Dendi (ethnic group in West Africa)
The Dendi (also: Dandawa , Dandi ) are an ethnic group from the border region of the same name Dendi in Benin , Niger and Nigeria .
The Dendi comprise from 1591 submerged Songhai Empire immigrant Songhai and already longer resident Tyenga , a common language to Songhai base , the Dendi share. The identity as Dendi is independent of belonging to one of the modern nation states. While the Songhai-descended Dendi traditionally held political rule, the Tyenga-descended Dendi dominated pre- Islamic religious cults and the management of land and natural resources.
As of 1996, about 100,000 people belong to the ethnic group. In the early 1930s, it was estimated that 20,000 Dendi lived in North Dahomey (Benin) and 10,000 Dendi in Niger. The Dendi are almost exclusively Muslim and can be clearly distinguished from the Bariba Muslims, their neighbors. They traditionally work as (traveling) traders and, in large numbers, in subsistence farming .
Known Dendi
- Tahirou Congacou (1913–1994), local politician
literature
- Bio Bigou: La vallée bénino-nigérienne du fleuve Niger. Populations et développement économique . Thèse pour le Doctorat. Université de Bourgogne, Dijon 1987.
Individual evidence
- ↑ 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 ( web.archive.org [PDF; accessed May 30, 2020]).
- ^ A b James S. Olson: The Peoples of Africa. An Ethnohistorical Dictionary . Greenwood Press, Westport / London 1996, ISBN 0-313-27918-7 , pp. 143 .
- ^ Jean Rouch : Les Songhay . L'Harmattan, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-7475-8615-4 , pp. 6 .