''Baba of Karo'' is a 1954 book by the

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms an ...

Mary F. Smith.Judith Okel and Helen Callaway (eds)
''Anthropology and Autobiography''
Routledge, 1992, pp. 39–40. The book is an anthropological record of the

Hausa people The Hausa (Endonym, autonyms for singular: Bahaushe (male, m), Bahaushiya (female, f); plural: Hausawa and general: Hausa; exonyms: Ausa; Ajami script, Ajami: ) are the largest native ethnic group in Africa. They speak the Hausa language, which ...

, partly compiled from an oral account given by Baba (1877-1951), the daughter of a Hausa farmer and Koranic teacher. Baba's reports were translated by Smith.Mary F. Smith
''Baba of Karo: A Woman of the Muslim Hausa''
Yale University Press, 1981, 300 pp. Smith's husband, the anthropologist

M. G. Smith Michael Garfield Smith OM (18 August 1921 – 5 January 1993) was a Jamaican social anthropologist and poet of international repute. Biography Born in Kingston, Jamaica, M.G. Smith was always a brilliant scholar. When he was a schoolboy at J ...

, contributed an explanation of the Hausa's cultural context. The 1981 reissue of ''Baba of Karo'' contains a foreword by

Hilda Kuper Hilda Beemer Kuper (''née'' Beemer; 23 August 1911 – 23 April 1992) was a social anthropologist most notable for her extensive work on Swazi culture. Early life Born to Lithuanian Jewish and Austrian Jewish The history of the Jews in ...

. An extract from the book is included in the 1992 anthology ''

Daughters of Africa ''Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present'' is a compilation of orature and literature by more than 200 women from Africa and the African diaspora, ...

''.

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's youngest and first black female book publisherJazzmine Breary"Le ...

, "Baba", in ''Daughters of Africa'', Jonathan Cape, 1992,pp. 166–68. Baba of Karo's autobiography helped document Nigerian history through a woman's perspective. Not only does Baba depict her own experiences, but she tells stories of important women who were close to her. Recording these experiences was a great feat because Nigerian women were largely undocumented. Baba of Karo's autobiography covers many issues such as prostitution, childbirth, marriage, and life in the compounds in which she lived.

Precolonial life

Baba was born to a Hausa Muslim family in the small African town of Karo. Her birth took place in the 19th century, before Karo became part of the British Empire. Karo was an agrestic town where harvesting and agriculture were important. Before British rule, Hausa women could be found harvesting the fields. With capabilities to produce multiple goods, markets filled the streets and trade was a common practice. The compounds in which Hausa people lived told a lot about their social status, depending on the shape and how the compounds were partitioned. In precolonial Karo, kinships were distinctly bilateral where ties were traced through both parents who typically held equal social weight. However, Baba recalls marriage being virilocal and largely driven by polygamy. This meaning that married women would relocate to their husband's father's compounds.

Postcolonial life

Baba lived through the emancipation of slaves, although it did not seem to have much of an effect on her life. Power structures remained the same even after England's abolition of slavery. Additionally, the Hausa people's traditions, ideas, and social interactions momentarily remained unchanged. Baba recalled that gender roles were still enforced as boys followed their fathers in the fields and were taught to recite the Koran, while girls were taught how to cook and clean by their mothers. Although colonialism reached its peak during Baba's lifetime, the integration of new policies and ways of life weren't largely noticed until years later.

References

{{reflist 1954 non-fiction books Sociology books Hausa-language culture Faber and Faber books