NOTES 63. drum history. Additions have been made to the Arabic MS in the Institute's collection. 5# We would like to thank all members of the Institute for their help in making this work possible, as well as our personal assistants/ Anna Craven and Birgirre Rode-Moller. We are grateful to the Institute of Education, the Wenner- Gren Foundation and the Leverhulme Foundation to the University of Cambridge, to the Ministry of Overseas Development as well a* to the University of Ghana for financial assistance. Jack and Esther Goody. Mr •• A NOTE ON THE ARABIC MS IASAIy /298, AND OTHERS FROMWA The manuscript IASAR/298* Is a short work in Arabic entitled Al-Akhbar Sal tana t Bilad Wa, 'Information on the sultanate of the town ofWa1. Wa, in the north-west of Ghana, is a town df^reaf ethnographic complexity. Briefly, the Nabihi or princes, of Mamprussi-Dagomba origins, provide the Wa Na who is secular ruler of the whole state, and also chiefs *AII IASAR references are to the Arabic collection. Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana (xerox copies). 64.. NOTES for a number of the subordinate towns. The Yerihi or Muslims, largely of Marian DyuSa origins, provide first the Shehu Wangara (or Yeri Na), who is amir al~mu'minTnr leader of the faithful; secondly the Imam al-jumca, who leads the Friday prayer and is responsible to the community cTthe faithful as such; and thirdly the imam al-bilad, the town imam, who is directly responsible to the Wa N a, TJnaTT)TT~ftie Tindamba or Sandowners, of mixed and largely 'autochthonous' origins, provide the priests of the land-shrines. The Nabihi are mostly Muslim, the Yerihi of course entirely so, and the Tindamba mostly pagan. Each of these three major components of Wa socifry is itself heterogeneous. The Muslim estate, for example includes inter alia Kabanye - Dyula Kunatay settlers of perhaps five hundred years standing in Wa; Tagarayire - Dyula TaraUray of comparable antiquity; also TaraUray settlers but probably of the late 17th century; and DzangbeySre Hausa immigrants of a stall more recent period. limarnyire - The manuscript IASAfV/298 deals with the (relationship between the It should be considered in conjunction Nabihi, the Tindamba of Suriyire (Suri's quarter), and the Muslims of Limamyire (the Imam's quarter). with other manuscripts, in Arabic script and in Arabic or Hausa language, which are extant in Wa, all of which appear in some way concerned with the definition and regulation of the relationships between the various component communities of Wa town. These include the Hausa work Labarin Wala Kasamu, ^ Ta'rlkh Ah I Wala, 'History of the People of Wa! and the Ta'nfch al-Mus!imin, 'Ffistory of the Muslims", both of which exist also in Hausa versions (SASAF/ 152); another and different Al-Akhbar Saltanat Bilad Wa , and the Ta'rikh Tadhkirat al-lmamiyyin fTBifacfina WaT"'History in memory of the imams of our town of Wa1 (IASAiy]51); and a Ta'rikh Ahl Tariwar min Mandf 'History of the Tarauray people from Mandes, which I waTsnown recently. Information about Wa, our land' (\ASAR/2\;45); th"e~ These works are all built around a consideration of the origins of the component communities of Wa and of the order and circumstances of their arrival there. They are not chronicles, but rather compilations of orai tradition. Yet, though historical in content, they are legalistic by intent. They form a corpus of constitutional documents, utilized in the determination of claims to office, rights in land, etc. They are kept by the culama"s of the town, who are also responsible for their interpretation. Karamoko Siddiq b. Sa id, from whom IASAfy/298 was obtained, had as a youth to NOTES 65. learn this work, and recited it before his grandfather on many occasions, when various points would be elucidated and elaborated. Karamoko Siddiq is thus able to provide what is in effect a commentary upon the basic work, and in virtue of this and similar endowments is generally considered one of the leading authorities upon constitutional matters. The utilization of oral traditions in the definition of socio-poSiHcaS relationships is, of course, very general in West Africa. Attempts, however, to commit such materials to writing - to produce (rudimentary) codifications of customary constitutional law - are unusual, though one may perhaps view in a similar light the industry of colonial District Commissioners in recording local traditions. Indeed, in Wa itself, around ]922, Commissioner WhittaI! called upon the local cuiama' to produce for him written accounts of the history of Wa. this stimulus, whilst IASAIV22 bears the inscription; IASAfy/152 may have been compiled in Its present form under "Dec. 1922. This book 5s given to Malam Isaka on condition he writes the History of the Walas in it in Hausa. P.JL Whittall, D . C, W a ". (In the event, Malam Isaka simply brought together a number of earlier manuscripts on a variety of topics, including accounts of relations of Wa wirh both Babatu and Samori.) SASAR/298 is of special interest in that its history is reasonably we!l- known. The copy in the possession of Karamoko Siddiq b. Saciid was made by him, about thirty years ago, from an old and decaying manuscript owned by his father. The author of the work was Karamoko Siddiq's great-grand- father, SacTci the ninth imam al-bilad of Wa, son of cAbd al-Qadir, the sixth imam. Sacid b. cAbd al-Qadir is remembered in Wa as a mujaddid, a renewer of Islam, and as a man of considerable learning. He is said by Karamoko Siddiq to have spent twelve years in Kong studying under c Abbas Saghanughu, and this receives some confirmation from the Arabic manuscript SASAIV'IS/ which contains an incomplete silsila also recording Imam Sacld's affiliation with Kong. Many local silsilas - chains for the trans- mission of learning - pass through cAbbas b. Muhammad al-Mustafa Saghanughu of Kong (e.g. IASAI^/49; 50; 141; 175; 339; 427): the Saghanughu family has through several centuries produced generation after generation NOTES of scholars whose influence in West Africa has yet to be adequately assessed. The father and teacher of cAbbas Saghanughu, Muhammad al-Mustafa, himself a scholar of repute, is recorded in IASAIV246 as having died in AH 1190, AD 1776-7, a date which seems quite acceptable. likely that SacTd b. cAbd ai-Qadir of Wa was a student in Kong during the later years of the 18th, or the early years of the 19th century. 5ASAiy298 was presumably written later, probably during SacTd's Imamate, though possibly as a result of stimulus from Kong. What is clear is that the Wa literary tradition exemplified by !A$Afy/298 reaches back at least to the earlier 19th century. It is therefore The information 5n this note from Karamoko Siddiq was recorded in a series of interviews between 28 June and 1 July, 1964* 1 append a check-list of the manuscripts in the SASAR collection (as at March 1966) which are of importance for a study of the history of Wa, with some indication of content. An edition of these MSS, with trans- lations into English, is inr course of preparation. Such works are frequently consulted in Wa, and new copies are often produced. Re-copying a manu- script Is regarded as an occasion for bringing it up to date. Many of the manuscripts listed below are known to be recent and revised copies of older works. Check List IASAR/17 1ASAIV18 IASAF^/20; IASAfy/21 - - - - List of nineteen imams of Wa from Yacmuru to Saiih, Ibrida1 dm Wa~ fTcam 875 iia^am 1382. An account of the state of Islam in Wa wiiTTreferences to the connection between the cu8ama"' of Wa and those of Kong (apparently abstracted from a longer work). Al-akhbaru Samuru". Account in Hausa of the relations of Wa with Samori and Babatu. Labarin WaSa Kasamu, Account in Hausa of the Widana section of Wa, and of its relationship of the Nabihi. 67. IASA^/22 IASAIV45 IASAI^46 IASAIV61 IASA^/151 IASAIV'152 IASAIV296 IASAIV'297 NOTES Collection of miscellaneous documents in Arabic and Hausa, including lists of the imams and chiefs of Wa, accounts of Samori and Babatu, various letters, etc. Identical with IASAR/21. List of twenty-eight (?) imams of Wa from Yacmuru toSaCfd. List of twenty-four imams of Wa from Yacmuru to al-H3jj Sac1a. Al-Akhbffr Saltanat Bilad WCT: Account of the origin of the chiefdom and of the four 'gates', with a list of kings. Ta'rtkh Tadhkirat al-lmamiyyTn fTBiladina Wa. Account of the ancestry of the Tarauray of Wa, with a list of Imams. Ta'rlhk Ahl Wala" and Ta'nkh al-Muslimlni Accounts in both Arabic and Hausa of the origins of the main sections of Wa, with lists of kings and imams. List of twenty-seven imSms of Wa from Yacmuru to SacTd, with genealogical notes. Obscure fragment apparently having reference to the ancestry of al-IHajj Mahmua1 b. UthmOh, from whom Tarauray families in Wa descend. Al-Akhbar Salfanat Bilad Wa: Account of the relationship between the hlabihi, the Tindamba of Suriyire, and the Muslims of Limamyire. IASAIV'343 List of twenty-nine imams of Wa from Yacmuru to •.at IASAR/77 IASAIV'246 68- List of eighteen imams of Wa from Yacmuru tq euthman, In addition the following two works contain references to Wa.# Account of the jih3d of a I-Hal j MahmUd karantaw (with mention of participants from Wa). A general account of the spread of Islam art West Africa (with some incidental references to Wa). In addition I have been shown the following: Ta'rTlch Ahl Tariwar min MandTi Account of the arrival in Wa of the people of Limamyire, and of their relations with the princes: with a section on the Watara, Karanta, Karanbiri, and Saghanughu. Ivor Wilks. NOTE ON THE EDUCATION AND EARLY LIFE OF AL-HTUJ cUMAR TALL The Institute of African Studies Arabic collection continues to throw out interesting new material on the major figures of nineteenth century West In addition to a hitherto unknown letter from cUthmahb. Fudi (Dan Africa. Fodio) calling upon Shaykh Adam of Admawa to join the jihad (SASAKI28), and a Tijani poem (lASAfy/72) spuriously ascribed to his son Muhammad Bello, the fact of which forgery adds weight to the evidence against Bella's membership of the Tijaniyya (despite Abun-Nasr's recent heavy-handed decision the other way, "The Tijaniyya" Oxford 1965), we have also an interesting reference to the higher education of "the Great Conqueror" al-Hajj cUmar Tall.