108 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



tradition we have left us this much of certainty, that from time imme- 

 morial the Hausas have been present in the Western Sudan, some- 

 what north of their present territory. There is no reason which can 

 be considered cogent or incontrovertible for regarding them as aught 

 else but Negraic. 



5. THE HAUSA IN HISTORY. 



Within historic times the Hausas have been known as divided 

 into seven States which were independent of one another generally. 

 The military predominance of one or another at various times, how- 

 ever, resulted in a sort of unwilling confederation. These States were 

 named Biram, Gober, Katsena, Dawra, Kano, Rano and Zaria. Lun- 

 gern, a town in the last-named State, is the headquarters of the British 

 Administration. Other States were subsequently added to the number, 

 such as Ilorin and Nupe, Gazawa and Zamfara, but though Hausa was 

 spoken in them they were only Hausa States in the same sense as that 

 in which a black country like Northern Nigeria is British. Historical 

 records of Hausa for the last thousand years, more or less, are avail- 

 able, according to which these States were always independent of and 

 hostile to one another. But their tradition refers to a time when they 

 were confederate States. This period has been fixed by some authori- 

 ties as, at the latest, only a little later than A.D. 700. 



6. SOURCES OF HAUSA HISTORY. 



The materials available for the study of the history of Hausaland 

 are, unfortunately, very scanty. The Hausa records were apparently 

 purposely destroyed by their Fulani conquerors with the object of 

 destroying all traces of their predecessors. A few manuscripts, how- 

 ever, escaped the general destruction. One contains a chronicle of 

 Katsena. Another, in possession of the Niger Company, gives the 

 history of Kano during the reigns of forty-two kings. The Rev. C. 

 H. Robinson, M.A., first Hausa Scholar of the Hausa Association, 

 tuund one in Zaria., giving some account of the history of that State. 

 There are also native notes on Hausa history which are, however, 



