116 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ANATOMICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL 



festivals. None but he could approach the goddess Gonkie or Shem- 

 susu, whose shrine was a walled hill which was constantly guarded. 

 Her festivals were celebrated twice a year when black animals only 

 were sacrificed. In connection with these festivals were some mystic 

 rites during which the worshippers divested themselves of their cloth- 

 ing, affording a parallel to " the pagan rites of naked worship with 

 which Venus Erycina of the Phoenicians was once honoured in Mecca ". 

 Arising from this worship of a supreme female deity was a tradition 

 that the Hausa States were once under the rule of a woman whose 

 capital was at Zaria. Bello describes her as Amina, daughter of the 

 Prince of Zaria, and states that she subdued Hausaland by force of 

 arms. Early tradition makes her the founder of Zaria, and associates 

 a colossal statue of her with some remarkable rocks called Almena, to 

 the south-east of Zaria. Berbushay was a prophet and foretold the 

 erection of mosques, a prophecy which received fulfilment when in the 

 reign of Yahya, about the middle of the thirteenth century, Islam was 

 accepted, having been introduced from Melle in the Eastern Sudan. 

 Yahya's successor was buried by the imam, or priest of the mosque, 

 with Muslim religious rites. His corpse is said to have been the first 

 to be wrapped in white cloth and to have had prayers said over it. 

 His successor is found consulting the priest of Shemsusu when in diffi- 

 culties with Zaria, and by his advice attending pagan ceremonies, at 

 which the priest " sang the song of Berbushay ". Nevertheless, unlike 

 the son of Kish in similar circumstance, he achieved success. Pagan- 

 ism died hard. The struggles for supremacy between it and Islam 

 raged continuously, with alternate success, till about the fifteenth 

 century, when Islam would appear to have triumphed. The Faith 

 received a great impulse in the reigns of Mohammed Rimpa and 

 Ahmodu Kesoke, his grandson. There can be no doubt that it has 

 dignified the Kansas, as it does all its followers. Certain ceremonial 

 rites to which the youth of both sexes are subjected prior to entering 

 llic full rights of citizenship or being recognised as Muslims and per- 

 mitted to enter a mosque, are not entirely religious, but are also 

 regarded as sanitary measures and are observed by most African 



