PERMANENT PILGRIMS

Download or read book PERMANENT PILGRIMS written by C. Bawa Yamba and published by Smithsonian Books (DC). This book was released on 1995-06-17 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.