Why Nupe facial marks may disappear

‘Barber-doctors’ in Bida speak of decline ‘It will return ’ – Scholar ‘Nupe from 30 years downwards don’t have them’ Not a single Gozan in Lokoja By Tadaferua Ujorha who was in Kaduna, Kogi & Niger An elegant mark lies beneath Shehu Dzukogi’s eye. This is not an ordinary mark, for it is a kind […]

‘Barber-doctors’ in Bida speak of decline
‘It will return ’ – Scholar
‘Nupe from 30 years downwards don’t have them’
Not a single Gozan in Lokoja
By Tadaferua Ujorha who was in Kaduna, Kogi & Niger

An elegant mark lies beneath Shehu Dzukogi’s eye. This is not an ordinary mark, for it is a kind of chronicle which does not make use of alphabets. It adopts strokes or signs of varying lengths, which are cut on the skin to express wars, migrations, victories, new alliances and more among the Nupe. The  skin seems to grow beyond its initial function as a body organ, to become a carrier of  history, and a vehicle of past events.

Dzukogi (not real name) feels like reaching  back into time to  grip the hand of the skilled Gozan, who  was  making a cut on  his face one sunny  morning many years ago. He tells Daily Trust that if he had the means he wouldn’t have allowed the middle aged man who was wielding a knife, to cut his face. In five minutes the  ‘surgery’ is over and within a week the affected spot heals. Dzukogi sheds light on the origins of facial marks named ‘Etsa’ among the Nupe “500 years ago the founder of the Nupe kingdom, known as Tsoede or Edegi went to collect some palm nuts  in an attempt to heal his father of an ailment. In the process of doing this he fell from the tree and received some marks on his face as well as on his abdomen, and it then became a tradition for his descendants to have the facial marks.” Solomon Yisa, a former ambassador to Tanzania, in his Nupe Heritage Dictionary (2013) states “It is in the emulation and remembrance of this hero’s act of bravery that Nupe children over the years have been given facial and body markings.” (p.203).

‘Barber-doctors’
The  Gozan is the  ‘barber-doctor’  in Nupeland, as S. Nadel indicates in A Black Byzantium “the barber of Nupe, Gozan, is also doctor and surgeon.His activities are numerous: he cuts the hair of men, women and children; he shaves the head and cuts the tribal marks of newborn babies at the name-giving ceremony.”

Today, the Gozans confess that they have seen better days, for not many parents summon them to have the marks cut on their children. They add that they do more of shaving and circumcision, as well as applying their knowledge of herbs to heal various ailments. The cutting of facial marks is becoming a rare occurrence, except in the rural areas where the tradition is still fairly regular, say the jovial ‘barber-doctors’ of Bida, a town which was founded in 1860.

Here, there are three guild areas lying close to the three ruling houses of Usman Zaki, Masaba and Umaru Majigi. Sokyara, the oldest  Gozan   is usually named the leader of all the ‘barber-doctors’ in Nupeland. Those in the rural areas have a close working relationship with the Gozans of Bida,and there are migrant ‘barber-doctors’ who, for instance, leave Nupeland for the southwest, and they return home after a while, cutting marks, shaving and doing circumcisions and ‘small operations’  along the route. It  is flexible activity, for a  Gozan can rise to become a professor as well or even a Vice Chancellor, as Daily Trust discovers. The work does not restrict his growth in other directions, but  it seems to facilitate this. It is also said that some of the elderly Gozans have such a fine eye for detail that they can easily identify which Gozan cut a mark, no matter how long ago this was done.

Daily Trust is told that ‘the younger Gozans prefer using clippers to do their work,and some have resorted to farming, while many no longer see the work of the Gozan as their primary activity.” This is the situation in Nupeland where the economy of the Gozan is witnessing a turnaround. According to Yahaya Abdulkadir, who lives  very close to the Gozans of Masaba in Bida,  “I have seven children, but I didn’t give them marks, though I have them myself.” On why he was reluctant to give the famous facial marks to his children, he explains that this owes to the changing social circumstances   among the Nupe today.

Among the Nupe there are ‘six or seven distinct marks, and each belongs to a particular  sub tribe or clan of the group,’ declares Ishaku Ibrahim, who has written a number of books on Nupe culture. He shows how Nupe marks spread in earlier times “The rise of marks was more during  wars when  we were conquering territory. When we get to a place  if you identify with us, we will give you a mark so that anytime we see you  we can easily identify  that we have been to your community. This is how the marks spread.” Ibrahim explains “You can see the same mark with the Igbirra who were paying tributes to Nupe at one time. If you have these marks,it means you are our ally or that this is our territory. Some of the conquered groups loved to have it, for it was a form of empowerment and independence.” 

‘It goes back to 1960’
Ndambabo Jiya, an elder in the Nupe community in Lokoja, Kogi State, while arguing that the marks began declining as far back as 1960, says “In the olden days people had facial marks to identify lineages among the Nupe. Some used the marks to identify those who are original Nupes from those who are slaves,or those  who were descended from slaves.”

He states that since the passing away  of the Nupe Gozans, the Nupe in Lokoja have had to rely on Hausa barbers, but this itself is fraught with problems “Even if the Hausa barbers want to do the Nupe marks, the Nupe  may not be comfortable with them. This is because each  tribe has people who specialise in cutting their traditional marks.”

Jiya shows how the marks in his family declined over the years, stating that his first son had marks similar to his, (Jiya’s), while the remaining three children had just a single vertical mark on each cheek. “The remaining seven children did not have marks put on them,” he adds, explaining that it was the influence of his parents that made him put marks on his first four children.

The birth of the last seven children coincided with the passing of his parents, and  this seems to suggest why they don’t have marks. Jiya points out that the community in Lokoja came into being as a fallout of the trading activities of the Nupe, and because a number of Etsu’s were sent  to Lokoja on exile in the early 20th century by the British colonial rulers.

Origins
Dr. Ndagi Abdullahi ,Secretary, Nupe Cultural and Resource Centre (NCRC) Bida, comments on the origins of facial marks among the Nupe “If you ask a typical Nupe man, he will tell you it’s origin owes to Tsoede who is our cultural hero and founder of the Nupe nation. They will say that the marks came about when the father to Tsoede was sick, and someone pointed out that it was  necessary to get  palm nuts  that would be used to heal  the king. The fruit was at the top of a palm tree, and nobody could  ascend  the tree except Tsoede. He climbed the tree and fell and had wounds all over his body. The wounds on his face were the beginning  of the facial marks, and this is the conventional story. Someone invented this story to explain the origin of Nupe facial marks. The truth of the matter is that these marks have been in use before the time of Tsoede. What  is most probable is that Tsoede came with a variant of his own markings which later came to be traced to him.”

Dr. Abdullahi thinks that the Nupe had started forming marks as far back as 500 AD “If you particularly want to emphasise when exactly the Nupe people started scarification, it would have to go back to 500 AD when Kisra came and settled in central Nigeria.He came with a form of scarification, which was called ‘the mark of the sun,’ and it was a patriarchal system of scarification. They brought this to Nupeland, but before  500 AD, Nupe had their own marks.”

Decline
According to Mohammed Kobo Shehu, a Gozan in Bida, “The history of the Nupe kingdom cannot be complete without a mention of Gozans whose existence as a guild goes back to the beginning of the Nupe kingdom.” Shehu opines “The serious decline in the facial marks today, is as a result of western education which has led to a major decline in many aspects of Nupe life. Also, things have become quite modernised among us. Even the circumcision that we used to do on the male children is now done in the hospitals, where the doctors use modern equipment. This is as a result of the fear of disease and contamination, and  so the art of circumcision itself is declining.” Shehu concludes “Most of the facial marks are done in the villages today and it’s  still practised there. In the urban centres of Nupeland, we have however observed a marked decline.”

He avers “The number of Gozanczhi (plural for Gozan) have dropped too, and Nupe parents are turning away from the idea of giving marks to their children.” Next, he draws attention to the fact that the type of mark commonly seen on children nowadays, are those connected with healing rather than the facial marks. To do this the Gozan cuts the face of the child and some healing herbs are ‘injected’ into the cut, and this is said to cure  many illnesses affecting children.
 Mohammed Abdullahi Daniyan also feels that the marks have declined. He is a Gozan and a former Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna “Many people feel that it is dangerous to use sharp objects to do the marks, especially with the prevalence of HIV/AIDS today. Therefore, they  are not too interested in having scars put on the faces of their children. They feel it’s not the right thing to do. We can see then that the tradition is almost dying out. It’s no more fashionable in the urban centres to have facial marks.”

He states that the role of the ‘barber-doctor’ is changing somewhat “Shaving has been taken over by the barbers who use clippers. Some Gozans have opened small shops for themselves where they also use clippers. But they still work with herbs. I  don’t have any children that is a practising Gozan. However, many of  the children of my  brothers, even if they are educated, are still practising Gozans.” He points out that marriage affects the prevalence of marks “A woman from another culture, may not be keen on having Nupe marks put on her child,” he stresses. This is the sense in which marriage to a lady from outside Nupeland, works against the marks. In his household the children born  before 1984 have Nupe facial marks, but those that came after this date do not.

Yisa, who is also the  Director, NCRC, opines “At a point I thought I was among the last batch of tribal mark bearers in Nupeland, But  I have seen quite a few, pretty  young  children with the marks. They are really a bit difficult to come across today, so it is certainly on the decline.” He speaks on a growing feeling of shame  which is linked to the marks “There is a drop  in the urban centres,and this is connected to the  present day attitude of younger men who find tribal marks embarrassing.