Paper short abstract:

During colonial times, Zarma men sought work in Ghana. They were following the tracks of the warrior ancestors who used to raid there (19th). Women sing these men seeking wealth, but also their own loneliness. I will thus analyze, in light of these songs, the ambiguous representations of migration.

Paper long abstract:

In colonial times, the Zarma went to Gold Coast (Ghana) to earn money they needed to pay the many taxes.They followed the track of their warrior ancestors who, in the late nineteenth century, had scoured the area; Babatou, the most famous among them, is celebrated by the griot genealogists and in a film by Jean Rouch. According to Rouch (1955), this trip was then a test of initiation.

Thenceforth the Zarma have kept on leaving home to move to coastal countries and the man who today stays put in the village is often frowned upon by his peers. Unless he is wealthy, his authority decreases; as Bonkaano, a resident in a Zarma village, so aptly tells me: " All the men migrate, only women and the old remain in the village. So if I have nothing and I'm not leaving, I'm not a man. "

The South-South migration is therefore a part of a long history; it marks the Zarma social landscape. The character of the migrant emerges in the narrations of griots and historians and in songs by young girls as well as married women; the latter now praise the migrant who gives them a better social status while regretting his absence when he is slow to come back. It is mainly in reference to these women's songs that I propose to examine the ambiguous figure of the migrant, sometimes praised for what he offers on his return, sometimes wanted back because separation gets to be too long and quieter.