Report from a Nigerian village: Space, Culture and Materials in Bure Area

Una buona parte dell’attenzione scientifica rivolta alle piccole comunità della Nigeria settentrionale è stata caratterizzata da interessi ed esigenze di tipo linguistico- descrittivo. Spesso (giustamente) dettate dallo stato di forte rischio d’estinzione delle lingue parlate da queste comunità, tali esigenze hanno declinato il fato dei gruppi linguistici minoritari senza operare una distinzione funzionale tra comunità e comunità linguistica. Venuto meno il fattore identitario rappresentato dalla lingua si scopre che a morire sono le lingue, non i villaggi, e che la socialità identitaria rimane viva attraverso il territorio. Questo contributo analizza la distribuzione degli spazi sociali e dei materiali impiegati nel villaggio di Bure, un insediamento rurale isolato a nord-est di Bauchi (Nigeria). I dati impiegati sono stati raccolti in una missione di terreno svolta tra marzo e giugno 2011

The origins of Kushi in oral narratives

The Kushi are a relatively small Chadic-speaking group settled in north-eastern Nigeria. Reconstructing the migratory movements that brought the Kushi to their present area is a daunting task. Oral history is one of the most valuable tools we can turn to in order to understand the origins of Kushi as well as the several ethnic and linguistic components that con-tributed to the merging of the present-day community. A critical reading of the historical events as narrated by a Kushi speaker will show that Kushi is the result of a series of migrations undertaken by different groups over a certain peri-od of time, thus contrasting with the default narrative of an indivisible and linear migration coming from east. Apart from its historical significance, the text – supplied with interlinear analysis – is intended to contribute to the documentation and description of the Kushi languag

‘My heart is black, your belly is white’: Encoding Emotions in a West African Culture

Hausa (Afroasiatic, West Chadic, A) is the most wide spoken language in West Africa and has got an enormous advantage from Internet. Going through the Web we can see so many sites dealing with all the aspect of Hausa life and culture. This language is widely employed in social networking, where groups of thousands of users discuss political, social and religious issues on regular basis and (almost) without censorship

Hunting and Hunting-related Practices among the Kushi (Northeastern Nigeria)

Abstract This paper deals with the practise of shwɛɛ 'hunting' among the Kushi, a Chadic speaking community of northeastern Nigeria. Subsistence hunting is still practised by Kushi, even if its importance and impact have been decreasing over the last few decades. A mental model of the past and present hunting practises are kept alive in the collective imagery by means of oral traditions, an instrument of knowledge transmission ubiquitous to many African societies. Shwɛɛ will be described through an oral text in which the narrator – a Kushi hunter – explains the nature and purposes of hunting along with the series of actions to be performed in order to carry it out properly, i.e. in a manner consistent with the values and social norms in force within the community. The procedural text describes some essential aspects of hunting: the way it is announced and who is allowed to lead it, the specificities of the kind of game that is hunted in terms of consumption and general use, and the traditional beliefs that need to be observed before and during hunting

A Kushi-English-Hausa Wordlist

A Kushi-English-Hausa Wordlis