The following is an abbreviated version of Löhr, D. 2003. The Malgwa - a historical overview and some ethnographic notes, Borno Museum Society Newsletter 56 & 57: 23-43. All sources can be found in Löhr 2002a.

The Malgwa are considered the original settlers of the northeastern region of Nigeria before Kanembu/Kanuri had migrated increasingly into the area in the 14th and 15th century from the eastern side of Lake Chad. In the course of time, the Kanembu/Kanuri dominated almost all the settled Chadic peoples, strengthened through political power and the introduction of Islam. The process of so-called "Kanurization" spread over a long period of time not without strong resistance of Chadic ethnic groups. Due to various reasons and exposed to multiple pressures, some Chadic-speaking peoples, over time, declared themselves being Kanuri and adopted the Kanuri language.
The, nowadays, seeming disappearance of the Malgwa is rooted in different reasons. In the nineteenth century, the travellers Gustav Nachtigal, who had visited the region in the 1870s, and Heinrich Berth, who had been in the area around 1851, described the region around Maiduguri – that is west of Dikwa and south of Ngumati – as "Province of the Gamerghu". The old Malgwa capital Muna, close to Maiduguri, had been abandoned beginning of the nineteenth century only, after its destruction by the Fulani. Instead the settlement Izge Kyewe, along River Yedzeram near Bama, became the new centre.
The history and language of the Malgwa was looked into in some projects of the terminated SFB 268 “West African savannah”, being a joint project of the Universities of Maiduguri and Frankfurt between 1989 and 2002.
At the end of the twentieth century, Kanuri itself is fighting the increasing influence Hausa is gaining as language of communication in Borno. A survey in Maiduguri about the spread of the Malgwa language showed an unexpectedly strong presence of Malgwa speakers (cf. Löhr 2002). In larger settlements such as Maiduguri, Damboa, Gwoza, or Bama, the Malgwa represent a visible portion of the multi-ethnic populations.

Despite speculations regarding the identity of the Malgwa, the close relationship between the Mandara and "Gamergu" has been undisputed. Barkindo (1989:66) states, "[T]he Wandala are composed of the Wandala proper together with elements of the related Gamergu, the Tsawa and Maya". He localises origin of some ethnic elements, which constitute the Wandala group in the north of the Mandara state. In his opinion, the Wandala belong to a "wider cluster of peoples who had been living to the South of Lake Chad for a very long time". Questionable though remains the hierarchy of the Mandara-Malgwa relationship. According to Palmer (1967, II:103), "the Mandara or Wandala [are] a ruling caste over a race called Gamergu, a name which is similar to Damergu". In another publication, he considers the Wandala having emerged from a "Gamergu layer".

Today's Malgwa settlement area is located in a triangle in Borno State between Maiduguri, Dikwa, and Bama with the alluvial sediments of River Yedzeram in its centre, flowing north through this area towards Lake Chad.. The language area further extends from Bama in a southerly direction via Pulka and Gwoza up to Madagali and the Mandara Mountains. South of Maiduguri-Bama road there are occasional Malgwa settlements in the Sambisa region. Likewise do Malgwa live along the road from Gwoza to Damboa. According to their own estimates, about 30.000 persons are Malgwa speakers.
The Malgwa are settled farmers but also fishermen. Periodically the riverbed dries up, cultivation of onions, groundnuts, and cotton dominates (irrigation farming). Malgwa settlement area encompasses part of the firki, a fertile clayey plain (vertisols) that is flooded during the rainy season leaving only a few sand islands uncovered. A certain planting technique of sorghum bicolour (masákwa) (vd. Zach et al. 1996) that has been documented for the last 150 years, these fertile soils allow a second harvest during the dry season.
Formerly they were known as hunters. Malgwa settlements consist of individual hamlets with few compounds only. Malgwa and Wandala settlements are scattered and look similar, for instance the thatched roofs and their shape. The Malgwa are patrilineally organised; their settlement sequences virilocal. Marriage relationships are of exogamous nature where Malgwa men predominantly marry Kanuri women who traditionally adopt the husband's language or learn it at least and may subsequently be termed "Malgwanised".
Crafts in the past have been hollowing out of calabashes, mat-making, rope-making, weaving, tailoring, shoe-making, smithing, and dying. A considerable part of these crafts are today either not entertained at all or only in negligible quantity. Today the following crafts are executed by men only: building, repairs of calabashes, carving, leather work, making of sleeping and fencing mats, pottery, sewing, iron smelting, smithing, as well as tanning. Malgwa women are responsible for dying, spinning, and beer-brewing. Women and men decorate calabashes and weave.
Contrary to rumours still prevailing in Borno about the "pagan" Malgwa, most have meanwhile become Muslims. Although they are considered "non-Islamic", a large number of Mandara and Malgwa had embraced Islam in the seventeenth century already.

Neighbours of the Malgwa
In the north and in the west, Malgwa share borders with several Kanuri groups (eg. Mowar). In the southeast they are neighbours of the Lamang (synonym: Waha), Glavda, and Mandara and in the east of Kanuri (Ngumati) and Kotoko. In the southwest they meet Margi and Mulgwe. Apart from villages where only Malgwa reside, there are many settlements with mixed populations especially in the border areas of their sphere of influence. Malgwa are living predominantly together with Kanuri but one finds them also often in communities together with Mulgwe and/or Margi. There are also some scattered Shuwa villages within the Malgwa settlement area. Often "twin settlements" are founded, two villages very close together where, ethnically divided, Malgwa are living in the one and Kanuri in the other (for instance Ngawuramari and Yale Garua, Ngarno and Gawa). Along the border to Cameroon and in Cameroon there are only a few Malgwa residing, however many Mandara (Wandala).
With the exception of Kanuri, who speak a Saharan language of the Nilo-Saharan language group and the Shuwa, who speak Shuwa Arabic, the Malgwa are living in Northeast Nigeria together with neighbours of other Central Chadic languages. West-Atlantic Fulbe, members of a third language phylum, have no influence on the Malgwa.

History
History of the Mandara Empire – and closely linked hereto the history of the Malgwa – cannot be summarised easily. Many contradictory sources have to be compared critically; often oral traditions are inconsistent and tainted differently, depending on author or ethnic group. The complexity of migrations in the region as well as switching alliances of the various peoples against enemies from within and outside is demonstrated in the following. Basically, history cannot be separated from oral traditions since one important function of oral history is the perpetuation of historical knowledge.

Early history (1000-1350)
The period since about 1000 AD is relevant for which is documented a migration of pottery-making, Chadic languages speaking groups into the drying sea bed of the Mega Chad. Before the second pre-Christian millennium already, semi-permanent settlements are known to have existed in the Bama area (with Rivers Yedzeram and Ngadda). Archaeological finds are documented, such as potsherds, bones, and stone tools that have been proved of having been imported from the Mandara Mountains (cf. Breunig and Neumann 1996). The area around Maiduguri and Bama had been populated certainly by ancestors of the Malgwa and is traditionally regarded the original settlement area of the Wandala, nucleus of the Wandala state, which was formed in Izga Kyewe. 300 B.C. the people had adapted to the stoneless plains already, importing grinding stones from the Mandara Mountains. With beginning of the Iron Age, better tilling of the clay soil firki became possible. In the twelfth century, the population of the firki region was in contact with the Mandara and participated in trade with Kanem.

The population of the region that today comprises the administrative unit Borno State, in the fourteenth century was composed of different, mainly Chadic-speaking peoples. According to oral traditions, the Kanembu subsumed these groups under the name "Sao". Thus they termed all people of different origin whom they met in their new settlement area, for instance the Malgwa, Kotoko, Maya, Ngizim, and Wandala. In the sixteenth century, Ibn Fartua distinguished between Sao-Talata and Sao-Ngafata on the one hand and "Gamergu" and Wandala on the other. Ibn Fartua lists groups such as Barbara, Ngizim, Maya, Badama, people from Yamta (= Pabir/Babur), and Makari who were not considered Sao-related though (cf. Barkindo 1989:34).


The Mandara Empire (1350 –to-date)
Beginning of the empire is assumed to be the thirteenth or fourteenth century. A Masa immigrant is said to have married Queen Sukda, who belonged to the Maya, and thus having founded the dynasty. Barkindo (1984:30) regards the foundation as result of coming together of various Chadic-speaking groups who gradually moved their settlements southwards to avoid pressures from the then recently established Saifawa state of Borno.
For the period before 1723 (the year of "official" Islamisation), historians refer to a list of 13 generations of the ruling dynasty, which can be traced back to the beginning of the empire. Idris Alooma's expeditions, around 1587, against the peoples of Borno and also the Mandara/Malgwa had been an attempt to weaken the Mandara/Malgwa as the numerically dominant group in the region. The Mandara convinced the Malgwa to resist in order strengthening their borders with Borno. Idris Alooma fought the Malgwa because they were not Muslims and represented an export factor as a potential source for slaves. Generally speaking, the sixteenth century was a period of vivid migration and movement of the population as well as of intense state formations of the Chadic-speaking peoples of the south and southwest of Borno from Mandara through Babur country to the Bolewa. Strengthening of the autochthonous population was politically dangerous for the Borno Caliphate, which exhausted itself in wars against the Songhai and Bulala. During Idris Alooma's reign (1969 – 1600) "pockets of resistance as represented by the original inhabitants of Borno" (Barkindo 1989:196) had survived, which could threaten the internal structure. The rebellion continued to simmer in the south.
Dissident groups such as the “Gamaghu” (= Malgwa) were contained by a series of ribats or frontier fortresses on the Borno side of the frontier and by alliances with the rulers of the nascent states of the Mandara and Pabir on the other. In the course of the seventeenth century, Borno consolidated her dominant position among the Islamic states of the region. The smaller states fought no open wars against Borno. After Idris Alooma's death, however, the state of Mandara gained strength and expanded.
Islamisation took place under King Bukar Aaji (1719 – 1743) in 1723/24. The so far sacred and aristocratic aspects showing kingdom changed gradually into a centralised state. In 1844, Mandara lost its influence because it relinquished its old succession rights. At the end of the 19th century, Rabih's invasion and plundering of the region, which lasted seven years (1893 – 1900), extended up to Mandara. Rabih attacked the capital Doulo and enslaved the sultan and those parts of the population that could not flee in time into the mountains or to Mora (today Cameroon). 1902 the kingdom fell under German colonial rule. In 1916, the region was partitioned into two; initially coming under French and British rule and since 1960 it belongs to the independent states of Nigeria and Cameroon. Two thirds of the Wandala live in Cameroon where they are still governed by a king, living in Mora, in co-operation with the central administration. Successive capitals of the Mandara Empire have been Kerawa, Doulo, and Mora.

Origin and settlement history
Historical sources on Mandara have always to be regarded in the context of oral traditions and migrations mentioned therein. But it is not possible to form a synthesis from these sometimes contradictory traditions. With regard to the direction of migrations, traditions vary according to the different groups. Some insist on origin "from the east", which either means the Mandara Mountains or Yemen. Other traditions suggest Mandara origin in the Chad Basin or the Malgwa area around Yedzeram respectively. Manner of split or separation of Mandara from Malgwa is unclear. Likewise unclear is identification and classification of Masa and also Sao – as purported in traditions – as semi-mythical ancestors of Malgwa/Mandara and many other peoples of the region. However, all traditions include hunter myths. In the following, a few oral traditions are presented.

Migration from the north
According to oral traditions, from the ninth century onwards the Malgwa settlement area was located further north than it is today, cf. Mohammadou (1975:82) who locates the “Moulgwa”, the ancestors of the Wandala between the river Yo (Komadugu Yobe) and the shores of lake Chad. The expanding Kanem-Borno Empire forced them to migrate into a southerly direction. The banks of River Yobe, where Birni Gazargamo had been founded, are deemed being urheimat of the Malgwa and Wandala. Descendants of two princes and brothers founded the Malgwa and the Wandala clans respectively. Nagarda founded Kamburwa, an important place in Wandala traditions; a second person, whose name we do not know, founded Ukava-Yale, located between Dikwa and Maiduguri. One of his descendants moved to Izga Kyewe, married there, refused to rule, and disappeared in a Kigelia aethiopica tree, which was subsequently declared sacred. Vossart (1953:28) reported that the "Gamergu" were almost extinct but that formerly they had occupied a large area along the Yedzeram from where they had been pushed south.
Mohammadou (1975:210 – 211, 227), who had consulted Arabic manuscripts for his study, agreed with the (Islamised) Wandala view according to which their society originated from a fusion of immigrants, the autochthonous Sao, and Maya who settled in the plains. The Sao population from south of Lake Chad had survived as "Gamergu", forming the nucleus of the Mandara population.
Hickey (1985:223) reports of the "So" who settled along Komadugu Yobe and fought the incoming Kanuri. Only Idris Alooma, after long wars, more or less subdued them in the sixteenth century. According to Hickey (1985:224), the following three groups descended from the Sao: Ngizim-Bade, Buduma-Kotoko, and Gamergu-Mandara. Latter were numerically and in their spread the strongest group that the Kanembu met.
Barth (1857-58, II:316) based on linguistic findings established connections between Wandala and Hausa thus deducing that formerly the Wandala have to be placed further north where they had been connected with the Hausa. In his opinion (ibid.:614) the Wandala are "a tribe, subdivided into several families living north of the Komadugu Yobe".
Another (yet doubtful) tradition purports Malgwa migration from the northern Tubu region. Nachtigal (1879) assumes that Wandala and Muniyo are descendants of the Tomegera, a Tubu branch. Tubu are believed to have been the first who moved south from Tibesti and who founded the state of Kanem. Nachtigal's argument is the Tubu translation of Kanem (prefix k- + ánEm 'south') as "land of the south". The Tomegera have been the first settlers of Kanem who moved further south to Borno. During his travels to the periphery of Borno in 1870, Nachtigal met Mandara in the south, Muniyo in the north and some in “Manga Province” among the Ngizim and Ngazir. According to Palmer, Mandara country had been governed by a Berber aristocracy called "Wann-dala" (dala = hill country in Mandara lands) or "Tumagari" respectively (= Tomegera) whose language was said to have been related to Kanuri. The Tomegera had come as Daju invasion from the Fitri and Dar Sila region to Mandara in the tenth century. Their ancestors have been Kin-din kel-Buram, Zaghawa, as well as Daju from Wadai and Darfur. However, Barkindo (1989) does not consider the Tomegera being Berber.

Migration from the east
This includes the unlikely hypothesis of a Coptic origin of the Mandara (with reference to the Mandara Chronicle). Ancestors of the Mandara kings are said to have been Himyarite Christians from Yemen (cf. Palmer 1967, II:96). This tradition is wide-spread in the Sudan (cf. Barkindo 1989:35).
A second tradition about a nearer eastern origin stems from the Malgwa of Gawa and Gwoza as well. They are speaking of three brothers who had come from the east (like the Wandala). The ancestors of the Gamergu/Malgwa are said to have come closer from the peak of Zaladiva in the western Mandara Mountains (cf. Barkindo 1989:35). According to oral traditions, the Malgwa moved southwest due to pressure from other groups. Earlier they lived in the area around Muna (north of Maiduguri); later, when Birni Gazargamo still existed (16th – 19th cent.), some moved into the Mandara region. However, few people moved north from the Mandara Mountains because the soil there is less fertile, thus making settlement conditions more difficult. Neither can River Yedzeram, a seasonal river, be regarded as acceptable reason for a migration to the north.
The struggle for dominance between Mandara and Malgwa forced the Mandara to retreat into the Mandara Mountains. The state of Mandara was founded there, which became a centre for iron and metal processing. Officer Clapperton visited the Mandara region in 1826, however, his notes are not very rich. He mentions stoneless "Bornow" into which grinding stones were brought from "Mandra & Soudan" (Lockhart 1996:119) as well as the fact that El-Kanemi had married a daughter of Mandara king Bukar Jama (abt. 1773 – 1829). For a long time Borno kept Mandara as a vassal state balanced with royal marriages.
According to Harford (1927) the Malgwa claim their origin from "Dalla, Dabba a high peak of the Mandara range". First groups settled at a certain place (urdan) on the northern and southern banks of Yedzeram. MacEachern (cf. 1991:179) too postulates Mandara origin from a mountain area and not from the plains.

Migration from the Masa area
Masa are living south-east of the Wandala. Nachtigal as well a Barth (1857-58, II:356), using linguistic evidence, declare the "Wandala, Gamergu, and the people of the Logone" as belonging to the Great nation of the “Massa”, which comprises the Kotoko or Makari, the people of Logon or Logone, the Mandara or UrWandala, with the Gamergu, and the large tribe of this Batta an probably even that of the Mbana.
Masa hunters came from the east under the leadership of Gaya (who had married the Wandala queen Sukda and founded a dynasty in Kerawa) whose brothers had remained in Kamburwa and Gawa. Coming from the east, Masa crossed the area of rivers Shari and Logone and separated afterwards. Some moved north. Oral traditions report about marriages between Masa and the Sao who were living in the north – the Kotoko are regarded their descendants. A second group founded the Masa and Musgu in the region between the rivers. The third group is also said to have entered into marriage relationship with the Sao but their ancestors are, according to oral traditions, the Mandara. Madziga (cf. 1976:64) believes that the Wandala kingdom consists partially of Masa. A small number of Masa immigrated into the Mandara area and married there. However, we have no proof for larger Masa migrations into the Mandara region between the thirteenth and sixteenth century.

Migration from the west
Von Duisburg (1927:193) assumes Mandara immigration from the west several centuries ago. According to oral traditions, the Wandala originate from the area around "Gúdjiba" (Gujba) and from there, before they moved to their present settlement area, spread out across the area where the Margi are living today. Only with time they reached the slopes of the Mandara Mountains. Wandala and, together with them, "the Gamerghú, who are related to them and speak the same language – only with a few dialectal differences" (cf. von Duisburg 1927:193) were pushed out of their old settlement places. This theory is highly disputed. According to yet other traditions by the same author, the Wandala met the Maja (= Maya) in the Mandara Mountains. "This group was partially destroyed and partially absorbed by the Wándala" (von Duisburg 1927:194). The ethnic groups "Walle" and "Disa" are speaking Wandala today, they are also said to belong to the Wandala.

Origin in Borno and subsequent partially movement into the Mandara mountains
According to Nachtigal (cf. 1889:417), the Kotoko are related to the Masa, "Gamergu/Wandala" and Buduma. He dates the beginning of the population's emigration from the Borno plains into the thirteenth century. Almost all ethnic groups are said to have reached their present areas in the fourteenth century. Also Barkindo (1989:66) assumes a Mandara emigration from the Borno region into the mountains:
[they] occupied the area surrounding Mandara ranges after breaking away from the main tribal group at Ishaga-Kewe (Izga Kyewe), first known truly Malgwa settlement as recorded by oral tradition. They originally inhabited large districts near the River Yedzeram whence they have been driven. They are a branch of the almost extinct Ma-Sa family and lived by raiding. They are a pagan, or semi-pagan people.”
Malgwa of the Bama district, from Meirambi and Yohomtake, regard Izga Kyewe their religious centre and the birth place of the state of Mandara. Annually after the harvest, the lazawa festival with wrestling and beer drinking is celebrated there.

The language of the Malgwa
The Malgwa speak a Central Chadic language that is located in the contact zone of three large language phylae: besides Afro-Asiatic with its many Chadic languages, Nilo-Saharan represented by Kanuri (a Saharan language), and the Niger-Congo language phylum into which falls Fulfulde (Atlantic). Shuwa Arabic also spoken in Borno belongs to the Semitic languages within the Afro-Asiatic phylum. The language has been in the centre of various studies by the author since 1995.

Selected Literature concerning the Malgwa
Löhr. D. 2004. (with D. Ibriszimow) Types, patterns and kinds of lexical distribution and their correlations. – In: Ibriszimow, D. & E. Rothmaler (eds.) Tesserae of Borno. In memoriam William Seidensticker. Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter 16: 26-50.
Löhr. D. 2004. (with Jungraithmayr, H. & R. Leger) „Westwärts zieht der Wind“. Migrationen im südlichen Tschadseegebiet. – In: Albert, K.D., D. Löhr & K. Neumann (eds.) Mensch und Natur in Westafrika. - Ergebnisse aus dem Sonderforschungsbereich "Kulturentwicklung und Sprachgeschichte im Naturraum Westafrikanische Savanne". 169-195. Weinheim: Wiley-VCH.
Löhr. D. 2003. The Malgwa - a historical overview and some ethnographic notes, Borno Museum Society Newsletter 56 & 57: 23-43.
Löhr, D. 2003. Locative-directional verbal extensions and prepositions in Malgwa. – In: K. K. Lébikaza (ed.) Actes du 3e Congrès Mondial de Linguistique Africaine Lomé 2000. (World Congress of African Linguistics vol. 3). Köln: Köppe. 189-206.
Löhr, D. 2002a. Die Sprache der Malgwa - Nárá Málgwa. Grammatische Erstbeschreibung einer zentraltschadischen Sprache Nordost-Nigerias. Research in African Studies, 6 Frankfurt: Peter Lang Verlag. 336 S.
Löhr, D. 2002b. Zur Genese des Perfekt II im Malgwa. – In: Schumann, Th., M. Reh, R. Kießling & L. Gerhardt (eds.) Aktuelle Forschungen zu afrikanischen Sprachen. Sprachwissenschaftliche Beiträge zum 14. Afrikanistentag in Hamburg, 11.-14. Oktober 2000. Köln: Köppe. 243-258.
Löhr, D. 2002c. The Malgwa in Maiduguri. – In: R. Kawka (ed.) From Bulamari to Yerwa to Metropolitan Maiduguri - Interdisciplinary Studies on the Capital of Borno. Köln: Köppe. 127-143.
Löhr, D. 2001. Masakwa from a linguistic point of view. – In: Kahlheber, S. & K. Neumann. (eds.) Man and environment in the West African Sahel - an interdisciplinary approach. - Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268, 17. Frankfurt. 85-103.
Löhr. D. 2001. (with Ibriszimow, D., R. Kawka, C. Mtaku, R. Vogels & I.M. Waziri). Historical implications of a linguistic environment – towards a systemic approach. – In: Proceedings of the International Symposium 1999. Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268, 14. Frankfurt. 179-190.
Löhr, D. 1999. Traces of a lost gender distinction? A Study of Malgwa (Central Chadic) zoonymes. Frankfurter Afrikanistische Blätter 11: 145-155.
Löhr, D. 1999. Die Sprache der Malgwa – Nárá Málgwa. Grammatische Erstbeschreibung einer zentraltschadischen Sprache Nordost-Nigerias. Inauguraldissertation im Fachbereich Ost- und Außereuropäische Sprach- und Kulturwissenschaften an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt. 320 S.
Löhr, D. 1998. Sprachkontakte bei den Malgwa (Gamergu) in Nordostnigeria. – In: Fiedler, I., C. Griefenow-Mewis & B. Reineke (eds.) Afrikanische Sprachen im Brennpunkt der Forschung. Linguistische Beiträge zum 12. Afrikanistentag Berlin, 3.-6. 10. 1996, Köln: Köppe. 251-269.
Löhr, D. 1996. (with Zach, B., Kirscht H. et al.) Masakwa dry season cropping in the Chad basin. In: SFB 268 (Hg.) Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereiches 268, Vorträge Internationales Symposium, Frankfurt/Main 13.12. - 16.12. 1995. S. 349-356. Frankfurt.
Löhr, D. 1996. (with Cyffer, N.; Platte, E.; Tijani, A.I.) Adaptation and delimitation. Some thoughts about the Kanurization of the Gamergu, in: Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereiches 268, Vorträge Internationales Symposium, Frankfurt/Main 13.12. - 16.12. 1995. Hg. SFB 268, S. 49-66. Frankfurt.
Löhr, D. 1995. Kanuri-Lehnwörter im geographischen Vokabular des Gamergu. In: Brunk, K. und U. Greinert-Byer (Hg.), Mensch und Natur in Westafrika. Eine interdisziplinäre Festschrift für Günter Nagel. Berichte des Sonderforschungsbereichs 268, Bd. 5, Frankfurt am Main. S. 243-250.

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