Norwich bulletin., 1922-01-25
1t to Katsena for the future royal

sent to Katsena for the future royal | comfort
 .Yst if he found time to read any English history while in London the | emir must have been interested in a | European guild system which persists | in the industrial organization of his own province to this day. and in the Crusades which have their annual counterpart in the Mohammedan exo- dus from his capital to Mecca, a jour ney Of five or six years, during which | the pilgrims combine religious objec- tive with advantageous trade activities all along the way.
 l "As a state Katsena has been swal- lowed up in the province of Kano in I northern Nigeria, due east of Lake l Chad and about half way between that marsh bound inland sea and the Niger. As a city it has shrivelled within it's mighty walls, as high as three story | building, and thirteen miles in circuit.
 'sThe city of Kano has outdistanced | Katsena and become the Chicago of | this fertile region of grain cotton, giant vegetables and luscious fruits, and al- so of indigenously developed industries that range from cloth making to man. ufacture of glass. But sKatsena still is the cultural center of the Hausa peoples, whose tongue is the most mel lifluous of north Africa and so rich in it's vocabulary that you may find words for eight periods of the day from sunrise until sunset. .Hausa is the trade language of the area between the Benue the Niger and the Sahara, and it is one of the few African tong1es which has developed a native litera- : ture
 "The Hausa genius for trade and
 farming, and their comparative liter ary superiority over their negritic neighbors, does not extend to govern
 ment, so that they are ruled today by
 the Fulas a people without country
 who generally have dominated but not
 displaced the populations they conquer.
 The Fula chiefs, in turn, pay 'allegi-
 ance to Great Britain which exercises
 a protectorate over Nigeria.
 During the Fula siege of Katsena
 which began in5 1907 and lasted for
 seven years, the inhabitants faced star-
 vation many times and lizards and
 snakes sometimes were sold in the
 market places. After the conquest the
 Fiulas destroyed records and documents !, which if they could now be read, might throw more light in the origin of the
 ancient HauSa tribes.
 The native historian will tell vol : of seven legitimate sons in the origi. Adl 11od9cl - SdCl1 OI MUOIl" Hat
 a specific duty One was to defend
 the family, another to do it's dyeing
 another to engage in trading-and thi trader was Katsena. Furthermore ther,
 were seven fllegitimate' children ant ' these, according to the Hausa version were the founders of certain othe t tribes on the lower Niger and alon: : the Benue which the Hausa conside . greatly inferior.
 , Even the most extreme styles whicl
 may have been noted by the Emir o
 Katsena on his northern trip mus
 have seemed over dressing; but tn e use of cosmetics certainly was noth | ing new to him. For the Hausa mai T carries in her native vanity box tin q brushes of bark, frayed at the end: :" with which she applies blue chalt t l. her eyes. In addition she wears a per e manent Identification scar, to denot s her tribe, that for the Katsena wome n being six strokes and a dot.
 'Salutations often furnish a key t
 the character of a people. BoBth tn , leisurely quality of Katsena life, an \ the value placed on various posses
 sions, are suggested in greetin
 wherein one must first ask about. tn n health of the stranger, then about hi z, wives, his horse, his cattle, and a
 that is yours. After each reply the in j. terrogator reiterates. Atlas be praise e for that before putting the next ques o ton.
 5 What baseball is to America and tn
 bull fight is to Spain the wrestlin e match is to the Hausa tribes. Perhap ' this sundown spectacle might bette It be compared to a horse show For tn
 wrestlers must compete for attentio II with the bizarre and barbaric cole Il splashes4 represented by turbands an k bernouses and cultures of what W IT would call rated hair, agains a back
 ground of statuesque camels and pail n trees. The over tone of the entire pic m ture is the bronze brown of hundred y of half nude spectators
 Or