Dendi (West Africa)

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In the center of Dendi: Bridge over the Niger between Benin and Niger near Gaya

Dendi (also: Dandi ) is a former province of the Songhaire Empire and a landscape in the border area of Benin , Niger and Nigeria .

province

Dendi was a province of the Songhai Empire in the 16th and 17th centuries. The name Dendi comes from the Songhai language and means "stream of water", especially downstream. It refers to the province downstream of the Niger south of Kukiya , located in what is now Mali and Niger.

After the Battle of Tondibi in 1591, the defeated Askiya dynasty and their followers fled to Dendi. There they resisted the conquerors from Morocco and tried to maintain the tradition of the Songhaeque for a few decades. The province dissolved bit by bit into several small mansions, each ruled by Askiya - namely Ayérou , Bangou Koirey , Bangou Tara , Dargol , Garbougna , Guériel , Karma , Kokorou , Kolmane , Kossogo , Namaro , Sansané Haoussa , Saya , Sikièye , Téra , Yonkoto and Zarakoira - and finally ceased to exist.

landscape

The name Dendi was carried over to an area further south on the Niger River, which developed as a unit in the second half of the 18th century. Its centers today are the cities of Gaya in Niger, Kamba in Nigeria and Malanville in Benin. In the pre-colonial period, no significant political or economic center emerged in the landscape; it was rather on the periphery of more powerful units such as the house states and the states of Borgu .

The main ethnic groups in Dendi are the Tyenga , the Zarma , the Songhai , the Hausa , the Bariba and the Fulbe . In pre-colonial times, i.e. until the 19th century, the Songhai who immigrated from the lost Songhai empire held political rule, while the Tyenga, who had been resident for a long time, mainly derived their power from their responsibility for the pre- Islamic cults. Both groups - Songhai and Tyenga - united here to form a new ethnic group, the Dendi . They share a common Songhai-based language, the Dendi .

Like Birni-N'Konni and Dogendoutchi, Dendi was a center of the Bori obsession , which almost completely disappeared as a result of Islamization by the mid-1950s. Traders who moved in from other regions made the landscape in the border triangle an important trading center in the second half of the 20th century. Agricultural products from the region such as rice, millet and corn, finished goods such as used cars, second-hand clothing, cement and cigarettes as well as oil are traded.

literature

  • Bio Bigou: La vallée bénino-nigérienne du fleuve Niger. Populations et développement économique . Thèse pour le Doctorat. Université de Bourgogne, Dijon 1987.
  • Anne Haour (Ed.): Two thousand years in Dendi, northern Benin. Archeology, history and memory . Brill, Leiden 2018, ISBN 978-90-04-35584-2 .
  • Michel Perron: Le pays Dendi . In: Bulletin du Comité d'Etudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Française . Vol. 7, No. 1 , 1924, p. 51-83 .
  • Issa Seyni Zoumari: Le Dendi dans l'histoire et la geographie. De laprobleme du peuplement . In: Études maliennes . No. 58 , 2003, p. 3-11 .
  • Olivier Walther: Sons of the Soil and Conquerors Who Came on Foot: The Historical Evolution of a West African Border Region . In: African Studies Quarterly . Vol. 13, No. 1 & 2 , 2012, p. 75-92 ( sites.clas.ufl.edu [PDF]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Olivier Walther: Sons of the Soil and Conquerors Who Came on Foot: The Historical Evolution of a West African Border Region . In: African Studies Quarterly . Vol. 13, No. 1 & 2 , 2012, p. 77–78 ( sites.clas.ufl.edu [PDF; accessed November 4, 2018]).
  2. ↑ Abdourahmane Idrissa, Samuel Decalo: Historical Dictionary of Niger . 4th edition. Scarecrow, Plymouth 2012, ISBN 0-7864-0495-7 , pp. 173-174 .
  3. ^ A b Edmond Séré de Rivières: Histoire du Niger . Berger-Levrault, Paris 1965, p. 74 and 80 .
  4. ↑ a b Olivier Walther: Sons of the Soil and Conquerors Who Came on Foot: The Historical Evolution of a West African Border Region . In: African Studies Quarterly . Vol. 13, No. 1 & 2 , 2012, p. 84 and 87 ( sites.clas.ufl.edu [PDF; accessed November 4, 2018]).

Coordinates: 11 ° 54 ′ 0 ″  N , 3 ° 30 ′ 0 ″  E