¹ Barth, Heinrich, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa 1849–1853 (3 vols.) (London, 1857–1859, reprinted 1965), i, 510–11.Google Scholar

² Robinson, C. H., Hausaland, or 1500 Miles through the Central Soudan (London, 1897), 113.Google Scholar

³ Heathcote, David, ‘Insight into a creative process: a rare collection of embroidery drawings from Kano’, Savanna, 1 (1972)Google Scholar; Hill, Polly, Population, Prosperity and Poverty: Rural Kano 1900 and 1970 (Cambridge, 1977)Google Scholar; Johnson, Marion, ‘Calico caravans: the Tripoli—Kano trade after 1880’, J. Afr. Hist., XVII (1976)Google Scholar; Johnson, Marion, ‘Periphery and center: the nineteenth century trade of Kano’, in Barkindo, Bawuro M. (ed.), Studies in the History of Kano (Ibadan, 1983)Google Scholar; Lovejoy, Paul E., Caravans of Kola (Zaria, 1980)Google Scholar; Mahadi, Abdullahi, ‘The state and the economy: the Sarauta system, and its roles in shaping the society and economy of Kano with particular reference to the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Ahmadu Bello University, 1982)Google Scholar; Pokrant, R. J., ‘The tailors of Kano City’, in Goody, Esther (ed.), From Craft to Industry (Cambridge, 1982)Google Scholar; Schildkrout, Enid, ‘Women's work and children's work: variations among Moslems in Kano’, in Wallman, Sandra (ed.), Social Anthropology of Work (London, 1979)Google Scholar; Shea, Philip, ‘The development of an export-oriented dyed cloth industry in Kano emirate in the 19th century’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975)Google Scholar; Shea, Philip, ‘Kano and the silk trade’, Kano Studies N.S. 11, (1980)Google Scholar; Philip Shea, ‘Approaching the study of production in Rural Kano’, in Barkindo (ed.), Studies in the History of Kano; Tahir, Ibrahim, ‘Scholars, Sufis, saints, and capitalists in Kano 1904–1974: the pattern of bourgeois revolution in an Islamic society’ (Ph.D. thesis, Cambridge University, 1975).Google Scholar

⁴ Hopkins, A.G., An Economic History of West Africa (New York, 1973)Google Scholar; Austen, Ralph, African Economic History: Internal Development and External Dependency (London, 1987)Google Scholar; Austen, Ralph and Headrick, Daniel, ‘The role of technology in the African past’, African Studies Review, XXVI (1983)Google Scholar; Freund, Bill, The African Worker (Cambridge, 1988).Google Scholar

⁵ For example, see the recent debate over pre-colonial African industry in African Economic History, XIX (1990–1991).Google Scholar

⁶ I found that my field work in Nigeria (1975–6) was insufficient for understanding nineteenth-century textile manufacture, and therefore I sought out museum collections as historical sources. Changes wrought by the colonial government, such as the abolition of slavery and the increased importation of factory-made yarns and cloth, have utterly transformed the industry in the twentieth century. Even where there was continuity in the manufacture of certain products, such as hand-embroidered robes, fundamental changes occurred. For example, present-day Nigerians claim that such robes were and are accessible to anyone, whereas in the nineteenth century they were not. See Kriger, C., ‘Robes of the Sokoto Caliphate’, African Arts, XXI (1988).Google Scholar In another example, one of Shea's (male) Bida informants claimed that very fine thread was woven only by men, not by women weavers. See Philip Shea, ‘Collection of notes on interviews concerned with the history of production of indigo dyed cloth in Kano emirate, Nigeria’, interview with Alhaji Sule Mai Saka, 8 April 1971. Nineteenth-century evidence of fine yarns used by women weavers in Nupe areas demonstrates that this was not the case.

⁷ See general references to this phenomenon in Sundström, Lars, The Exchange Economy of Pre-Colonial Tropical Africa (New York, 1974) (reprint of The Trade of Guinea, 1965).Google Scholar

⁸ Identifications are based ultimately on contemporary observers' reports. For example, although some minor exceptions exist (see n. 31), the evidence of contemporary observers agrees clearly that in the Sokoto Caliphate, men wove cloth on a treadle loom with reed, and women wove cloth on a vertical loom with batten. Thus, when we examine a particular textile from the Sokoto Caliphate, we can identify the loom used and hence the sex of the weaver.

⁹ Shea, ‘Development’, 90–1.

¹⁰ Nachtigal, Gustav, Sahara and Sudan (4 vols.) (Berlin and Leipzig, 1879–1889; trans, and ed. Allan, and Fisher, Humphrey, London, 1971–1984), ii, 180–1Google Scholar; Menzel, Brigitte, Textilien aus Westafrika (3 vols.) (Berlin, 1972), i, #1444.Google Scholar

¹¹ Data from some of my analyses have been published in Kriger, C., ‘Textile production in the Lower Niger Basin: new evidence from the 1841 Niger Expedition Collection’, Textile History, XXI (1990).Google Scholar Other published data can be found in Menzel, Textilien; Boser-Sarivaxévanis, Renée, Les Tissus de l'Afrique Occidentale (Basel, 1972)Google Scholar; and Borgatti, Jean, Cloth as Metaphor: Nigerian Textiles from the Museum of Cultural History (Los Angeles, 1983).Google Scholar Unpublished data come from collections in the Museum of Mankind, London; Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; Liverpool Museum; Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford; Kew Museum, Kew Gardens; Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich; Royal Ontario Museum and Museum for Textiles, Toronto; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Lowie Museum, Berkeley; and private collections.

¹² Contemporary accounts include a number of either direct or indirect ‘internal’ (caliphate) testimonies from eight written sources; and 14 accounts by ‘external’ (European) observers.

¹³ Barth, Travels, i, 512–13. Data on Barth's robe are published in Menzel, i, #500. For Flegel's raphia cloth, see Menzel, Textilien, i, #158.

¹⁴ Mischlich, Adam, Wörterbuch der Hausasprache (Berlin, 1906), 62–3Google Scholar; Robinson, C. H., Dictionary of the Hausa Language (2 vols.) (Cambridge, 1913), ii, 43Google Scholar; Bargery, G. P., A Hausa—English Dictionary (London, 1934), 131.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Although certain equipment was generally associated with either men or women, some techniques crossed gender lines more quickly and easily. For example, in the early twentieth century male weavers borrowed techniques of openwork and brocading from female weavers in order to produce cloth that could not be replicated by European imports; male dyers in Kano took up some of the resist-dyeing techniques of women dyers from southern Nigeria.

¹⁶ See my discussion of the earliest evidence for the different weaving technologies in Kriger, , ‘Textile production’, 37–9.Google Scholar This schematic reconstruction is not meant to imply lack of change. For example, the loom used by women appears linked historically with the raphia loom used primarily by men to the south-east. To my knowledge, no one has yet attempted to account for this historical change of gender associations.

¹⁷ Dalziel, J. M., The Useful Plants of Western Tropical Africa (London, 1937), 122–4.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Archaeological and other material evidence demonstrates social inequality and specialization in societies south of the Niger—Benue confluence prior to the European coastal trade in the late fifteenth century. See Shaw, Thurstan, Igbo-Ukwu (London, 1970)Google Scholar; Willett, Frank, Ife in the History of West African Sculpture (London, 1967)Google Scholar; Connah, Graham, The Archaeology of Benin (Oxford, 1975).Google Scholar

¹⁹ Clapperton, Hugh, Journal of a Second Expedition into the Interior of Africa (London, 1829, reprinted 1966), 136–7.Google Scholar

²⁰ Kriger, ‘Textile production’.

²¹ Shata cloths collected before 1899 in Bafilo are published in Menzel, Textilien, i, # 101, # 102. They are analogues to cloths woven in Yagba and environs. See Kriger, ‘Textile production’.

²² Fika, Adamu, The Kano Civil War and British Over-rule 1882–1940 (Ibadan, 1978)Google Scholar; Mason, Michael, Foundations of the Bida Kingdom (Zaria, 1981)Google Scholar; Smith, M. G., Government in Zazzau 1800–1950 (London, 1960)Google Scholar; Usman, Yusufu, The Transformation of Katsina 1400–1883 (Zaria, 1981)Google Scholar; Adamu, Mahdi, The Hausa Factor in West African History (Zaria, 1978).Google Scholar The exception is O'Hear, who noted the importance of women's weaving in Ilorin but was unable to include it in her dissertation research. O'Hear, Ann, ‘The economic history of Ilorin in the 19th and 20th centuries: the rise and decline of a middleman society’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Birmingham, 1983).Google Scholar

²³ For example, Museum of Mankind, London, Accession #43#3–11#53; Museum for Textiles, Toronto, Accession #R82.1123; Lowie Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley, Accession #5–1968; Baikie Collection, Kew Museum, Kew Gardens; and Menzel, Textilien, ii, #483. See also Shea, ‘Development’, pp. 78–80, 85, 246; and Menzel, Textilien, i, #1444. For examples of sak’i cloth, see Museum of Mankind, Accession #43#3–11#41; Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Accession #I. XII. 1856; Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, Accession #1878.1.2; and Museum for Textiles, Toronto, Accession #R8s.1291.

²⁴ See published examples of wider strip cloths from the middle Niger region, now in the Musée de l'Homme, in Boser-Sarivaxévanis, Les Tissus, Tables III–VII. See also over 250 cloths produced in Ghana, published in Menzel, Textilien, i. Sawaye cloth, traded westward from the caliphate, corresponds in width to these ‘western’ cloths. For examples, see Menzel, Textilien, ii, #498, #505–7, #509, #554–5, #557–8, #565.

²⁵ This is not necessarily a representative sample, and so one ought not to conclude that women wove 20% of all cloth. Although their cloth was often woven to wider breadths, identification is most certain when based on fabric structure. An even distribution of warp threads points to a reed having been used in the weaving process, which was used only with the men's loom.

²⁶ Kriger, ‘Textile Production’; and Akintoye, S. A., ‘The Northeastern districts of the Yoruba country and the Benin kingdom’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, IV (06 1969).Google Scholar For wider cloth see Museum of Mankind, London, Accession #43.3–11.45, 43.3–11.42, 43.7–10.21, 43.3–11.50, 43.3–11.60, 43.3–11.52, 43.3–11.37, 43.3–11.36, 43.3–11.66, 43.3–11.47; Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Accession #I.xii. 1856; Baikie Collection, Kew Museum, Kew Gardens; Menzel, Textilien i, #158; and cloths collected by Frobenius, now in the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde, Munich, Accession #15–26–51, -52, -53, -54, -55.

²⁷ Barth, Travels; Clapperton, Hugh and Denham, D., Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa in 1822, 1823, and 1824 (4 vols.) (London, 1831)Google Scholar; Hugh Clapperton, Second; Richard and Lander, John, Journal of an Expedition to Explore the Course and Termination of the Niger (2 vols.) (New York, 1832)Google Scholar; Hutchinson, T. J., Narrative of the Niger, Tshadda, and Binue Exploration (London, 1855, reprinted, 1966)Google Scholar; Nachtigal, Sahara and Sudan; Robinson, Hausaland; Staudinger, Paul, Im Herzen der Haussaländer (Berlin, 1889).Google Scholar For descriptions of women's workplaces in Ilorin and Nupe Emirates, see Clarke, William, Travels and Explorations in Yorubaland 1854–58 (Ibadan, ed. by Atanda, J. A., 1972), 272–3Google Scholar; Johnson, Samuel, History of the Yorubas (London, 1921, reprinted 1966), 124.Google ScholarNadel, S., Black Byzantium (London, 1942), 295, 297.Google Scholar For twentieth-century Northern Nigeria, see floorplans of looms set up in women's sleeping quarters in Anka, Zamfara, 1961–2, in Menzel, Textilien, i, #69a and #69b.

²⁸ Allen, W. and Thomson, T. R., A Narrative of an Expedition sent by Her Majesty's Government to the River Niger in 1841 (New York, 1848, reprinted 1967)Google Scholar; Crowther, Samuel and Shön, James, The Journals of the Rev. James Frederick Shön and Mr. Samuel Crowther (London, 1842, reprinted 1970).Google Scholar

²⁹ Kriger, ‘Textile production’.

³⁰ Norris, Robert, Memoirs of the Reign of Bossa Ahadee, King of Dahomy (London, 1789, reprinted 1968), 141–2.Google Scholar See also Law, Robin, The Oyo Empire, c. 1600–c. 1836 (Oxford; 1977)Google Scholar; Ryder, A. F. C., Benin and the Europeans 1485–1897 (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; and Johnson, Marion, ‘Technology, competition, and African crafts’, in Dewey, Clive and Hopkins, A. G. (eds.), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India (London, 1978).Google Scholar

³¹ Ryder, A. F. C., ‘Dutch trade on the Nigerian coast during the seventeenth century’, J. Hist. Soc. Nigeria, III (12 1965), 203–4.Google Scholar My estimate of 80–96,000 meters of cloth comes from the quote of 16,000 pieces, taking a conservative figure of 1.74 meter length and multiplying by 3 and 3·5, for the number of woven lengths of cloth per ‘piece’. ‘Pieces’ were of either 3 or 4 breadths of cloth. Aronson's research in Ijebu-Ode shows that men formerly used the wide, vertical loom. Aronson, Lisa, ‘Ijebu Yoruba Aso Olona. a contextual and historical overview’, African Arts, XXV (07 1992).Google Scholar However, as she points out, we cannot at present determine whether they monopolized it. For example, it would not be surprising to find that they were primarily the weavers of special cloths for Oshugbo society members while women wove other types of cloth. Ben-Amos reported that in the palace at Benin City royal weavers claim their guild was founded by women, but that Oba Ohen turned weaving over to men when he discovered that women were selling the royal cloth in the market. Whether accurate or not, the account seeks to explain a real phenomenon, the use of the vertical loom by both men and women: men were the major royal weavers while women were the major commercial weavers throughout the Benin Kingdom. Ben-Amos, Paula, ‘Owina n'ido: royal weavers of Benin’, African Arts, XI (07 1978).Google Scholar

³² Akintoye, , ‘Northeastern districts’, 544–7.Google Scholar

³³ Johnson, , History, 110.Google Scholar

³⁴ Landolphe, J. F., Mémoires du Capitaine Landolphe contenant l'histoire de ses voyages pendant 36 ans, au côtes d'Afrique et aux deux Amériques (2 vols.) (Paris, 1823), i, 121; ii, 49.Google Scholar

³⁵ Tahir, , ‘Capitalists’, 238, 250–3Google Scholar; Shea, , ‘Development’, 39–45, 101Google Scholar; Clapperton, and Denham, , Travels, iv, 146Google Scholar; Clapperton, , Second, 222.Google Scholar

³⁶ For a discussion of handspinning, see Crowfoot, Grace, ‘Methods of handspinning in Egypt and the Sudan’, Bankfield Museum Notes, 2nd Series, no. 12 (Halifax, 1931).Google Scholar Crowfoot's field research in the Sudan, before 1920, included interviews with female spinners who had emigrated from the Sokoto Caliphate. The spindle they used was the same as that used in and collected from the caliphate. See also photographs published in Menzel, Textilien, i, #43–56.

See caliphate spindles in the Stanger Collection, Wisbech and Fenland Museum, Cambridgeshire; Trotter Collection, Museum of Mankind, Accession #43.7–10.16; Flegel Collection, Museum für Völkerkunde, Berlin, published in Menzel, #30, #31, #58; Miller Collection, Royal Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, published in Idiens, Dale, The Hausa of Northern Nigeria (Edinburgh, 1981)Google Scholar, #93 and #94. Compare with spindles from Togo, Menzel Textilien, i, #64, 66, 67; from Cameroon, Menzel, Textilien, i, #65; and from Asante, Menzel, Textilien, i, #26.

³⁷ Roy Sieber has written that ‘women are weavers by avocation; in many areas, nearly every woman weaves for her own and her family's use, and only excess cloths are sold or bartered…’, and that ‘the men weavers are specialists who have undergone an apprenticeship, making cloth exclusively for sale’. African Textiles and Decorative Arts (New York, 1972), 155.Google Scholar A similar description occurs in the widely circulated catalogue published by the British Museum: ‘There are many similarities between Yoruba and Hausa weaving. Both sexes, for example, manufacture textiles, women on the upright single-heddle loom for domestic use and men on the double-heddle loom as a professional skill’. Picton, John and Mack, John, African Textiles (London, 1979), 114.Google Scholar

³⁸ Renne, Elisha, ‘The decline of women's weaving among the Northeast Yoruba’ (unpublished paper, African Studies Association Annual Meeting, October 1988)Google Scholar; Nadel, Black Byzantium; Lamb, Venice and Holmes, Judy, Nigerian Weaving (Roxford, England, 1980).Google Scholar

³⁹ Imam Imoru stated that girls were taught to spin from the time they lost their baby teeth. Ferguson, Douglas, ‘Nineteenth century Hausaland, being a description by Imam Imoru of the land, economy and society of his people’ (Ph.D. thesis, UCLA, 1973) 260.Google Scholar Baba of Karo recounted how between the ages of four and six she lived with a great-aunt who forced her to spin cotton. Smith, Mary, Baba of Karo (London, 1954), 47–8.Google Scholar When Crowfoot experienced difficulties in spinning cotton, women told her she should have begun training at the age of six. Crowfoot, , ‘Methods’, 42.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Imam Imoru's description from the late nineteenth century emphasizes spinning in Kano and Zaria emirates, and also in Sokoto and Zamfara emirates, where women ‘had no other occupation’. Ferguson, ‘Hausaland’, 303. See also Boyd, Jean, The Caliph's Sister (London, 1989), 49.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Restricted use of the loom by women in the north-central area of the caliphate is indicated by Baba of Karo's comment that the loom was not known by her in Kano or in Zaria during her childhood (late nineteenth century). Smith, Baba of Karo, 54. For the twentieth-century distribution, see the 1921 Census reports in Meek, C. K., The Northern Tribes of Nigeria (2 vols.) (London, 1925) ii, 224, 228–31Google Scholar; and the Census of Nigeria, 1931 (London, 1933), iiGoogle Scholar, Census of the Northern Provinces, 80–5; Menzel, Textilien, ii; Eicher, Joanne, Nigerian Handcrafted Textiles (Ile-Ife, 1976)Google Scholar (the identification of the distribution maps on page 34 has been reversed); Kent, Kate, West African Cloth (Denver, 1971)Google Scholar; and Lamb and Holmes, Nigerian Weaving.

⁴² Marion Johnson, ‘Technology’, 260; and Meillassoux, Claude, ‘Female slavery’, in Robertson, Claire C. and Klein, Martin A. (eds.), Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1983), 58.Google Scholar

⁴³ This was noted by Nadel in the former Nupe emirates, where women weavers were found only in households of the elite. Similarly, women dyers in Nupe, who were freed slaves of Yoruba origin, were usually married to Yoruba weavers. Nadel, Black Byzantium.

⁴⁴ Little girls in Quranic schools were taught by women, cleaned cotton and learned to spin. Boyd, Caliph's Sister, 8. Imam Imoru, himself a cleric, admitted that in general, very few girls went to school. Ferguson ‘Hausaland’, 261.

⁴⁵ Kriger, ‘Textile production’. I have calculated daily incomes for male and female weavers in Eggan, 1841, by dividing the prices by estimated working days. The most reliable estimates of weaving time for male and female weavers are found in Nadel, Black Byzantium, 280; and Lamb and Holmes, Nigerian Weaving, 184. Less the estimated 2/3 material costs, I show women could earn 3—4 d. per day; men could earn 2–8 d. per day. These results are consistent with Clarke's report from Ilorin emirate in 1854–8 that work by women weavers was more labor intensive but that it was more desirable and brought a better market price. Clarke, Travels, 273. The results are also consistent with Nadel's findings in Bida in the 1930s: women's profit per day on elaborate cloths was 2–3 d.; men's profit per day on elaborate cloth was just below 3 d.; men's profit per day on plain cloth was 2 d. Nadel, Black Byzantium, 280–1, 297.

⁴⁶ Our only direct information on incomes from spinning comes from the twentieth century. M. G. Smith's figures for 1950 in the Zaria area show male weavers then earning at least 17 times the yearly estimated income of female spinners. Smith, M. G., ‘Social and economic change among selected native communities in Northern Nigeria’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1951), 373–5, 546.Google Scholar See also Hill, Polly, Rural Hausa (Cambridge, 1972), 321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

These examples must be viewed with caution since spinning changed considerably with the increased importation of factory-spun yarns in the twentieth century. Generally speaking, twentieth-century products show that the spinning of more high quality, fine yarn (which brought higher prices) declined. However, this phenomenon, and the concurrent spread of weaving by women with factory-spun thread, suggests that spinning was seen by women as a less profitable occupation.

⁴⁷ Shea has seen no evidence of craft production in Kano areas having been taken without payment. Shea, ‘Approaching’, 100.

⁴⁸ See Middleton, Chris, ‘Women's labour and the transition to pre-industrial capitalism’, in Charles, Lindsay and Duffin, Lorna (eds.), Women and Work in Pre-Industrial England (London, 1985).Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See Johnson, ‘Technology’.

⁵⁰ Spinning as an occupation for payment has several vernacular terms in the Hausa language: ka’di = spinning; azarya = spinning for payment (Sokoto); kasindila = spinning cotton for sale as a means of livelihood (also sindile, sundule). Bargery, Dictionary, 552, 47, 580. Thread was always sold, even between relatives; it was not ‘communal property’. Philip Shea, personal communication, 18 May 1985.

⁵¹ ‘The majority of crafts were governed by guilds, which often represented one or more households’. They exercised control over entry, methods of production, and standards of workmanship and prices. Hopkins, Economic History, 50. Although this generalization has been challenged by M. G. Smith and Philip Shea, it continues to be repeated. See, for example, Freund, African Worker, 78–9.

⁵² See Shea, ‘Development’, 217–18. Hopkins relied on Lloyd, for whom the guild structure meant lineage control over entry and training. Lloyd, Peter, ‘Craft organization in Yoruba towns’, Africa, XXIII (1953).Google Scholar For Bray, guild structure meant restricted entry, and prevented diffusion of technology and horizontal mobility of occupation. Bray, Jennifer, ‘The craft structure of a traditional Yoruba town’, Institute of British Geographers, Transactions, XLVI (03 1969).Google Scholar Both Lloyd's and Bray's work is relevant to former portions of Ilorin emirate. For Nadel, guild structure meant a closed profession, hierarchy of ranks and grades, and centralized control by the elite in the former Nupe emirates. He admitted that these criteria applied only to the blacksmiths in Bida. Nadel also presents evidence that for men the weaving profession was not closed. Nadel, , Black Byzantium, 102–3, 265, 279, 281–2, 286.Google Scholar

⁵³ Smith, , Social and Economic Change, 29–30.Google Scholar In Kano, sarkin karofi (dyer) was the only titled textile official. He had little power, was a tax collector, and the tax was kept low. Shea, P., ‘Approaching’, 102.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ Nadel, , Black Byzantium, 286Google Scholar; Tahir, , ‘Capitalists’, 312Google Scholar; Heathcote, David, ‘A Hausa embroiderer of Katsina’, Nigerian Field, XXXVII (1972)Google Scholar; Kriger, ‘Robes of the Sokoto Caliphate’.

⁵⁵ Women, slaves and children generally were not directly taxed. Tahir, ‘Capitalists’, 233–4; Smith, M. G., Affairs of Daura (Berkeley, 1978), 272.Google Scholar In Zaria, several titles previously held by royal women were eliminated in the early nineteenth century, as were the land-holding perquisites for women. The only occupational tax for women was on Bori dancers. Smith, M. G., Zazzau, 130–1, 148, 353.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Virilocal residence in marriage was widespread in the region. See Meek, , Northern Tribes, i, 227Google Scholar; Smith, , Daura, 49Google Scholar; Lloyd, , ‘Craft organization’, 42Google Scholar; Bray, , ‘Craft structure’, 183.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Temple, O. (compiler) and Temple, C. L. (ed.), Notes on the Tribes, Provinces, Emirates and States of the Northern Province of Nigeria (Cape Town, 1919), 323Google Scholar; Smith, Baba of Karo, 60, 80.Google Scholar Baba of Karo's aunt, for example, was married six times in all.

⁵⁸ Tahir, , ‘Capitalists’, 214Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , Caravans, 92.Google Scholar One nineteenth-century example cited by M. G. Smith was a ‘harem’ of 70 women. Daura, 273.

⁵⁹ Clapperton noted in the Sokoto area, 1826, that wives of estate owners were occupied in directing female slaves in their work. Second, 211. Baba of Karo told about her aunt who was captured, enslaved, and sold to the wife of the king of Abuja. She worked at spinning for the wife. Smith, , Baba of Karo, 82, 106.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Smith, M. G., Social and Economic Change, 336–7Google Scholar; Hill, , Population, Prosperity and Poverty, 174Google Scholar; Nadel, , Black Byzantium, 252–6Google Scholar; Barkow, Jerome H., ‘Hausa women and Islam’, Canadian J. Afr. Studies, VI (1972), 321.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Some authors appear more concerned with what was not done in manufacturing than they are with what was done. Austen, for example, is primarily concerned that spinning wheels were not employed in Africa, without identifying what kind of spinning wheels he means and without proposing how and by whom they would have been introduced. Austen and Headrick, ‘Technology’, 166, 169, 176; Austen, , Economic History, 46.Google Scholar

⁶² The famous Kura cloth of Kano Emirate required finely spun thread to produce the gauze-like fabric structure, and the finest thread could increase the price of a cloth sixfold. Shea, ‘Development’, 142–4. Shea's informants attributed Kura's reputation for high quality cloth to the quality of the yarns. My comparative pricing data on textiles from the Eggan market in 1841 show that cloths of higher unit price were made from finely spun yarns. Heavy yarn = 0.7–1.0 mm average diameter; fine yarn = 0.23–0.53 mm average diameter. Kriger, ‘Textile production’.

⁶³ Imam Imoru wrote ‘There is abawa which is very thick, but weak, and there is arafiya which is very thin—like a hair—and is used for fine weaving’. Ferguson, ‘Hausaland’, 304. Hausa arafiya (raskwai in Katsina) = finely spun thread; ayanyana = finely spun cotton thread; abawa (also ’bartake) = loosely spun thread for embroidery or weft; aburduga (also burudu) = thick-spun cotton thread. Bargery, Dictionary, 2–3, 34, 46, 90, 137–8, 844.

⁶⁴ Dalziel, , Plants, 122–4Google Scholar; Crowfoot, Grace, ‘Spinning and weaving in the Sudan’, Sudan Notes and Records, IV (1921), 22.Google Scholar Some of the spinners Crowfoot interviewed were from the Sokoto Caliphate.

⁶⁵ Allen, and Thomson, , Narrative, 345–6Google Scholar; Idiens, Hausa, #95, p. 39; Menzel, Textilien, i, #39, #40, #41.

⁶⁶ Imported silk and wild silk were not filament silks, but were fibers that required spinning. To my knowledge, there are no technical reasons for spinning silk in the S-direction, but this was done consistently by male spinners of embroidery silk. For information on the collecting and processing of local silk by men, see P. Shea, ‘Kano and the silk trade’. For the collecting and processing of local silk by women (in Yoruba-speaking areas), see Ene, J. C., ‘Indigenous silk weaving in Nigeria’, Nigeria, VIII (06 1964).Google Scholar A summary of the moth species and their host trees can be found in Kriger, , ‘Garments of the Sokoto Caliphate: a case study from the Banfield Collection, Royal Ontario museum, Toronto’ (M.A. thesis, York University, 1985), 114–15.Google Scholar Analyses of yarns used in embroidery on nineteenth century garments are in Kriger, Colleen, ‘19th century textiles from the Niger Basin Region’ (paper, York University Department of History, 1986), 64–5.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ The most expensive cloth collected on the 1841 Niger Expedition was 94 % silk, and it was, by unit price, five times the price of the second most expensive cloth (which was woven by a woman and was 15% silk). See Kriger, ‘Textile production’.

⁶⁸ The lexical terms for this instrument reflect its northerly transmission over time.

⁶⁹ I have identified three special weaving techniques used by nineteenth-century women weavers, based on (but not limited to) the 1841 Niger Expedition collection: openwork; gauze; and supplementary weft patterning (brocade). Kriger, ‘Textile production’, 43.

⁷⁰ This discussion centers on locally produced indigo dye, not synthetic indigo imported from Europe. The latter, having a standard chemical composition, is relatively easier to master and hence was subject to a different historical dynamic. For general Hausa terms for locally produced indigo, see Ferguson, ‘Hausaland’, 81. For a more detailed summary of the indigo species used in the Sokoto Caliphate, see Dalziel, , Plants, 243–50.Google Scholar Dye vat technologies are discussed in Shea, ‘Development’, and in Wenger, S. and Beier, U., ‘Adire’, Nigeria, LXIV (1957).Google Scholar For a broader discussion of the gender divisions of labor in indigo dyeing in West Africa, see Boser-Sarivaxévanis, Renée, ‘Aperçus sur la teinture à l'indigo en Afrique occidentale’, Verhandlungen der Naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel, LXXX (1969).Google Scholar And for a general history of indigo dyeing, see Haller, R., ‘History of indigo dyeing’, CIBA Review, LXXXIV (04 1951).Google Scholar At present we lack the technical expertise to identify conclusively museum specimens of dyed cloth as having been dyed with one genus of dye plant or the other.

⁷¹ Hausa kanwa = potash (Borno); zarta = lye for dyepits (Sokoto and Katsina). Dalziel, Plants, 244. Shea has observed in the twentieth century potash used in Borno, limestone in Sokoto, caustic soda in parts of Yorubaland. Shea, ‘Development’, 151, 178.

Ash water has been used by women dyers in Bida, Ilorin and Yorubaland in general. The process involved use of a special kiln, which is illustrated in Barbour, Jane and Simmonds, Doig (eds.), Adire Cloth in Nigeria (Ibadan, 1971)Google Scholar; and Wenger and Beier, ‘Adire’. See also Boser-Sarivaxévanis, Renée, ‘Recherche sur l'histoire des textiles traditionels tissés et teints de l'Afrique occidentale’, Verhandlungen der naturforschenden Gesellschaft in Basel, LXXXVI (1975), 330–2Google Scholar; and Boser-Sarivaxévanis, ‘Aperçus’, 179–85.

⁷² Clapperton visited several women's dyeworks in Ijanna, part of Oyo at the time. He commented on the high quality of the indigo. Second, 15–16.

⁷³ For securing safe passage, and for sealing trade and diplomatic agreements. See Kriger, ‘Robes’.

⁷⁴ R., and Lander, J., Journal, i, 170, 241, 266, and ii, 69–70Google Scholar; Barth, , Travels, i, 519.Google Scholar Staudinger noted many needles in the markets, but he also observed astutely that many people did not know how to sew and that only the most highly skilled tailors and embroiderers could produce the better quality products. Staudinger, , Im Herzen, 581–2.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ The most spectacular example is the Eardley-Wilmot robe in the Museum of Mankind. See Kriger, ‘Robes’.

⁷⁶ For an analysis of the imagery, see Kriger, ‘Robes’.

⁷⁷ Shea, ‘Development’; Lovejoy, Paul E., ‘Plantations in the economy of the Sokoto Caliphate’, J. Afr. Hist., XIX (1978).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ See Lovejoy, ‘Plantations’. Imam Imoru pointed out that officials had more than 1,000 slaves because they did not buy them but seized them in military campaigns. Ferguson, ‘Hausaland’, 233.

⁷⁹ There is indirect evidence that women on plantations were spinners. Clapperton noted slaves spinning in Wawa, where there were also cotton and indigo plantations. Second, 94. Imam Imoru mentioned large numbers of women and girls who were spinners in Kano, Zaria, and especially in Sokoto and Zamfara. Ferguson, ‘Hausaland’, 303. These are areas where large-scale plantation agriculture was concentrated. Lovejoy noted that female slaves were settled on rural estates but characterized them as ‘agricultural workers’ and did not mention their other occupations. Lovejoy, ‘Concubinage’, 245. Hogendorn mentioned that slaves pursued craft occupations on plantations, but only the work of male slaves was described. Hogendorn, Jan, ‘The economics of slave use on two “plantations” in the Zaria Emirate of the Sokoto Caliphate’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Studies, X (1977).Google Scholar Slaves produced cloth on the estates of Tulu Babba, a businessman prominent in mid-nineteenth century Kano. Tahir, , ‘Capitalists’, 272–3, 281.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Tahir, , ‘Capitalists’, 272–87, 308–15.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Meek, , Northern Tribes, i, 277–83Google Scholar; Lovejoy, , ‘Plantations’, 349Google Scholar; Smith, , Daura, 43Google Scholar; Shea, , ‘Development’, 180Google Scholar; Nadel, , Black Byzantium, 31–2.Google Scholar See also Christelow, Allan, ‘Women and the law in early 20th century Kano’, in Coles, Catherine and Mack, Beverly (eds.), Hausa Women (Madison, 1991).Google Scholar

Slave-holding was theoretically possible for some women but was probably infrequent. Hill reported one woman who inherited six slaves in the nineteenth century, and there were several reports of wealthy women slave owners. Hill, , Population, 178, 198.Google Scholar See also Smith, , Baba of Karo, 39, 75.Google Scholar For a general description of women and slaveholding, see Robertson, Claire and Klein, Martin (eds.), Women and Slavery in Africa (Madison, 1983).Google Scholar

⁸² Clapperton noted the many women traders in the Kulfo market, mainly from Yoruba areas. Second, 136–8. Nadel stated that many Nupe women were brokers and full-time traders. Nadel, , Black Byzantium, 321.Google Scholar The 1931 census enumerated 19, 819 male brokers and 10,138 female brokers in the northern provinces. Census, ii, 80–5.

⁸³ Temple, Notes, 7, 101–7, 319–35, 368, 459–62. These reports refer to the institution as ‘ancient’; from the normative descriptions it appears to have gone back at least a generation, to the last decades of the nineteenth century. The scale of enterprises established by female-husbands, along with the volume of textile production in the Kabba area, undoubtedly increased substantially when large numbers of freed female slaves returned home there from Bida during the first decade of this century. I am grateful to Ann O'Hear for helping me to clarify this point. For a case study of female-husbands in Igbo-speaking areas, see Amadiume, Ifi, Male Daughters, Female Husbands (London, 1987).Google Scholar Amadiume does not confront the issue of the exploitation of female labor by women. The relation between the institution of female-husband and women's political office is discussed by Denise O'Brien, ‘Female husbands in Southern bantu societies’, and by Awe, Bolanle, ‘The Iyalode in the traditional Yoruba political system’, in Schlegel, A. (ed.), Sexual Stratification (New York, 1977).Google Scholar The economic foundations of female-husbands’ power were not analysed in these studies.

⁸⁴ Temple, Notes, 324.

⁸⁵ Temple, Notes, 101–7. William Clarke, travelling in Ilorin emirate in the 1850s, noted a flourishing cotton cloth industry in the Igbomina area; he stated that much of the cloth was woven by women. Clarke, Travels, 152. The north-eastern Yoruba area was called Kabba Province in the early colonial period, and there weaving by women was described as ‘universal’. Temple, Notes, 459–62.

⁸⁶ Thomas Titcombe, who established the first Christian mission in Yagba, made passing references in his 1914–15 diary to ‘women's wives’ and the general problem of wife scarcity. Notes from another Yagba mission, written in 1919 about disputes to be settled under the 1918 divorce regulations, included six cases brought by women. One of them, Osanye, sought to be freed from a marriage that had been forced on her by her family. From childhood, she had been pledged to a female husband named Metibulu. Titcombe Diaries, DD-3; and Isanlu Makatu Misc. 1915–1943, SR-14/A. Courtesy of SIM International Archives, Toronto. The missionary records are relatively mute on the subject, though the institution was commonly known by the missionaries. My thanks to Mrs Jean Jackson, archivist, for her assistance with the SIM archives. See also Renne, Elisha, ‘Wives, chiefs, and weavers: gender relations in Bunu Yoruba society’ (Ph.D. thesis, New York University, 1990).Google Scholar Renne does not discuss female-husbands in her dissertation, and her informants disallowed questions on the subject. However, based on her knowledge of it and of Bunu textile production, she supports the argument presented here. Elisha Renne, personal communication, 4 Dec. 1988.

⁸⁷ Frobenius, Leo, und Afrika sprach… (Berlin, 1912), 412.Google Scholar For the location and accession numbers of his collection, see n. 26.