Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-5xszh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T14:21:01.728Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Children and the Experience of Violence: Contrasting Cultures of Punishment in Northern Nigeria

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Abstract

Arising out of debates over ‘children at risk’ and the ‘rights of the child’, the article compares two contrasting childhoods within a single large society—the Hausa‐speaking peoples of northern Nigeria. One segment of this society—the non‐Muslim Maguzawa—refuse to allow their children to be beaten; the other segment, the Muslim Hausa, tolerate corporal punishment both at home and especially in Qur'anic schools. Why the difference? Economic as well as political reasons are offered as reasons for the rejection of corporal punishment while it is argued that, in the eyes of Muslim society in the cities, the threat of punishment is essential for both educating and ‘civilising’ the young by imposing the necessary degree of discipline and self‐control that are considered the hallmark of a good Muslim. In short, ‘cultures of punishment’ arise out of specific historical conditions, with wide variations in the degree and frequency with which children actually suffer punishment, and at whose hands. Finally the question is raised whether the violence experienced in schooling has sanctioned in the community at large a greater tolerance of violence‐as‐‘punishment’.

Résumé

Faisant suite aux débats menés sur les thèmes des enfants menaces de violence et des droits de l'enfant, cet article compare deux enfances tres différentes au sein d'une vaste société, à savoir les populations de langue Haoussa du Nord du Nigeria. Un segment de cette société, les Maguzawa non musulmans, s'opposent à que leurs enfants soient battus; l'autre segment, les Haoussa musulmans, tolerant les châtiments corporels chez eux mais aussi et surtout dans les écoles coraniques. Pourquoi cette difference? L'article avance des raisons économiques ainsi que politiques au rejet du châtiment corporel, tout en indiquant qu'aux yeux de la société musulmane citadine, la menace d'un tel châtiment est essentielle pour éduquer et «civilise» les jeunes en imposant Ie niveau nécessaire de discipline et de maitrise de soi, qualités considérées comme Ie marque d'un bon musulman. En bref, les «cultures du châtiment» résultent de conditions historiques spécifiques et varient considérablement quant à la sévérité et à la frequence des châtiments subis par les enfants, mais aussi quant à la personne qui les execute. L'article soulève enfin la question de savoir si la violence subie à l'école a sanctionné une plus grande tolerance à l'égard de la violence en tant que «punition» au sein de la communauté dans son ensemble.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abba, Isa Alkali. 1984. ‘Bara by some Almajirai in Kano city in the twentieth century: a critical assessment’, in Barkindo, Bawuro M. (ed.), Studies in the History of Kano, pp. 193206. Ibadan: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Ammar, Hamed. 1954. Growing up in an Egyptian Village: Silwa, Province of Aswan. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Barkow, Jerome H. 1973. ‘Muslims and Maguzawa in North Central State, Nigeria: an ethnographic comparison’, Canadian Journal of African Studies 7, 5976.Google Scholar
Beita Yusuf, Ahmed. 1978. The Reckless Climber. Ibadan: Onibonoje.Google Scholar
Bledsoe, Caroline. 1990. ‘”No success without struggle”: social mobility and hardship for foster children in Sierra Leone’, Man, n.s. 25 (1), 7088.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bledsoe, Caroline H., and Robey, Kenneth M. 1986. ‘Arabic literacy and enlightenment amongst the Mende of Sierra Leone’, Man, n.s. 21 (2), 202‐26. Revised 1993 as ‘Arabic literacy and secrecy among the Mende of Sierra Leone’ in Brian V. Street (ed.), Cross‐cultural Approaches to Literacy, pp. 110‐34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bray, Mark. 1981. Universal Primary Education in Nigeria: a study of Kano State. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Callaway, Barbara. 1987. Muslim Hausa Women in Nigeria: tradition and change. Syracuse NY: Syracuse University Press.Google Scholar
Christelow, Allan (ed.). 1994. Thus ruled Emir Abbas: selected cases from the records of the Emir of Kano's Judicial Council. East Lansing MI: Michigan State University Press.Google Scholar
Coles, Catherine, and Mack, Beverly (eds). 1991. Hausa Women in the Twentieth Century. Madison WI: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Asabe, Dan, Umar, Abdulkarim. 1991. ‘Yandaba: the “terrorists” of Kano Metropolitan?’ in Last, M. (ed.), Youth and Health in Kano Today, special issue of Kano Studies, pp. 85112. Kano: Bayero University.Google Scholar
Davis, Susan Schaefer and Douglas, A. 1989. Adolescence in a Moroccan Town: making social sense. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. 1961. Moral Education: a study in the theory and application of the sociology of education. (Translated and edited version of L'Education morale, 1925.) New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
El‐Awa, Mohamed S. 1982. Punishment in Islamic Law. Indianapolis IN: American Trust Publications.Google Scholar
Erny, Pierre. 1972. L'Enfant et son milieu en Afrique noire: essais sur I'education traditionelle. Paris: Payot. (Translated, abridged and adapted 1981 by G. J. Wanjohi as The Child and his Environment in Black Africa, Nairobi: Oxford University Press.)Google Scholar
Evans, Richard J. 1996. Rituals of Retribution: capital punishment in Germany, 1600‐1987. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fortes, Meyer. 1938Social and psychological aspects of education in Taleland’, Africa 11 (4), supplement. (Reprinted 1970 in Time and Social Structure, and other Essays, pp. 201‐59. London: Athlone Press.)Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1975. Surveiller etpunir: naissance de laprison. Paris: Editions Gallimard. (Trans. Alan Sheridan as Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison, London: Allen Lane, 1977.)Google Scholar
Furniss, Graham. 1996. Poetry, Prose and Popular Culture in Hausa. International African Library 17, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Gatrell, Victor A. C. 1994. The Hanging Tree: execution and the English people, 1770‐1868. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gil'adi, Avner. 1992. Children of Islam: concepts of childhood in medieval Muslim society. Basingstoke: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gouffé, Claude. 1966. ‘Manger et boire en haoussa’, Revue de l'Ecole nationale des langues orientales 3, 77112.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. H. 1946. The Influence of Islam on a Sudanese Religion in Hausa Country. American Ethnological Society Memoir 10, New York: Augustin.Google Scholar
Greven, Philip. 1991. Spare the Child: the religious roots of punishment and the psychological impact of physical abuse. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Gumi, Abubakar Mahmud. 1982. Tarjumar Ma'anonin Alkur'ani Mai Girma. Beirut: Dar al Arabia.Google Scholar
Hake, James M. 1972. Child‐rearing Practices in Northern Nigeria. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.Google Scholar
Hassan, U. 1980. ‘The provision and content of Islamic education in Kano’, Kano Studies 2 (1), 162‐73.Google Scholar
Heald, Suzette. 1989. Controlling Anger: the sociology of Gisu violence. International African Library 6, Manchester: Manchester University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Hiskett, Mervyn. 1975. ‘Islamic education in the traditional and state system in northern Nigeria’, in Brown, G. N. and Hiskett, M. (eds), Conflict and Harmony in Education in Tropical Africa, pp. 134‐51. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Hollos, Marida, and Leis, Philip E. 1989. Becoming Nigerian in Ijo Society. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Hunter, Monica. 1936. Reaction to Conquest. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Ilyasu, Garba, with Last, M. 1991. ‘The presentation of mental illness at the Gorondutse Psychiatric Hospital, Kano’, in Last, M. (ed.), Youth and Health in Kano Today, special issue of Kano Studies, pp. 3354. Kano: Bayero University.Google Scholar
Jones, G. I. 1989. ‘Recollections of the spirit movement in the Ibibio area of Calabar Province’, Africa 59 (4), 520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, Cheikh Hamidou. 1961. L'Aventure ambigue. Paris: Juilliard.Google Scholar
Kaye, Barrington. 1962. Bringing up Children in Ghana: an impressionistic survey. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Kazaure, Salisu A. 1991. ‘Poverty and drug abuse: a study of Dawanau Rehabilitation Centre, Kano State’, in Last, M. (ed.), Youth and Health in Kano Today, special issue of Kano Studies, pp. 2340. Kano: Bayero University.Google Scholar
Khalid, Sulaiman. 1998. ‘A Socio‐economic Study of the Transformation of Migrant Quranic School System (Almajiranci) in Sokoto Metropolis, 1970‐95’. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Kano: Department of Sociology, Bayero University.Google Scholar
Koki, Alhaji Mahmudu. 1977. Alhaji Mahmudu Koki: Kano malam, trans, and ed. Skinner, Neil. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press.Google Scholar
Krusius, P. 1915. ‘Die Maguzawa’, Archiv fur Anthropologie 14, 3140.Google Scholar
La Fontaine, Jean S. 1986. Initiation. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
La Fontaine, Jean S. 1990. Child Sexual Abuse. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Last, Murray. 1967. The Sokoto Caliphate. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Last, Murray. 1976. ‘Presentation of sickness in a community of non‐Muslim Hausa’, in Loudon, J. B. (ed.), Social Anthropology and Medicine, pp. 104‐49. ASA Monographs 13, London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1979. ‘Strategies against time’, Sociology of Health and Sickness 1 (3), 306‐17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Last, Murray 1981. ‘The importance of knowing about not knowing’, Social Science and Medicine 15B, 387‐92. (Reprinted in S. Feierman and J. Janzen, eds, The Social Basis of Healing in Africa, pp. 393‐406. Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1992.)Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1985. ‘The early kingdoms of the Nigerian savanna’, in Ajayi, J. F. A. and Crowder, M. (eds), History of West Africa, third edition, I, pp. 167224. London: LongmanGoogle Scholar
Last, Murray 1988. ‘Charisma and medicine in northern Nigeria’ in O'Brien, D. B. Cruise and Coulon, C. (eds), Charisma and Brotherhood in African Islam, pp. 176224. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Last, Murray(ed.). 1991a. Youth and Health in Kano Today, special issue of Kano Studies, Kano: Bayero University.Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1991b. ‘Adolescents in a Muslim city: the cultural context of danger and risk’, in Last, M. (ed.), Youth and Health in Kano Today, special issue of Kano Studies, pp. 317. Kano: Bayero University.Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1991c. ‘Spirit possession as therapy: Bori among non‐Muslims in Nigeria’, in Lewis, I. M. (ed.), Women's Medicine: the Zar‐Bori cult in Africa and beyond, pp. 4963. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1992. ‘The importance of extremes: the social implications of intrahousehold variation in child mortality’, Social Science and Medicine 35 (6), 799810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Last, Murray 1993a. ‘The power of youth, youth of power: notes on the religions of the young in northern Nigeria’ in d'Almeida‐Topor, H., Coquery‐Vidrovitch, C., Goerg, O. and Guitart, F. (eds), Les Jeunes en Afrique, pp. 375‐99. Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1993b. ‘The traditional Muslim intellectual in Hausaland: the background’, in Falola, T. (ed.), African Historiography, pp. 121‐36. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Last, Murray 1993c. ‘History as religion: deconstructing the Magians (‘Maguzawa’) of Nigerian Hausaland’, in Chretien, J‐P. (ed.), L'Invention religieuse enAfrique: histoire et religion en Afrique noire, pp. 267‐96. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Laye, Camara. 1954. L'Enfant noir. Paris: Plon. (Trans. James Kirkup as The Dark Child, 1955, retitled The African Child for the 1959 edition. London: Collins Fontana Books.)Google Scholar
Le Vine, Robert A., and Le Vine, Barbara B. 1966. Nyansongo: a Gusii community in Kenya. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Le Vine, Sarah, and Le Vine, Robert. 1981. ‘Child abuse and neglect in sub‐Saharan Africa’ in Korbin, Jill E. (ed.), Child Abuse and Neglect: cross‐cultural perspectives, pp. 3555. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Linebaugh, Peter. 1991. The London Hanged: crime and civil society in the eighteenth century. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Little, Kenneth. 1951. The Mende of Sierra Leone. Revised edition 1967, London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lovejoy, Paul E., and Hogendorn, Jan S. 1993. Slow Death for Slavery: the course of abolition in northern Nigeria, 1897‐1936. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maiden, R. L. n.d. [c. 1950]. The Nasawara Gate and other Stories. Published privately.Google Scholar
Marrou, Henri‐Irénée. 1948. Histoire de I'education dans l'antiquité. Paris: Editions du Seuil.Google Scholar
Mclntyre, Joseph A. 1982. ‘An overview of education in northern Nigeria, attempted from the perspective of Qur'anic education’, Afrika Spectrum 82 (1), 2131.Google Scholar
Mclntyre, Joseph A 1983. ‘Context and register in Qur'anic education: words and their meanings in the register of Kano malams’, in Vosser, Rainer and Claudi, Ulrike (eds.), Sprache, Geschichte und Kultur in Afrika, pp. 357‐89. Hamburg: Buske.Google Scholar
McNeill, William H. 1995. Keeping Time Together: dance and drill in human history. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Molineaux, L., and Gramiccia, G. 1980. The Garki Project: research on the epidemiology and control of malaria in the Sudan savanna of West Africa. Geneva: World Health Organisation.Google Scholar
Muazzam, Ibrahim. 1993. Unpublished field reports for the Youth Health Project, Kano: Bayero University.Google Scholar
Nadel, S. F. 1942. A Black Byzantium: the kingdom ofNupe in Nigeria. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Nasr, Ahmad A. 1982. ‘The malam in Hausa oral narratives’ in Yahaya, Ibrahim Yaro et al. (eds), Studies in Hausa Language, Literature and Culture, pp. 473‐86. Kano: Centre for the Study of Nigerian Languages, Bayero University.Google Scholar
Nzioki, J. Mutuku. 1967. ‘Thorns in the grass: the story of a Kamba boy’, in Fox, Lorene K. (ed.), East African Childhood: three versions, pp. 77137. Nairobi: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Oppong, Christine. 1973. Growing up in Dagbon. Accra: Ghana Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
Ottenberg, Simon. 1989. Boyhood Rituals in an African Society: an interpretation. Seattle WA: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar
Parker‐ Jenkins, Marie. 1999. Sparing the Rod: schools, discipline and children's rights. Oakhill: Trentham Books.Google Scholar
Perrot, Michelle (ed.). 1990. A History of Private Life IV, From the fires of the Revolution to the Great War. (Translation by A. Goldhammer oïHistorie de la vie privee: de la revolution d la grande guerre, 1987.) Cambridge MA: Belknap Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Krijn, and Richards, Paul. 1998. ‘”Why we fight”: voices of youth combatants in Sierra Leone’, Africa 68 (2), 183210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raum, O. F. 1940. Chaga Childhood: a description of indigenous education in an East African tribe. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Read, Margaret. 1959. Children of their Fathers: growing up among the Ngoni of Nyasaland. London: Methuen.Google Scholar
Reuke, L. 1969. Die Maguzawa in Nordnigeria. Bielefeld: Bertelsmann.Google Scholar
Riesman, Paul. 1992. First find your Child a good Mother: the construction of self in two African communities. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Sanneh, L. O. 1975. ‘The Islamic education of an African child: stresses and tensions’ in Brown, G. N. and Hiskett, M. (eds.), Conflict and Harmony in Education in Tropical Africa, pp. 168‐86. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Schildkrout, Enid. 1979. ‘Women's work and children's work: variations among Moslems in Kano’, in Wallman, Sandra (ed.), Social Anthropology of Work, pp. 6985. ASA Monograph 19, London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Schildkrout, Enid 1981. ‘The employment of children in Kano’, in Rodgers, Gerry and Standing, Guy (eds), Child Work, Poverty and Underdevelopment, pp. 81112. Geneva: International Labour Office.Google Scholar
Schlyter, Ann. 1999. Recycled Inequalities: youth and gender in George compound, Zambia. Research report 114, Uppsala: Nordiska Afrikainstitutet.Google Scholar
Schoolland, Ken. 1996. Shogun's Ghost. London: Bergin & Garvey.Google Scholar
Shawcross, William. 2000. Deliver us from Evil: warlords and peacemakers in a world of endless conflict. London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Smith, Mary F. 1954. Baba of Karo: a woman of the Muslim Hausa. London: Faber. (Translated and edited from the original manuscript in Hausa, subsequently published by Bayero University Library, Kano, 1991, as Labarin Baba: mutuniyar Karo ta Kasar Kano.)Google Scholar
Soyinka, Wole. 1981. Ake: the years of childhood. London: Rex Collings.Google Scholar
Stephens, Sharon (ed.). 1995. Children and the Politics of Culture. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Tafawa Balewa, Abubakar. 1967. Shaihu Umar, trans. Hiskett, M.. London: Longman. (Published in Hausa 1934, Zaria: Literature Bureau.)Google Scholar
Tahir, Ibrahim. 1984. The Last Imam. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Turnbull, Colin. 1961. The Forest People. London: Cape.Google Scholar
Uka, Ngwobia. 1966. Growing up in Nigerian Culture. Ibadan: Ibadan University Press.Google Scholar
Wall, Lewis. 1988. Hausa Medicine: illness and well‐being in a West African culture. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, Eugen. 1977. Peasants into Frenchmen, 1870‐1914. London: Chatto & Windus.Google Scholar
Westermann, D. (ed.). 1938. Afrikaner Erzdhlen ihr Leben. Elf Selbstdarstellungen afrikanischer Eingeborener aller Bildungsgrade und Berufe und aus alien Teilen Afrikas. Essen: Essener Verlagsanstalt. (Translated as Autobiographies dAfricains, Paris: Payot, 1943.)Google Scholar
Whiting, Beatrice Blyth, and Pope Edwards, Carolyn. 1988. Children of Different Worlds: the formation of social behavior. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Whitting, C. E. J. 1940. Hausa and Fulani Proverbs. Lagos: Government Printer.Google Scholar
Wilson, Monica. 1951. Good Company: a study of Nyakyusa age villages. London: Oxford University Press for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Zahan, Dominique. 1979. The Religion, Spirituality and Thought of Traditional Africa. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press. (Translation by Kate Ezra Martin and Lawrence M. Martin of Religion, spiritualite’ et pensee africaines, Paris: Payot, 1970.)Google Scholar
Zeldin, Theodore. 1980 [1977]. France, 1848‐1945: intellect and pride. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar