INITIATION INTO THE BORI CULT: A CASE STUDY IN NINGI TOWN'

The town of Ningi is located on the western edge of the North East State of Nigeria, about 25 km from the south-eastern corner of Kano State. Old Ningi town (about 50 km from the town's present site) was founded by a Kano Qur'anic teacher-scholar, Malam Hamza, and his followers in the middle of the nineteenth century. Malam Hamza is said to have fled Kano because of political and religious disputes with the Emir of Kano which resulted in a purge of the Malam class. Moving away from the centre of Kano power to the comparative safety of the Kabara hills and the non-Hausa people who lived in them, Malam Hamza was able to establish the separatism he and his followers desired. During this period the Kabara hills were the scene of slave-raiding and warfare, constantly threatened by the Hausa-Fulani emirates which surrounded them. Fighting from the hills, the people of Old Ningi, loosely allied with their neighbours, the Butawa, Warjawa, and others, were able to maintain their independence from Bauchi, Zaria, and Kano.