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Latest additions !!

June 2021. Again under the Culture heading we have prepared a new page on Sukurs's iconic Paved Ways. This includes besides descriptions recommendations for much needed future research and conservation.

May 2021. A new page under the Culture heading briefly distinguishes the three known types of Mandara mountains smelting furnaces, the Mafan, Sukurian and Teleki-Banan. We go on to describe the furnaces of Sukur, the core element in the famous Sukur iron industry which supplied a good part of northeastern Nigeria well into the 20th century. Their symbolism and the plant medicines used in smelting are covered in brief before a discussion of what little is as yet known of their distribution and the factors underlying.

February 2021. A new page under the Society heading deals, after an introduction on caste in the Mandara mountains, with caste at Sukur as it appeared to us in the 1990s.

January 2021 -- The Tour heading has been changed to Tour(ism) and now includes the study of Nigerian academics' publications on Sukur tourism and heritage studies. The earlier Tourism heading has been deleted, making room for a new one: Sakun. This is reserved for contributions by Sakun on topics covered by this website. We await permission to publish here a multi-authored piece on Sukur history. The webmaster will refrain from any editing of the content of these contributions.

December 2020 -- Sukur social geography relates to the spatial context, imbued with social meaning, within which Sakun live their lives. A new page on Social Geography, now under the Tour(ism) heading, presents the ethnic context of the Sukur, their settlements, the wards that are the smallest official administrative unit, and the sub- wards. The interrelationship of social geography and political power is discussed in relation to Sukur Sama.

July 2020 -- An age ago in 1995 and 1996 we wrote two papers entitled "Constructing a historical ethnography of Sukur ... Parts I: Demystification, and II: Iron and the classless industrial society. They were published in Nigerian Heritage, then a new journal published by the National Commission on Museums and Monuments. Unfortunately the printer made a real hash of it and the papers were full of typos, omissions and other errors. The journal, which no longer survives, is not widely available. And yet our papers contain a lot of important material not available anywhere else on Sukur history and on its remarkable iron industry and market. Therefore we have decided to republish them on the Library page of this website. The new 2020 editions have the same substantive content as the papers originally submitted. We have made only minor editorial changes, including updating the spelling of sakun words. ND has also added one important correction: unlike the tall furnaces of the Mafa, Sukur-type batch furnaces are incapable of producing cast iron in any form.

June 2020 -- A Tourism page is now up (but in January 2021 was tranferred to a new Tour(ism) heading). This consists of a critique of a number of papers published between 2005 and 2019 on various aspects of Tourism and Cultural Heritage as they relate to the Sukur WH Cultural Landscape.

March 2020 -- We are in the middle of a major refurbishing of sukur.info. In the first stage we are standardizing (to the best of our ability) our spelling of Sukur words with that developed by linguist Dr Michael Thomas whose 2014 PhD thesis for U. Colorado, Boulder, represents the first extended study of the Sakun language. At the same time we have widened the page from 840 to 1000 pixels, reflecting today's larger screens while mindful that many Africans do not have access to the monsters available in the First World. We have also replaced the old Comic Sans font with Charis SIL which provides both serif elegance and the few International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) characters needed, and (nerds please note) we have changed the charset to UTF-8 so that these characters display properly. Charis SIl can be downloaded here.

Simultaneously we are doing a thorough revision of the pages while updating their ethnographic and other content as needed. For example, research we carried out among the Cameroonian Mofu-Gudur in 2004-05 has led us to the conclusion that the migration that brought many Gudur kin groups to the western Mandara mountains may have been much more recent than previously believed, that is to say mainly in the later 18th and earlier 19th centuries rather than from the 16th century onwards. See the Clan histories page in the Society section of the website and on the Library page. Once this major revision is complete we plan to add new pages and topics.

December 2017 -- Several pages and sections have been updated to take account of further Boko Haram activity, the listing of the Sukur cultural landscape on the World Monuments Fund's 2018 Watch List and initial discussions between Nigeria and Cameroon regarding the possible creation of an International Mandara Mountains Peace Park (not necessarily under that name). Significant changes have been made to the Home and Intro pages, and to the Montagnards and Library sections.

October 2016 -- The Home page has been updated to take account of the Boko Haram insurgency as this has affected Adamawa state and Madagali Local Government Area in particular. The page describing Boko Haram's assault on Sukur is now labeled BokoHaram.htm. The Library page has been updated and a digital .pdf version of the edited volume Metals in Mandara Mountains Society and Culture is now available for download. We hope soon to be able to update the now 8-year-old Sukur bibliography.

February 2015 -- Index and Home pages have been changed in response to Boko Haram assaults on both Lower and Upper Sukur. Also a page added describing the Boko Haram Victims Relief non-profit corporation that is being set up, and which will eventually migrate to its own website. The original Home page is still available.

As there is, despite the present disastrous political situation, renewed interest in the concent of an International Mandara Mountains Peace Park, we are also posting a PowerPoint presentation converted into a .pdf file on that topic: MandaraPark2010.pdf.

March 2014 -- A draft paper entitled 'In lieu of community archaeology: Mandara Archaeological Project (1984-2008) outreach and involvement in cultural heritage' by Nic David and Judy Sterner has been uploaded and can be accessed here.This contains in its second part a discussion of the process whereby Sukur was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape in 1999 and of the consequences. This paper is to be discussed in a Workshop on Community Archaeology and Heritage organized by Professor Petere Schmidt and to be held at the University of Florida in March, after which it will be revised.

December 2013 -- English and French versions of a Powerpoint presentation of a proposal by J. Sterner and N. David for an International Mandara Mountains Peace Park (2007) are now available in the Montagnards section of this website. The text of a paper by these authors presenting a case for the Peace Park is available in the Library section.

April 2013 -- A revised version of the Hidi Midden report uploaded. This corrects mistakes made in the analysis of the glass beads with consequent modifications in the relevant section of the conclusions. Otherwise there are no substantive changes

March 2013 -- At long last the report on our 1993 test excavation in the Hidi Midden is available. This report describes the site, the stratigraphic sequence and archaeological remains before drawing conclusions about the dating of the midden and its significance in the history of Sukur. Is the midden really associated with the chief? Read this report (now revised see above) and find out!

December 2012 -- The Hamman Yaji Files

I have uploaded three files as part of a larger project on the history of slaving in the Mandara Mountains region:

1. a modified version of the Diary of Hamman Yaji, notorious slaver who ravaged the mountain peoples in the first fifth of the 20th century,

2. an annotated Index of the diary with information on all the peoples, places and persons mentioned, and

3. a paper "A close reading of Hamman Yaji’s diary: slave raiding and montagnard responses in the mountains around Madagali (northeast Nigeria and northern Cameroon)" that analyzes Hamman Yaji's slaving strategies and practices and the resistance of the mountain peoples who were his prey. This also includes tables and maps.

November 2010

A new film on Sukur "The 13 Months of Sukur: Africa's first World Heritage Cultural Landscape" is now available at a very reasonable cost. Two thirds of the net proceeds go to the Sukur Development Association.

October 2010

Time to add some substantive materials. Hamman Yaji is a figure who fascinates and at the same time horrifies Sukur. When we took Vaughan and Kirk-Greene's (1995) publication of Hamman Yaji's diary to Sukur in 1996, everyone who could read wanted to read it and everyone else wanted it read to them.Vaughan and Kirk-Greene's book is the definitive source but in 1993 we photocopied the original in the Nigerian National Archives Kaduna and later had it transcribed. This version has now been updated - see the December 2012 additions.

August-September 2010

After several years during which I have been busy with other things and various changes have taken place on the server, sometimes unfavorably impacting the site, I am doing some repairs and updates.Most of the main files have been modified. One change made across files is that the Sukur word for chief, formerly spelt "Xidi", is now transcribed for non-specialist purposes as "Hidi". This is explained in the Language section.

November 2007

We have received a message from Éva Faragó, a geologist working for the Borno State Rural Water Supply Agency, which provides useful information for visitors.

The tarred road passes Mefir Suku and leads to Rugudum, where one can stay at the newly built "Sukur Tourist Haven" in one of the five chalets. A chalet is a double room with bathroom (shower) and TV. Water from a borehole and AC electricity from a generator is available. There is no restaurant; however a cook can be mobilized from Madagali when previously ordered. The chalets are in different price categories costing between N3000 and 5000 a night.

The chalets are situated at the foot of the paved way leading up the mountain. From the chalets, it is a distance of about 4 km and an elevation gain of about 400 m to climb to the Chief's house on the hilltop. It is recommended to start climbing early in the morning. Good shoes are recommended.

Reservation: by Alhaji Saleh Kinjir (owner), Yola, +234-(0)8036080099 or +234-(0)8053274432

Mobile phone coverage: In Rugudum, Celtel has a low coverage.

We welcome such information. Nic David wishes also to apologize to the person who sent him an interesting email about a visit to Sukur -- one which sadly ended unhappily when he was robbed when on the main road on the way home. Unfortunately I deleted the message by mistake and could not retrieve it.

August 2006

Also on the Authors page, we have added a link to ND's by now somewhat dated PowerPoint presentation on "African development: the view from the grassroots" presented at the 2002 G8 Pre-Summit conference: Sustaining Global Growth: Prosperity, Security and Development Challenges for the Kananaskis G8. http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/conferences/2002/calgary/program.html

December 2005

We have added links on the Montagnards page to our proposal for an International Peace Park extending on both sides of the Nigeria-Cameroon border and extending from Sukur and Rhoumsiki in the south to the northern tip of the western Mandara mountains.

June 2005

A .pdf version of Anthony Kirk-Greene's (1960) seminal paper "The kingdom of Sukur - a Northern Nigerian Ichabod" has been added to the Library page by kind permission of the author and the editorial board of the Nigerian Field.

May 2005

The archive of Sukur images previously promised has been initiated by the presentation of David C. Woolman's photographs and account of his visit to Sukur in late 1966.

November 2004

A substantial new page has been added describing the institution of title holding in Mandara montagnard societies and its expression at Sukur. This is supplemented by another more analytical page on the origins of titles, how title-holders are appointed at Sukur and the benefits that accrue to them.These pages constitute some of the material required for a study of Sukur politics present, and more especially, past.

June and July 2004

We were in the field during this period in Cameroon but were able to visit Sukur and will, when time allows, be reporting on that trip. Following on the World Heritage citation, there have been developments that are both consistent with the nature of the site and that benefit the Sukur. I doubt I will be able to do much more before November though I hope to make some corrections to the music page suggested by Roger Blench.

May 2004

A first version of the Music section has been completed; this links to three pages on different kinds of instrument and singing. These are illustrated with audioclips. Later versions will exploit materials in our video recordings.

April 2004

A page on the clans of Sukur emphasizes that they are institutions in process; nonetheless there is essential continuity from the first records of 1935 to the 1990s. Another page deals at length with clan histories from which and from other data is inferred a four phase scheme of Sukur historicl development. These pages are supported by a map showing Sukur wards and neighborhoods and a table of Sukur households by clan and ward.

March 2004

I have added a large scale map showing Sukur and its neighbors. This is accessed through the map on the home page. As it takes time to load, you are advised to leave it open for easy reference during your visit.

February 2004

We have recently added an account of three legends that are important in Sukur's history, and a lengthy piece on the sequence of Dur chiefs from the edge of legend to the present.

I hope soon to be able to add something on the geography of the plateau.

If there is anything you would particularly like to see or learn about, let me know.

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