Young Traders 
of Northern Nigeria 
In Hausa society, where women live in strict 
Muslim seclusion, children play an active 
and indispensable economic role 
Text and photographs by Enid Schildkrout 
Thirty years ago, Erik Erikson wrote 
that “the fashionable insistence on 
dramatizing the dependence of chil- 
dren on adults often blinds us to the 
dependence of the older generation 
on the younger one.” As a psycho- 
analyst, Erikson was referring mainly 
to the emotional bonds between par- 
ents and children, but his observation 
is a reminder that in many parts of 
the world, adults depend on children 
in quite concrete ways. In northern 
Nigeria, children with trays balanced 
on their heads, carrying and selling 
a variety of goods for their mothers 
or themselves, are a common sight 
in villages and towns. Among the Mus- 
lim Hausa, aside from being a useful 
educational experience, this children’s 
trade, as well as children’s perform- 
ance of household chores and errands, 
complements the activity of adults and 
is socially and economically signifi- 
cant. 
Children’s services are especially 
important tq married Hausa women, 
who, in accordance with Islamic prac- 
tices, live in purdah, or seclusion. In 
Nigeria, purdah is represented not so 
much by the wearing of the veil but 
by the mud-brick walls surrounding 
every house or compound and by the 
absence of women in the markets and 
the streets. Women could not carry 
out their domestic responsibilities, not 
to mention their many income-earning 
enterprises, without the help of chil- 
dren, who are free from the rigid sex- 
ual segregation that so restricts adults. 
Except for elderly women, only chil- 
dren can move in and out of their 
own and other people’s houses without 
violating the rules of purdah. Even 
children under three years of age are 
sent on short errands, for example, 
to buy things for their mothers. 
Hausa-speaking people are found 
throughout West Africa and consti- 
tute the largest ethnic group in north- 
ern Nigeria, where they number over 
eighteen million. Their adherence to 
Islam is a legacy of the centuries dur- 
ing which Arabs came from the north 
to trade goods of North African and 
European manufacture. The majority 
of the Hausa are farmers, but markets 
and large commercial cities have ex- 
isted in northern Nigeria since long 
before the period of British colonial 
rule. The city of Kano, for example, 
which was a major emporium for the 
trans-Saharan caravan trade, dates 
back to the eighth century. Today it 
has a population of about one million. 
Binta is an eleven-year-old girl who 
lives in Kano, in a mud-brick house 
that has piped water, but no electric- 
ity. The household includes her fa- 
44 
