AN HAUSA SONG FROM KATSINA

Cultural Context. The city of Katsina in northern Nigeria is inhabited largely by Hausa-speaking Muslims and, until recently, served as the center of a highly-developed hierarchical political organization with the Emir of Katsina (Sarkin Katsina) at its head. By the eighteenth century Katsina had developed important checks on the power of the Sarki ('chief) through the establishment of the rukuni ('senior council') composed of four senior titles after the Sarki: Kaura ('commander of the state's military force'), Galadima ('senior civil administrator'), Yan Daka ('administrator of territories to the southwest of the city of Katsina'), and Durbi ('member of a royal patrilineage') (Smith 1967:99-100). The Sarki and rukuni at the head of a system of sarautu ('ranked offices') administered to a politically undifferentiated group of talakawa ('commoners'). The first major alteration in this governmental structure occurred in 1806-07 when the Hausa ruler of Katsina, Magajin Halidu, was overthrown by the Fulani and forced to flee northward to Maradi. Shehu Usuman d'an Fodio, Sarkin Musulmi ('Commander of the faithful') of the Fulani Jihad ('holy war'), installed one of his lieutenants, Umaru Dallaji, as the new Emir of Katsina who with some difficulty was able to govern the Katsinawa ('people of Katsina') (Hogben and Kirk-Greene 1966:170-71). Further changes occurred in the early twentieth century when the British under Lugard took Katsina without a fight during a campaign to subdue the Fulani emirates of Hausaland. The British presence resulted in relatively minor structural adjustments under a colonial policy of "Indirect Rule." Most recently, contemporary political and social upheavals have lead to the centralization of political power under a Federal military government. Today the traditional political structure still exists, but its function in the political process appears to be far less significant than it once had been when the power of the Emirate of Katsina was viewed in terms of its position as one of the original Hausa Bakwai ('seven Hausa states'). Closely related to the differentiation in the political structure is the Hausa system of social stratification in Which karda ('hereditary occupations') including political offices serve as the basis for the distribution of social rank and prestige. Musicians have been placed near the bottom of this hierarchical