herd constitution.
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Social Stratification and Political Hierarchy

The Fulani jihads gave rise to a stratified social system consisting of Fulani as free persons (rimbe); their slaves (rimaibe); and craft groups such as blacksmiths, potters, leatherworkers, wood carvers, weavers, fishermen, and praise singers. This system, often referred to somewhat misleadingly as a system of endogamous castes, has been characteristic of the western parts of the Sudan belt (e.g., in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea). Dilley 2004 gives a vivid description of such a system in Futa Toro, Senegal, where among the Pulaar-speaking population (Haalpulaar’en) the social hierarchy is based on two competing sources of power: the Toroobe clerics’ Islamic knowledge and craftspersons’ pre-Islamic knowledge associated with the bush spirits. Derman 1973 looks at the master-serf relation in postcolonial Guinea and the government’s efforts to erase the servitude system within the ideological framework of socialism. Pelckmans 2011 highlights the meaning of the indigenous Fulani system of slavery in postslavery Africa by exploring, from the point of view of mobility, the emancipatory trajectories of people of slave descent in a Fulani hierarchical network in Mali. Even in the more eastern regions—such as Niger, Nigeria, and Cameroon—where the endogamous craft-based groups do not form a noticeable segment of society as in the west, the Fulani form a traditional ruling class, and some of them are also influential in national politics. In his comparative study Azarya 1978 underlines that the Fulani ruling class of the jihad states of Futa Jallon, Sokoto, and Adamawa was forced to give up much of its politico-economic influence in the postcolonial West African nation states—yet the Fulani have managed to preserve their prestige as people of Islamic expertise in all of these regions. Shimada 1993 explores the socioeconomic strategies that the Fulani conquerors applied in Northern Cameroon to construct a new kind of detribalized Islamic society where the religious identity surpassed the ethnic one.

Azarya, Victor. Aristocrats Facing Change: The Fulbe in Guinea, Nigeria and Cameroon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
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Azarya’s study discusses the ways in which the Fulani aristocracy of the jihad states of Futa Jallon, Sokoto, and Adamawa has responded to the pressures for change through the colonial and postcolonial periods. He argues that, while the Fulbe ended up in very different situations relative to other populations in Guinea, Nigeria, and Cameroon after independence, this differentiation was much more due to external historical factors than their internal adjustment capabilities.
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Derman, William. Serfs, Peasants, and Socialists: A Former Serf Village in the Republic of Guinea. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973.
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Derman’s study looks at the changing relations between the Fulani and their Diallonke and Yalunka serfs during the precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial periods in Futa Jallon in Guinea. Focusing to a large extent on the time of independence, Derman argues that, although the Guinean government attempted to erase the traditional hierarchy and draw the serfs into its developing socialist system, the master-serf distinction persisted, though in a diminished form.
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Dilley, Roy. Islamic and Caste Knowledge Practices among Haalpulaar’en in Senegal: Between Mosque and Termite Mound. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2004.
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Dilley examines the hierarchical relationship between Toroobe clerics and endogamous craftpersons of the Senegal River basin from 1770 onward. A central role is given to the separate knowledge systems based, on the one hand, on Islam and, on the other hand, on customary “bush” knowledge. The Toroobe tendency to keep apart from other groups as well as to smooth away their mixed origin is seen as a way to secure their higher hierarchical position.
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Pelckmans, Lotte. Travelling Hierarchies: Roads in and out of Slave Status in a Central Malian Fulbe Network. Leiden, The Netherlands: African Studies Centre, 2011.
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Pelckmans plumbs the repercussions of indigenous slavery by following the trajectories of people of slave descent vis-à-vis their former Fulani masters in Mali. She argues that although mobility, especially migration to towns, can help people to temporarily distance themselves from their original status, it does not necessarily form a unidirectional way out from the slave stigma, as hierarchical relations do not disappear easily but often follow the people into new places.
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Shimada, Yoshihito. “Jihad as Dialectical Movement and Formation of Islamic Identity among the Fulbe.” Senri Ethnological Studies 35 (1993): 87–117.
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Shimada discusses the new strategies that the Fulani applied in the precarious socioeconomic situation of the 18th to the 19th century. He offers an interesting example from the sub-emirate of Rey-Buuba, northern Cameroon, where the Fulani conquerors settled and developed intimate socioeconomic relationships with their local slaves. Shimada argues that, while doing so, the Fulani entered a new pan-ethnic as well as market-oriented world, the creation of which their jihads greatly facilitated.
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Indigenous Cosmology and Religion

Although the great majority of the Fulani are Muslims today, vast differences still exist in their adherence to Islam, as different groups have adopted Islam in different circumstances and at a different tempo during their migrations from one region to another. This means that many of them still stick to pre-Islamic beliefs and practices that coexist in tandem with Islamic worship. Fragmentary knowledge of this pre-Islamic worldview can be found in early explorers’ and colonial functionaries’ descriptions as well as monographs written by anthropologists. Frequently mentioned topics are, for example, the spirit world and rituals performed to ensure the fecundity and well-being of humans and cattle. Attention has also been paid to the often awkward relationship between pre-Islamic and Islamic beliefs and practices, and the fact that the process of sedentarization tends to increase Islamic worship among the Fulani. Labatut 1978, in its description of religious behavior among the WoDaaBe Fulani of northern Cameroon, highlights people’s sloppy observance of Islam and their devotion to family or lineage-specific magico-ritual activities. The focus of Stenning 1966 is on how the WoDaaBe of Bornu, Nigeria assimilate Islamic social ideas and religious practices into their lives and indigenous ritual systems, in certain contexts readily and in others with reluctance. Virtanen 2014 explores the meaning of cattle for the Mbororo Fulani of Cameroon in realizing and conceptualizing the pilgrimage to Mecca and sees cultural continuity in the valuation of cattle in pre-Islamic and Islamic Mbororo worldviews. Entire volumes dedicated to Fulani indigenous religion are, however, rare, but an exception is Bâ and Dieterlen 2009, which provides a Fulani shepherd’s initiation text from Senegambia that portrays the pre-Islamic Fulani cosmology with its mythic figures in detail.

Bâ, Amadou Hampâté, and Germaine Dieterlen. Koumen: Texte initiatique des pasteurs Peul. Cahiers de l’homme, N.S.1. Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS, 2009. Originally published in Paris in 1961.
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This volume presents a Fulani shepherd’s initiation text that has been collected from Senegambia. It describes the phases of the initiation and provides information on Fulani pre-Islamic cosmology and its deities, who teach the shepherd secret knowledge that he needs for completing the initiation. The initiation text is in French and is supplemented with the authors’ explanatory commentaries. An introduction contains basic information about the Fulani culture.
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Labatut, Roger. “Contribution à l’étude du comportement religieux des Wodaabe Dageeja du Nord-Cameroun.” Journal des Africanistes 48.2 (1978): 63–92.
DOI: 10.3406/jafr.1978.1812Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Labatut’s material from the 1960s reveals the negligence of the Cameroonian WoDaaBe toward Islamic worship forms such as daily prayers and the Ramadan fast. Instead, Labatut notices, the WoDaaBe are devoted to their traditional regenerative rituals and observance of taboos, through which practices they try to maintain the equilibrium between human, cow, fire, and spirits. He also remarks on the absence of ancestor cult and spectacular initiation rites in their traditional ritual-cosmological system.
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Stenning, Derrick. “Cattle Values and Islamic Values in a Pastoral Population.” In Islam in Tropical Africa. Edited by I. M. Lewis, 387–400. London: Oxford University Press, 1966.
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Stenning looks at differences in the ways the WoDaaBe of Bornu, Nigeria assimilate Islamic ideas and practices into their lives. He argues that while the WoDaaBe willingly hallow their life-cycle rituals, such as naming and marriage ceremonies, with Islamic prayers and observances, they refuse to perform Islamic rites during any rituals focusing on the welfare of cattle, as the former are thought to risk the efficiency of the latter.
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Virtanen, Tea. “Transforming Cattle into Blessings: The Moral Economy of Mbororo Pilgrimage.” Journal of Religion in Africa 44.1 (2014): 92–126.
DOI: 10.1163/15700666-12341277Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The article looks at the meaning of cattle for the Mbororo Fulani of Adamawa, Cameroon, in realizing and conceptualizing their pilgrimage to Mecca. Virtanen locates cattle at the centre of symbolic transformations through which the pilgrimage is absorbed into the socio-cosmic order of the pastoral community. She underlines that the central role given here to cattle is in line with its more general value transformation that occurs along with Mbororo Islamization.
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Islamic Religiosity

Since the West African jihads, Fulani have been known as fervent defenders of the Islamic faith and people of Islamic expertise, often with adherence to Sufi brotherhoods. This expertise can be explored in the published discourses of Islamic Fulani teachers. Brenner 1984 introduces the teachings of the Malian Sufi mystic Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal, including his personal oral catechism and religious discourses from the 1930s. The appreciation of Islamic knowledge among the Fulani is also reflected in their ample participation in religious education. Santerre 1973 examines, however, the curious situation in northern Cameroon in the 1960s in which an increasing proportion of the Fulani students at the highly valued Koranic schools were girls, while the boys more and more took part in western education. The specific forms that Islamic religiosity has taken among the Fulani have been shaped by fluctuating politico-economic relations and their reorganization at a regional level. Duffield 1977 offers an analysis of a Fulani settlement in Sudan within the framework of competing Mahdist doctrines among the Fulani and the subsequent transformation of the competition in the course of colonial conquest. Finally Birks 1977 gives an example of a specific Fulani way to carry out the pilgrimage to Mecca. Based on Birks’s fieldwork in Darfur in 1970–1971, it discusses Fulani pastoralists who, crossing Chad and Sudan with their cattle on their way to Mecca, finance their pilgrimage by selling livestock en route.

Birks, J. “The Mecca Pilgrimage by West African Pastoral Nomads.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 15.1 (1977): 47–58.
DOI: 10.1017/S0022278X00014476Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The article focuses on the pilgrimage journey of the nomadic Fulani, mostly coming from Niger and Nigeria, across the savanna to Mecca. Birks describes the arduousness of a trek that takes years as the Fulani travel with their cattle, which they sell on the way to finance their pilgrimage. Birks notes that these Fulani pilgrims have formed a substantial transient West African population in the countries en route, especially in Sudan.
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Brenner, Louis. West African Sufi: The Religious Heritage and Spiritual Search of Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal. London: C. Hurst, 1984.
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Brenner’s book explores the religious life of the Malian Sufi mystic Cerno Bokar Saalif Taal. It includes Bokar’s personal oral catechism as well as his discourses initially recorded in 1933. The description of Bokar’s teaching method gives an interesting insight into a long-established oral system of education in the vernacular in Fulani society.
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Duffield, Mark. “Fulani Mahdism and Revisionism in Sudan: ‘Hijra’ or Compromise with Colonialism?” In The Central Bilad al-Sudan: Tradition and Adaptation. Proceedings of the Third International Conference of the Institute of African and Asian Studies, University of Khartoum, 8 to 13 November 1977. Edited by Yūsuf Fādi Hassan and Paul Doornbos, 283–305. Khartoum, Sudan: Khartoum University Press, 1977.
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Duffield’s article sheds light on the little-studied Fulani of Sudan. The analysis centers on Fulani settlements that were founded by Mai Wurno, the son of the last independent sultan of the Sokoto Caliphate, from 1906 onward. The settlements are examined within the framework of Mahdist and revisionist Mahdist doctrines represented by the Fulani religious class and aristocracy respectively. Duffield describes the transformation of this divide into anticolonial and procolonial Fulani factions during the colonial conquest.
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Santerre, Renaud. Pédagogie musulmane d’Afrique noire: L’école coranique peule du Cameroun. Montréal: Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1973.
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Santerre investigates Koranic schooling among the Fulani of Maroua in northern Cameroon. For a long time the Fulani, whose supremacy had been based on their religious expertise, stuck to Islamic schooling at the expense of western education, which prevented employment of their children by the modern administration. Santerre observes the changed situation in which the Fulani boys increasingly participate in western training, while the girls form a rising proportion in Koranic schools.
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Ethnopsychology

The Fulani code of ideal public behavior, pulaaku (literally “Fulaniness” or “to be a Pullo”), is a much-discussed theme in works on Fulani culture. It refers to restrained and self-controlled bodily behavior that is deeply motivated by a sense of shame. In efforts to outline and elaborate an ideal Fulani personality, scholars have generally emphasized three everyday behavior-centred pulaaku traits: semteende (modesty, reserve, and shame); munyal (patience, self-control, and fortitude); and hakkiilo (care and forethought). All these further the self-mastery through which a Fulani attempts to appear as if s/he is autonomous in relation to other people and to his/her own bodily needs. Dognin 1975 emphasizes the Fulani aspiration for autonomy and completeness, and the meaning of munyal as a means to preserve one’s personal integrity. Riesman 1977 looks at Fulani social life with a focus on the concepts of freedom and autonomy, underlining that the Fulani sense of autonomy is closely related to semteende, that is, avoidance of shame. Riesman 1992 enquires into Fulani child-rearing practices, claiming that these do not form a child’s personality—that results rather from differences between social environments which children start to understand only after having developed their hakkiilo, that is, forethought with a strong social dimension.

Dognin, René. “Sur trois ressorts du comportement Peul.” Paper presented and discussed at the 13th International African Seminar, Niamey, December 1972. In Pastoralism in Tropical Africa. Edited by Théodore Monod, 298–321. London: Oxford University Press, 1975.
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Examining Fulani personality through Western psychoanalysis, Dognin claims narcissism plays a determining role in the Fulani psyche. This appears in the aspiration to present oneself as autonomous and complete through certain “social defence mechanisms,” such as reserve and self-control, which help to avoid feeling humiliated. For Dognin the desire to preserve a specific phenotype both among humans and cattle reflects the ideal of completeness at the collective level.
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Riesman, Paul. Freedom in Fulani Social Life: An Introspective Ethnography. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977.
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In his study of the Jelgobe Fulani in Upper Volta, Riesman relates personal autonomy to semteende (sense of shame) and self-control. To lose one’s self-control means losing temporarily one’s sense of autonomy which, according to Riesman, happens when a Fulani shows strong emotions, or dependency for basic needs on others, in public. Riesman sees semteende as a central virtue that constantly reminds a Fulani of the risk of acting shamefully.
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Riesman, Paul. First Find Your Child a Good Mother: The Construction of Self in Two African Communities. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1992.
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Through comparing the (quite similar) child-rearing practices of the Jelgobe Fulani of Upper Volta and their former slaves, Riesman challenges the Western view of these practices as forming the child’s personality for life. Instead he emphasizes the role of different social environments, which children start to understand in their later childhood after having developed hakkiilo, that is, forethought and social sense.
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Gender

The discussion of gender relations and women’s status among the Fulani has mainly been centered on two specific topics. First, gender roles and statuses have been viewed within the frames and constraints of nomadic pastoralism, in which a symbolic and economic division has been made between “masculine” cattle and “feminine” milk—a division representing the gendered division of labor and revealing the specific substances that objectify men’s and women’s influence in pastoral society. Secondly, the question has been asked how Islamization of the Fulani has affected their traditional gendered conceptions and practices. Dupire 1963 maps the status of the nomadic WoDaaBe Fulani women of Niger in three spheres—the social, the economic, and the politico-legal—and gives a systematic description of marriage forms and women’s relations with specific kin categories, as well as their livestock rights. De Bruijn 1997 pays attention to the deteriorating effect of the Sahel droughts on the fayannde, the special female-headed unit in pastoral Fulani camps in Mali, with its traditional role in organizing the milk economy and maintaining social relations in the group. Virtanen 2010, focusing on the meanings attached to cattle among the Mbororo Fulani in Cameroon, discusses the effects of Islamization in the inheritance system and the ritual sphere and how these effects are gendered. VerEecke 1989 characterizes the position of the settled town Fulani women in Adamawa, Nigeria, as subordinated to men; the article considers this subordination —partly due to Fulani interpretation of Islamic ideology—as a central virtue for Fulani women in their drive for religious piety. Regis 2003 brings forward the plurality of perspectives and opinions in everyday conversations recorded with sedentary Fulani men and women in northern Cameroon on such issues as gender, marriage, politics, sickness, spirits, Fulaniness, and Islam.

de Bruijn, Mirjam. “The Hearthhold in Pastoral Fulbe Society, Central Mali: Social Relations, Milk and Drought.” Africa 67.4 (1997): 625–651.
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By elaborating on the salience of the hearthhold (fayande), the female-centred unit symbolized by milk, for the socio-material security among the Jallube Fulani in Mali, de Bruijn offers a complementary view to the stereotype of Fulani society as being cattle-centred and patriarchal. She claims that impoverishment and the shift to agriculture, caused by the Sahel droughts, has reduced the symbolic and economic meaning of fayande and milk, and considerably worsened women’s situation.
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Dupire, Marguerite. “The Position of Women in a Pastoral Society (the Fulani WoDaaBe, Nomads of the Niger).” In Women of Tropical Africa. Edited by Denise Paulme, 47–92. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963.
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Dupire emphasizes that, while the inheritance and property rights of the pastoral WoDaaBe women are much weaker than those of men, their actual situation is ameliorated by certain social obligations that men have to their wives and children. Dupire shows how different marriage forms give women different rights to resources. She underlines the meaning of milking rights and women’s power of decision in regard to milk sales and small stock.
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Regis, Helen. Fulbe Voices: Marriage, Islam, and Medicine in Northern Cameroon. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2003.
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Regis’s account of the sedentary Fulani men’s and women’s voices is based on her everyday conversations with the residents of a North Cameroonian Fulani farming and trading village. She emphasizes the highly segregated and gendered nature of the worlds of Fulani men and women, and discerns differences in male and female views and approaches related to, for example, marriage, kinship, healing practices, and the spirit world.
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VerEecke, Catherine. “From Pasture to Purdah: The Transformation of Women’s Roles and Identity among the Adamawa Fulbe.” Ethnology 28.1 (1989): 53–73.
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VerEecke argues that Islamization has reinforced Fulani women’s obedience to men, which already prevailed among pre-Islamic nomadic groups. She describes how, among Muslim town Fulani in Nigeria, the traditional Fulani virtue of semteende (reserve and shame) has acquired new gendered meanings, manifesting in women’s extreme modesty in behavior and dress, including veiling, as well as their seclusion. She also pays attention to religious constraints set on women’s economic ambitions.
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Virtanen, Tea. “Between Cattle and Islam: Shifting Social and Gendered Significance of Cattle among the Mbororo Pastoralists in Cameroon.” In Good to Eat, Good to Live with: Nomads and Animals in Northern Eurasia and Africa. Edited by Florian Stammler and Hiroki Takakura, 123–139. Northeast Asian Studies Series 11. Sendai, Japan: Center for Northeast Asian Studies, Tohoku University, 2010.
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Virtanen discusses the impact of Islamization on some gendered practices among the Mbororo of Adamawa, Cameroon. She finds no indication of reshaping the traditional son-centered cattle inheritance system along the lines of Islamic conventions. Instead, Virtanen observes elimination of certain marriage rituals regarded as un-Islamic. She also mentions the new trend of forbidding women’s traditional milk-selling business which, due to its high mobility, is considered unsuitable for Muslim women.
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Pastoral Economy

Though many Fulani have abandoned animal husbandry, they still form the dominant pastoralist group in West Africa. As a mode of living, pastoralism is largely about seeking adequate grazing land and water, which in turn requires spatial mobility. The extent of mobility varies according to environmental conditions, and hence the Fulani groups can be nomadic, seminomadic, or settled, depending on the local availability of such resources as nutrients and water for livestock. Dupire 1972 describes the significance of pastoralism for nomadic, seminomadic, and sedentary Fulani in Niger, paying special attention to sale of cattle and milk products. Awogbade 1983 studies the pastoral Fulani in Jos, Nigeria and reveals socioeconomic change toward the increasing authority of the father and atomization of the camp structure. In addition to detailed knowledge and experience of the local ecosystem, successful pastoral economy calls for cattle-breeding expertise as well as skills in keeping livestock and human populations in balance. Krätli 2008 focuses on the cattle-breeding system of the WoDaaBe in Niger and shows how animal productivity is closely connected with mobility. In the Sudano-Sahelian region pastoralism is recurrently challenged by farmer-herder competition over scarce land resources, a competition that sometimes escalates into conflicts, for example, in the course of droughts. Beauvilain 1977 casts light on the agro-pastoral competition in Niger, paying special attention to the drought years 1973–1974. Gallais 1967 gives a more general description of the ethnic and economic diversity in the inland Niger Delta in Mali, and portrays the Fulani, with their pastoral activities in their “grass niche,” as one component in that ethnic/occupational mosaic. Meanwhile the African nation-states are pressuring the pastoralists to shift into a more sedentary way of life and commercial production. Gefu 1992 argues that the main reason for the failure of the livestock development program, adopted by the Nigerian state in the 1970s, was the lack of sensitivity for pastoralists’ own point of view. See also the separate Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies article “Pastoralism” by Peter D. Little, available by subscription.

Awogbade, Moses O. Fulani Pastoralism. Zaria, Nigeria: Ahmadu Bello University Press, 1983.
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Awogbade’s study of the pastoral Fulani in Jos, Nigeria gives a detailed description of various activities related to pastoralism from camp displacements and herd management to marketing of livestock products. He also pays attention to socioeconomic change taking place among the Fulani, including the increased authority of the father and the ensuing emergence of atomistic three-generation camps, each pursuing its own economic interests without significant cooperation with larger kinship networks.
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Beauvilain, Alain. Les Peul du Dallol Bosso. Niamey, Niger: Institut des Recherche en Sciences Humaines, 1977.
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Beauvilain’s doctoral thesis focuses on the agro-pastoral and nomadic Fulani of Dallol Bosso, Niger. It discusses cattle and pastoral movement, and sheds light on the competition between pastoralists and farmers for access to land. Special attention is paid to periods of drought, especially the years 1973–1974.
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Dupire, Marguerite. Les facteurs humains de l’economie pastorale. Niamey, Niger: Centre Nigerien de Recherches en Sciences Humaines, 1972.
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Dupire’s study of the pastoral economy of the Fulani of Niger consists of two parts. The first part discusses the role and forms of pastoralism in three Fulani groups—the nomadic, seminomadic, and sedentary—as well as among non-Fulani sedentary people (Sarakolle, Touareg, and Bella). In the second part Dupire inquires into the commercialization of pastoralism by exploring cattle- and milk product–related economic transactions.
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Gallais, Jean. Le delta intérieur du Niger: Étude géographique régionale. 2 vols. Dakar, Senegal: IFAN, 1967.
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Gallais’s study surveys the human geography of the inland Niger delta of Mali. The local ethnic groups are presented through their seasonal occupational activities. A detailed account is given of the Fulani pastoralists who, surrounded by fishing and farming groups, form the largest group in the region. As factors hindering progress in the local pastoral economy, Gallais mentions the tsetse fly, poor cattle transport facilities, and pastoralists’ reluctance to change.
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Gefu, Jerome. Pastoralist Perspectives in Nigeria: The Fulbe of Udubo Grazing Reserve. Uppsala, Sweden: Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, 1992.
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The World Bank originally commissioned this research report, which inquires into the efforts of the Nigerian state to deal with the worsening food supply in the country by improving pastoral productivity. Drawing from his field study in the Bauchi state, Gefu concludes that the implemented livestock development interventions, such as creation of settlements and grazing reserves for pastoralists in the 1970s, failed because the knowledge and needs of the pastoralists were neglected.
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Krätli, Saverio. “Cattle Breeding, Complexity and Mobility in a Structurally Unpredictable Environment: The Wodaabe Herders of Niger.” Nomadic Peoples 12.1 (2008): 11–41.
DOI: 10.3167/np.2008.120102Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
The article explores cattle production among nomadic WoDaaBe herders in the harsh and unpredictable Sahelian environment in Niger. Krätli pays special attention to the WoDaaBe cattle-breeding system, which aims at structuring animal variability into dynamic patterns of diversity based on organizing cattle along matriarchal lineages. He also inquires into their complex practices of mobility, which are deeply embedded in their production strategy and breeding system.
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Interethnic Relations

The Fulani have always lived in the vicinity of other ethnic groups, sometimes socially mingling and intermarrying with them, sometimes restricting intergroup dealings to economic relations while maintaining a strong separate cultural identity. In a customary form of symbiosis, pastoral Fulani have exchanged their milk products for cereals of local farmers who have also allowed the pastoralists to graze their animals in harvested areas in order to receive cattle manure for their fields. Yet in densely populated, cultivated, and grazed areas, this cohabitation has frequently led to land-use conflicts between the two groups. Contrary to their pastoral tribesmen, settled town Fulani have a long history of mixing with surrounding groups through intermarriages, a practice that has often led to the adoption of various customs from their neighbors. Despite this mingling, town Fulani have usually considered themselves superior to other local people who, since the aftermath of the Fulani jihads in West Africa, have had to content themselves with a subservient position vis-à-vis their Fulani masters. The interethnic relations between the Fulani and others take, of course, a multitude of region-specific forms. Burnham 1996 explores the interethnic relations between the politically dominant settled Fulani, the Gbaya farmers, and the pastoral Mbororo Fulani in northern Cameroon, showing how local social trends as well as late 20th large-scale external influences have impacted on the ethnic interaction in the region. A collection edited by de Bruijn and van Dijk 1997 examines the historically and dialectically constructed relation between the Fulani and the Mandinka people in Mali. The articles shed light on how local oral traditions still shape the ways in which the two groups see each other, as well as how major historical events have influenced their interrelations. The edited volume Diallo and Schlee 2000 highlights the relations between Fulani and other groups in five African nation-states, the focus being on pastoralist-farmer relations.

Burnham, Philip. The Politics of Cultural Difference in Northern Cameroon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1996.
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Burnham studies the interaction between the dominant settled Fulani, Gbaya farmers, and pastoral Mbororo Fulani in northern Cameroon. The emphasis is on the effects of recent developments—including the decline of the state and the growing importance of civil society—on ethnic interaction and politico-religious mobilization. Burnham introduces the concept of “Fulbeisation,” referring to assimilation of people from various ethnic origins to the (settled) Fulani ethnic category.
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de Bruijn, Mirjam, and Han van Dijk, eds. Peuls et Mandingues: Dialectique des constructions identitaires. Ouvrage issu d’une table ronde lors de la 3e Conférence de l’Association des études mandingues, Leyde, 20–24 mars 1995. Hommes et sociétés. Paris: Éditions Karthala, 1997.
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The collection discusses the interethnic relations between the Fulani and Mandinka in Mali, beginning with articles that detail the time when the Mandinka and Fulani kingdoms were founded and the Fulani partly dominated the Mandinka region. Successive articles deal with oral traditions and their effect on the two groups’ conceptions of each other. The final contributions examine how colonization, droughts, Islamization, and democratization have affected Fulani-Mandinka relations.
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Diallo, Youssouf, and Günther Schlee, eds. L’ethnicité Peule dans des contextes nouveaux: La dynamique des frontières. Paris: Karthala, 2000.
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The articles in this volume look at the relations between the Fulani and other ethnic groups in Mali, Benin, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and Sudan. The focus is on the relations between pastoral Fulani and farmers; specific themes include competition over resources, the role of intermediaries between the Fulani and others, ritualized relationships of protection, and differences between migrating Fulani groups in adjusting to life amid new local neighbors.
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Contemporary Mobility, Identity and Urbanization

Local trends as well as large-scale developments in Africa and beyond during the postcolonial era have had major impacts on the Fulani population in different localities. Harsh droughts in the Sahel and the encroachment of agriculture deeper into grazing areas have pushed a great number of pastoral Fulani into new regions and forced many to give up cattle herding. In the course of decolonization local power relations were reorganized, and as a result traditional Fulani elites partly lost their power to other local populations. The political liberal reforms of the 1990s brought about further changes as, along with other Africans, the Fulani became more free to take part in earlier banned political, cultural, and religious practices, and gather together for ethnic and indigenous mobilization. The worldwide process of urbanization has also affected the Fulani in many ways, such as altering their modes of residence and livelihood. Loftsdóttir 2008 describes the lives of the WoDaaBe Fulani in Niger, struggling to make a living between the nomadic camp and the capital city of Niamey, and using the modern tourist industry for their own benefit. Pelican 2008 looks at the strategies of the Mbororo Fulani in northwest Cameroon in their request for regional citizenship and indigenous minority status, and analyzes what kinds of positive and negative consequences their recent political mobilization has engendered. Oppong 2002 focuses on Fulani residing in urban, peri-urban, and rural parts of the Greater Accra region of Ghana to explore factors perpetuating, or fragmenting, Fulani identity in this context. Djedjebi 2009 discusses livelihood diversification among town-based Fulani in three cities in Benin, seeing the commercialization of livestock as a crucial factor fostering change in the Fulani livelihood modes, while Jalloh 1999 underscores the role of livestock trade when looking for reasons for Fulani merchants’ economic success in Freetown, Sierra Leone in the 1960s and the 1970s. He also looks at how Islam and politics have furthered Fulani business success.

Djedjebi, Théophile. Pastoralistes et la ville au Bénin: Livelihoods en questionnement. Leiden, The Netherlands: African Studies Centre, 2009.
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Djedjebi examines Fulani urbanization in Benin, emphasizing the role of commercialization of livestock as the gateway to towns. Attention is paid to polarization between two occupational groups, livestock traders and herdsmen, of whom only the former are able to invest in income-generating activities, such as other forms of trade, and education. Djedjebi also discusses other urban Fulani livelihoods and the importance of social networks for getting ahead in towns.
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Jalloh, Alusine. African Entrepreneurship: Muslim Fula Merchants in Sierra Leone. Athens, OH: Center for International Studies, 1999.
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Jalloh seeks to explain how and why the merchants of the Fulani immigrant community in Sierra Leone achieved business success—especially in the livestock, merchandise, and transport sectors—in the relatively hostile business environment of Freetown from 1961 to 1978. As factors contributing to prosperity in business, Jalloh investigates shared Islamic values, emphasis on kinship relations, and Fulani merchants’ political connections. Success in business is seen as a source of social status.
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Loftsdóttir, Kristín. The Bush Is Sweet: Identity, Power and Development among Wodaabe Fulani in Niger. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2008.
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A study of the challenging lives of the WoDaaBe nomads of Niger between the bush and the city. Loftsdóttir argues that younger WoDaaBe generations especially, by commercializing identity-related products such as handicrafts and dances and selling them in towns to Westerners who yearn for “eco-indigenous” authenthicity, use Westerners’ stereotypes to their own people’s benefit, as this tourist business enables other kin members to stay in the bush.
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Oppong, Yaa P. A. Moving Through and Passing On: Fulani Mobility, Survival, and Identity in Ghana. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2002.
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Oppong’s book asks on what elements the heterogeneous Fulani population of the contemporary Greater Accra region of Ghana base their common identity. The study discusses the role of endogamous marriages, common interest in cattle, Fulani ethnic associations, and public parades and gatherings as central sites for the construction of shared Fulani identity. Modern education and nontraditional work forms are seen as new opportunities which create tension between tradition and modernity.
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Pelican, Michaela. “Mbororo Claims to Regional Citizenship and Minority Status in North-West Cameroon.” Africa 78.4 (2008): 540–560.
DOI: 10.3366/E0001972008000430Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Pelican assesses the recent political mobilization of the Mbororo Fulani of northwest Cameroon who, heartened by national political reform and changes in international development policies, are claiming regional citizenship and indigenous minority status. The specific Mbororo strategy is to fight through legal claims and coopting of high-ranking officials instead of local negotiations. Pelican argues that while this fight has ameliorated their overall status and self-confidence, it risks creating new interethnic tensions.
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Pastoral Aesthetics and Visual Art Forms

The aesthetic values that Fulani cherish are materialized in objects often manufactured by other local groups or foreigners. Partly due to the high mobility of their pastoral owners, these objects are of an ephemeral nature. A notable exception is the site of prehistoric rock paintings of Tassili n’Ajjer in southeastern Algeria; Bâ and Dieterlen 1966 link the symbolism of many of these figures to the worldview of the ancestors of the pastoral Fulani. Among the most long-lived aesthetic objects today are wooden bowls and calabashes with exquisite decoration, forming a source of pride for their female possessors, and serving as receptacles for milk products and other materials. Various utility articles such as amulets and knife sheaths are made of leather and, like the calabashes, ornamented with geometric designs. Fulani are famous for their preoccupation with personal beauty: women wear abundant jewelry, including earrings, necklaces, and bracelets. Both men and women wear decorative amulets with protective and charm effects. In many groups lineage-specific tattooing is also popular among both sexes as well as conspicuous makeup. The meaning of Fulani personal beauty and body adornment is emphasized in such public performances as the male dances and beauty contests of the WoDaaBe Fulani during their annual wet season worso gatherings. Although there are coffee-table books introducing Fulani aesthetics and art forms through photographs, comprehensive academic presentations of the subject are rare. Adepegba 1986 offers a forty-page introduction to the body ornaments and calabash decoration of the pastoral Fulani of Nigeria. The description in Bovin 2001 of the aesthetic values of the WoDaaBe of Niger focuses on their personal beauty ideals and care, indigenous dance genres, and camp aesthetics. Boesen 2008 notices that those relatively few modern industrially produced goods that the WoDaaBe appropriate in the domain of their cultural self-expression are chosen due to specific features having high aesthetic value in the WoDaaBe culture.

Adepegba, Cornelius. Decorative Arts of the Fulani Nomads. Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1986.
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Adepegba’s short study of the decorative arts of the pastoral Fulani of Kontagora and Biu, Nigeria contains a general introduction to Fulani culture, and descriptions of the pastoralists’ body ornaments and calabash decoration. The discussed ornaments include male and female clothes, hair styles, jewelry, and tattooing. The text is illustrated with Fulani portraits and photographs of calabash decorations from the studied area.
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Bâ, Amadou Hampâté, and Germaine Dieterlen. “Les fresques d’époque bovidienne du Tassili N’Ajjer et les traditions des Peul: Hypothèses d’interprétation.” Journal de la Société des Africanistes 36.1 (1966): 141–157.
DOI: 10.3406/jafr.1966.1407Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Bâ and Dieterlen trace the symbolism of many of the famous prehistoric rock paintings of Tassili n’Ajjer, Algeria, to an ancient pastoral Fulani worldview. They find resemblance between the painted motifs in Tassili with a Fulani shepherd’s initiation text (Koumen) which they recorded earlier in Senegambia. They pay attention, for example, to qualities of the bovines, activities and cloths of the persons, and some mythic figures in the paintings.
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Boesen, Elisabeth. “Gleaming Like the Sun: Aesthetic Values in Wodaabe Material Culture.” Africa 78.4 (2008): 582–602.
DOI: 10.3366/E0001972008000454Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
This article highlights, in its discussion of WoDaaBe material aesthetic values, how the WoDaaBe of Central Niger, while appropriating relatively few modern industrially produced goods for their identity expression, willingly buy items with shining and luminous quality, as these have a distinctive aesthetic value among them. Boesen gives the example of the drums of discarded washing machines, which the WoDaaBe women add to the ensemble of their most treasured household utensils.
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Bovin, Mette. Nomads Who Cultivate Beauty: Wodaabe Dances and Visual Arts in Niger. Uppsala, Sweden: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2001.
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Bovin’s volume discusses the importance of beauty among the WoDaaBe of Niger, centering on how their aesthetic values, based on principles of symmetry, are reflected in their personal beauty ideals and body adornments, traditional dances, and camp architecture. Special attention is given to vanity of young WoDaaBe men. The book includes an appendix of seventy-one illustrative photographs.
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Fulfulde/Pulaar Grammars and Dictionaries

Fulfulde, the language of the Fulani, belongs to the West Atlantic or Senegambian branch of the Niger-Congo language family. It has spread with its speakers into a wide geographic area from Senegal to Sudan. Fulfulde is based on verbo-nominal roots. It uses inner derivational suffixes to modify meaning, and has a system of twenty-five noun classes. Other specific Fulfulde features are the classification of verbs into active, middle, and passive voices and initial-consonant mutation between singular and plural forms of nouns and verbs. Usually four well-documented main dialect groups are distinguished: Pulaar of Senegal and Mauritania, Pular of Guinea, Fulfulde of Maasina in Mali, and Fulfulde of northern Nigeria and northern Cameroon. Regarding other areas such as Burkina Faso, Benin and Niger, there is less literature on the Fulani language of its local speakers, and in regard to countries such as Chad, the Central African Republic, and Sudan, the documentation is even sparser. There are a host of regional grammars and dictionaries providing introductions to the Fulfulde language, of which only a few are mentioned here. Noye 1974 offers the basics of Fulfulde grammar based on the dialect of the Maroua region of northern Cameroon. Jungraithmayr and Abu-Manga 1989 provides a practical beginners’ course of Fulfulde spoken in northern Nigeria. Swift, et al. 1965 is an introduction to Sene-Gambian Fula and contains the basic grammatical structures as well as dialogue and narrative texts. In regard to dictionaries, Taylor 1995 is a Fulani-English dictionary of the Fulfulde of northern Nigeria, structured around verbal root words. Eguchi 1986 is an English-Fulfulde dictionary based on vocabulary presented in Taylor 1995, and intended to be used in conjunction with the latter. The extensive Fulfulde dictionary of the Maasina region of Central Mali by Osborn, et al. 1993 compiles lexical data from twenty-six sources and serves both English and French readers. Finally, Seydou 1998 is a Fulfulde-French-English verb root dictionary covering the dialects of Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, and Cameroon.

Eguchi, Paul. An English-Fulfulde Dictionary. African Language and Ethnography 21. Osaka, Japan: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1986.
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Egushi’s English-Fulfulde dictionary is based on Taylor’s A Fulani-English Dictionary of northern Nigeria, and intended to be used as a kind of index with the latter. The users are assumed to have at least rudimentary knowledge of Fulfulde grammar. The dictionary consists of 15,061 English entries and 11,910 Fulfulde words.
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Jungraithmayr, Hermann, and Al-Amin Abu-Manga. Einführung in die Ful-Sprache. Berlin: D. Reimer, 1989.
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An easily accessible introductory course of Fulfulde as spoken in northern Nigeria. The book is divided into thirty lessons, each comprising a short text, exercises, and concluding comments on grammar. It ends with a 1250-word lexicon covering the words used in the exercises.
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Noye, Dominique. Cours de Foulfouldé: Dialecte Peul du Diamaré, Nord-Cameroun. Paris: Geuthner, 1974.
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Noye’s basic course of Fulfulde is based on the dialect of the Maroua region of northern Cameroon. Each of the twenty chapters introduces a specific aspect of grammar with a short vocabulary and related exercises. The grammatical chapters are complemented by a collection of tales, riddles, and proverbs, as well as basic Fulfulde-French and French-Fulfulde lexicons.
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Osborn, Donald, David Dwyer, and Joseph Donohoe. A Fulfulde (Maasina)-English-French Lexicon: A Root-Based Compilation Drawn from Extant Sources Followed by English-Fulfulde and French-Fulfulde Listings. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1993.
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This dictionary, based on the Fulfulde spoken in the Maasina region of central Mali, contains extensive English-Fulfulde-English and French-Fulfulde-French sections. The appendices include brief descriptions of specific grammatical features needed in using the Fulfulde entries. The dictionary is based on lexical data from a wide range of published and unpublished sources, and is targeted at development workers, researchers, and others working in the field.
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Seydou, Christiane, ed. Dictionnaire pluridialectal des racines verbales du peul: Peul-français-anglais. Paris: Karthala, 1998.
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This volume, based on data collected by a team of Fulfulde/Pulaar/Fula specialists, is a trilingual (Fulfulde-French-English) dictionary of verbal roots. It covers the dialectal areas of Senegal, Mali, Nigeria, and Cameroon, thus enabling the scrutiny of interdialectal correspondences. The dictionary is structured in a way that permits exploration of both phonetic and semantic dialectal variations.
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Swift, Lloyd, Kalilu Tambadu, and Paul Imhoff. Fula Basic Course. Washington, DC: Foreign Service Institute, 1965.
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This brief introduction to Sene-Gambian Fula begins with twenty units of grammar and drill material. The grammatical structures are chosen on the grounds of their helpfulness in the student’s early encounters with the Fulani. The remaining twenty units provide dialogue and narrative texts with related exercises. A glossary has been collected of words considered useful in everyday situations.
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Taylor, Frank. A Fulani-English Dictionary. New York: Hippocrene, 1995.
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Taylor’s classical Fulani-English dictionary is based on Fulfulde spoken in northern Nigeria. The dictionary is structured around verbal root words which are then followed by examples and compounds of the verb, participles, and nouns. A few of the most common words can also be found separately. The reader is presumed to have some basic knowledge of, for example, Fulfulde consonant mutations to be able to use the dictionary. Originally published in Oxford, UK in 1932.
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Folk Literature

Among African literatures, Fulani literary production is exceptionally abundant. This is said to result from their nomadic way of life, which, while constricting material artistic expression, favors investment in language and verbal art forms. Regional differences exist regarding the occurrence of specific oral genres. Of prose genres, proverbs, riddles and folktales—through which social norms and ontological conceptions are transferred and children learn language—exist in all Fulani inhabited regions. Gaden 1931 is a pioneering work on Fulani and Tukulor proverbs collected in northwestern Senegal and accompanied by French explanations and notes. Sek and Mohammadou 2008 offers a vast collection of Fulani proverbs supplemented with commentaries in Pulaar and contextual information. Many of the Fulani folktales have been collected in the eastern regions, with a smaller amount also originating in the west. Eguchi 1978–1984 is a four-volume collection comprising 207 Fulfulde folktales collected in the Maroua region of Cameroon and accompanied by English translations. Baumgardt 2000 introduces the repertoire of a female storyteller from Garoua, Cameroon with French translations and a detailed ethnolinguistic analysis. The Fulani are also known for their poetry, both sacred and secular, which can be found in all regions. Seydou 2008 offers a rare example of mystical Sufi poetry composed in Fulfulde in the 19th century by Muslim Fulani poets in Mali. The historical oral narrative is a genre collected especially from the eastern Fulani; Mohammadou 1970–1988 is a six-volume collection of the oral history of the Fulani chiefdoms of northern Cameroon. The Fulani epic, which is exclusively a western genre, includes, on the one hand, the legendary epic of pre-Islamic times and, on the other hand, the epic that focuses on the Islamic heroes of Fulani empires. Seydou 1972, which belongs to the first category, introduces the epic poem of Silamâka, a Fulani master, and his slave Poullôri, as sung by a famous Nigerien griot Boubacar Tinguidji.

Baumgardt, Ursula. Une conteuse peule et son repertoire: Goggo Addi de Garoua, Cameroun. Paris: Karthala, 2000.
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Baumgardt’s volume contains a corpus and thoroughgoing analysis of seventy folktales narrated by Goggo Addi, a Fulani female storyteller from Garoua, Cameroon. Special attention is paid to the conception of space as a regulator of social relations, as well as to how the structure of the society is presented in the folktales. Another central theme is how the tales reflect the various female roles in the sedentary Fulani society.
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Eguchi, Paul Kazuhisa. Fulfulde Tales of North Cameroon. 4 vols. African Languages and Ethnography 11, 13, 15, and 18. Tokyo: Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 1978–1984.
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The four-volume collection is based on folktales that Eguchi collected from 1969 to 1970 in the Maroua region, Cameroon. It contains 207 tales narrated in Fulfulde by both men and women, some of whom are of non-Fulani origin. Basic information about the storytellers is given in the preface. The tales are accompanied by English translations and short annotations.
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Gaden, Henri. Proverbes et maxims peuls et toucouleurs traduits, expliqués, et annotés. Paris: L’Institute d’ethnologie, 1931.
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A French colonial official’s early pioneering collection of Fulani and Tukulor proverbs that were mostly gathered from native informants in St Louis in northwestern Senegal. The collection comprises 1282 proverbs in Pulaar accompanied by French translations, explanations, and extended notes. The proverbs are thematically classified under eleven general headings which are then followed by a final chapter containing sayings about the Futa of Senegal, its inhabitants, and history.
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Mohammadou, Eldridge, ed. L’histoire des peuls Feroobe du Diamaré: Maroua et pétté. Les Traditions Historiques des Peuls de l’Adamaua 1. Vols. 1–6. Niamey, Niger: Regional Documentation Centre for Oral Tradition, 1970–1988.
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Mohammadou’s six volumes are a result of his ambitious project of recording oral histories of the Fulani chiefdoms of northern Cameroon. The narratives have been gathered mainly from Fulani chiefs and their notables and literati. The texts include information on the foundation of the Fulani chiefdoms, their internal power struggles, Interethnic Relations, and the events related to European colonization. The Fulfulde texts are accompanied by French translations.
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Sek, Mammadu, and Aliou Mohammadou. Payka: Parole Succulante. Paris: Timtimol KJPF, 2008.
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Sek’s and Mohammadou’s collection covers 1276 Fulani proverbs and is supplemented by explanatory commentaries in Pulaar. The commentaries provide information on the context in which the proverbs are used. A thorough index inventories the lexical terms of the collection.
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Seydou, Christiane. Silâmaka et Poullôri: Récit épique peul raconté par Tinguidji. Classiques Africaines 13. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1972.
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This volume is based on Seydou’s recording of an epic of Silâmaka and Poullôri, a Fulani master and his slave, performed by a Nigerien griot Boubacar Tinguidji. The historical events in the background date back to the turn of the 19th century in Maasina. The text is complemented with French translation; Seydou’s introduction, which puts the text in a historical context; and a short biography of Tinguidji.
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Seydou, Christiane. La poésie mystique peule du Mali. Paris: Karthala, 2008.
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This collection consists of mystical poetry that Seydou recorded in 1970–1977 in Mali. These devotional poems were composed by four Sufi Muslim Fulani poets in the 19th century in Maasina. They belong to a specific Fulani performance genre recited or chanted in religious gatherings in which Fulfulde is used as the liturgical language. An illustrative introduction is written by Louis Brenner. The poems are accompanied by French translations.
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Biographies

Valuable information on individual Fulani lives in different epochs, regions, and circumstances is offered in these biographies. Hiskett 1973 describes the life of Shehu Usuman dan Fodio, the leader of the Fulani jihad in Hausaland, paying specific attention to dan Fodio’s Islamic intellectual background. Paden 1986 offers a biography of Ahmadu Bello, dan Fodio’s descendant and an influential Nigerian politician in the 1950s and 1960s. Bâ 1991 is an autobiographical account of the childhood and adolescence of the Malian intellectual Amadou Hampâte Bâ under French colonialism which also extends back into the lives of his maternal grandparents and father before his birth. Bocquené 1986 is a lively description of the life of Oumarou Ndoudi, a Mbororo Fulani from north Cameroon, combining autobiography and ethnography.

Bâ, Amadou Hampâté. Amkoullel, l’enfant peul: Mémoires. Arles, France: Actes Sud, 1991.
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In the first volume of his memoirs Bâ describes his childhood and adolescence in colonial Mali, as well as the lives of his maternal grandparents and father before his own birth. The book contains vivid accounts of Bâ’s colonial schooling and his stepfather’s social circles. Bâ also introduces personalities central to his early life and education, such as his mother Kadidja and his spiritual teacher Tierno Bokar.
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Bocquené, Henri. Moi, un Mbororo: Autobiographie de Oumarou Ndoudi, Peul nomade du Cameroun. Paris: Karthala, 1986.
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This captivating autobiography of Oumarou Ndoudi, a Mbororo Fulani from northern Cameroon, was tape-recorded, transcribed, translated, and edited by the French missionary Henri Bocquené. A specific ethnographic flavour of the text results from Ndoudi’s marginal position in his group, caused by his leprosy and prolonged treatments in towns, which gave him distance and “outsider’s” curiosity for Mbororo culture. Bocquené’s footnotes provide useful information for readers unfamiliar with the subject.
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Hiskett, Mervin. The Sword of Truth: The Life and Times of the Shehu Usuman Dan Fodio. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.
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In his description of the life and deeds of the jihad leader Shehu Usuman dan Fodio, Hiskett uses local manuscripts in Arabic, Hausa, and Fulfulde. Hiskett sees dan Fodio as an Islamic scholar rather than a social reformer, and pays particular attention to the effect of Islamic intellectual traditions, especially Sufism, on his theological and juridical thinking. The book contains quotes and interpretations of dan Fodio’s writings, such as songs.
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Paden, John. Ahmadu Bello, Sardauna of Sokoto: Values and Leadership in Nigeria. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986.
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This 799-page volume is a biography, commissioned by a northern Nigerian society, of Ahmadu Bello, a great-great grandson of the Sheikh Usuman dan Fodio, a major political leader of Nigeria’s first republic, and the premier of northern Nigeria from 1954 to 1966. Paden highlights Bello’s preoccupation with the idea of a united northern Nigeria, his bid to obliterate paganism, and his political passion for educational modernization of the Muslim population of Nigeria.