Anthropological bibliography 

THE CICIPU LANGUAGE

 Compound in Maguji, Korisino
Yabani Galadima, Cipu speaker from Galadima village

Anthropological bibliography

Works on Cicipu

The anthropologist A. B. Mathews spent two months living with the Acipu in 1926 and wrote up a report, which has never been published but can be found in the National Archives at Kaduna. There is a digitised copy but it is too large to download from this website - please contact Stuart McGill if you would like a copy.

Several of the articles below are about the sword and spears of Kisra, relics housed in the king's palace on Korisino. Kisra is a legendary magician-king who is said to have fled to Africa after losing a war against Mohammed. His son or grandson is said to have been the first king of the Acipu. Several other tribes in Nigeria have similar origin stories.

The remaining books (CAPRO 1995, Gunn and Conant 1960, Temple 1922) each have a section on Cicipu, but Temple's account is very brief and the other two are derived from Mathews (1926).

  • CAPRO Research Office. 1995. Kingdoms at war. Jos: CAPRO Media.
  • Gunn, H & F Conant. 1960. Peoples of the middle Niger region, Northern Nigeria. London: International African Institute.
  • Mathews, A. 1926. Historical and anthropological report on the Achifawa. Unpublished manuscript held in the National Archives, Kaduna: K2, 068.
  • Mathews, A. 1960. The Kisra legend. African Studies 9, 144-7.
  • Stevens Jr, Phillips. 1975. The Kisra legend and the distortion of historical tradition. The Journal of African History 16, 185-200.
  • Stewart, M. 1980. The Kisra legend as oral history. International Journal of African Historical Studies 13, 51-70.
  • Temple, O & C Temple. 1922. Notes on the tribes, provinces, emirates, and states of the northern provinces of Nigeria. Lagos: CMS Bookshop.

Other West Kainji languages

  • Harris, P. 1930. Notes on Yauri (Sokoto Province), Nigeria. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland  60, 283-334.
  • Harris, P. 1938. Notes on the Dakakari peoples of Sokoto Province, Nigeria. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 68, 113-52.
  • Harris, P. 1946. Notes on the Reshe language. Journal of African Studies 5(4), 221-42.
  • Meek, C. 1925. The northern  tribes of Nigeria. Oxford: OUP.
  • Prazan, C. 1977. The Dukkawa of Northwest Nigeria. Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press.
See the bibliography in Roger Blench's West Kainji classification paper for further references. 
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