Kofyar people
Nigerian people
The Kofyar are a population in central Nigeria numbering over 180,000. After several anthropological studies, they provide good illustrations of how colonial authorities become unwittingly enmeshed in local politics; of sustainable subsistence agricultural production in crowded areas; of successful self-directed development of market-oriented agriculture; and of the use of "traditional" cultural resources to prosper in modern Nigeria.
Colonial history
The population known as the Kofyar actually comprises three different "tribes" as designated by British colonial officers: the Doemak (or Dimmuk), Merniang, and Kwalla. However the three groups have a common language, economic pattern, and origin myth, and had formed into a union called the Koffyer Federation in the 1940s; they have therefore been referred to as a single group by anthropologists.
When first encountered by early British colonial authorities, they lived in the rugged hills in the southeastern corner of the Jos Plateau and in settlements around the plateau base. Their subjugation by the British was largely non-violent until 1930, when a young Assistant District Officer named Barlow was killed in the hill village of Latok by a rock thrown at his head. After this the residents of Latok and neighboring villages were forced out of the hills and made to live on the plains below for nine years. In an award-winning study, anthropologist Robert Netting explained how Barlow had been unknowingly used in a local political dispute.
Culture and agriculture in the Kofyar homeland
Robert Netting began anthropological research with the Kofyar in the early 1960s. In the Kofyar homeland population densities were high, approaching 500/km² in many areas.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6425743. The Library of Congress control number is sh96002642. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930.
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This entry incorporates text from “Kofyar people” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.