PERMANENT PILGRIMS - Hardcover

Yamba, C. Bawa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1560986123 ISBN 13: 9781560986126

Publisher: Smithsonian, 1995

To the Hausa pilgrims in Sudan, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca is more than an episode in a devout life. The journey, with the hardships entailed in crossing savannas and the desert, is a way of life into which they are born, work, raise families, and die. The pilgrims define themselves as transients and live in villages they consider temporary, yet they have lingered en route to Mecca, sometimes for generations.
Permanent Pilgrims explores this cultural phenomenon, describing how the Hausa maintain the permanent pilgrimage. C. Bawa Yamba examines why these people allow themselves to live in a state of permanent transition, why they perpetuate a myth of eventual arrival. Moving from their historic beginnings in Nigeria to the rural and urban lifestyles of present-day pilgrims, Yamba presents a thorough ethnography of the Hausa, arguing that for them the pilgrimage is a symbolic journey analogous to life.

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About the Author:

C. Bawa Yamba is Senior Research Fellow and Social Anthropology Coordinator at the Department of International Health and Social Medicine, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm.

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