Endangered Rituals of Fulɓe Marriage in Sokoto State

Abstract

This research work looks at marriage rituals in some selected Fulɓe local governments in Sokoto with a view to study both the language and material rites involved in the entire process of Fulɓe marriage in the study area. The problem is the gradual adaptation of the culture of the dominant environment. This process leads to substitutions of both internal and external culture of the endangered language in favour of the dominant language. Two sampling techniques were used in this study - Stratified and Snowball Purposive sampling techniques. Stratified sampling was used to sample six local government out of the twenty-three local governments in the state. While Snowball purposive sampling was employed to sample the participants from each of the selected local governments. The study has 120 participants as a sample size. Ethnographic research method was employed for the study as a research design. Two research questions were asked based on the objectives of the study. An open-ended Structured Questionnaire tagged Fulɓe Marriage Rituals Inventory was used to interview each of the 120 respondents individually. Descriptive data analysis was employed to answer the research questions both quantitatively and qualitatively. The study finds out that there are certain non-linguistic rituals that are endangered due to the influence of modernity and cross breeding. In view of these findings, the study recommends that there is need to investigate the possible revival of the endangered non-linguistic aspect of Fulɓe marriage in the study area that include chodiri, sharo, fijoji and doggal.