Special Report (Investigative Journalism): Machina: A Historical Kingdom In The Lake Chad Region Where Snakes Are Revered As Royals
By Babagana B. Kamba 20th October, 2022
Machina is the headquarters of Machina Local Government Area as well as the seat of the historical Machina Emirate in northern parts of Yobe State sharing border with Niger Republic. Snakes are reptiles that are generally caring to most humans, but in Machina Emirate snakes are revered and their killing is strongly discouraged. Machina, the oasis town surrounded by rocky-desert is a perfect description of an oasis in the middle of the desert where nature lives in harmony with humans.
An oasis is usually a fertile depression in a desert where water can be found. There is a popular related eulogy for the town in Kanuri language, ‘Machina kirbi kau-wa’, loosely translated to mean ‘Machina is a water drawing bucket that is full of rocks’. Traditionally, people usually use a pohra or bucket (guga in Hausa, kirbi in Kanuri) to draw water from a well. So, because Machina is a desert town that lies on a water-logged rocky soil, it is metaphorically described as ‘kirbi’, meaning ‘a pohra,’ or ‘water-drawing bucket’ and ‘kau-wa’, meaning ‘the place that has rocks’
In Machina Emirate, it is believed that royal blood runs in the snakes’ veins. In fact, the snakes loyally and consistently pay homage to the Mai Machinama’s Palace, where their ancestor was born, together with one of their ancestral kings, as twins. Mai is a Kanuri word which means ‘a king’ while ‘machinama’ can loosely be translated as ‘the monarch of Machina’; however, it literally means ‘the owner of Machina.’ Like in most areas of northern Yobe State, the Manga variant of Kanuri language is predominantly spoken in Machina.
According to history, a queen gave birth to twins in the palace, a human being and a snake. Being a snake, it couldn’t stay long with its mother, thus, it found its way into the rocks behind the emir’s palace. It is said that its descendants still enjoy all the privileges that come with royalty.
It is also believed that, just like the Machina Emirate, the forebear of the snake procreated kings, queens and princesses that were of equal status with their relatives in the kingdom.
Confirming the legendary story, the Emir of Machina (or Mai Machinama), His Royal Highness Dr. Bashir Albishir Bukar, OON, said the snake started its generation like regular human family immediately after it went into the rocks. “Since then, their lineage has continued, just like human beings. I am the 77th Mai Machinama. So, there must be one snake that has attained the same position in their kingdom”, His Royal Highness says.
The Emir further revealed that during his father’s installation as emir, many snakes came out and gathered at the Palace’s entrance and socialised with people without causing any harm to anyone. He recalled an instance of a mysterious encounter the snakes had with a media crew that came to cover the event in the Palace. Out of curiosity, some of the journalists attempted to photograph the snakes, but any moment they focused their cameras on the snakes, the snakes got out of sight mysteriously. “After many futile attempts, they [the journalists] all gave up and went back with miraculous stories to tell. It is only by our acceptance that one can get their pictures. Our children snapped pictures of the snakes within the palace because they consider them as their brothers”, the Emir added.
Speaking on how they relate with the snakes, His Royal Highness Emir Bashir Albashir Bukar Machinama said they “occasionally come together as a family to share moments of happiness or sorrow. When I was turbaned, there were old snakes at the occasion, just like the young ones usually come to the palace whenever my wives are giving birth. So, we are doing everything together with them in this palace”, he maintained.
“When I married my younger wife,” the Emir reveals, “a snake came to the house and spent more than a week. The guests were afraid, but I assured them that it would not harm anybody. In the morning, it would come out and spread itself on the wall, then varnish in the afternoon. It would do the same thing in the evening and varnish. Initially, my bride was afraid, but she later became used to it. So, the snakes are our brothers; they don’t harm anybody in Machina.
“As I sit here, a snake could come and curl under my chair. I feel happy seeing them around. But each time I see them around, I will pray and hope it’s for good because something will definitely happen. Whenever my wives are about giving birth, you will see the young snakes coming out, a sign that something is going to happen,” the Emir said.
In fact, one of the courtiers in the Palace disclosed that one of the Princes usually sleeps in the same bed with a snake. “Each time he goes to sleep and finds a snake in his bed, he would just push it aside and sleep beside it,” the courtier added.
Furthermore, in Machina Emirate, killing of snakes is forbidden because they are considered as having royal blood running in them. The snakes don’t harm anyone; however, they retaliate when someone tries to harm them.
The Emir of Machina gave many instances when people disobeyed the snake protection law of the Emirate and went berserk and persecuted the snakes but they eventually paid dearly with their lives. It has become a norm in Machina that every visitor must be lectured that snakes are not harmful and must not be harmed.
The Emir cited three examples regarding that issue, “A snake charmer once came to Machina. One night, a snake came out and his men went berserk shouting. Local people told him and his men to ignore the snake that it would go its own way. But the snake charmer insisted that it was a dangerous creature so, he attempted to kill it. He haughtily thought that as a snake charmer, he had the magic spell to do whatever he wanted with the snake. As he pursued the snake, making attempts to step on it, it angrily reacted and attacked him. Thereupon, he was rushed to his master’s house to get an anti-venom medicine, but he eventually died in toilet while preparing to bathe with the anti-venom concoction. Sadly, however, the snake also died.
Emir Bashir Albashir Bukar told another story of a truck driver’s encounter with a Machina snake. He narrated that “a truck driver from another town who came to Machina to drive my father’s truck. He came with his only wife but married a second one in this place. One evening, a snake came into their house and the first wife, who is not from Machina, screamed ‘Snake! Snake!’ Her husband rushed in from outside their home looking for the snake, but his second wife who is from Machina told them not to bother, saying that it would leave without harming anybody.
“But the two women’s husband said that he would not stay with a dangerous creature in the house. The first wife spotted a hole where the snake hid and she boiled water and helped her husband to pour the boiled water into the hole. Mysteriously, the woman, who had been pregnant when she helped her husband pour boiled water into the snake’s hole gave birth to a baby girl with features of a snake. She used to crawl like a snake. I knew the girl when I was young; if you hear her speak, you would think she was a complete human being, but if you see her, she was just terrible. She couldn’t walk; so, her parents used to carry her in a basin until she grew up to the age of 18 when she died,” the Emir narrated.
His Royal Highness the Emir further narrated that his father had a farm nearby. “So, servants and other people in the community would normally go there to help him to clear it when planting season approached. One day, a snake came out and people began screaming. As the snake crawled along the way, a stubborn young man killed and threw it away on an anthill.
“You know, during the onset of the rainy season, ants usually come out in large numbers with grains. As the man threw the snake on the anthill, surprisingly, all the ants went back into their holes and none of them came out again. In the evening of that day, the young man’s house became filled with snakes.
Unfortunately, the man metamorphosed into a snake-like creature and started crawling, hissing and became terribly sick. Later, the young man was taken to the Emir’s Palace where clerics had been gathered. They prayed upon him and he survived and got well. But it became a seasonal sickness from which he suffered until his death. These are just few examples I can give. That is why we don’t kill snakes here,” he added.
Responding to a question whether he had ever played with or eaten the snakes, Emir Bashir Albashir Bukar said, “Sometimes I personally rescue them, especially when they fall into a ditch. But my son used to tell me that sometimes he would sleep with a snake in the same bed. In the past, there was a place we used to put milk for them; and if we slaughtered sacrificial [during Eid festivals], we throw piece of the meat around the area, believing that they would use it. But we don’t eat or play that much with them,” he explained.
When asked if there was any form of provocation between them and the snakes at any time, the Emir said, “No. But there was a time when the perimeter fence of the Palace collapsed, and in the course of rebuilding it, they forgot to leave a hole where the snakes would use as passage into the Palace. An hour later, the wall collapsed; they rebuilt it and the concrete wall collapsed again. Then one of the courtiers observed that a crevice that the snakes were using to enter into the Palace was blocked, reasoning that it could have been the reason for the collapse of the wall repeatedly. So, while rebuilding the wall, some holes were made in it for the snakes. Ever since, the wall stands and never collapsed again”, the Emir narrated.
The snakes are indeed royal. These snakes suffer no extinction threat from any human action or inaction. In fact, a peep into the rocky hills where the royal snakes have lived for centuries is a beautiful scene to behold.
Ideal times for visiting Machina to enjoy what the oasis town offers as tourism ‘candies’ include during the rains, preferably from July to October – when the sky is beautifully adorned with drifting mountains of snow-white clouds contrasting with the azure background of the blue sky and the earth is covered with natural green grass carpet. Another time worth visiting Machina as a tourist is during the harmattan winter (after farm produces are harvested); that is the time when the famous Machina Annual Cultural Festival (MACUF) takes place. MACUF is an international festival which features series of cultural events including traditional wrestling competition, durbar horse-riding carnival and a host of others. Indeed, Machina is a tourist attraction like no other.
The project is carrying out under the Collaborative Media Engagement for Development, Inclusivity and Accountability Project, an initiative of the Wole Soyinka Centre for Investigative Journalism (WSCIJ), supported by the MacArthur Foundation.
