Lost your password?

Tsibbu, Magic and Hausa Medicine

NigeriaOctober/November 2024vol8-no4
Hausa

Illustration by Sheed Sorple Cecil / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Tsibbu, Magic and Hausa Medicine

How Hausa magic-medicine systems continue to exist between religion and culture.
Hausa

Illustration by Sheed Sorple Cecil / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Tsibbu, Magic and Hausa Medicine

How Hausa magic-medicine systems continue to exist between religion and culture.

This essay features in our new print issue, Reimagining Nigerian Heritage. Pre-order the magazine at our 20 per cent advance discount, here.

Hausa society cannot be easily characterized as socially and culturally homogeneous. While the people of Hausaland—stretching from northern Nigeria to southern Niger Republic—share a common language and some customs, they have experienced different economic and political pressures. Today, the Hausa people are majorly Muslims. Nevertheless, Tsibbu magic remains a part of life in Hausaland. It is synonymous with acts that are super-human and involves consultations with spirits or stars in the sky for help and healing. Although Sunni Muslims shun Tsibbu, finding it at odds with Islam, many people still patronize the magic system. Tsibbu practices, as such, remain rooted within the fabrics of the practice of Islam.  

Hausaland has always found itself as a commercial centre linked to the rest of the world. Kano was a major route for the trans-Saharan trade, and today Kano air routes link Hausaland to Cairo in Egypt, Beirut in Lebanon, Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, Lagos in Nigeria, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, and London in the United Kingdom. Tsibbu found its roots within this commercial nerve as a form of medicinal trade, countering evil by intertwining with local rituals and words from the Quran. Today, you will find two kinds of Hausa people: those who believe in Hausa animism, magic and astrology, and those who consider it nonsense—un-Islamic and unscientific.  

Magic has long been part of the Hausa indigenous religion, even before Hausa people’s interaction with Islam between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This contact led to a blending of Hausa traditional belief systems with the Islamic practices introduced by visiting Arab traders. As such, Hausa people transitioned from worshipping spirits, stars, believing in superstitions and charms to embracing a monotheistic religion. However, the traditional healers, sorcerers, helpers and mediators—those who bridge the gap between humans and the spirit realm, the stars, or the gods beyond—found a way to remain relevant for those seeking solace for their troubles. The ‘Yan Tsibbu’ or ‘Sand Beaters’ are one group among these medicine men or traditional healers.  

THE SAND BEATER

In a city in the heart of northern Nigeria, a Sand Beater sits and waits for his first client as the sun emerges. His consultation room is situated outside his mud brick house, in a guest room with thatched or a single sheet of zinc roofing; the room is filled with black wooden slates, pieces of torn papers, quills and inks. He will know what the needs of his client are the moment that client steps through the door, without an exchange of conversation. The Sand Beater is a man of few words.  

He has sourced the finest of sand from the bed of the river in the town—fresh and pure sand that has not been contaminated with human contact and debaucheries. He will proceed to unwrap the fine grains of sand—tied inside a white cloth—as the client sits unrelaxed at the edge of the room. The Sand Beater places the cloth with the sand in it on the red-earth floor, and the client finally smiles, marvelling at the purity of the sand that will provide solution to his troubles. The Sand Beater faces East and crosses his legs, tucking them into his body, then recites his incantations: 

In bulo in bulo
Lan in gyal gwagyal 

He will proceed to draw signs on the sand with the index finger of his right hand.  

shop the republic

shop the republic

The Sand Beater will keep refreshing the sand with his right palm, and he draws a different sign or figure while muttering words under his breath until he is satisfied with his final sign. If the sign is a good omen, he will beam at the client and grant his wishes, whatever they are. The client leaves cash on the floor as alms for the Sand Beater and exits happy, like a child with a bowl of candy. If the sign is not a good omen, then a sacrifice must be made—a blood slaughter to appease the stars, gods or the spirits. The client will leave all the money he has on the floor for the Sand Beater to procure the necessary animals and items needed for the sacrifice.  

shop the republic

shop the republic

A PERFORMANCE OF TWO

A story is told of an event in 1988 at Bayero University Kano, where Ahmad Tahar Adamu, known as Baba Impossible, and Aliyu Muhammad Bunza engaged in an intense debate showcasing Hausa magic. This event was part of the activities for the Hausa week at the Department of Nigerian Languages and Linguistics. The packed hall for this demonstration had in attendance the former governor of Kano state during Nigeria’s second republic (1979–1983), Alhaji Abubakar Rimi. On one hand, there was Baba Impossible, a supporter of Hausa magic, and on the other, Bunza, a Sunni Muslim determined to debunk Hausa magical practices as nothing but trickery and deception. 

Bunza believes these magical practices involve misdirection that create an illusion and provide the audience with something else they can focus on. Throughout the demonstration, Baba Impossible displays his Hausa magical prowess to the cheering crowd, while Bunza debunks and demystifies them as nothing more than trickery that anyone can master with practise. Bunza believes that Hausa indigenous magic and medicine use various levels of misdirection to deceive their patronizers; he considers the practice an innovation, heresy, on Islam—a bidi’a. In contrast, Baba Impossible sees Hausa magic as an extension of religion, where faith and culture intertwine; he draws the power of the Hausa indigenous magic system from his own Islamic faith.  

Baba Impossible will perform feats like pulling ten nails from his nostrils, killing a bird only to revive it later, and conjuring a coin from an unsuspecting audience member. Each time, Bunza will unravel the secrets behind these tricks. The process repeats over and over to the delight of the crowd. Soon, Bunza is winning the debate on how Hausa magical systems do not differ from any illusion or magical trick all over the world. He insists that the indigenous Hausa medicine and magic system is nothing but trickery—until Baba Impossible decides to unveil his final act. 

shop the republic

shop the republic

THE FINAL ACT

The tale continues as such: For his final act, Baba Impossible requests that ten empty glass bottles of soft drinks be arranged on the stage of the hall at Bayero University Kano. Even his adversary, Bunza, is confused about what this magic trick will entail. Silence settles over the hall as curiosity hangs in the air, with breaths held in anticipation. Baba Impossible, satisfied with the arrangement of the bottles, turns to face the audience, talking directly to Governor Abubakar Rimi and his professors seated at the high table. For his final act, he announces, he will pace from one end of the arranged bottles to the other ten times.  On the tenth trip, he warns, anyone remaining in the hall will die. Bunza chuckles at the hilarity of the act and dares him to begin.  There is uneasy tension in the audience.  

Baba Impossible takes the first trip, a second trip, and a third. Some students at the back start trickling out of the hall. By the eighth trip, there are loud murmurs and visible anxiety in the audience. People continue to troop out while others stand by the doors and windows. After completing the ninth trip, as he embarks on the tenth, there is pandemonium in the hall as everyone dashes for the exits. There is no one on the high table either; even the former governor fears for his life.  As he takes to his heels, Baba Impossible’s professor orders him to stop.  

Baba Impossible obliges. He stops in the middle of the tenth and final trip, alone in an empty hall. The debate and demonstrations are over. Baba Impossible mutters, ‘Show me who does not believe in our indigenous Hausa magic again?’⎈

BUY THE MAGAZINE AND/OR THE COVER