viiIntroduction Acknowledgments and Preface vii
t h i s b o ok presents material I gathered during the past twenty years
spent doing research in and out of Africa. The first chapter goes back to
what in retrospect looks like the initial spark of my academic career—a
year spent in northern Nigeria from 1992 to 1993. At the time, I was a grad-
uate student of anthropology and African languages and had intended
to study abroad for two semesters at Bayero University Kano. W hen the
university went on strike only two months after my arrival, I began to
develop a research project of my own and ended up studying bori, the
Hausa cult of spirit possession. I became particularly interested in the
Babule spirits, who when embodied by their human mediums in ritual
performances, represented mimetical interpretations of European alterity.
During the first nine months of 1993 and another three months in 1994,
Usman Mohammed Dakata, Husseini Gandu, Saminu ‘dan Jan Dutse,
and the late Lawan na Kawari introduced me to the world of bori spirit
possession. Husseini and Lawan also kept me up to date on bori matters in
subsequent years (1998–2001), when I stopped over in Kano en route to my
new fieldwork site in Borno state, where I conducted research for my Ph.D.
project (not presented in this book). In Kano, I enjoyed the hospitality of
Aminu Shariff Baffa and his family, who was my host in the Sabuwar K’ofa
neighborhood, where I found numerous friends among the bachelors of
the quarter who kept me company, helped me improve my Hausa, and as-
sisted me in so many other ways. I cannot name all here, but I mention Us-
man A liyu Abdulmalik, Ibrahim Shariff Baffa, Abdulhamid Yusuf Jigawa,