Selling the Iron for their Shackles: Wandala–Montagnard Interactions in Northern Cameroon

Abstract

The Muslim Wandala state controlled large areas of the plains south of Lake Chad between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries a.d. The Wandala also engaged in an extremely complex, and often hostile, set of relations with the inhabitants of the Mandara Mountains, which bordered their state to the south and closely adjoined successive Wandala capitals. These Wandala – montagnard relationships had diverse economic, ritual, political and military aspects. Their complexity appears to be due in large part to the fact that the Wandala and many of the montagnard groups share ethnic origins, and to the violent processes by which differentiation took place and the Wandala gained hegemony on the plains. These processes probably began with a Wandala use of trading advantages to gain access to the Kanuri market system and the subsequent use of products so obtained to expand their dominion.

Historical and Dialectical Perspectives on the Archaeology of Complexity in the Siin-Saalum (Senegal): Back to the Future?

“…within surveyed areas through time. Such multi-scalar readings can open a number windows into African complexity: (1) they permit us to capture variability within large-scale sociohistorical formations and begin to interrogate the diverse relations (economic interdependence, social conflict, commercial exchange, political tutelage or parity, ritual integration) that tied cultural groups or polities over time (MacEachern 1993(MacEachern , 1998(MacEachern , 2001balso Clark and Hietala 2002;Kusimba and Kusimba 2003;Stein 2002); (2) by linking intra-and inter-site patternings, we reinforce how the political and social structures that sustain a polity are built on a substrate of cultural practices and social relations (e.g., McCaskie 1995;also McIntosh 1993aalso McIntosh , 1998a. In other words, our historical models must pay closer attention to how 'complexity' unfolded in relation with daily life and everyday practices (Stahl 2002;also Pauketat 2001also Pauketat , 2004Holl 2004: 148-184); and, (3) by pointing to disjunctures and similarities in material culture organization at different levels of the regional spectrum through timei.e., how the same processes can be felt differently at the levels of the household and settlement system; how structural contradictions may emerge between political centers and their dependencies, or within the hinterland; or how what is hierarchically organized on one scale may be heterarchically organized at another (Crumley 1995;Marquardt and Crumley 1987).…”

Introduction

“…I have been led to sites of supposed memory by guides 48. Peterson 2008; also see Trouliet 1995. MacEachern (1993 who are not from the local ethnic group, have little or no idea of the area's history, and present engaging, though entirely fictional, stories of the past.…”

Besieged Palaeonegritics or Innovative Farmers: Historical Political Ecology of Intensive and Terraced Agriculture in West Africa and Sudan

“…Research has focussed on different themes and on different ethnic groups (see e.g. Campbell & Riddel 1984;Riddel & Campbell 1986;Hallaire 1991;Beek 1992;MacEachern 1993MacEachern , 2001MacEachern , 2003Andel 1998;Müller-Kosack 1996;Beek & Avontuur 2005). A comprehensive bibliography for the Mandara Mountains can be accessed on the Internet.…”