Damergou

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The village of Guézaoua in Damergou

The Damergou (alternative spellings: Damargou , Damargu , Damerghou , Damerghu and Damergu ) is a landscape in central Niger .

geography

The Damergou extends over parts of the municipalities of Gangara , Olléléwa and Tanout in the Zinder region . The landscape lies in the north of the Sahel zone on the edge of the Ténéré desert . It is a plateau cut through by several valleys. The main ethnic groups in Damergou members of the Kanuri subgroup Dagra and the Hausa , who both live sedentary, traditionally semi-nomadic Fulani subgroups such Uda'en , Katchinanko'en and Tchilawaas well as traditionally nomadic communities of the Tuareg and the Fulbe subgroup Wodaabe .

history

Damerghu and the surrounding area, map excerpt from Stieler's Hand Atlas (1891)
Landscape near the village of Bourourou (1899)

From the 15th to the 19th century, the Damergou was an area characterized by migration and without uniform political administration, which lay between the Sultanate of Aïr in the north and the Bornu Empire with its provinces of Zinder and Mounio as well as the house states in the south. In the 15th century, the Tuareg from the Aïr displaced the Proto-Hausa, who had lived there for centuries. Dagra were present from the 16th century and, especially in the 19th century, moved in with Hausa from the south and southeast. More Tuareg from the Aïr followed. Towards the end of the 19th century, a group of North African traders from Ghadames joined them. The main route of the trans-Saharan trade between Tripolitania and the domestic states, which was established in the 15th century, led through the Damergou .

The European Africa explorers Heinrich Barth , Adolf Overweg and James Richardson traveled to Damergou at the beginning of 1851. Barth wrote a detailed description of the conditions at that time. The main political centers of the Damergou were Dan Kamsa , Farara , the southern Koulan Karki , Olléléwa and Taghelel . In view of the then rich cornfields of Bani Walki and northern Koulan Karki , which could provide for more than just the local population, Barth judged the landscape as "an area that is likely to be of the greatest importance in the future history of mankind." Jules Verne let the heroes of his 1863 novel Five Weeks fly in a balloon over the Damergou.

The French research and military expedition, Mission Foureau-Lamy , traveled through the countryside in October 1899, stopping at Gangara and Sabon Kafi . From 1901 to 1960 the Damergou belonged to the French colonial empire . Henri Gaden set up the first French post, coming from Zinder, in May 1901 in the village of Guidjigaoua . In September 1901 this post was moved to Djadjidouna and from 1915 the Damergou was administered from Tanout.

literature

  • Stephen Baier: Trans-Saharan trade and the Sahel: Damergu, 1870-1930 . In: The Journal of African History . Vol. 18, No. 1 , January 1977, p. 37-60 .
  • Hendrik Eduard Jan Jorritsma: Damergou. A historical and sociaal-economic study of a landstreek in midden-Niger . Dissertation. Utrecht University, 1979.
  • Malam Issa Mahaman: Migrations, identité et construction étatique au Sahel nigérien: l'expérience des populations du Damargu précolonial (République du Niger) . In: Afrika Zamani . No. 15-16 , 2008, pp. 63-98 ( codesria.org [PDF]).
  • Yehoshua Rash: Les premières années françaises au Damergou. Des colonisateurs sans enthousiasme (=  Bibliothèque d'histoire d'outre-mer. Nouvelle série: Études . No. 3 ). Geuthner, Paris 1973.
  • Alhassane Sallah: L'élevage extensif dans le Damergou (Niger) . In: André Bourgeot (Ed.): Horizons nomades en Afrique Sahélienne. Sociétés, développement et démocratie . Karthala, Paris 1999, ISBN 2-86537-900-0 , pp. 263-272 .

Web links

Commons : Damergou  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Yehoshua Rash: Des colonisateurs sans enthousiasme: les premières années françaises au Damergou . In: Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer . No. 214 , 1972, pp. 7 ( persee.fr [accessed January 28, 2019]).
  2. ↑ Badé Sambo: Historique de l'itinéraire de la mobilité du groupe d'éleveurs transhumants WodaaBe Suudu Suka'el de la commune de Tanout (Damergou), region de Zinder . Mémoire de DEA Université Abdou Moumouni de Niamey, Faculté des Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département de Géographie, Niamey 2008, p. 16 ( hubrural.org [PDF; accessed January 28, 2019]).
  3. ↑ Malam Issa Mahaman: Migrations, identité et construction étatique au Sahel nigérien: l'expérience des populations du Damargu précolonial (République du Niger) . In: Afrika Zamani . No. 15-16 , 2008, pp. 64–65 ( codesria.org [PDF; accessed January 28, 2019]).
  4. ↑ Emmanuel Grégoire: Niger Touaregs. Le destin d'un mythe . 2nd Edition. Karthala, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-8111-0352-1 , pp. 185 .
  5. ^ Heinrich Barth: Journeys and discoveries in North and Central Africa in the years 1849 to 1855 . First volume. Justus Perthes, Gotha 1857, p. 618-619 .
  6. ^ Heinrich Barth: Journeys and discoveries in North and Central Africa in the years 1849 to 1855 . First volume. Justus Perthes, Gotha 1857, p. 607 .
  7. ↑ Jules Verne: Five weeks in a balloon . Contumax, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-8430-7406-3 , p. 241 (French: Cinq semaines en ballon. Voyages des découvertes en Afrique par trois Anglais . Paris 1863. Translated by Martha Lion).
  8. ↑ Fernand Foureau : Documents scientifiques de la mission saharienne. Mission Foureau-Lamy d'Alger au Congo par le Tchad . Volume II: Geology. Petrography and paleontology. Esquisse ethnographique. Notes on the faune préhistorique. Aperçu commercial. Conclusions économiques. Masson, Paris 1905, p. 652 ( jubilotheque.upmc.fr [accessed January 28, 2019]).
  9. ↑ Yehoshua Rash: Des colonisateurs sans enthousiasme: les années françaises au Damergou (suite et fin) . In: Revue française d'histoire d'outre-mer . No. 215 , 1972, p. 261 ( persee.fr [accessed January 26, 2019]).
  10. ↑ Edmond Séré de Rivières: Histoire du Niger . Berger-Levrault, Paris 1965, p. 233 .

Coordinates: 15 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  N , 8 ° 55 ′ 0 ″  E