Case file · Folklore / legend
The Hauka: possessed by colonial officers
In the mid-1920s a possession movement, the Hauka, appeared among Songhay and Zarma people in French Niger: adepts went into trance as spirits of colonial governors, soldiers and doctors.
1925 CE · 14.35, 3.32 · status: account
The account
Mediums marched, saluted and barked orders in mock French. Colonial officials around Filingué jailed adepts, and the officer who did so is said to have become a Hauka spirit himself. The movement spread with migrants to the Gold Coast.
The sceptical view
Anthropologists read the Hauka as mimetic resistance and a way of taking hold of colonial power, not simply mockery.