Sarikin Rafi

Overview

Sarikin Rafi governs lakes and rivers and is also addressed by names referring to large water, marshes, Daura and Timbuktu. An attributed account says he was created at Daura and nursed by Nana Arzikki, but his parentage is unknown. As a farmer and patron of rain-makers he benefits from water’s fertility; the text qualifies his rain power, saying he asks Allah to send it. He attempts to claim all river-watered land, but the other spirits exclude him from southern Hausaland and compensate him with territory west toward Timbuktu.

He is said to have led the Yan Riga before his cruelty caused Alhaji to replace him. In performance the representative yells, leaps, falls, alternately rests on each arm, strikes a wall and may rush into nearby water. Attendants therefore guard the well and persuade him to spare his human mount. When quieted he counts beads, receives a calabash, noses its water three times and withdraws after sneezing.

The book sometimes calls a fish-spearing representation Sarikin Masu and suggests that two spirits may be emerging from an earlier shared figure. That is an unresolved distinction within the witness, not two automatically duplicated profiles. Tremearne also admits that he cannot fully explain the opening cloth imagery of the spirit’s speech; his river analogy remains a conjecture.

Origins & earliest records

A. J. N. Tremearne reports interviews and ritual performances during four months in North Africa, alongside comparisons to Nigeria. His foreword credits local assistance and photography but these passages do not identify an individual speaker for every statement.

Records & interpretation

The Ban of the Bori, chapters XXI–XXII, complete selected account pp. 310–313; foreword pp. 13–14 and catalog publication date checked.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

1. 01

   The Ban of the Bori: Demons and Demon-Dancing in West and North Africa

   A. J. N. Tremearne, collector and colonial-era interpreter · 1914

   Chapters XXI–XXII, pp. 310–313; role descriptions, performed representation and attributed explanations.

Family, evolution & connections

Named water-spirit generations in Tremearne

Tremearne’s selected 1914 historical Bori notices, pp. 385–386.

Prose states Sarikin Rafi → Dodo Ibrahima → Dubabi; Ba-Kabba is expressly Dubabi’s full-sister. Ba-Kabba’s paternal branch follows the explicit full-sibling relation; no mother is named. Kadda and Baddo similarity is not converted into extra children. Rain and crocodile associations are performance/belief context, not zoological ancestry. These are attributed historical religious relationships, not biological phylogeny or a universal contemporary doctrine.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

1. Digitized historical ethnographic account with interviews and performance descriptionsTremearne — Sarikin RafiResearch access: 2026-10-05
2. Library catalog metadataInternet Archive catalog — The Ban of the BoriResearch access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

Araba represents Sarikin Rafi seated at the right of photograph38, 1914

The caption identifies Araba, seated on the right of the upright photograph, as Sarikin Rafi. He accompanies the prince and barber performance; this is a historical human representation rather than an illustration of a river spirit’s physical body.