Hausa Cosmology
Also known as: Hausa Cosmological Myths, Hausa Mythology, Hausa Origins and Bori Cult
An oral corpus concerning the Hausa vision of the cosmos, origins, and sacred power—centering on a remote High God (Ubangiji), pre-Islamic cults such as Tsumburbura at Dalla Hill, the Bayajidda origin legend, and the Bori spirit pantheon.
Description
Hausa Cosmology comprises interlinked oral narratives and ritual knowledge preserved across Hausa-speaking regions of West Africa. It acknowledges a transcendent High God (Ubangiji; later identified with Allah), while pre-Islamic strata attest local cults and shrines such as Tsumburbura at Dalla Hill in Kano, mediated by hereditary priesthoods. The celebrated Bayajidda cycle explains the emergence of the Hausa polities through the hero’s slaying of the serpent at the Kusugu well and marriage into Daura’s royal line. Parallel to these are Bori possession traditions—a catalog of spirits tied to places, crafts, states of being, and historical layers—through which healers and adepts access power and negotiate affliction, fortune, and social order. Islamic concepts and vocabulary have long interacted with these materials, producing syncretic idioms while retaining distinct ritual lineages.
Historiography
Materials survive primarily through oral performance, spirit possession repertoires, palace traditions, and chronicles such as the Kano Chronicle (recorded in Arabic and translated during the colonial period). Early systematic English-language documentation came via ethnographers like R. S. Rattray and A. J. N. Tremearne, who recorded myths, rites, and Bori classifications under colonial conditions that shaped selection and framing. Later scholarship has reassessed these records, tracing Islamic overlay, urban court mediation, and Maguzawa custodianship in rural settings. Transmission remains dynamic, with performance contexts, spirit-lists, and origin legends adapting to regional histories and contemporary religious currents.
Date Notes
Cosmological materials circulate orally among Hausa-speaking communities; earliest sustained written records in Arabic and in colonial-era English ethnographies (c. 1800s–early 1900s).
Archetypes
Major Characters
- Bayajidda
- Magajiya Daurama
- Sarki (the Serpent)
- Allah
Myths
- Creation by the High God
- Origin of Death and Misfortune
- Spirits (Bòòrì) and Ancestral Powers
Facts
- Ubangiji designates a remote High God; in Islamicized forms the term aligns with Allah.
- The Bayajidda legend links the Hausa polities to Daura through serpent-slaying and royal marriage.
- Kusugu well at Daura is the traditional site of Bayajidda’s serpent encounter.
- The Kano Chronicle preserves memory of a pre-Islamic deity Tsumburbura at Dalla Hill.
- Barbushe is named as a key priestly figure tied to the Dalla Hill shrine.
- Bori denotes a possession cult with a structured pantheon of spirits connected to places, trades, and social roles.
- Hausa cosmological narratives exhibit layered syncretism from long contact with Islam.
- Colonial-era collectors produced the first extended English accounts, shaping how the corpus was framed.
- Maguzawa communities are often cited as keepers of pre-Islamic Hausa ritual practices.
- Spirit names and classifications vary regionally and historically, reflecting a living tradition.