Population
Total People: 4 million (estimate)
Urban Percent: Niger approx 18%, Chad 50% (21 important villages)
In Niger: 455,000 (1985) Chad 100,000 (est. based on 93 census) Cameroon 65,000 (est.) Nigeria 3,000,000

General Description
They are a typical Saharan people - fairly dark skin with features of both Arab and negroid characteristics.

Language/Literacy Information
Adult literacy: 18% country percentage (Niger), the literacy rate amongst the Kanuri is probably lower.
Primary language: Kanuri
Second language: Hausa, Arabic or Fulfulde - Varies by country
Third language: French

Economics
Per capita income: Niger GNP US$269 (1987)
Occupations: They are mostly subsistence farmers with some small animals such as sheep and goats. They use oxen for ploughing and may have a horse or donkey for riding. Water carriers.
Income sources: Agriculture, trading of salt and dates in the oases. Land is the principal economic asset, though this is changing.
Products: Weaving, metalwork, dyeing, tanning.
Trade Partners: There are organised marketplaces in which agricultural produces and craft products are sold to surrounding people groups.
Modernisation/Utilities: More people are seeking individual advancement in trade, administration, politics, the civil service and in the acquisition of Western education.

Living Conditions/Community Development Status
Food: In ‘good’ years the people of this area live at bare subsistence level, but the country has gone through several severe famines over the last decades.
Shelter: They live in hamlets of three or four families, or in main towns in the area. Depending on the wealth of the people, they will have ‘banco’ (mud-brick) or stone houses.
Clothing: The men wear the jellaba with long cotton undertrousers, skull cap and turban. The women wear ankle length dresses covered with a very light colourful wrap called a ‘tobe’ or ‘voile’.
Health care: Life expectancy is 45 years (1987 Niger). There is one physicial for every 39,363 inhabitants and one hospital bed for every 1,800. There are hosipitals in the towns and sometimes dispensaries in the bigger villages. Although medical care is very cheap, it is still too expensive for many, especially if medicines need to be bought. Many also make use of traditional medicine.
Water supplies: 34% of the population has access to ‘safe’ water. Villages have wells, in the towns certain people ‘own’ a tap and sell water by the bucket.
Energy/Fuel: Firewood provides 85% of all energy, but in the barren area where the Kanuri live there is not much wood available.

Society
Family structures: Family life is ordered according to Islamic law with emphasis on the male head of the household. Polygamy is present, the men may marry up to 4 wives but the usual is 1 or 2. Divorce rates are high (nearly 80% of all marriages). The women usually have 10 to 15 children of whom only about 3 or 4 will probably reach marrying age. Descent groups are based upon the individual’s relations to the kin of his parents, with emphasis on the patrilineal line. Kanuri practice cousin marriage with virilocal residence (i.e. residence with or near the husband’s parents) and one in two marriages is polygamous. A person depends on his kinsmen, friends and political and economic patrons for help with his marriage. They give children to their namesake, who is like a godfather or godmother. The namesake may take them later.
Neighbour Relations: In the oases they trade with the Tuareg. Each autumn they are dependent on the caravans that bring them food and materials, and take their salt and dates to the cities.
Rule/Authority/Selection: The society is hierarchical , the Shehu being the highest political and religious authority and being most prominent in trade and other economic activities. The household or compound is the basic political unit, a number of households join to form a hamlet. With he exception of the shehu and the heads of households, heads of wards, hamlets and districts are appointed. The introduction of western-type education and indigenous governments produced new classes with non-traditional premises and aspirations.
Social habits/Groupings: There are two types of relationships that are significant in kinship, economic and political spheres: discipline-respect relationships (modelled on the father-son relationships) and shame-avoidance relationships demanding subdued and self-controlled behaviour (e.g. a junior must not speak until he is spoken to by his senior, nor can they eat together from the same bowl).
Judicial system/Trial punishment: In Niger the Kanuri come under the law of their country. Niger’s independent judicial system complrises four judicial bodies: the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court, the High Court, and the Court of State security. In Chad disputes are dealt with between parties concerned with the mediation of a representative of their ethnic group.
Crisis/Conflicts - History/Status: The Kanuri live in Niger, Chad, Nigeria and Cameroon and are these days divided by national borders, which is unnatural compared with life as it used to be. Niger became independent from France in 1960, and the Kanuri co-operate well with other people groups in their country.
Celebrations/Recreation: Islamic feasts.
Art forms: Dances
Media (Radio/TV/Newspapers /Films/Videos/Recordings): Niger 62 radio receivers and 3 TV sets per 1,000 inhabitants (1987)
Other: Although traditional economic organisation is changing, the household remains the economic and social unit, and the superior-subordinate relations within it have continued as a basis for maintaining the traditional society and its values.

Children/Youth
Education/Type of Schooling: In Niger, enrolment: Primary 37% male, 20% female; Secondary 6% (39 femailes per 100 males); University 53 sutudents per 100,000 (87). Primary teachers 1:38 students. The Kanuri have Quranic schools and are quite advanced in terms of formal education, compared to some of the neighbouring peoples.
Labour/Tasks: Young girls help thier mothers with chores and taking care of younger siblings. Boys may go to school and study.
Social practices: There are ritual and ceremonial practices marking the stages of the life cycle of the individual - birth, circumcision, puberty, marriage and death.
Problems: Infant mortality rate per 1,000 is 134 (in first year of life it is 88).
Greatest needs: Good health care
Other: The Kanuri have a much reduced rate of increase according to some sources due to the lower fecundity of the women but another reason could be the high incidence of infant mortality.

Religion
Religion: Almost 100% Muslim
Religious practices/ceremonies: Main Islamic holidays.
Redemptive Analogies/Bridges: Analogies common to Muslims.
Spiritual climate/Openess: Some of the spiritual practices are rooted in pagan practices, e.g. forms of ‘folk’ Islam, looking to seers, called ‘boka’ for help against evil spirits. Strict Muslims in this group don’t necessarily adhere to these sort of practices.

History of Christian Presence Amongst This People Group
SIM began outreach to this group in 1925. Some portions of scripture were published in 1949.

Current Church Development
Scriptures available: The Bible is available in second and third languages, and portions are available in Kanuri dialects.
Christian Radio: TWR
Recordings Available: Gospel Recordings, and others.
Attitude to Christian faith: It is foreign to them.

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