This publication is about the Haddad of Kanem and the Bahr el Ghazal, an indigenous people whose entire way of life, social position within the society at large and view of themselves and the world is or has been associated with hunting. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chad in the summer and early autumn of 1963. The overall aim of the book is to supplement the existing knowledge of social life in Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal in general, of the Haddad in particular, and to offer further evidence on hunting ...
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This publication is about the Haddad of Kanem and the Bahr el Ghazal, an indigenous people whose entire way of life, social position within the society at large and view of themselves and the world is or has been associated with hunting. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Chad in the summer and early autumn of 1963. The overall aim of the book is to supplement the existing knowledge of social life in Kanem and Bahr el Ghazal in general, of the Haddad in particular, and to offer further evidence on hunting and foraging groups in West Africa. The expose relies on the ethnographic data collected by Ida Nicolaisen and the late Johannes Nicolaisen among the Haddad and accounts volunteered by Kreda and Kanembu acquaintances. To this day, knowledge of Kanem and the Bahr el Ghazal and the people who live there is fragmental. In view of this, Ida Nicolaisen has ventured far beyond traditional anthropological pastures and into those of naturalists, geologists, geographers, agronomists, historians, political scientists, archaeologists and linguists to place the Haddad within the broader historical and ethnic setting of which they are part.
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Seller's Description:
Minor wear. VG. 29x23cm, 552 pages., Weighs 2.7 kilos. "This is an account of a remarkable nomadic people in West Africa, presumably the only hunting and foraging community to withstand its bloody legacy of slave-raiding, colonization, warfare and environmental degradation of the Sahel to our time. The book traces the history of this unique but little known people to the Banu Duku Empire in Chad in the sixth century AD that is to the very origin of the Sudanese States. Based on her own fieldwork and 'excavation' of the scanty sources on Kanem and the Bahr el Ghazal, the author offers a fascinating description of the everyday life, subsistence activities, dwellings, poetry, music and crafts of the Haddad and their interaction with pastoral and agro-pastoral groups. The book takes the reader on hunting expeditions with a group which chases gazelle and antelope into cleverly placed 'traps' of nets and describes how hunters of another group crawl up upon their prey in disguise with bow and arrow as did prehistoric man in the region known to us from Saharan rock paintings. The analysis anchors the Haddad within the complex historical and multi-ethnic setting of the region and outlines the traumatic social and cultural implications for these nomadic people of warfare, the presence of dominant groups, French colonial policies and more recent interventions by the State. The ongoing existence of nomadic peoples in West Africa has so far gone largely unnoticed..., ."-publisher's description.