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Argungu Fishing Festival in Northwestern Nigeria: Promoting the Idea of a Sustainable Cultural Fest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2007

Folarin Shyllon
Folarin Shyllon
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, Olabisi Onabanjo University. Email: fshyllon@yahoo.co.uk
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Abstract

There is a saying that Africa is the festival continent. Throughout the year in towns and villages across the continent, colorful and vibrant religious, harvest, fertility, and cultural festivals are held. Bare-hand fishing competition among thousands of fishermen, equipped with a hand net and large gourd, is the main event of the cultural extravaganza at Argungu in Kebbi State in northwestern Nigeria. The competitors splash into the stream, scouring the water for huge freshwater fish. The Argungu fishing festival (Fashin Ruwa) is a celebration of life. It is a tool of conserving natural resources, maintaining and promoting traditional life. It is the precursor of today's fishery management measure. The local people believe they have been fishermen for all time. The effective conservation of natural resources is closely linked to the use of the local knowledge and hence the life of the community. It is also part of an ancient fertility ritual which, from the point of view of the local Kebbawa people, is the most important aspect of the occasion. The festival takes place usually in February after all agricultural work is finished. It marks the end of the growing season, and it opens the fishing season with a bang.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 14 , Issue 3: Special Issue: Hunting as Heritage , August 2007, pp. 329 - 337
Copyright
© 2007 International Cultural Property Society

ORIGIN

Argungu town and traditional emirate is on the Sokoto River at the intersection of roads from Birni Kebbi, Gwandu, Sokoto town, Augi, and Kaingiwa.1

Argungu is famous for its annual fishing festival as well as its Kanta museum, which houses sixteenth-century artifacts. Most inhabitants are Kebbawas (a subgroup of the Hausa).2

Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Argungu.”

The origin of the Argungu fishing festival is shrouded in some confusion. The popular view is that it began in 1934 and was used to mark peace between the former Sokoto Caliphate and the Kebbi kingdom. The two empires had fought for centuries, and hostilities only ceased with the arrival of the British. According to this account, it originated in August 1934, when the Sultan of Sokoto, Hassan Dan Mu'azu, made an historic visit to Argungu. In appreciation of his visit, the first by a sultan of Sokoto, a grand fishing festival was organized; and since then it has become a yearly event held between February and March. According to this account, the festival thus has an historical significance for the people of Sokoto and Argungu towns. It started as one of the moves toward normalizing relations between Argungu and Sokoto peoples.3

Aig-Imoukhuede, A Handbook of Nigerian Culture, 47–48.

Another version of the origin of the festival suggests that it started approximately 70 years ago when Sarkin Kebbi Muhammadu II allowed his people to fish in one of the pools of the Sokoto rivers that was reserved for his own use. Others say, probably more correctly, that it is approximately 70 years since the festival began to attract visitors, and that it dates back to the sixteenth century. It is significant that the Kanta Museum in the town houses sixteenth-century artifacts. The 1934 visit of the Sultan of Sokoto merely gave the little local event a wide dimension.

The view that the Argungu fishing festival dates back to the sixteenth century claims that its origin is in one of the local fishing festivals called Su. This is in consonance with the saying among the local people that they have been fishermen for all time. The fact that the Kebbawas were never fully conquered by the Fulani during the Jihad probably explains the survival of the custom.

THE JIHAD, THE SOKOTO CALIPHATE, AND THE KEBBI KINGDOM

The Sokoto Caliphate, sometimes referred to as the Fulani Empire, ruled the Hausa lands of what is now northern Nigeria for most of the nineteenth century.4

Its foundation was part of the Islamic reformist movement that waged jihads (holy wars) across the savannah regions of West Africa in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The jihads were mostly associated with the Fulani pastoral people, known in Nigeria and Cameroon by the Hausa name Fulani. From 1804 to 1812, Usman Dan Fodio waged a jihad, calling on all Hausa rulers to submit to his authority. The new state that arose came to be known as the Sokoto Caliphate, named after his capital, Sokoto, founded in 1809. The caliphate was a loose confederation of emirates that recognized the suzerainty of the commander of the faithful, the Sultan of Sokoto. Last and Adeleye have documented the expeditions and raids conducted against Kebbi by the caliphate. By approximately 1830 the Kebbawa finally made a peace, which lasted until approximately 1849. In that year the Kebbawa revolted; and although Silame on the Kebbi frontier was sacked, the Kebbi revolt continued.5

Last, The Sokoto Caliphate, xlvi, 78, 87, 229; Adeleye, Power and Diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 24–27, 64–66, 68–69.

The Kebbawa, who were pagans, never accepted the spiritual authority emanating from Sokoto. The stalemate lasted until British colonial forces finally overcame the Sokoto Caliphate from 1900 to 1903. Even though the Kebbawa later embraced Islam, the Argungu Fishing Festival is obviously pagan in origin. From the Kebbawa point of view, the maintenance of the rituals of the festival to which we turn immediately serves to underline the memory of their holdout against the Fulani Jihad.

RITUALS

The festival is part of an ancient fertility ritual that the local Kebbawa people consider the most important aspect of the occasion.6

Traditionally, on the evening before the festival the Homa, the Chief of the Fishermen, who is priest of the ancient ritual, goes down to the Sokoto river. With him are Sarkin Ruwa (Chief of the River) and Jirgi (Chief of the Ferrymen). They go to the river in the dark in secret. They go to a deep pool that never dries up, one chosen by traditional ceremony. At the pool the Homa makes a sacrifice of a mixture of honey and rice flour balls. He also adds a red she-goat or a couple of hens. If hens are used, one must be red and one must be black. He must also give onions, pawpaw, watermelon, and white kola nuts, with a little milk. These he throws into the river while he prays to the gods and the ancestral spirits of the Kebbawa people to send peace, health, progress, and fortune during the coming year. The rituals are also performed to prevent all the fishes in the area from migrating to neighboring waters. In its original purpose, the Argungu fishing festival is common. Everywhere, an important feature of traditional culture is the annual sacrifice bound up with the welfare of the people and usually connected with their primary occupation. It is calculated to enhance the prosperity of the worshippers and is usually linked with old fertility rituals. It may also reflect an inherited, instinctive regard for the main source of protein in their diet.

THE FISHING

As far as the Kebbawa people can remember, they have always been fishermen; and fishing is still one of their two main occupations.7

It alternates with rice cultivation in the flood plains of the Sokoto River during the wet season. The fishing shows are held at the same site at the northern end of the town where the river sweeps through large rice fields that are usually flooded during the rainy season. The whole affair is taken very seriously, so much so that fishing is banned along a 1-mile stretch of the Sokoto River throughout the year so that there will be plenty of fish for the annual fishing frenzy. The most thrilling moment of the show is when the signal is given for fishing to start and the fishermen charge into the river amid music and songs. Once the fishing is over, fishermen are forbidden from fishing on the spot again until the next fishing festival. It may be regarded as a simple but ingenious method of conserving valued assets. This traditional method of conservation is what we now know as a fishing exclusion zone.

The Matan Fada River is small, but it is well stocked because the fishermen come here once a year on the day of the festival and have just 1 hour to fish.8

The 1-hour duration is a unique aspect of the festival. J.B. Hall in “Fante Lake Fishing Festival” in mentioned the Nkosonko Enu fishing festival in Ghana where fishing also takes place only once a year. But the fishing goes on for 2 days. This results in “an annual massacre of practically all the fish.”

As the sun rises higher and the day brightens, streams of people pour along every road and track leading to the venue. Soon large crowds line its banks waiting for the ceremony to start. The fishermen remove their surplus clothing; and carrying their nets and their gourds, they draw close to the pool, everyone tense and keyed up waiting for the Homa's signal. The Homa waves and the drums in his canoe begin a lively beat. The fishermen leap into the river from either bank, the spray shoots upward, and great fish leap and splash themselves in protest at this invasion of their refuge. Soon the surface of the water is hidden from view by more than 1000 fishermen; their gourds; and the glistening, waving wings of their nets. The charge into the stream of this human horde, after the signal from the ganga drum, is indeed a spectacle to behold. The movements of the fishermen are exciting and colorful; their chants and exclamations fill the air as they sing, jubilate, and dance. Canoes are filled with musicians singing praises to the fishermen.

The sun glitters on shining, dark skins and flashing teeth. Everyone is in an ecstasy of delight. Heads, feet, and bottoms vanish and reappear as the men, in a series of porpoise dives, grasp great fish in their arms. They have just 1 hour to catch the biggest fish. On the banks the crowd of spectators in their flowing blue and white robes surges first one way and then the other, as some particularly Homeric struggle between fisherman and giwan ruwa (water elephant) takes their fancy. Some of these are so big that one fish is often as much as one man can stagger to the bank. Marine biologists now tell us that closing an area to fishing not only increases reproduction but is also expected to result in greater average size. A wealth of fish is harvested from giant Nile perch to the peculiar Balloon fish.

Meanwhile, the Homa is standing, aloof but alert, in his canoe, patrolling slowly up and down the pool among the fishermen. His drums beat the fast rhythms of his people and his progress along the pool is marked by even greater activity on the part of the nearest fishermen. He takes charge of the largest catches, displaying them to the people and weighing the biggest of the fish so that the best one of the day may be recorded. The exhibition of the biggest fish is one of the surest ways of demonstrating the attitude of the gods toward the Kebbawa people during the year to come. The priest in his own turn collects a toll from the catches of all the fishermen engaged in the ceremony. In the Grand Fishing Competition of 2004, the biggest fish weighed 80 kg and the second weighed 67 kg. Having been left alone for a year, it is not surprising that many of the fish are large. In former times the ceremony lasted only 1 day but is now expanded to 4 or 5 days, the actual fishing festival being preceded by a number of other cultural events including canoe racing, swimming, and diving contests; the most interesting parts are the bare hand fishing and duck catching events. There are also arts and crafts exhibitions, agricultural shows, and traditional music and entertainments.

DANGERS OF MODERNIZATION

The Kebbi state government plans to use the festival to jump-start Nigeria's virtually nonexistent tourism industry.9

Care must be taken, however, to preserve the essence of the festival. It is about the traditional system of access, use, and exchange of biological resources. Its main objective is the conservation and sustainable use of and sharing the benefits accruing from biological resources and community knowledge to sustain life. It has been observed that although the festival itself is spectacular,10

Graphic images of the event is in Borzello, “Race to Fish.”

the infrastructure is poorly developed.11 The development of infrastructure must be done without risk to sustainable development of the river and with no adverse socioeconomic affects. For example, it should not lead to the displacement of traditional communities.

Commenting on overcrowding by the fishermen at the conclusion of the 2004 festival, Governor Aliero of Kebbi state said he plans to expand the stretch of river to make sure more fishermen can participate in the future.12

It must be remembered that festivals in the lives of Nigerians are unique occasions that serve as a symbolic base on which the rich culture and traditional heritage of the community are commemorated and preserved. It would be a tragedy if, under the guise of national development and job and foreign-exchange generation, the true essence of the Argungu Fishing Festival were diluted. The essence of the festival is the interaction of people with their natural environment. The core factor in the sustainability of this agricultural heritage over centuries is the perfection of the traditional protection and management mechanism.13

In the response to the federal government call on the need to diversify the nation's economy as well as to also develop and promote the numerous tourist attractions in the country, there appears to have been no serious consideration given to the dangers inherent in tourism. In discussions the advantages to the local community are highlighted and the disadvantages are ignored. It is pointed out that the Argungu festival creates tourism jobs mainly in family-owned enterprises. Tourism provides incentive for residents to remain in rural areas rather than flock to congested towns and cities. There is no gainsaying that the festival affected the lives of the people in a business sense. Tourism can provide local people with a source of income and alleviate poverty through the creation of small and medium-size tourism businesses. Briefing journalists in Lagos prior to the 2004 festival, the commissioner (minister) for commerce and tourism of Kebbi state said that the staging of the festival and promotion of tourism on a continuous basis in the state enhances capacity building and added that tourism can attract investors to the state. He also said that accommodation facilities at the fishing village have been improved with the 1000 hotel rooms in the village brought up to international standard with air conditioners, television, new marble floors, and other facilities for tourist comfort.

The increased hotel capacity brings to mind the fate of the Mayungu fishing camp in Kenya's Swahili coast. Tourism led to the destruction of the village. A victim of this national development told Kusimba in a 1992 interview the travails of the villagers: “Over the years we have witnessed many fishermen rendered jobless and homeless because of allocation of beach properties to private holdings in the name of progress. What sort of progress denies local people the opportunity to earn a decent livelihood from their natural resources?” Because tourism earns more foreign exchange for the country than both coffee and tea combined, the Kenyan government aggressively expanded its tourist industry. “Tourism provides short-run benefits from small investments and creates jobs. Various studies have shown that development initiatives aimed at Kenya's high economic potential areas tend to be socially destructive and culturally alienating to the areas' inhabitants.” The political and administrative establishments in Nigeria should not repeat the experience of Kenya whereby the destruction of Swahili cultural heritage and identity led to culturally and economically disastrous results.14

“TREADING LIGHTLY”

Tourism could be a threat to the environment, however, and may contribute to other problems. In its present form, the festival maintains the culture and natural history of the environment and ensures that the integrity of the environment is sustained while producing economic opportunities that make the conservation of natural resources of importance to the local people. It is interesting to note that in spite of the fact that everyone knows the river is a fishing exclusion zone for a whole year, it has not encouraged poaching; and year in year out big fish continue to be caught. At the 2004 festival “somebody said that there was enough fish in Argungu on that day to feed 50 per cent of Nigerians.” This is an exaggeration, no doubt, but an indication of the total success of the conservation for the yearly event. Could this be sustained when the immorality of tourists or immorality of tourism corrupts the local people? Can the traditional quota (another name for the traditional 1-year ban from fishing) in the fish harvesting imposed by Kebbawa customary law and custom be maintained in the face of accelerated tourism? James Mak has observed that increase of tourism can lead to the loss of cultural and community identity, create conflict in traditional societies over the use of community-owned land and natural resources, and increase antisocial activities such as crime and prostitution.15

The issue at stake here is sustainable ecotourism. A key element of sustainable ecotourism is the conservation of natural and cultural heritage.16

Honey, “Treading Lightly” Environment (41:5 1999).

The Argungu festival combines both natural and cultural heritage. The age-old yearly abstinence from fishing guarantees conservation of species and perpetuates the cultural practice of the fishing community. The annual crowd also sustains the integrity of the natural environment of the Argungu village by allowing for almost a year's recovery. The challenge is to ensure sustainable ecotourism practices. According to UNEP (United Nations Environmental Program) ecotourism is sustainable tourism, which follows clear processes that ensure prior informed participation of all stakeholders; ensure equal, effective, and active participation of all stakeholders; acknowledge indigenous peoples communities' rights to say “no” to tourism development and to be fully informed, effective, and active participants in the development of tourism activities within the communities, lands, and territories; and promote processes for indigenous peoples and local communities to control and maintain their resources.17

The Ecotourism Society of Kenya (ESOK) has tried to grapple with the problem. Founded in 1996 to provide leadership in development of standards for best practice tourism, it has sought to ensure that equity is achieved among all stakeholders. The aim of ESOK is to conserve Kenya's natural environment and improve livelihoods of associated communities. In the press release after the 2005 national ecotourism conference on November 14, 2005, participants unanimously agreed community involvement is the main focus of ecotourism. Although acknowledging threats associated with ecotourism, it was the general view of participants that ecotourism is the way forward for Kenya's tourism. The conference noted that although there are variations in the definition of ecotourism, the essence of ecotourism is good business with social, cultural, and ecological responsibility operating in an ethical environment.18

Ecotourism Society of Kenya, http://www.ecotourismkenya.org.

The Kenyan model would be worthy of emulation by our political and administrative establishments, who so far have ignored the worldwide concern and debate on ecotourism, in the clamor that Nigeria should embrace tourism all in the name of commerce and development.

CONCLUSION

The Argungu Fishing Festival is a ritual festival performed according to its symbolic significance. It involves sacrifices to the gods for assurance of fertility. Ritual festivals involve prayers and sacrifices to the gods for abundance of rainfall, successful harvest, and fertility (as in the case of Argungu) or are held just to appease the gods as demanded by circumstances. The festival may be regarded as a model for maintaining the traditional mode of life and regeneration of traditional values and know-how as a sustainable part of everyday life and development. It ensures access to a necessary resource to be able to guarantee the economic and functional conditions essential for promoting traditional life. In short, the visitor affect should be moderate.

References

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