ABSTRACT
Members of the Progressive Union in major Nigerian towns display their ethnic pride for the same reason that the Chamba of Ganye prove their modernity: they have been, in their own eyes – which reflect the views of some Nigerian majorities – disparaged and marginalised. Becoming more cosmopolitan involves a coming to terms with the evaluation of differences within the nation, particularly between themselves and their principle contrapuntal other but also with other majorities. Belonging to a national state dominated by a few regional majorities, Chamba need to appear both authentic and modern. Chamba have been confronted with efforts, serially, to incorporate them into a Fulani Muslim empire, a German empire, a British colonial mandate and trustee-ship, and a succession of independent Nigerian governments, both military- and civilian-run. Most of Chambaland was missionised relatively late, Lutheran Protestants arriving from the mid-1920s, and Irish Roman Catholics a couple of decades later.
