Tous les articles par Camille Lefebvre

Construction de la bibliothèque Mamadou Chétima de Zinder

Par Ari Awagana

Après la mission d’évaluation et d’archivage menée en mars 2019 par l’équipe de Langarchiv est né le projet de construire une bibliothèque au sein de la concession de la famille Chétima afin de pouvoir préserver les documents archivés sur place. En effet, le bâtiment où étaient entreposées jusqu’ici les caisses de documents était une maison en banco qui avait été recouverte partiellement d’une couche de ciment pour ralentir l’érosion annuelle liée à la pluie, mais dont le toit était en train de s’affaisser et des trous dans la toiture laissaient la pluie s’écouler dans la pièce. Le projet qui suivait les volontés de la famille Chétima était de construire un bâtiment moderne pour pouvoir accueillir la collection et ceux qui voudraient la consulter.

Ari Awagana sur le chantier de construction
La bibliothèque Chétima Mamadou à la veille de l’inauguration

Ari Awagana a soumis dans cette perspective avec le département de recherche et de transfert de l’Université de Leipzig une demande de financement auprès du Groupe de travail sur la préservation culturelle du ministère fédéral des Affaires étrangères allemand, qui a été rapidement approuvée. La construction devait commencer dès 2020, mais à cause de la pandémie de Covid 19, elle a été reportée à la fin 2021 et la bibliothèque a finalement été inaugurée en mars 2022.

Inauguration de la bibliothèque
Les documents dans la salle de consultation de la bibliothèque

Ce résultat n’aurait pas été possible sans le rôle clé joué par notre partenaire Laminou Issaka Brah (ancien maire de la commune 3 de Zinder  et actuel président de l’ASPHID Association pour la Préservation du Patrimoine Historique du Damagaram). La construction a été réalisée par l’entreprise Mahamadou Kabirou Maman Cheffou EMK BTP/H qui a été formée aux techniques de construction et de restauration modernes par le programme “Pôle Emploi” de l’antenne de la GIZ allemande à Zinder. Nos remerciements vont également au ministère de l’Enseignement supérieur du Niger, à l’ambassade d’Allemagne au Niger, au centre culturel franco-nigérien de Zinder, à la famille Chétima et enfin à l’actuel sultan du Samagaram Oumarou Sanda, un homme cosmopolite, qui par sa bénédiction et son soutien a rendu possible ce projet.

Deuxième mission dans la bibliothèque Chétima Mamadou de Zinder

Par Ari Awagana et Camille Lefebvre

Après la découverte en 2018, de trois caisses en bois remplies de manuscrits très dégradés dans une pièce en banco dans l’enceinte même de la maison familiale des Chétima, nous sommes revenus du 27 au 31 mars 2019 pour travailler avec les membres de la famille à l’évaluation et à la préservation de ces documents en compagnie du Dr Salao Alassane du département des manuscrits arabes et ajami (MARA) de l’IRSH (Institut des Recherches en Sciences Humaines) de l’Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey. Cette mission a eu lieu sous le patronage du Sultan du Damagaram Aboubalar Oumarou Sanda et a été rendu possible et organisée par M. le maire Laminou Issaka Brah.

Ari Awagana, Laminou Issaka Brah, le sultan Aboubakar Oumarou Sanda, Camille Lefebvre et Salao Alassane

Cette deuxième mission avait pour but dans un premier temps de faire une évaluation sommaire de l’ampleur de la collection et du contenu des archives afin de les classer par type de document et dans un second temps d’en assurer la préservation en les conservant dans des boites d’archives. Pendant cinq jours nous avons travaillé avec l’ensemble de la famille Chétima à dépoussiérer, nettoyer, évaluer l’état, lire puis classer les différents documents. Une partie des documents étaient trop dégradés pour être sauvegardés à cause de l’eau, des moisissures, des termites et ont été mis de côté. Deux tiers des documents étaient dans un état de conservation suffisamment acceptable pour pouvoir être manipulé et classé. Nous les avons parcourus pour pouvoir identifier le type de document afin de réaliser un classement sommaire.

Imam Oumarou et feu Chétima Mahamadou

Parmi ces documents se trouvaient des manuscrits, des ouvrages imprimés, des lettres, mais aussi des écrits pragmatiques ou ordinaires. Nous n’avons traité que les documents manuscrits que nous avons regroupés en quatre catégories : les écrits religieux, les documents de jurisprudence, les correspondances et les documents liés aux sciences occultes. Dans cette collection, les documents étaient en très grande majorité en langue arabe, mais se trouvaient parmi eux quelques documents en ajami haoussa, en old kanembu et certains plus récents en français.

La préparation des boites d’archives pour les documents

L’élément le plus important de cette collection est la présence de Coran et d’éléments de fiqh (jurisprudence islamique) glosés ou interlinéarisés en old kanembu, dont certains dateraient du de la fin du 17ème siècle, selon l’expertise codicologie réalisée sur image par Dmitry Bondarev. La bibliothèque contenait aussi de nombreux textes soufis de différentes tarīqa comme la Tijjaniyya, Qadiriyya, Sanussiyya, Zurukhiyya principalement en langue arabe, etc. Mais aussi des traités de tafsir, des recueils de hadith, des textes de grammaire arabe (nahw), des Qasida/poèmes de louanges au prophète, des Zuhud/chants soufis.

Au cœur de cette collection, les documents liés aux sciences occultes et aux pratiques magiques occupaient une place importante, environ plusieurs centaines de documents, que la famille préférait garder par-devers elle et que nous n’avons pas classés. Enfin, un ensemble documentaire très important était composé par plus de 400 lettres reçues par la famille Chétima et en particulier par Mamadou Chétima (m. 1922) et son fils Aboubacar Chétima, rédigée les plus souvent en arabe.

Enfin, un grand nombre de documents étaient liés à l’activité de qadi du sultan occupée par Mamadou Chétima : des dossiers de réclamations, des contrats de mariage, de divorce, des documents liés au partage d’héritage, des actes de résolution de conflits souvent liés au bétail ou au champ, des actes de vente, des reconnaissances de dettes, des listes nominatives ou de prix du bétail, etc.

Cet ensemble documentaire fait partie des plus importantes collections privées conservées au Niger ayant été identifiées jusque-là.

Si vous souhaitez en savoir plus, la télévision nationale du Niger a réalisé un documentaire sur cette mission

Research in the Sierra Leone Public Archives in Freetown

by Carolin Rippstain

As part of my research on the intellectual cooperation on Kanuri language between the German missionary S. W. Koelle and the Kanuri Ali Eisami (European alias William Harding), in mid-19th century Sierra Leone, I conducted fieldwork in Freetown in November and December 2021. My research interest was focused on Sierra Leone‘s Kanuri community in general, details about the life of Ali Eisami in particular, and about places and institutions he was related to, but also on the living conditions of Liberated Africans. Therefore I mainly worked with the records kept at the Sierra Leone Public Archives (SLPA).

Systematic record keeping in Sierra Leone was begun in 1895, yet a big variety of documents starting in the early 19th century have survived. During recent history, however, the archival collections have been subjected to several disruptions, including relocations and storage in unsuited locations, which caused serious disorder and damage as well as the loss of parts of the collections. At some point the documents were brought to the Fourah Bay College (FBC) as a temporary solution. Until today, however, no measures have been taken to end this state, so the documents, already in a bad physical condition, deteriorate ever further remaining in two rooms at FBC on Mount Aureol in Freetown, largely unnoticed by the public.

Despite its physical state the SLPA is a rich source especially regarding the trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, offering vast information on victims of the human trafficking as well as details on their ensuing liberation, resettlement and living conditions in the Colony. But the Archive is confronted with many difficulties like a constantly precarious financial situation, mirrored in low wages for the staff as well as inappropriate storage facilities – as such, problems that Katrina Keefer and team, well acquainted with the SLPA, describe as „systemic, pervasive, and governed by limitations within the country“[1]. Yet it is important to point out, as they do, that the local archival staff do not lack initiative or effort. Regardless of the official neglect they do their best to guard the collections as well as enable foreign researchers to work with them. More recent attempts at preserving the Archives and its contents mainly originate outside the country, with scientific interest and funding likewise being to a great extent provided by Western scientists. In recent years the main engagement with the SLPA took part within the scope of a series of digitisation projects initiated by Paul Lovejoy and Suzanne Schwarz with grants of the Endangered Archives Project intended to prevent the loss of invaluable yet mainly unexplored records.[2] These in turn form part of a broader digital hub initiated by Lovejoy, linking together different sources on trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.[3] The digitisation is an extremely important and helpful measure, at the same time securing the collection’s contents as well as facilitating access to them for people from both in- and outside the country, yet it is not a solution for the Archives‘ problems.


Conditions of the 20th century police records

Most prominently the collections contain the Liberated African Registers, lists of new arrivals, which contain indication of cultural attributes in the form of Native names, and in certain periods also individual marks. Apart from this there are various other records of the Liberated African Department, containing Return and Letterbooks or Statements of Disposal. Moreover we find Birth and Death Registers, Police and Court Records or correspondence by different Colonial officials. All these combined offer the possibility to piece together a picture of attitudes towards and treatment of Liberated Africans, and, to a certain extent, allow to trace individuals by their European name. As regards the Kanuri, official documents do not contain definitive traces which is propably due to their rather small number of around 200 members in the 1820-30s. Moreover they had already by the 1850s been reduced to some 30 members, due to high death rates caused by Sierra Leone‘s tropical climate.[4] The Registers show that around 1817-19 very many new arrivals where sent to Bathurst, the village also Eisami had been allocated to. Further analyses of their names and noted marks might allow to ascertain their origin, and see if other Kanuri where among them. Concerning Eisami in particular, Lovejoy had already identified an entry in the Register of Liberated Africans for 1816-19 that could, although with some uncertainty, be attributed to him.[ii] During my search I in turn found an entry in the Death Register, District Freetown, 1874-75, that with the same uncertainty might relate to Eisami. Entry Nr. 348. states the death of William Harding, 85, a former trader who had died of old age on the 8th November 1874 in Coleman Street. The age given in the Registers often seems to be an estimate more than actual knowledge and thus approximately fits Eisami’s.


Another point of interest was Eisami’s being a Constable, but as there were no records kept on the police within the control of the Liberated African Department prior to October 1830, there is no documentation available on his early years.[6] Yet different documents give indications concerning the Constables‘ general recruitment and function at that time. The village Managers (CMS Missionaries) „in their capacity of Justices of the Peace“[7] were usually given a free hand in selecting any person exhibiting „steady habits“[8] as Constables and those two parties were consequently almost autonomous in the handling of local justice. By the 1850s, however, Eisami was no longer a Constable and, together with the remaining Kanuri community, had in all likelihood moved to Cline Town, an independent settlement, belonging to Freetown District.[9] It was located at Fourah Bay close to the Old College building, the place where Koelle and Eisami worked on their linguistic project.

Founding the fame of the ‚Athens of West Africa‘, Fourah Bay College which is now located on Mount Aureol today still lures with its name, while studying conditions in turn have deteriorated considerably.[10] The same holds true for the Old FBC building – its facade still appears impressive and solid, on the inside, however, decay is undeniable and entry prohibited due to danger of collapse.

As for the Kanuri, they, just like most Liberated African communities decimated over time by death and emigration, seem to have gradually lost their cultural autonomy, which facilitated assimilation with the earliest settlers (Nova Scotians, Jamaican Maroons and Britain’s Black Poor) into a shared identity as an alledgedly distinct group called the Krios – the validity and scope of this phenomenon however continue to be controversially discussed.[11] The Krios nowadays amount to only around 1,3% of the total population, yet Liberated African’s history is an integral part of Sierra Leone‘s early history, presenting the country‘s unique feature. I am grateful to have had the possibility to work with the SLPA’s highly interesting records regardless of the Archive‘s difficult situation, made possible by the dedicated and supportive local archival staff. My special thanks goes to John Sannoh as well as Samuel Bangura and Mustapha Kallon for their support during my stay.


Mustapha Kallon, John Sannoh, Carolin Rippstain and Samuel Bangura


[1] Katrina Keefer, Eric Lehman, Michael McGill and Gabriela Mattia, ‚Documenting and Digitizing with Dignity: Ethical Considerations and the West African Frontier Force Personnel Records‘, Esclavages & Post-esclavages [Online], 3/2020, Online since 27 November 2020 [23.01.22].

[2] See description of digitisation project EAP782-1: https://eap.bl.uk/collection/EAP782-1.

[3] https://liberatedafricans.org/sources.php.

[4] S. W. Koelle, 1854, Grammar of the Bórnu or Kánuri Language: VIII.

[5] Paul E. Lovejoy, 2020, ‚Ali Eisami’s Enslavement in Jihad and Emancipation as a Liberated African‘, in: Liberated Africans and the  Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1807–1896, Richard Anderson and Henry B. Lovejoy (eds.), 127-149.

[6] SLPA, Liberated African Department Letterbook 1830-31, p. 122: letter by Alexander Findlay to Under Secretary of State, 6th October 1830.

[7] Ibid.

[8] SPLA, Liberated African Department Letterbook, 1830-31, p. 132, letter by Assistant Superintendent Cole to Manager of the Mountain District, Jones, 14th October 1830.

[9] CMS, CA1/M14, Mission Book 1848 – 52: Rev. G. Nicol letter to Henry Venn, 7th June 1851.

[10] Ibrahim Abdullah, ‚Fourah Bay College: Dying, not dead!‘, Pambazuka News, 30 June 2016 https://www.pambazuka.org/education/fourah-bay-college-dying-not-dead [27.01.22].

[11] C. Magbaily Fyle, „Unity in Diversity: Ethnicity and National Consciousness in Sierra Leone“, talk held at: National Consultative Conference, Freetown, March 2013 ; David Skinner and Barbara E. Harrell-Bond, 1977, ‚Misunderstandings Arising from the Use of the Term ‘Creole’ in the Literature on Sierra Leone‘, in: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 47/3, 305-320.





knowledge production on equal terms? The linguistic collection of Koelle and Ali Eisami: insights into early 19th century knowledge production

By Carolin Rippstain

The above mentioned topic is the object of my doctoral project that is affiliated to the EHESS and CNRS and started in December 2020 under the supervision of Camille Lefebvre as a part of the ERC/Langarchive and is intended to be finished by the end of 2023.

The name S. W. Koelle is quite well known among contemporary historians of Africa mainly for his Polyglotta Africana, a comparative Vocabulary of more than 100 African languages, which stands out due to its containing various biographical sketches of the speakers consulted, making it a rich historical source. Koelle compiled it in a 5 years stay at Sierra Leone where he was sent as a first socalled missionary linguist by the British Church Missionary Society (CMS) at the end of 1847. Yet, this work which earned  him a lot of attention already soon after its publication, originally was a private project that Koelle pursued in his free time against critisism from his fellow Missionaries and the Home Committee. His actual main task was to chose one language that he would learn so well that he could write a grammar of it and possibly translate some of the Holy Scriptures, following the main goal of spreading the Gospel. His choice of the Kanuri, spoken by a traditionally Muslim society, over the course of time did not quite turn out to be the right means to this end, yet by then had already proceeded so far that it was decided to have Koelle finish it nonetheless. Compared to the Polyglotta these Kanuri studies have always attracted much less attention, although they are a very interesting source both in regard to its content as well as its production. But recently this collection came into focus in the process of searching out African sources for African history mainly in hitherto neglected linguistic collections.

Photograph of Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, from Robert Needham Cust ‘A sketch of the modern languages of Africa’ (1883)

Renowned scholars like P. E. H. Hair, David Dalby, Paul Lovejoy, or Sara Pugach have conducted research regarding Koelle providing us with short biographical scetches, as well as some insights into the production of the collection. But this has never been done extensively and also, knowledge about his counterpart Ali Eisami falls rather short in comparison – only two articles concerning him have been published by F. C. Smith, D. M. Last and Gambo Gubio as well as Lovejoy.[1] Both of them, however, are based almost entirely on a report Eisami himself gave of his life. Moreover the knowledge about the two men has only very scarcely been connected and both never studied as a joint project – likewise their cooperation has not been the focus of any research project, or at least publication. In my research project I intend to draw a more complete picture combining the various aspects in relation to the two mens intellectual cooperation. Therefore I will work with Koelle‘s publications, the extensive CMS archive as well as British colonial records both in Britain and Sierra Leone and Koelle‘s correspondence with various scholars scattered over Germany, that I have already partially explored. A special focus is put on Ali Eisami and the outstanding publication ‚African Native Literature‘, as well as further parts of his narrations possibly to be found.

Image of Ali Eisami, from the frontispiece of Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle’s ‘Grammar of the Bórnu Or Kānurī Language’ (1854)

The Kanuri collection in question is a product of hundreds of hours joint linguistic sessions of Koelle and his chief interpreter the native Kanuri Ali Eisami Gazirma. The latters life had gone in disarrey in the turmoil of the Sokoto Jihad, culminating in his being kidnapped at around age 25 and enslaved for a period of 5 years in different regions of Western Africa. Finally, when about to being shipped across the Atlantic, Eisamis vessel was captured. He then was resettled in Sierra Leone in April 1818 as one of the socalled ‚Liberated Africans‘, eventually enabling his encounter with Koelle. Noticing early into their work that the Kanuri was a very complex language Koelle decided on forming a literature to get acquainted with the language and obtain a foundation for what he calls ‘grammatical investigations’.[2] Therefore he would usually cause his interpreter to give him “any narration”[3] in Kanuri – that he did not know at all in the beginning – and immediately wrote down in simple and consistent orthography the sounds he heard, while Eisami was narrating. Thereby, in the course of their cooperation Koelle accumulated around 800 quarto manuscript pages of narrations by Ali Eisami containing texts ranging from fables over types of snakes in Bornu, the longevity of his great grandmother to political events or the succession of Kings in his home region – as well as an account of his life until his resettlement in Sierra Leone. When checking the reliability and accuracy of Eisamis narrations by consulting other people (generally almost exclusively men) from Bornu Koelle found Eisami to be very consistent despite being in his 60s and having spent more than half of his life away from his home, which led Koelle to marvel at Eisamis „more than ordinary strength of memory“[4].

Their intellectual cooperation finally led to the publication of a first ever Kanuri Grammar in 1854, after Koelle had returned to London. It was accompanied by a second book called ‚African Native Literature‘ which today constitutes the main point of interest due to its rareness. Originally the CMS had intended no further Kanuri publication than the grammar, but thanks to encouragements by fellow linguists Koelle lobbied to have a selection of Eisamis narrations published as well. This is already a lucky exception but even luckier (from a historians perspective) is the decision to publish Koelles English translations of the stories alongside the original Kanuri texts and a Vocabulary, which, together with the grammar, allows the translation to be checked. This is a remarkable degree of transparency and therefore as well a rare exception. So even if we can once again only access an Africans perspective through European documentation – containing the common dilemma of a European acting as a mediator – due to the competence, accuracy and transparency of its creators this linguistic collection offers an almost unmediated and thus undistorted insight into a certain part of African history and culture from the perspective of an African. This is interesting not only when it comes to facts and events, but also in the style of narration or attitudes exposed. In offering details of his experiences as well as his own reflexions on those, Eisamis original narrations constitute a source quite contrary to European colonial or missionary archives that usually mainly provide indexical and superficial and above all instrumental information on African actors.

Due to this there has been a quite extensive search for the unpublished (and therefore unknown) majority of the manuscript collection. While most researchers concluded that the missing parts are probably lost, there is some trace of it to be found pointing to German archives. In this doctoral project therefore further attempts at finding parts of the wanted collection are being made, extending the scope of research to German archives that to date have barely been taken into account.


[1] Ali Eisami Gazirmabe of Bornu, in ‚Africa Remembered, Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade‘, Philip Curtin (ed.), 1967. – and: Ali Eisami’s Enslavement in Jihad and Emancipation as a Liberated African, Paul E. Lovejoy, in: Liberated Africans and the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 1807–1896, Richard Anderson and Henry B. Lovejoy (eds.), 2020.

[2] African Native Literature.: II.

[3] See CMS, CA1/O135/12, Rev. S. W. Koelle, Original Papers, “Rev. Sigismund Wilhelm Koelle, Half Yearly Report,” 25 March 1848.

[4] Grammar of the Bornu or Kanuri Language: VII.


Le Fonds AkolI Daouel : Une Introduction à la culture orale nigérienne

Par Étienne Bauza

Akoli Daouel, né en 1937 à Tchingarène, département d’In-Gall, dans la région d’Agadez (Niger), est un ancien journaliste et homme politique nigérien. Issu d’une famille d’éleveur de bétail dont le père était chef de tribu, il devient dans les années 1960, le premier infirmier touareg du Niger. Le parcours d’Akoli Daouel au cœur du moment de la décolonisation est marqué par les évolutions liés au besoin d’élite formée dans un pays naissant : infirmier, journaliste, homme de radio, enseignant, entrepreneur dans le domaine du tourisme, acteur politique. Sa vie politique débute en 1970 et se continue avec quelques interruptions jusqu’en 2001 où il occupe deux postes de ministre sous deux gouvernements différents . Pendant cette période, il occupe plusieurs postes à responsabilité mais il est aussi journaliste ; il couvre les déplacements d’Hamani Diori, devenu le premier président de la République du Niger en 19601. Entre 1961 et 1963, sa carrière de journaliste le mène à devenir directeur de la station régionale de Radio Niger d’Agadez puis, après 1974, il devient directeur des programmes de La Voix du Sahel2. En 1981, il est le directeur d’une société d’Etat, la Société Nigérienne de Télévision (SNT), qui a commencé à introduire la réception en noir et blanc des émissions télévisées au Niger. Continuer la lecture de Le Fonds AkolI Daouel : Une Introduction à la culture orale nigérienne

  1. Fiche wikipédia, « Akoli Daouel » : https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akoli_Daouel []
  2. A la suite du coup d’Etat de Seyni Kountché, Radio Niger, créé en 1958, devient La Voix du Sahel en 1974. Cette station dépend depuis 1967 de l’Office de radiodiffusion-télévision du Niger – ORTN. []

The Langarchiv ‘Making Sense’ Conference

reviewed by Melanie Horstead

27-28 mai 2021 – Online Workshop

From the single word to the many lexicons and the politics, power, hermeneutics and deciphering of the spoken and written word in all its forms, this ‘Making Sense’ conference gets to the very heart of key questions about making sense of meaning in Africa-focused research. Though it may raise more questions than answers, this journey of reflection is the point of the conference. How do we as researchers come to understand the meaning of authors without objectifying the subject and subjecting it to the meanings we bring to it? And what about the intended audience? How is a source intended to be disseminated, heard or read? Who owns the word? This undertaking was no easy task. The following is a very brief report that cannot possibly do justice to the rich, detailed presentations that all contributors gave, but it at least gives you a small glimpse of what the conference entailed.

Professor Paulo de Moraes de Farias opens the conference in his talk entitled ‘Making Sense in a Globalised Context’. In his presentation he considers how ‘old genealogical links with the Iberian Peninsula have been re-emphasised, or posited in completely new ways, by Timbuktu Arma lineages’. His talk encouraged questions and discussion that ranged as far as the role of a library; what it is and how it is used, and whether universities have or should have the role of authenticators or even ‘delegitimizers’ of the past. The politics of historiographies and narratives are brought into question as we begin the struggle to make meaning in the respective geographical areas’ we work in.

In the first panel, West African sources between politics and Linguistics, Dr Stephen Bulman ‘considers production of knowledge on Sunjata Keita at Nioro, Mali…between 1850-1930’ and provides rich examples of his comparative approach to multiple versions of history in late 19th century and early 20th century Nioro du Sahel. He observes and questions how these ‘historical projects intersect’. Dr Stephanie Zehnle notes that we see ‘a whole world emerging in tackling the history of the myth, document, or source’. Dr Ari Awagana directly addresses the challenges faced in the translation of sources and searches for an understanding of the production of texts. He compares ‘the choices of phonic notation, morphology and syntax of Hâz Mûsā bin Hisēїn with the forms of a text glossed in Old Kanembu’. He describes his experiences in translating from old Kanembu to modern Kanuri (Manga) and elicits interesting ways of quantifying linguistic and historical data. Dr Jeremy Dell introduces the discussion on the conditions in which meanings are produced. He looks at the history of authority and authorship of the xasida written by Shaykh Amadu Bamba. From handwritten copies to the printed form and now online platforms, Dell points out that despite ease of globalised dissemination today, oral versions and productions of these works in Senegal still influence textual culture. Dr Abdulbasit Kassim completes the panel and delves into a ‘meta level’ analysis of his work on West African Arabic and Ajami manuscripts and raises the problem of decline in linguistic training and cultural mistranslation in anthropological research (on Islam). He discusses the limitations of various approaches to texts and looks towards creating a ‘convergence of discursive meanings’. He emphasises how the setting for how sources are read is crucial to the meanings we make. This thought on how we as researchers read sources was echoed throughout the conference. The context of the researcher reading microfilm isolated in a booth is far removed from the way in which the source was originally disseminated and interpreted. What are we missing? What is being lost?

Panel 2: Making & Contesting Meaning in East Africa could be subtitled as what Professor Samuel Nyanchoga calls the ‘politics of remembering and forgetting to remember’. Both Nyanchoga and Professor Felicitas Becker focus on interpretation of slavery in East Africa. Becker grapples with the positionality of the researcher. The texts she studies ‘address slavery as a historical phenomenon in the Muslim world and beyond’ and she addresses the challenges of facing claims in sources that cannot be ignored or sidestepped but which tell us about how the author construes the audience. Becker highlights the awareness of what the researcher brings to what they are reading. Becker goes on to talk about the importance of names and descriptive terms and how different terms used can reflect different hierarchical positions. Professor Samuel Nyanchoga works through the ‘multi-layered cultural and historical landscape’ of the Swahili Coast. He considers how descriptive terms that are assigned to us define us and affect how we interact with society. He considers the creation of multiple identities and a ‘hierarchy of rights’ and notes a ‘plasticity in the use of terms of identity’. He notes that there is a conspiracy to silence the history of slavery, the history from above is contested by the marginalised of the below, however Nyanchoga acknowledges that the entanglement of these histories raises more questions than it answers.

Panel 3: Changing Meanings of Slavery as Official Category and Lived Experience.

The third panel, and following discussions get to the heart of making sense of epistemologies and terminologies. As Dr Benedetta Rossi notes, different groups of people use (the term) slavery, but it means different things (in different contexts) and there are different sets of meanings attributed. In his work on ‘Hearing Recaptive African Voices and Discerning Meaning in Colonial Court Records’ Professor Marcus Filipello works through the distorted historical records and deals with the complexities of agency alongside ‘interpretations of psychoanalytical theory’. He works through the sense of unbelonging and unfamiliarity of spaces,  places and assigned names experienced by ‘liberated’ women in a colonial court. He asks, ‘how are we to sift through the layers of translation?’ As an historian writing about a past that is constantly changing in Sawab Mauritania, Professor Ann McDougall addresses the ‘‘empirical’ impact on knowledge production’. She  asks, ‘what does it mean to write about a past that is itself constantly changing…to create a new present?’ She observes that there is no one vision or view of the haratine people in Mauritania, in different regions there are different terms and relationships, and perhaps of most significance for the conference she found that a source ‘when explored through a different lens, tells a different story’. The confines of a frame or structure (such as the modern slavery discursive frame) contain the source and McDougall probes, ‘what are we not seeing’ and ‘leaving outside’? From the complexities of agency and the sifting through of distorted translation and records to the restrictions of a frame to the perspective of a different lens, we arrive back at the lexicon and the descriptive terms and how these terms affect social life and interaction. Aicha Kolan Kolan applies a socio-linguistic approach to the very names and categories used to refer to people of slave descent in a specific village in Niger. Here how one is named determines how one lives and what one is permitted, and not permitted to do. Even liberated slaves are given specific names according to their rank and importance.

Day 2 of the conference starts with Panel 4: The Politics of Canon and Interpretation: Rethinking Approaches to African Voices and Texts. Professor Cecile van den Avenne investigates ‘how to reconstitute and describe old language practices, to which we no longer have access except through writings, direct or indirect testimonies, of a definitively lost interaction’. In her close analysis of the notebook of European explorer Louis-Gustave Binger, who himself learnt Bamana (Bambara), she looks for the clues between linguistic description and communicative practice. She asks, ‘what do we lean from the reading of this notebook’? How the book is read indeed demonstrates more than just a colonial account and shows traces of real interaction between Binger and people he interacted with. The question of how we read and indeed categorize a text is echoed in Dr Oliver Coates’ presentation whereby he asks, ‘how geographical, historical, and moral knowledge are constituted’ within J.O. Ariyo’s book, Oju M Ri Ni India [What I Saw in India]. Coates looks into the text’s reception history as simply a piece of propaganda and a narrative of wartime Asia and World War Two Africa. Oliver cautions against  such reductionist categorisation and notes that various textual techniques would be lost if the piece was so judged. He argues that it goes beyond not only historical representation but has meaning in various contexts. Dr Augustine Farinola engages in both close and distant reading of textual data in the study of diaries (and consequent essays and lecture series and conference papers based on) the treatises of ‘Philosophical Sage’ Emmanuel Osigwe Anyiam-Osigwe. He problematizes the fact that the diaries were never published, there is no canon of work and that interpreters may be able to alter the source to fit their own frameworks. Farinola shows how ‘hermeneutical practices with corpora…can be enhanced through both close and distant reading of textual data as a means of making sense out of primary sources in the humanities’. Included in the presentation is Farinola’s interpretation of Osigwe’s view of allowing African agencies and African voices to be heard. Guided by the Bakhtinian philosophy of dialogism where ‘metaphorical language exists in a state of constant ‘becoming’ within a given interpretive encounter’, Professor Advice Viriri demonstrates how metaphors are powerful vehicles of persuasion in politics in Zimbabwe. He provides a convincing argument about the discourse of othering. “Weevil” and “Gamatox”  became “Lacoste” and “G40”; metaphors which ‘conceptualised…experiences in Mugabe’s autocratic rule’. We are led to question, who owns the metaphor? Who owns the word? Such questions tie back into the presentation of Jeremy Dell on the question of ownership of the xasida of Shaykh Amadu Bamba.

Panel 5: Beyond Interpretation: Decolonising Genre and Accounting for How Audiences Make Sense. Themes of the setting of reading a text or listening to and engaging with the text and the genre in which text is categorised come to the fore again in the presentation of Professor Karin Barber, entitled ‘The Textual Host’. Barber informs us of how ‘early written Yoruba histories relied mainly on oral genres’ which ‘capture and reactivate elements of the past…in a non-linear way’. She considers the final volume in a series of Church Missionary Society’s Yoruba language readers for schools, segmented historical narratives that appeared in early twentieth-century weekly newspapers and in the CMS school readers various local historical narratives were laid out side by side in a patchwork format. This patchwork and unlinear format achieved popularity due to its ‘keeping with long established oral modes’. Barber observes that the segmented accounts of historical events depend on others to actually constitute meaning. In complete contrast Dr Peter Brooke observes how audiences ‘listen in a linear fashion’ to radio broadcasts in his presentation focusing on how Zambian people heard about the Soweto uprising of 1976 via the popular mass medium of radio. He considers the audience and what impact these various radio broadcasts had on the audience. ‘How did audiences choose to source their news and consume it?’

The final keynote speech ‘Les gardiens du silence. Donner la parole à la parole pour raconter le monde’ was delivered by Professor Mamadou Diawara. It would take a separate review of its own to try and do justice to such a gripping, inspirational, and thought-provoking speech. In his abstract, Diawara states that ‘[O]ral narratives have become an essential foundation of African studies. Any story, beyond its object, is endowed with meaning. How do the recipients, recipients of the story, as well as the academics produce it?’ He queries the role of the academic in ‘keeping the monopoly of the production of meaning’, and notes that there is ‘always a risk of projecting what you know upon what you learn from the ones you are listening to’ thus becoming the ‘keepers of silence’. In this way, as Professor Becker stated, what we bring to what we read affects how we read, and the very meanings we make. In the closing discussion and in reflection on the conference as a whole Dr Rossi asks, in reference to Professor Paulo Fernando de Moraes Farias’s talk, ‘what happens in the twenty first century when interpretations can be totally globalised?’. Langarchiv PI Doctor Camille Lefebvre notes in her closing remarks that ‘we start with hermeneutics; most of the papers presented question our analytical categories, the ones we use in our research’. She considers the symbiotic shift in putting oral tradition into writing. Who keeps the word? How is ‘authenticity’ interpreted in different cultures of societies? There were of course far more questions raised than answers but what we all came away with was more to reflect on and build on.

Découverte sur la culture écrite à Zinder

En décembre 2018, notre équipe a fait une découverte dans le quartier du Birni de Zinder au Niger. Chacun, au cours de ses recherches respectives, (Camille Lefebvre travaillant sur les premiers temps de la colonisation et Ari Awagana sur le old Kanembu), avait entendu parlé de la réputation de la famille Chétima. Camille Lefebvre leur avait même rendu visite en 2017 dans le cadre de son enquête. Cette fois, c’est grâce à Monsieur le Maire de la commune 3 de Zinder, Laminou Issaka, que nous avons été introduits auprès d’eux.

Cette famille de lettrés, descendants de Limam Borkoma, l’un des principaux savants de la cour du Sultan du Borno, est arrivée à Zinder dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, suite à la conquête du Munyoma par le Sultan du Damagaram Tanimoun.

Mallam Mamadou Chétima devant sa maison vers 1900 et son petit fils en 2019

Dans le cadre de l’exposition Zinder 1900, nous avons retrouvé dans les archives françaises des photographies d’une figure de cette dynastie, Mallam Mamadou Chétima. Nous les avons rapportées à ses descendants et avons entamé avec eux une discussion sur leurs pratiques de cultures écrites. Ils nous ont alors montré un manuscrit coranique entièrement glosé en old kanembu selon une très ancienne tradition des malamai du Kanem-Bornou. Les membres de la famille, s’ils pouvaient déchiffrer les caractères arabes, ne comprenaient plus le sens ni la signification de ce qui avait été écrit. Aussi, Ari Awagana leur a expliqué comment leurs grands-parents glosaient dans cette ancienne langue les textes religieux.

Discussion autour d’un Coran glosé en old Kanembu

Intéressé par ces discussions et notre intérêt pour leurs archives, le patriarche de la famille Chétima a alors évoqué l’existence d’un ensemble de documents, conservés dans la maison, qui avaient appartenu à son grand-père, Mallam Mamadou Chétima. Cette figure du tournant du XIXe et du XXe siècle est le fils du cadi de Zinder, Malam Chétima, et un proche du Sultan dan Bassa. Il sera d’ailleurs arrêté avec lui en 1906 et déporté en Côte d’Ivoire. La famille dit que les caisses de manuscrits et documents qu’elles conservent sont celles qu’il ramena avec lui en revenant de son exil en 1922.

Les caisses conservées dans la maison de la famille Chétima

Ce sont ces trois caisses en bois, recouvertes de poussière et remplies de manuscrits, d’imprimés et de centaines de documents auxquelles la famille nous a permis d’accéder. Etant donné l’ampleur de la collection, l’état de dégradation avancé des matériaux et l’endroit où ils étaient conservés, nous avons décidé de revenir pour une mission de sauvegarde dans les plus brefs délais et avant la saison des pluies

Camille Lefebvre et Ari Awagana

crédits photos : dans l’ordre 1) ANOM fonds Gaden, 2 et 3) ©Pauline Rousseau et 4) Ari Awagana

Pour lire la suite suivez ce lien

Exposition Zinder 1900 (Zinder)

To read about the exhibition in English follow this link

Le projet d’exposition Zinder 1900 est né de la rencontre, en janvier 2017, de Camille Lefebvre et du Maire de la commune 3 de Zinder, Laminou Issaka Brah. Ensemble, ils ont formé le vœu de mettre en scène l’histoire de cette ville, carrefour des mondes culturels haoussa, kanouri et touareg au tournant du XIXe et du XX e siècle, en ramenant au Niger et en exposant des photographies prises il y a environ 120 ans, et qui pour beaucoup, n’avaient jamais été montrées au public. L’idée était de permettre aux habitants de Zinder d’appréhender leur histoire, de renouer avec leur passé et de se le réapproprier. Le projet s’est concrétisé en décembre 2018, à la faveur des célébrations des 60 ans de la République du Niger qui avaient justement lieu à Zinder.

Affiche de l’exposition

Pour la mise en œuvre de ce projet, nous avons bénéficié du soutien de plusieurs institutions françaises de conservation dont les Archives d’outre-mer pour le fonds Gaden, les archives du Ministère des affaires étrangères pour le fonds Gouraud mais également du soutien de l’ambassade de France. La production de l’exposition a, pour sa part, été entièrement réalisée au Niger, grâce à l’appui du Centre culturel franco-nigérien Jean Rouch.

Trait d’union entre le Sahara et le Sahel, le Sultanat du Damagaram est, à la fin du XIXe siècle, un État musulman et un carrefour commercial au cœur de réseaux régionaux et transsahariens. Sa capitale, Zinder, est une ville cosmopolite où vivent commerçants nord-africains, caravaniers touaregs, paysans kanouris ou haoussas et éleveurs peuls. L’espace urbain y est marqué par la dualité : d’un côté, le Birni, quartier fortifié, siège du pouvoir politique, de l’autre, le Zango, quartier des caravaniers et des commerçants.
L’histoire de la relation entre cette ville et les autorités coloniales françaises est marquée par une grande violence : d’abord, en 1898, par l’assassinat par des Zindérois des premiers Français à entrer dans la ville, le capitaine Cazemajou et son interprète Olive, puis par l’occupation de la ville et l’exécution du sarki Amadou Kouran Daga, en 1899, par les militaires français.
En octobre 1900, militaires français et tirailleurs s’installent à Zinder, sur un petit plateau rocheux entre le Birni et le Zango, sans, dans un premier temps, abolir le sultanat, ni détruire les murailles du Birni. Mais en 1906, le sultan Amadou dan Bassa, accusé de préparer un complot, est arrêté et le sultanat aboli pendant près de vingt ans.
À travers des photographies, des enregistrements de traditions orales et des récits historiques en kanouri et en haoussa, jusqu’ici inédits, cette exposition propose de donner à voir et à entendre le passé disparu de la capitale d’un État africain au tournant du XIXe siècle et du XXe siècle. Une époque où les lettrés du Damagaram voyageaient pour étudier de La Mecque au Caire et à Jérusalem et où les commerçants zindérois envoyaient leurs plumes d’autruche dans le Paris de la Belle époque et leurs esclaves et eunuques dans le monde arabe.

L’exposition installée dans la cour du palais du Sultan

Le Sultan du Damagaram Aboubakar Oumarou Sanda a accueilli l’exposition dans la cour de son palais et l’a pour la première fois ouvert à tous, ce qui était en soi un événement. Le succès de l’exposition a surpris tous le monde, près de 25 000 personnes sont venues la visiter, de toutes les générations et de toutes les classes sociales, dans une grande émotion.

Le vernissage
Nombreux débats autour des photographies
Le sultan admirant la photo de son grand-père

Pour de nombreux Zindérois, à l’instar du sultan qui a pu admirer pour la première fois une photo de son grand-père, la découverte de ces images d’un autre temps a été marquée par une grande fierté car elles font prendre conscience à ces citadins de l’importance passée de leur ville. Les enfants se sont passionnés pour les légendes, recopiant ces descriptions de l’époque, dont certaines étaient écrites en Haoussa, qui est la langue la plus utilisée dans la région.

Les enfants de la ville recopiant les légendes des photographies

Tous crédits photographiques : © Pauline Rousseau

à propos de l’exposition

un article du journal du CNRS 

Commissariat d’exposition : Camille Lefebvre, CNRS-IMAf; Laminou Issaka , Maire de la Commune 3 Zinder

Direction artistique et production : Olivia Marsaud et MOMOMOisHERE

Les organisateurs de l’exposition remercient les Archives nationales d’outre-mer, Isabelle Dion, la Bibliothèque nationale de France, Isabelle Nyffenegger, Franck Hurinville, Olivier Loiseaux, la Société de géographie, Sylvie Rivet, le Musée de service de santé des armées, Marc Beaumelle, Aymeric Lichtenauer, l’association des Anciens et Amis du Pharo, Francis Louis, Pierre Hostier, les Archives diplomatiques, Jean-Philippe Dumas, ainsi que la famille Gouraud et Antoine Gouraud, ainsi que Claire Bosc-Tiessé et Pauline Rousseau.