Publication Date

9-23-1975

Abstract

This is a study of a Pastoral Fulani group residing in the vicinity of Bokkos, a market village forty-seven miles south of Jos in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The Bokkos Fulani adaptation is relatively unique among Fulani pastoralists, because they do not live at the margins of a farming community, but inhabit and pasture cattle on the land of Ron agriculturalists.

Fulani settled the uninhabited Bokkos Plains in the early 19001s after British pacification. At the same time Ron farmers began to vacate defensive clusters along the Bokkos river, and they too settled the Plains. The result of this settlement pattern was that the majority of Fulani homesteads and grazing areas were buiIt adjacent to Ron habitation areas; several years later many pastoralist and farming families began to exchange various goods and services with their neighbors.

Today exchange relations are important in the economic strategy of both peoples. The Ron agricultural system is dependent on Fulani cattle manure. Ron homestead farms ore manured each year and never placed in fa I low. Likewise, since Fulani cattle graze and manure Ron fallow farms, the fallow period on these bush farms is reduced. Fulani also derive many benefits through dyadic contracts with the Ron, and their economic ties to other people in the market. Ron provide most of the labor on Fulani farmsites. The herdsmen obtain large annual cash incomes through the sale of cattle and surplus milk in the market.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Anthropology

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Anthropology

First Committee Member (Chair)

Harry Wetherald Basehart

Second Committee Member

Philip K. Boch

Third Committee Member

Karl H. Schwerin

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