ABSTRACT

In recent years, the equestrian culture of West Africa has suffered a drastic decline. The decline of horse-keeping is most obvious in the southern areas, which never developed local breeding of horses and were therefore always dependent for their supplies of horses on importation from further north. In several of the southern areas, indeed, horses have virtually disappeared. The decline of horse-keeping in West Africa had already begun, in certain areas, by the nineteenth century. More generally, it may be suggested that the prestige of the equestrian culture in West Africa was already in some measure on the wane in the nineteenth century. In the case of Nigeria, the liquidation of the horse culture has also been materially accelerated by an expanding demand for horse-meat. Horses can still be seen in the compounds of kings and chiefs, and at ceremonial festivals.