ABSTRACT
For at least 1,000 years, the territory that now makes up Niger has been divided between the darkerskinned, more sedentary agriculturalists of the south and the lighter-skinned, nomadic Tuareg pastoralists of the Saharan north. The agriculturalists, in turn, are divided into three general ethnic groups: the Songhai-Zerma in the west, the Hausa in the center, and the Kanuri in the east. The Hausa have always been the most numerous and constitute about half of the country’s population today, though the vast majority of this large ethnic group lives in neighboring Nigeria.
