Makary

Makary was a Kotoko centre in the southern Lake Chad basin, among towns built along the rivers and floodplains of the lower Chari and Logone. Its ruler stood at the head of a group of neighbouring cities, including Goulfey, Afade and Wulki. Their fortified settlements formed part of a landscape of small kingdoms whose fortunes were closely tied to their powerful neighbour, Bornu.

The chronicler Ibn Furtu and the Italian geographer Lorenzo d'Anania both named Makary in their sixteenth-century accounts. In that century Bornu sought to recover its influence east of Lake Chad, while Shuwa Arab pastoralists moved into the region. These changes reshaped the politics of the Kotoko cities, whose rulers negotiated their position between Bornu and other powers of the basin.