ABSTRACT
The problem of defining groups more comprehensive than the village has troubled investigators in many parts of Africa, and the groupings of peoples pro posed here must be regarded as tentative. They have been reached empirically, beginning from a study of the Kurama of north-eastern Zaria and adjacent districts of Kano, Bauchi and Plateau Provinces. Cultural similarities were soon revealed with various neighbouring peoples and followed up systematically. Such links between communities led ultimately in the north to the tribes of the Ningi area, to include the Warjawa and certain closely associated peoples of Bauchi and Kano Provinces who are linguistically unrelated to the Kurama; in the south to the Katab group of tribes defined by Meek, and beyond to peoples of somewhat doubtful affiliations, to judge from the literature, such as the Kaninkon of Jema’a Emirate; and, ultimately, to the Kadara. Peoples outside the wide sweep of teritory thus delimited (like the numerous bands of nomad Fulani and longestablished Fulani settlements within it) are often demonstrably related to their nearest neighbours inside, but such links have been judged, on the basis of available materials, fewer than those which bind them to other groups, or were considered to be outweighed by well-documented divergences. Thus, the Karekare, linguistic ally related to the Warjawa (if not the Kurama), were omitted from the present volume because they appear to possess rather more traits in common with their neighbours to the north and east (including the peasant Hausa) than with the Warjawa; Yeskwa, in the south, linguistically related to the Katab, are similarly oriented in other directions. Finally, the peoples of the Middle Niger region, south and west of Zaria, the Gbari, Kamuku, Basa, Kamberi and others, though some of these linguistically and to a considerable extent materially are obviously cognate with the peoples treated here, so far diverge in other respects that it has been decided to omit them. On the other hand, research suggested in time that the Kadara, apparently subject to some degree to a basically alien Gbari influence, are nevertheless more closely linked to the Katab, the hill villages of Kauru District, and the Kurama than had been thought.
