Gassaro or Kasr-Eggomo, 75 kilometres to the west of Chad. It
was this Ali who attacked the kanta of the Kebbi and was
defeated by him. His son Idris II (1504-1526) reconquered the
Kanem from the Bulala; he was a contemporary of Leo the African,
who speaks of him in his accounts, giving him by mistake the
name of Libran (Ibrahim), one of the predecessors of Idris.
It is with Idris III (1571-1603) that the empire of the Bornu attained
its apogee. Its suzerainty then extended over Kano, Zinder, and
the Aïr Mountains, over the Kanem as far as the Fitri, over all the
countries inhabited by the Teda and, to the south of Chad, over
the Mandara or Wandala (Marua), over the Kotoko (Kusseri) and
over the Mosgu (middle Logone). But after the death of this prince,
the Bulala again became masters of the Kanem, only to be chased
off later by the Tunjur emigrants from the Wadai and to withdraw
towards the east. It was the Tunjur who reigned from now on at
Kanem, with Mao as their capital, but they paid tribute to the mai
of Bornu, who kept an official at Mao.
These Tunjur, who ordinarily spoke an Arabic dialect, passed for
being of an ante-Islamic Arab origin. What is certain, however, is that
they have professed Islam for scarcely a century and that many of
them have never been and are not yet Muslims. It may be that they
were of Abyssinian origin and that their ancient paganism had been
a more or less corrupt Christianity. It seems, moreover, that this appel-
lation of Tunjur was applied at the east of Chad to all the non-Islamic
people to whom tradition attributes a Negro origin.
In 1808, Bornu was attacked by the Tukulor conqueror Ousman-dan-
Fodio, who defeated the troops of the mai Ahmed near Gassaro. A
very influential chief, Mohammed-el-Amine, called “the Kanemi”,
because of the country of his origin (the Kanem), placing himself at
the head of the Negroes of Bornu and of Shoa Arabs^14 pushed back
the Tukulor army into the Hausa country and brought back to his
capital the mai Ahmed, who had taken flight at the approach of the
enemy (1810). This Ahmed and his successors played the role of
puppet kings and the authority from now on was entirely in the hands
of the Kanemi and the members of his family. The sheik Omar, son of
the Kanemi, took the reins of government at the death of his father
and finished in 1846 by proclaiming himself Sultan of Bornu. He
installed his residence at Kukawa or Kuka, which became the capital
of the third dynasty, founded by his father and himself.
Waaga grave figure (Konso).
Ethiopia.
Wood, height: 186 cm.
Private collection.