Interview Dr Bukar Usman granted Visiting Chinese Scholars

Text of Interview Dr. Bukar Usman granted Visiting Chinese Ph.D Research Students

(from Zhenjiang Normal University (ZJNU) in Jinhua, China, on November 13, 2018)

Mr. Chen Jialei and Ms. Wang Yubo were Chinese Ph.D students from Zhenjiang Normal University (ZJNU) in Jinhua, China. They came to Nigeria on October 25, 2018 to undertake research. The topic of research for Mr. Jialei was “Philosophical Thought and the Contemporary Development of Nigeria” while that of Ms. Yubo was “The Inheritance and Development of Nigerian Folklore.” They were based at the Gusau Institute (GI), Kaduna where they carried out the research mainly at the Aliyu Muhammed Research Library (AMRL) of the institute. They also undertook visits to some selected scholars for interview. It was in that respect that they requested for interview with me. I granted the request. They came to Abuja by train on November 13, 2018. The interview took place after which they returned to Kaduna by train the same day. They were accompanied by Malam Muhammed Isah Suleiman, the Librarian of the Gusau Institute.

The Chinese visitors were to depart Nigeria on December 5, 2018.

The text of the interview as slightly edited is as follows:

We came from the Institute of African Studies of Zhenjiang Normal University. Our paper is focused on traditional culture such as folklore, festivals, intangible cultural heritage and some traditional education. Mrs. Marlene Maritz of the Gusau Institute told us that you have deep study of folklore and history in Nigeria. So, we have some questions to put to you and to learn from you. From the network, we see that you are a famous folklorist in Nigeria. We have read your book on folklore and history, ‘Folklore and History’ (Usman, 2013). There are some folktale books you wrote in Hausa, but we don’t understand Hausa. But for your books written in English where can we get them to buy?

Well, you see, it is true I started writing or taking interest in folklore or folktales around 2006. I am presently the president of the Nigerian Folklore Society (NFS). I held this post about four years ago. I am still its current president. It is because of my interest and books I wrote that the society elected me to be the president. Normally, it is for two years, but since that time, I am still the president of the folklore society.

The Nigerian Folklore Society was established since 1980, and since then it has been in existence. But for some time it went down. I was appointed chairman of a committee for the revival of the society. So, after my appointment, we worked for about one year. We revived and are still reviving the society. After one year, they elected me president. So, that is the way it is now.

In terms of tales, it is mainly of Nigeria. But I had been to Ceylon or Sri Lanka and to America and bought a lot of literature, even to Jamaica where I saw a lot of tales by people from Africa. You will see in their literature a character Anansi. Anansi (spider in English and Gizo in Hausa) is a popular Akan folktale character in Ghana, but you will see the same character in Jamaica and Caribbean folk stories. It is slaves who took the tales there. Also in North Carolina and South Carolina, USA we have tales even written in Pidgin English by people who were mainly slaves from Africa and took some of the tales there.

But in our case, when I started writing tales I realised that the culture or tradition of storytelling which I experienced when I was a child is no longer the case because of modernity and modernization. You find nowadays most of our children are watching foreign films and cultures. They are forgetting our own. They know more of the outside. They don’t know our own. Our old people who used to tell these tales are dying. But when I started to collect tales, first I wrote about 14 books in Hausa. Then, I put all the 14 together making 15 in Hausa. Then I wrote some in English. They are also available. But now I have collected over 3,000 tales from all over Nigeria, and they would be published maybe by the end of this year or next year. So for the books I promise you, when they are available, even if you are not in Nigeria, I will send them to him (Malam Muhammed Isah Suleiman) and he will arrange to send them to you. Any of the books which are available now I will give you so that they may help you in your research.

How did you collect the folktales and how did you choose which one to write?

Ok, I sent people to the countryside. I gave them guidelines. Some were professors in the university. They sent their students to collect some of these tales. Some, like my staff, you will meet them in my house here. I commissioned them to go and organise the tales collection. They got people to do so. Some submitted about 50 while some submitted 100 tales; they wrote them down whether in Hausa or in another language like Fulfulde which is Fulani or Tera, then they translated them into English. So, any of the stories which we felt should be produced we made them into a book. But the 3,000 which we collected all of them will be published in two volumes because of the quantity, almost over 1,000 pages per volume. They will be published early next year.

Old people have very good brains. They will remember. If you go and sit with your grandmother you will be surprised. I heard there was a time that, it is not always that strong people will win, even a tortoise will out run you. The stories are varied to teach children not to be foolish, not to steal, not to disobey people, but to be kind, to be brave. All these stories are there before formal schools started. It is our mothers who are the first school. Our grandmothers would be telling stories and people would learn.

These folk stories such as in Hausa land, do the different parts of Hausa land have different folk stories or the stories are the same?

It is not necessarily the same, but you can find some which are the same in different languages but the meanings are the same. They may be talking about tortoise, about hyena, about something else but the messages they want to deliver are almost the same. Among the Hausa, you will find that if they talk about hyena they know that it is strong but foolish; if they talk about tortoise they know that it is small but brainy. You have fox, as cunning as a fox. You always know that one. Elephant is very strong, but a small ant can enter the nose of an elephant and it will behave anyhow. Smallness in size doesn’t mean you are not wise, wisdom can defeat strength. There are occasions when you need to be strong, but there are occasions also that strength alone cannot get what you want. All these are contained in the tales. Tales from my area in Borno, Biu…

Yes, Biu I know the place

In Biu you can have a story that may be the same like in Hausa or in Fulani or in Igbo or in Yoruba. All these tales when we publish them you will compare and see really how come this one is talking about the same thing. Maybe about the middle of next year, you will see 3,000 tales from Nigeria; some from south-south, some from southwest, some from southeast, some from northeast, some from north central zone and some from northwest so that you can compare and see where they are similar.

How do you see the role of folk stories in traditional education?

That is the one we know to be the first school of a child before Western education came. We had no light, we had moonlight. When our parents came back from the farm in the evening, there was nothing else but storytelling. That was the time for lessons for children. Our grandmothers would sit outside and tell us this story and that story. The following day, it was repeated again and again, so everyone of us looked forward to the evening, because it was time for lessons. But these days, I will go to work by 7 o’clock, I will not come back till 9pm, by that time children have already slept. This small girl (Zara), the one you are seeing in the family picture on the wall, she was six years old in October 2018, she is my daughter. The other three, they are also my daughters. The tall one (Hafsat) is the youngest among the three. She is in University of Reading in England, studying architecture. The second, the shortest, she is the eldest (Halimat), she is in San Fransico, California USA studying animation and visual arts. The other one in black dress (Hadizat), she is studying business administration in a university in London. So, three of them are outside. This one (Zara), she is busy watching Tom and Jerry and other cartoons. I have no time to tell her folk stories. That is why I am producing these books so that she can read. If I cannot tell her, she should be able to read. That is why we are producing these books so that people who cannot have the time to talk to their children, the children will read the tales in books.

Our challenge now is to see that some of these tales we collected are utilized to produce cartoons and animations instead of tales of foreign countries. We hope the animators and cartoonists will use them to produce for people and for our children who when they say hyena they know, not like reindeer or something else which they never see. But if they talk of a rat or monkey or something they are familiar. We want to see films being produced using these tales. But we don’t have the technology in Nigeria now. But they are trying to do it. People are acquiring the knowledge. About two days ago Japanese and French Embassies in Abuja mounted a joint exhibition of films which were made from local stories.

How can folklore be put into modern education system nowadays?

That is what we are trying to do. If the books are available, they can be used. People are using some of the books which we produced in English and in Hausa. Future Leaders International School in Kaduna among others are using them. They like them. They even wrote to say that they needed more of the books for their education. If book is not available, you don’t know. But our problem is to get the orthography, like your own is Mandarin, so that everybody can read. Nigeria has more than 250 languages, so how to get tales written in those languages for people to read is our problem. The only thing we can do is maybe to write in English, yes is for everybody. Hausa is also widely read. But if you want to translate it in a smaller language, you must have the orthography and is not available now, and even if it is available, you cannot get it on computer to type.

Compared with your tradition of folklore of Nigeria and the modern literature such as from the United States which one do young people prefer more in novels?

One cannot say because for people like us we read literature of foreign countries for example, the works of Jane Austen and Samuel Coleridge. Local literature was not available. So, for you to compare whether the children like this or the other, you must make it available, and that is what we are trying to do. When you publish these stories, the books will be available. Now, I have published one in ‘Ajami.’ ‘Ajami’ is Hausa written in Arabic. If you read, it is like you are reading Hausa, but it is in Arabic. People like it. ‘Ajami’ was there before the colonial people came to Nigeria. You write in Hausa, but you are writing in Arabic, and when you are reading it, you are reading Hausa. So that one is what people are looking for now.

The tales we had, one NGO, Eirene Sahel from Germany, published them in ‘Ajami’ for teaching people in Niger Republic. They made copies of the books available to us, they said look these stories we got from you, this is what we turned them into. We also published more copies. When we distributed them to schools in Abuja, they welcomed them. We also have books seven “Gwaidayara” (Usman 2009) and eight “Dan Agwai Da Kura” (Usman 2009) which I wrote in Hausa, and are now on the syllabus of schools in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. I will show you the books, but they are in Hausa. They put them on the syllabus of Junior Secondary Schools (JSS).

We find some folk story books. Do you know of some Nigerian epics?

Epic is taking somebody to make a story around him. There may be many, but I don’t know any. But there is a history book I wrote ‘A History of Biu,’ (Usman 2015) in which we have somebody called Yamtara Wala. Some people said they want to write epic on him that I should pay for it. I said no. I have written my book, anybody who wants to write epic on that man let him go and write it. Yamtara Wala was somebody who existed very long time ago in Biu history. He was the first king of Biu around 1535. Today, they are 28 in succession. We regard him as our forefather. He was the first in the dynasty of our kings. So, some people want to write an epic on him. I said yes, I can give you permission to go and write, but I am not the one who is going to pay for it. You can see people like Odudua among the Yoruba, the forefather of Yoruba. Or another Bayajidda in Hausa. Bayajidda who came to Daura and killed a snake in a well and became the first person identified with the original seven Hausa kingdoms in Nigeria. So, that one can be an epic which you can follow; that is Bayajidda or Odudua in Yoruba or Yamtara Wala in Babur/Bura in Borno state.

We know Nigeria has more than 250 ethnic groups and each group have their own folk stories. How could the folk stories be turned into nation building?

If we exchange, like what we have done now, is to collect tales, not only from the northwest, from northeast, south south, southeast, north central but also from southwest, these will be put together. So, people will read and know the stories of other people. If they would see that this thing which we are teaching, other people too are doing the same, they can understand one another better. We share the culture, the tradition and everything of the people. That oh, these people they use these animals to represent wisdom. These people they use these animals to represent this. But you may find that at the end of it, all of them are trying to convey the same message to the children.

Nigeria has some laws to protect folklore?

I am not sure about the law. But organisations like ours, the Nigerian Folklore Society are the ones trying to promote the tales. They collect them before they are forgotten. I am not aware of any particular law that said you must do this. But societies formed and said look this culture of ours is dying, we need to revive it. I am busy now collecting tales not because I am paid it is just because of my interest. And the Nigerian Folklore Society is also interested in promoting all forms of folklore, including singing, drama, pure stories and things of that nature; because folklore covers a lot of areas, almost our culture. Sometimes the Nigerian Folklore Society will say ok, we are organising conference on drama, we are organising conference on poetry, we are organising conference on traditional medicine, traditional dancing and traditional music or any other relevant topic. All these come up. The experts will come and narrate their experiences and shared knowledge.

We have read some books by Nigerian writers such as Chinua Achebe. His stories have some folklore background. How do you see the relationship between folklore literature and Latin literature in Nigeria?

We are using the Latin literature to write folklore. Among the stories I collected there are some I want to publish in Igbo, there are some I want to publish in Yoruba. Otherwise, the general trend now is that if you write it in Igbo the readership is very limited, if you write it in Yoruba the readership is also very limited, so people write it in English so that people can read on a wider scale. I published in Hausa because I want more people to read. I have my language (Babur/Bura), but we are less than half a million. If I write in my language, how many people will read it? So, I write in Hausa even if I collect them from my own area, I translate them into Hausa or English. These days because of computer and internet, it goes far. When you visited my website you saw it.

Yes

Somebody can be in India and get it. So it goes all over. The same with Nigeria. If you publish it people will get it. And today because of modernity, internet is not only confined to your own local people, it goes everywhere. For example, I sent something to Mr. Li Chunguang (Bako) of the School of Asian and African Studies Beijing Foreign Studies University, China two days ago when our Minister of Information said animation will bring jobs to Nigeria and everything. In acknowledgement in Hausa, Mr. Li said “Gaskiya wannan labari na da kyau kwarai da gaske” meaning truly this news is very good indeed. And he has already gotten it. He is in China. You can see he is there now, he read what our minister was talking about animation, it is very good, we should promote it, it will create jobs. So that is how tales of this nature, when you collect you go and tell your people at home. They will appreciate it that oh this thing which you have we also have.

I was in China sometime ago. I tried to buy some books too. I was in Shanghai, I was also in Ganzhou, I was in Yiwu or Wuyi.

No, it is Yiwu near our school

What scared me and my colleagues was when we saw somebody eating fried scorpion. We in Nigeria don’t eat scorpion, we fear it but it is a delicacy in China. I think we also went to a few other places but I can’t remember their names. We spent about one to two weeks. Your countryside is very good. The roads are very good. I came to a toll gate. When we paid the toll and the gate was lifted for us to proceed on our journey, a programmed voice said “bye-bye, safe journey.” I said oh after collecting my money you are telling me ‘bye-bye, safe journey.’

We want to know something about folklore research in Nigeria. Could you describe history of folklore research in Nigeria?

I can only talk of my own. Normally, I give some introductions. So in the introductions to my books you may get an idea of folklore research in Nigeria. But if I want to write about the history of folklore research in Nigeria, I have to start by myself also conducting research. Before me who and who and who were doing this and that. I am not sure I will resolve myself into doing that. My own effort now is to collect, and I tell you that I have collected over 3,000 tales. And we will be treating different aspects of it, and analyse parts of it. We will publish volume one and volume two comprising all the tales we collected in their raw status without retouching much, it is the way we collect them either in Hausa or in English. So, it will be available.

It is an important work.

Yes indeed, it will be an important work. The other three books-books two, three and four will be out before the end of the year. When are you going?

On December 5, 2018.

December 5 is just one month away. It would not be possible. But if advance copies come before you travel, I will make them available to you. If not, I know that we had paid for them for print; books two, three and four so we will make them available to Muhammed Isah Suleiman to send them to you.

How many members are in Nigerian folklore association now?

We are still compiling them. When we last met I asked that they should compile them. So when they compile, we will get it. But I don’t have an idea now. But now they gave me certificate no. 0001 as the president. So from there they would count all the other members. I will show you the certificate. They started the counting with me. But we have been having a lot of members from all over the federation, but we still need to document properly, all the members. Of course we will be plenty, but you have to pay small amount of money to enroll as a member.

Can you tell us some famous traditional festivals in Nigeria?

Wow! That one I cannot off head tell you because each zone of Nigeria have their own festivals. Somebody has to go and try to identify these festivals, particularly in the Yoruba area, they have festivals almost every year. So one has to look at it specifically and focus on them. There are many festivals. In the Ministry of Information there are National Council for Arts and Culture and National Gallery of Arts. They organise festivals and exhibitions sometimes to cover the whole country. I think very recently they held one in Port Harcourt or somewhere. But different communities will have their own festivals privately arranged by the communities, but I cannot tell you A,B,C unless I specifically go and do research on festivals say in Kano, in Maiduguri, in Kaduna and something like that.

It will be very good for you people, when you go home, to identify the festivals, the purpose and who are involved. I always see that on China television they organise festivals either for harvest or something of that nature. Usually it comes in the dry season when people have finished farming, they have harvested their crops, they have time, they then organise festivals either to celebrate good harvest or any other thing of that nature.

But most festivals now are taken either by Christmas, Easter or Sallah celebrations. But these are mainly religious in nature which comes either in December for Christmas or Muslims’ Eid El Kabir for killing of rams and Eid El Fitr after Fasting.

But for other cultural festivals, one has to go to study and do research on which one and which one. So, may be you will come back to Nigeria to document our cultural festivals. You will travel to different places and then go back and compare in China what they are celebrating.

We want to ask about intangible cultural heritage.

The intangible ones are music, poetry and other things of that nature. These are intangibles but you have to study, you have to research them, document them, you understand. But in terms of artistic work of carving or drawing all these are tangible ones. You will have to go and document them too.

We know Nigeria have intangible cultural heritage and in China too we have different archives to protect the intangible cultural heritage, we have archives at national and provincial levels…

For us, for those ones you have to go to the museums either in Jos or archives in Kaduna Arewa House, you will see what they preserve in terms of literature they keep. Museums in our case mainly are government museums. Individuals hardly keep a museum.

In Nigeria, how can we identify cultural heritage?

How you can identify is a relic. When something is a relic even it can be dating back to before the colonial period or after the colonial period. If you go to Kaduna, Lugard Hall, is an old building, we regard it now as a monument. It was built by the British colonial government in 1914. It served as our house of chiefs or house of assembly. So, anything old, I don’t know may be our archive’s laws could define what is old, but for me anything which is far back into history is an archive. There is no clear definition. But the law can say this one is worth preserving because it is now a relic.

We had in Kukawa Borno State Rabeh Zubayr, he was an epic who conquered the whole of Borno towards the end of the 19^th century. His old mud castle is still there. These are the relics which you consider as old things which should be preserved. When things have gone out of use, they designate them as archival and they document them, put in archives or museums for people to see. Like the vehicle in which our former head of state, Gen. Murtala Ramat Mohammed, was killed during the coup of 1976, they kept it in a museum in Lagos for people to see. It is there. It has become like an archive. Lord Lugard, the first Governor General of Nigeria who united the north and the south in 1914, he stayed in Lokoja, Kogi State you can see archives where he stayed, his house, his office and something of that nature. These have become like archives and are preserved.

If you go to China now and say oh this is the house of Chairman Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) it has become a relic, people will visit it, they will say oh is this the place where Chairman Mao stayed. The nation protects it. Is the same thing, important epic or figure if they leave behind something like sword or something of that nature, they preserve it as our heritage. Like shields of war which they used to protect themselves, are now all relics because they are not being used these days again. But during the time of tribal wars, people used them that is because they were the only thing they could use to protect themselves from spear or sword aimed at them.

The folklore association in Nigeria is it government organisation or NGO?

It is an NGO. But if we go to see the minister of information and tell him of our existence and that we are organising an activity, government can say ok take this amount of money to support you. But we are on our own.

So you are helping government to protect the culture.

Yes, we are joining hands with government to protect culture. But we are an NGO, but government can give support to NGOs to perform their activities. But I know that if you go to China, 1.7 billion people you cannot have only one association. Even in Nigeria, though we called ourselves Nigerian Folklore Society, there are also other folklore societies. We cannot be the only one. But our name is Nigerian Folklore Society. So, it doesn’t stop any other people to organize themselves and call something like this but not identical name like our own; though the objectives may be the same. That is what we have.

The last question, we want to know how you think we can balance tradition with the modern society?

Well, what we are trying to do is to use modernity to help preserve or promote the tradition. Because computer has made things easy, ICT has made things easy. You can preserve this in books. You use the modern tools to preserve the tradition, because before you don’t have where you preserve, everything was in somebody’s head. But now you can preserve that. Like this ‘Suksuku’ (a book titled ‘Suksuku Revisited’). That is how we start tales in our area (Babur/Bura Community). You start by saying ‘suksuku’ then the listeners will say ‘sinta.’ It means ‘I am going to deliver a story’, the listeners would say ‘bring or go ahead and narrate, we are listening.’ Similarly, in Hausa you start a tale by saying ‘Ga ta nan ga ta nan ku,’ that is ‘I have a story to tell or to narrate,’ then the children will say ‘ta zo mu ji ta’ meaning ‘bring the story for us to hear or we are all ears.’ To end the story, you also have the formality of saying ‘Ok, I have finished, that is the end of my story.’

Do you have some suggestions on how to protect traditional culture in Nigeria?

The suggestion is for people to be conscious to know that they have something valuable to protect. I started to gather these tales because I felt a lot of good ideas are in those tales. The tales may be old, but the ideas of human rights or something, they are all there. All the good things which we think we are talking about today, they are in our tales except that they were told by words of mouth, they were not written. You understand. So, you use the modernity to preserve whatever it is; if it is a tale, a poem or something else you do it and preserve it. The mode of delivery has changed. It is not like me I am sitting you, you are my child, I will be telling the story. No. I don’t have time to tell you. But I can record it for you to read. So, the way of preserving it is to use the modern tools of storage and communication to preserve the tradition. You can build a very nice place and preserve the tradition. But before, all these things are just left, nobody paid attention to them. NGOs can be formed to preserve their tradition. You understand.

Apart from the one you teach in the schools to preserve. Some of the tales I have in my head I heard them from my mother who died long time ago. If I don’t write them down, they would disappear or be forgotten. I also asked people like him (Muhammed Isah Suleiman) to write books. Because if you don’t write books, if you die a library is gone. So, encourage people to write their experience. Write it down. We are not used to writing now, but many people should write. If I ask General Aliyu: have you got a book on you? The owner of GI, you have a book on General Aliyu? We are encouraging him, he must write. General Babangida who left the government long time ago is releasing his book next year. He will tell all his experience. People should tell their experience and write it down. That is how you will encourage people to keep tradition. If it is not tangible, that is if it is intangible, you must narrate it and write it and keep it by NGO or by government. But more now by NGO.

I found that Nigeria pay more attention to politics but not culture.

No. It depends. You are in Nigeria now. The politics fever is very high because election is coming next year. So, anybody in Nigeria today will feel everything is politics. No. But also, our own politics is throughout the year. In some countries after election you may have a period of calm until another election comes. Like Nigeria now, officially, campaign for politics was to start on November18, 2018 but you see the social media is full of everything. There is no specific period now to say there is no politics because election is coming, and our election is taking place either at the state level or at the federal level and so on.

In China, I see that the Communist Party of China (CPC) will meet and elect the president for the next ten years. So, he is there. No more election. No more something. But ours is every four years; governors, parliamentarians. But I could see that CPC met only once and elected President Xi Jinping for the next ten years and he is there steady. No periodic election. But our own is every four years. And in between the four years if something happens like in Osun State or Ekiti State, their election will come. So, you think as if every time everything is politics. It is not so. It is because of the nature of too frequent elections in our own. That is the democracy we chose which will make you to think this way.

But you can see in America President Donald Trump now will be starting to talk about next election, but President Xi Jinping is resting because his own span is still far. That is the difference in the politics we are having. It is not because everything is politics, it is because of the nature of our politics which we have to do every so often. Everybody in Nigeria will think there is nothing else to talk about but politics. The social media is also making things as if every time is politics. That is the explanation for why you feel there is political fever every time. It is because the election is coming next year. After next year, things will calm down, there will not be much politics again. But we still have election of local government, election of state government, we have election of national assembly, we have the presidential election. All these are staggered and so you feel everything is politics. No.

Thank you so much.

Last time when you were to come I asked that they should bring small chops but you didn’t come. But this time I went to service my car, I was in Central Area of Abuja when I got your message. So I had to rush home because you said by 6 o’clock you are going back to Kaduna. You did not tell me that you are in town so that I would have cancelled servicing my car today to tomorrow so I can devote all the time for you. Even my wife I told her that those my Chinese friends I was expecting, they just told me they are coming, but I don’t know the time they are coming and also that their train to Kaduna is departing Abuja at 6 pm. So we did not order anything for you. Though she said she will do, but if it comes after you have left we will eat it because you are not waiting. We ordered small chops like prawns. If you are waiting you will get, but if you are not until next time.

Thank you very much.

I was in China as I earlier said. I like some of your cultures, for instance that you don’t like to use handkerchief and put it back in your pocket; that it is dirty. How can you clean your nose and keep it? This one Chinese they don’t like it. And if you go to someone’s house, you don’t enter with your shoes, you keep them outside. These are all very nice cultures in China. They are very cultured and courteous. The town of Guangzhou was very nice. I bought some furniture from China. I will show you. They brought it in a container for me. So, you people are very, very hardworking. If they tell you they want to produce this thing within a short time they will do. We went to factories and showrooms in Guangzhou and Fusan among other places. They showed us their products saying this one is for American market, this one is for European market, this one is third grade or reject, if you want you can have it cheap. They have all grades. Just tell them what you want. Even if you want your name to be inscribed on a product they will put it for you. But they produce high quality, middle grade and something of that nature.

That was what we saw when we went there. Some people say low quality. No. It is people who go and buy the low quality. Otherwise you have high quality and other qualities which one can choose. If you have money, they will even produce an aircraft, Chinese will produce an aircraft if they want. Because some of the vehicles we saw there from America I saw them in the main cities and on the roads. In China, the middle class is better than in America and other places. Your standard of living is higher. The people in the middle class are well off. We wish you all the best.

And also we like how you left your place to study other peoples’ culture. When the missionary people came from America to my community (Babur/Bura) in 1923, the first thing they tried to do was to learn our culture, the tradition, because from the tradition one would know the thinking of a people. That was why they paid attention to studying the culture. It is the culture which will make somebody to know the level of their thinking and the type of thinking. They were impressed that, at that time they said, small children could tell them a lot of stories they learned through the folktales. There was no writing, but their mothers continued to tell them stories every evening like a class. They became like the first class of a child. This is how we learnt before I went to school. I started schooling in 1951, now I am 76 this December 2018.

So your birthday is coming?

I don’t celebrate my birthday. Is coming but I would not celebrate. May be you celebrate yours. Celebrating birthday is a modern culture. Our own we don’t celebrate; when somebody dies or first named, yes. But all this every year how old am I, we don’t celebrate it. When I was 70 some people said celebrate. I said no. I did not see my father and my mother celebrating their birthdays. I also want to be like them. They said time has changed. I said yes it has changed, but I want to copy what my parents left for me. So I don’t celebrate my birthday. But my children do because they are modern children. This six year old (Zara) she carried cake, she carried things to the school to celebrate her birthday. But for me, I said look I am not celebrating because I have not been celebrating my birthday. May be you celebrate your own. Do you?

Yes!

Our own we are looking for only maybe people will come and celebrate our death. Although some people now, my friends will write and they will interview me, they will send me cards. Sometimes I don’t even remember my birthday, it is people when they send me goodwill messages saying you have turned something, I say ah is today my birthday? Otherwise I don’t keep it in my memory. I was born, as you see in the book, on December 10, 1942 because my parents remembered and said when you were born it was on so so market day. I cast my mind back and said may be I was born on December 10 because there was no certificate. That was how people remembered. But now, you go to the hospital they will write your date, give you birth certificate so you will know your actual date of birth. But before, we don’t write it.

Apart from tales you have ‘makumdla dza-dza’ (quiz). This man (Prof. Ayuba Y. Mshelia) prepared about 315 quiz which they used to tell them in the stories in our local language. They say: ‘I am going to travel, but I don’t know the date.’ What does it mean? The answer is death. You will die but you don’t know the day. ‘I am going to travel, but nobody is going to follow me.’ Also the answer is death. He (Chen) is not going to follow you (Yubo) when you die. You don’t know the date of your death. They also said that: ‘We have something we voluntarily take like sickness, but it is we who volunteer.’ This is when a woman takes in, it is voluntary, but it is sickness which you take for yourself. Again, ‘I prepare my house, but only me alone is going to stay.’ The answer is grave. Only you would go to your grave. These are quiz for children. They would tell them. It was an exercise in mental development. That was how our forefathers taught us. Like: ‘There is something with four legs, under something with four legs, waiting for something with four legs, what is it?’ The answer is a cat under a table waiting to kill a rat. They all have four legs. A cat under that table, waiting for a rat to come out. The table has four legs, the cat has four legs and the rat has four legs. They also said: ‘Something was on four legs, then it became two, then it became three, what is it?’ The answer is a human being. You start crawling as a child with four on the ground, then you start walking on two legs, then when you are old you start carrying stick. You have four, two, three. You understand.

This one (quiz) is all written in our language (Babur/Bura) by the professor. They are part of the book which is a diverse collection of stories, folktales and ‘makumdla dza-dza.’ That was how the Bura people of northeastern Nigeria used to transmit their cultural milieu, belief system, supernatural to their youth. The book is permeated with how the tribe interacts with and is solely dependent upon the power and magnanimous symbiotic character of the creation, ‘Hyelkka,’ that is our Creator. The quiz is part of chapter six of the book ‘Suksuku Revisited.’

The community uses animals to express their values and social mores they intend to pass on. ‘Suksuku Revisited’ opens door which until now may have been closed to the outsider. But I will give you this copy. I will sacrifice it. I have read it. The author is currently a professor at BMCC/City University of New York. He wrote a first volume and then this one. I will make a copy of this quiz when we go to my office because I want to use it. How much time do you have left now? From here now you are going back to where?

From now we don’t have anything special just to go back to the train station. And we can go back to the station at 5.30 pm.

No problem. Let us go to my office first briefly. I will give you this one. I will sacrifice it because it is the only copy I have. May be the author will send me another one.

Thank you, sir.

You will see in the background what it is, it will tell you a lot, about thirty something stories here.

Thank you.

It is my pleasure to be with you. There are other books. All this pile of books on the table is in Hausa. Professor S.M Gusau of Bayero University Kano wrote all of them. Let’s go.

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This interview was published in: The Guardian, December 16, 2018 – Pages 26-27;

Independent, December 15, 2018, Page 46 and Sun, December 21, 2018, Page 21