When Joan Riera (founder of Last Places) was studying Anthropology in the mid-1990s at Richmond University in London, he came across a rare book titled ‘The Dukkawa of Northwest Nigeria’. The author was the anthropologist Celsius Prazan, a pastor from Chicago who lived among several tribes of northwest Nigeria in the 1970s.
As today, Joan, was deeply interested in body modifications and vernacular architecture… Well, the Dukkawa had it all!
Until the 1980s, the Dukkawa practiced scarification and tattooing. The Dukkawa embellished their faces and bodies with sophisticated patterns and crating geometric forms depicting totemic animals such as the lizard. In addition, in the past they pierced the lower lips and sorted wooden plugs in the earlobes.
Do you want to meet the Dukkawa?
Join Ingetje Tadros on our next trip to Nigeria from 8 to 17 November 2024, during which you will be able to meet the Dukkawa, as well as other unknown tribal groups in the north of the country. Click here for all the details of the trip.
Today, the Dukkawa that we visit during the trips continue to file their teeth and, only in remote communities, facial and body tattoo is still being practiced. The process of Islamisation has accelerated in the last 10 years. Many Dukkawa have changed their Animist beliefs for the Muslim faith and practices. This has had a direct effect on their body and hairstyle, as well as on their dressing codes. It is rare to find bare-breasted women in markets, as it was common just a few years ago.
Despite these cultural changes, in our trips to Nigeria, we reach communities that still build beautiful decorated granaries. The older women still show the beautiful body tattoos once common in this part of northern Nigeria.
© Photographs by Jordi Zaragozà Anglès taken during a trip to Nigeria.
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