For a couple of days until the end of Ramadan, unmarried men in northern Nigeria’s mainly Muslim city of Kano will be on the run to escape capture and ridicule from a roaming “bachelor hunter.”
Auwalu Sani, 40, alias Nalako, roams the streets of this commercial city at night with his noose, “arresting” unlucky bachelors and parading them around the city amid singing and drumming to encourage them to take wives.
Nalako caught 14 bachelors last year, one on each day of the festival.
PHOTO: AFP
Dressed in an amulet-dotted animal skin slung over a sleeveless hand-woven shirt, a matching cap perched on his head, and with a band of drummers and enthusiasts accompanying him, Nalako goes on the prowl for bachelors with a thick raffia noose.
“There is no escape once I place this noose on my prey,” the soft-spoken Nalako said this week in a small alley in Jakara neighborhood in the old part of the city where he had gone with his band to stalk his game.
“The noose has a special effect as any bachelor I hang it on will marry before the next Ramadan,” Nalako said.
But 27 year-old Jakara resident, Hassan Hawa, wants to avoid the noose like a deadly snake.
“I’m working on getting married before next Ramadan. You never can tell, it could be my turn and I can’t withstand this public ridicule,” said Hawa, an artifacts trader.
A crowd of young men and children sang and danced to the thrilling beat from the “hunter’s” band, which worked on its musical instruments comprising a gong, timpani and metal gallon with frenzy outside a house where a hapless bachelor was holed up.
The singing and dancing became more frenzied as Nalako blew his trademark horn and sang his age-old song ridiculing an unmarried man as a worthless dog that deserves no respect.
As two of his lieutenants dragged the bachelor from the house, Nalako placed the noose round his neck and smeared his face with blue indigo dye before leading him out of the alley and around the city.
Residents donated token food and money to the band as is tradition. The human “game,” as he is derisively called, was forced to dance and sing the bachelor song.
“This is a tradition spanning three generations and it is aimed at encouraging unmarried men to take wives to curb immorality in the community,” Nalako said as he blew his horn to the admiration of the crowd and undulating veiled women watching from roof tops, peering over mud walls and windows.
Although this carnival, dubbed Kamun Gwauro (“bachelor hunt” in the local Hausa language), started more than two centuries ago, it was strengthened and given official recognition during the reign of the puritanical ex-emir of Kano, Alu Maisango, from 1894 to 1901.
Nalako, which means “bachelor hunter” in Hausa, is a hereditary title passed down generations, and for 20 years, Sani has been holding this title, which he inherited from his father.
“The carnival has become part of Kano’s traditional heritage,” said Ali Bature, an official of the Kano State history and culture bureau.
The annual event, limited to Kano city, has undergone some transformations in the last few years.
Unlike in the past when Nalako would comb brothels and hangouts in the afternoon looking for bachelors, now the “game” is captured following tip-offs from friends as a practical joke, said 70-year-old Usman Mamako, the only surviving member of the Nalako band from the last generation.
In the last eight years, the carnival has turned nocturnal to forestall incessant violent clashes between participating rival gangs, said Mamako, who was at the scene of the “capture” to “relive my youth and lend support to the young ones.”
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Hundreds of thousands of Guyana citizens living at home and abroad would receive a payout of about US$478 each after the country announced it was distributing its “mind-boggling” oil wealth. The grant of 100,000 Guyanese dollars would be available to any citizen of the South American country aged 18 and older with a valid passport or identification card. Guyanese citizens who normally live abroad would be eligible, but must be in Guyana to collect the payment. The payout was originally planned as a 200,000 Guyanese dollar grant for each household in the country, but was reframed after concerns that some citizens, including
RSS