{"id":7821,"date":"2022-09-15T15:30:08","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T19:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/?page_id=7821"},"modified":"2022-09-15T16:00:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T20:00:49","slug":"working-with-hausa-ajami-manuscripts-of-northern-nigeria","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/working-with-hausa-ajami-manuscripts-of-northern-nigeria\/","title":{"rendered":"Working with Hausa Ajami Manuscripts of Northern Nigeria"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mustapha Hashim Kurfi<\/em><\/p>\n

When I received the breaking news about winning the NEH grant, I was consumed with happiness, partly because in addition to its prestigious nature, we had passed through a rigorous competition and scrutiny. We were fortunate that our proposal was among the successful ones. On the other hand, I knew that the project was not going to be easy, since much is expected from the one to whom much is given. The stakes were\u00a0therefore very\u00a0high, and we needed to put in our best in order to meet the expectations.<\/p>\n

I went to the field not as an amateur\u00a0or someone inexperienced in manuscript collection and digitization. I had engaged in these kinds of exercises\u00a0in the past. Yet, the NEH Ajami Project is much bigger,\u00a0broader, and multi-dimensional. It entails various components that together seek to spark research and scholarly analysis of select West African Ajami literatures that include Hausa, Fula, Mandinka and Wolof. One of the components we dealt with was performing transcriptions and translations of these Ajami manuscripts. Translating some of the manuscripts into English proved particularly challenging. A number of the manuscripts were poems composed in the late 1700s and early 1800s. For that reason, we\u00a0were dealing with somewhat \u201cold-fashioned\u201d Hausa\u00a0not used in\u00a0modern\u00a0conversation.\u00a0Comprehending, interpreting, and translating old concepts and statements contained in the manuscripts was rather difficult at times, but by consulting elders who were bestowed with the necessary knowledge\u00a0and\u00a0wisdom, we\u00a0were able to\u00a0overcome that\u00a0challenge.<\/p>\n

Some of the manuscripts we worked on were\u00a0esoteric<\/em>\u00a0in nature, containing specialized knowledge not easily understood by all. For instance,\u00a0Falke 1248: Arithmetic\u00a0Made\u00a0Easy\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Falke 1107: The Months of African<\/em>s<\/em>\u00a0contain hard-to-read material, using terms that are uncommon. Some portions are poems but repeat the same hard-to-comprehend terms. Coupled with that, there are calculations that are employed as codes and formulas. In addition to being time-consuming, such texts required us to consult with experts in various fields for proper interpretation. And then we were struggling with finding the best ways to convey that message\u00a0to our English readers (the target audience)\u00a0with clarity and without missing or misinterpreting the original message. Be reminded that apart from the English language, the work had to be translated into French language too.<\/p>\n

The work also involved doing video recordings, and one of the major challenges we faced was Mother Nature\u00a0<\/em>(weather).\u00a0After planning to go to the sites to do the recording, the weather might turn out to be not favorable, which\u00a0meant that we had to fix some other day to\u00a0complete what had been started. In business, that means \u201cextra pay\u201d for the recruited personnel. Additionally, there were exorbitant charges from professional singers recruited to sing or chant certain poems.\u00a0Many of these\u00a0professional singers are elites by\u00a0virtue of their association with politicians, technocrats, royal families, rich\u00a0and famous, as well as\u00a0other cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me. The elitist nature of their services makes them \u201cHot Cakes,\u201d but\u00a0for the fact that I needed to get the best,\u00a0I had to give what I had to get what I wanted. This meant, sometimes I had to use my own resources to supplement what was budgeted for the tasks. I made these personal sacrifices because I knew that we were collectively striving for excellence in the project.<\/p>\n

Getting the right people for the right job in a research project like this is a daunting task. One of the manuscripts that we worked on was a series of poems composed by Nana Asma\u2019u, daughter of Usman \u0257an Fodio:\u00a0\u00a0Paden\u00a095-1 and 2. We, therefore,\u00a0needed a female to chant the poems and I was determined to get a descendant of Nana Asma\u2019u. Suddenly, I remembered Princess Zuwaira Haruna Rasheed, who is a direct descendant of Nana Asma\u2019u and the daughter of the former Emir. She is currently a professor of political science. I reached out to her and pleaded with her to kindly participate in the project by chanting poems and granting us an interview, and she accepted. I had to arrange for a crew to travel to Gwandu in\u00a0Kebbi State to meet with her.\u00a0The team went there and she kindly granted all that we requested. Unfortunately, we\u00a0experienced\u00a0technology failure\u00a0that\u00a0was only discovered after the interview. This princess was a very busy person who already had\u00a0prior\u00a0commitments. In short, we had to replace her with another woman to chant the poems. Although our chanter did very well, I really would have loved a direct descendant of Nana Asma\u2019u to chant them.<\/p>\n

Conclusively, reflecting on my experience, the NEH Ajami collaborative project has been an amazing experience that has exposed me to learning so much about doing fieldwork and dealing with centuries-old\u00a0manuscripts.\u00a0Among other things, the exercise has forced me to re-think about how to prepare for the fieldwork: to be properly equipped with hope for the best and to be ready for the unexpected. Some of the challenges we faced were unavoidable yet passable. Others could be managed through diplomacy, sustainable cordial relationships with local collaborators, establishing networks and utilizing social capital, as well as making contingency plans before going to the field. We do hope that the project’s aim of facilitating interpretive knowledge about the meaning\u00a0and\u00a0purpose of the multiple functions of Ajami texts will be achieved, using the resources that we worked\u00a0hard\u00a0to generate in this mega-project!<\/p>\n

Dr. Mustapha Hashim Kurfi<\/a> is a Senior Lecturer at Bayero University, Kano- Nigeria. He has a doctorate in Sociology from Boston University (2018). Dr. Kurfi is a Hausa native speaker who has written extensively in Hausa language and Hausa Ajami, and the author of <\/em>Jagoran Koyan Hausa Ajami a Aiwace (A Practical Guide to Learning Hausa Ajami, 2017) and <\/em>Littafin Koyan Hausa Ajami don Lafiyar Al\u2019umma (Hausa Ajami Workbook for Public Health, 2019), published by the African Languages Program of the African Studies Center, Boston University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mustapha Hashim Kurfi When I received the breaking news about winning the NEH grant, I was consumed with happiness, partly because in addition to its prestigious nature, we had passed through a rigorous competition and scrutiny. We were fortunate that our proposal was among the successful ones. On the other hand, I knew that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8572,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8572"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7821"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7837,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7821\/revisions\/7837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/nehajami\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}