Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 86
semi-arid period, with Lake Chad water levels dropping to 284m. Further down, we see in our
climate column 'S' for 'semi-arid', with water levels at between 282m and 283m, and 'A' for
'arid', referring to water levels between 281m and 280m or lower. We mark most arid periods
in a darker grey with white text.
We have allocated the year ~1375AD, a date based on Maley's palaeoclimatic studies quoted
in David (2008:112), to mark the above mentioned short wet period, which lasted only about
50 years. 2 We have put 'Chronicles' for Agamakiya, as the first king of Wandala, under 'Early
written sources', while we see under 'Source year AD': 1723/24. Both are in italic, which is a
reference to the time when this oral historical tradition was written down for the first time.
We also see that there is a '?' under 'DGB', which means that we do not have enough reliable
radiocarbon dates at this time, while 'C' for his son Abalaksaka refers to a period when the
DGB complex started to yield a high concentration of such dates. We note that Abalaksaka is
seen as residing in Kirawa, which is the beginning of a short but truly extreme period of
aridity in the subregion.
All the rulers in the table are pre-Islamic until 1723/24, which marks the time of Islamisation
of the Wandala state and the time the Wandala chronicles were written. By then it had had its
centre in Doulo for almost a hundred years. The table covers 400 years altogether, from the
end of the 14th to the beginning of the 18th century, of which at least 300 years were located
in Kirawa. We can see that some areas of the table are marked light grey or dark grey, while
others have remained white, representing different periods of climate change. We also see that
most of the early written sources and source years are from the Wandala chronicles. We have
marked 'Chronicles' as a source in italics because they are oral history, referring to a time
before 1723/24, which is also in italics. After 1723/24 they are no longer in italics.
This means that our early sources, which are not in italic, are all the actual dates when those
written sources were first published. We see in our table that the first one is Fra Mauro, the
Venetian mapmaker, who represents the first historical mention of the Wandala/Mandara in
1450AD. The next one down is Leo Africanus in 1529, then Ibn Furtu in 1576, and Anania in
1582. At the bottom are the 'Chronicles', marking the time when they were composed. Our
early written sources, together with the date of their appearance, are marked in grey because
they are references to written sources, and we can see that there is an overlap with some of the
legendary accounts in our list of pre-Islamic rulers.
The crucial point in the latter context is that there are altogether twelve rulers, which are listed
in the Chronicles of 1723/24, and we rely on Forkl (1995: 395-403), who critically reassessed
all the kings we used in our list translation, as we consider his list the most reliable to be
hypothetically linked to Kirawa. Among those, we have identified Ankre Yawe to be most
likely 'Umar’, who was according to Ibn Furtu (1576) disposed of by his brother who was
known as the 'pagan usurper'. We are not sure how long after the event Ibn Furtu wrote the
account, but it was definitely during the lifetime of king Idris Alauma of Borno (1564-1596). 3
Therefore we infer Ankre Yawe's rule to be the mid-16th century, that is around 1550AD, and
we have accordingly linked the year ~1550 as the year of the relevant Lake Chad water level.
We need to note at this point that the 'pagan usurper' is not listed as a ruler, but only Akutava,
the son of 'Umar', and we have used ~1575 as the next Lake Chad water level measurement.
We can see from our Table of Contemporaneity that this is a very arid period indeed, lasting
only about 25 years in its most extreme form. We also see that 25 years before and after that
period, high aridity continued, with the Lake Chad water levels being at a historical low,
which lasted altogether about 75 to perhaps 100 years. We have another shorter but arid
period before that, lasting from ~1400 to ~1475, and a semi-arid period between those two
periods of high aridity. This means that between 1400AD and 1600AD we have a very arid
2
3
This was preceded by a slightly dryer time after a very long wet period before 1200AD.
Dierk Lange's translation from 1987 is considered the most reputable one from the Arabic.
84
