Jerma Melei and Assakélé

Another thing we have been contemplating is the question of the identity of the captor of Assakélé, a Bulala princess remembered in a Kanembu song partly recorded by Henri Carbou. Although we have written about our speculative thoughts on this figure and her possible connection with the Aisa Kili of Borno traditions, we should consider other possibilities. For instance, the song identified the Borno official who seized Assakélé as Kaléa djerma Meleï. Kaléa means captive, djerma or jerma (sometimes spelled zerma) was an important officer in the Sayfawa court and Meleï is probably Mele, a Kanuri form of the name Idris sometimes seen in Kanuri girgam lists and other sources translated by H.R. Palmer. Thus, Kanembu tradition remembers a jerma named Idris whose actions here sparked or contributed to the war between the Bulala and Borno. 

Is it possible that the song is actually remembering the Ngizim jerma of Idris Alooma? When mentioned by Ahmad b. Furtu in the context of the Kanem campaigns, his title had risen to wazir. Furthermore, we know from Ahmad b. Furtu's account that women related to the Bulala royal family were indeed seized during the conflict. Perhaps Kanembu tradition here is actually recalling an event right before the Kanem wars of Idris Alooma or one of those seizures of Bulala royal women during the war? Carbou claims that Kanembu tradition remembered Idris Alooma's vizier as Idris b. Harun, but that does not necessarily preclude the possibility of Idris b. Harun also being remembered as a jerma or jarma in other Kanem traditions. 

Of course, without the full song this conjecture remains pure speculation. For all we know, there was a jerma named Idris during an earlier period in Borno who may have seized a Bulala princess. Assuming Kalo, Assakélé's father, was Dunama b. Salma, then we would think Melei was a jerma during the reign of Idris Alooma's grandfather. But it is still possible for the song partly translated by Carbou to have been actually referring to the Ngizim jerma, Idris b. Harun.

The Bulala Sultan of Fitri

Whilst recently perusing a book on Chad, we saw the Bulala sultan of Fitri in Les treize préfectures de la République du Chad by Pierre Gentil. Although we could not find his name in the pamphlet, we wonder if it is Oumar since the book was published in the 1960s. Or perhaps Hassan Absekin who became sultan in 1967 according to Hagenbucher.

La Gonave Snuff Tube

 

Whilst perusing once again L'art précolombien d'Haïti, we were struck by this marvelous object. Supposedly, it is a bifurcated snuff tube from from the indigenous peoples found in La Gonave, Haiti. The female wood carvers of La Gonave were famous for their skills at the time of contact with Europeans, leading one to wonder if this marvelous piece was an example of their work. When Peter Martyr d'Anghiera did allude to them, it was in the context of stools and wooden platters and other objects considered part of the treasure of Anacaona. 

A snuff tube likely used in cohoba rituals was almost certainly tied to the upper-crust of society, as the fine detail that went into this piece demonstrates. We are unsure what the figure depicted in the tube is (a kneeling figure with zoomorphic traits?), but the quality and level of detail in it are highly suggestive of an object used by the elites. Given the proximity of La Gonave to the center of the Xaragua cacicazgo, this object may have been used by caciques and indigenous elite groups tied to Xaragua. 

Indian Antiquities in Saint Domingue

  

Whilst taking a second look at Nicolson's Essai sur l'histoire naturelle de Saint-Domingue. Avec figures en taille-douce, we realized that we did not note the origins of some of the indigenous artifacts illustrated in his book. Figure 1 was found in the Cul de Sac plain region, a likely contender for the political center of Xaragua. Stylistically, it is similar to some of the works of sculpture or statuary found in the "Taino" period. What we have not heard of before, however, is the inclusion of human faces on the arms or shoulders of such a figure. It is kneeling as Nicolson wrote, and the inclusion of the human faces bring to mind some of the trigonolito cemis featuring two faces on opposite sides. Unlike one of the most famous surviving examples of indigenous art from Hispaniola, the figure does not appear emaciated (though the sketch may not be entirely reliable). Figure 2 was found at a Leogane plantation (La Yaguana) and Figure 4 sketches were of artifacts found in Grand-Goave.

Indigenous Americas: Borikén

  

Although each update of Ancestry DNA tends to raise new problems or recreate new ones, their algorithm seems to be on the right track with indigenous ancestry in Puerto Ricans. From our own results and those of close matches, it looks like the inflated estimates are a thing of the past. Our results are quite close to 23andMe now. The next move is for Ancestry to correct their description of the region and perhaps, like 23andMe, add historical samples from pre-Columbian Caribbean populations.

Wild Rice and Lake Chad

Whilst taking another look at Koelle's English-Kanuri dictionary, we noticed a reference to wild rice growing near Lake Chad. According to Koelle, who likely derived this information from Ali Eisami, the region around Dikwa (Digoa) was especially known for the wild rice growing there. This brought to mind al-Umari's description of Kanem from the 14th century (included in Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History). According to an informant who knew an ascetic shaykh named Uthman al-Kanimi, related to the Sayfawa, rice grew without seed in Kanem. Perhaps this early 14th century reference is to the region specifically near Lake Chad, or what Eisami referred to as Pérgi, the region in Borno to the south/southwest of the Lake. 

Agisymba and the Ngizim?

 Whilst continuing our early forays into the Teda, Daza and Kanuri languages, we randomly wondered if Agisymba was perhaps a reference to the Ngizim. Lange and others have mentioned this, although Murray Last made the point more explicit through reference to the Teda and Daza languages. If the Garamantes referred to the distant land of Agisymba by a name heard from people speaking an early form of the Teda language (possible due to the Tibetsi region likely being in contact with the Garamantes in some form), it is plausible for the Ngizim to have been the ethnonym in question. Basically, the addition of -ba at the end of word would have meant "people of" (as in the -bu in Kanembu, although modern Kanuri seems to use -wu). So Agisymba would have meant A (perhaps the -ng initial sound was difficult to render in the Berber and Greek languages) + ngisym + -ba. 

This theory, of course, assumes the continuity of the "Ngizim" name for 2000 years, so it is highly speculative. To our knowledge, the earliest written source referring to the Ngizim dates to the 16th century. When a French source mentions them at the end of the 17th, they were referred to as "Enghzeum." If oral traditions east of Lake Chad and clan affiliations are anything to go by, the Nguedjem (or Ngizim) were also once living in what is today Chad, in Kanem (and as part of the Bulala sultanate in Fitri, perhaps contributing to Carbou's confusion about their origins). While some ethnonyms in the Lake Chad region have persisted for several centuries (Kuri, for instance, or Bade), Ngizim would have to had survived as a name for over a thousand years before its attestation in the 1500s and 1600s. 

Naturally, one would also have to account for Ptolemy's description of Agisymba seeming to imply it was near mountains. Was this meant to refer to an area closer to Air? Tibetsi? Assuming the Garamantes would have traveled south through Kawar and reached the Lake Chad area, the land of Agisymba with rhinoceroses and mountains (nearby?) had to have been to the east or west without necessarily traveling too far. The Air massif to the west is an intriguing idea, but presumably the ancestors of the Teda and Daza may have known the region in or near Kanem more intimately if they approached it from the Tibetsi and Borku regions. Again, if one assumes the Garamantes were in contact with peoples who spoke a language like that of the Teda and Daza since the days of Herodotus, and the latter groups likely knew of Kanem or Lake Chad, it is possible the presumably Berber-speaking Garamantes adopted words for southern peoples acquired through them. 

Ultimately, the Agisymba as Ngizim remains just a theory. For it to be true requires one to make a number of unproven assumptions that the current data do not fully support. We assume that ancient peoples who spoke an early form of the Teda, Daza, and Kanuri languages in the central Sahara or Tibetsi were referring to a group as something like Ngizim nearly 2000 years ago. Then, through their contacts with the Garamantes, the latter referred to the Ngizim in a way that was later recorded in ancient sources as Agisymba. If the Ngizim and Bade (Bedde) were perhaps both living near Lake Chad in antiquity, then the name Agisymba could be a deformation of something like Ngizimba, referring to a region near Lake Chad, probably Kanem. One must also assume the Ngijem in Kanem are related to the Ngizim west of the lake, even though traditions in the late 1800s and early colonial period connected them to the Bulala.