Abstract
THE death on February 19 of Hanns Vischer has removed a notable and commanding figure from the sphere of African interests. Even his entry, more than forty years ago, into the political service of Northern Nigeria was in itself a notable event, for by birth he was a foreigner and his previous contact with Africa had been in the mission field; neither of which circumstances could in those early days be regarded as an 'open sesame' to the British Colonial Service. But there was that in Vischer's make-up before which all prejudice, British or African, melted like snow in the midday sun; and the reason was not far to seek. The Hausa people, quick at all times to detect the idiosyncrasies of their alien overlords, proclaimed the secret of his influence in two words. Throughout the country he was known as Dan Hausa ("Son of Hausa")—perhaps the most significant nickname ever conferred on a European in West Africa. It meant that in him the Hausas recognized, not only a man who possessed an extraordinary command of their delightful and expressive language, but also one whose affection for them was equalled by his insight into the innermost recesses of the African soul. It meant that they had, as it were, adopted him. One had only to watch him in his daily avocations in those early days to realize how completely at home he was with every class of society—whether he was engaged in grave deliberations with emirs, viziers and other high personages of the ruling hierarchy, or whether he was chaffing the hucksters at the market stalls as he rode through Kano city. No less revealing was it to see him in his own home pick up a native drum and, squatting on the floor, croon local Hausa songs to his own accompaniment. So inimitably did he do it that, if he had been hidden behind a screen, one would have said that an African musician had been engaged to entertain his guests.
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TOMLINSON, G. Sir Hanns Vischer, C.M.G., C.B.E.. Nature 155, 446–447 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155446a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155446a0