In Ghana, the Hausa word zango, a camp or place where caravans halt, became zongo, the name for the quarter of Muslim strangers, mostly from the north and from Hausaland, in towns such as Accra and Kumasi. Hausa traders came to the Asante and Gold Coast markets in the nineteenth century, and the trade in kola from the forest to the north was a major link (see the chapter on Trade).
Enid Schildkrout’s study People of the Zongo (1978), based on Kumasi, shows that zongos became home to many ethnic groups who were often called or called themselves Hausa for reasons of trade, religion and language. Hausa became the language of the zongo, and a Ghanaian variety of Hausa, Gaananci, developed. Zongos remain important in Ghana, and today the word refers to Muslim neighbourhoods more widely, not only Hausa ones.
Sources for this article
- Schildkrout 1978, whole work
- Lovejoy 1978, article on the Wangara and kola trade