Bori

Bori, also called Maguzanci or Hausa animism, is the traditional religion of the Hausa of West Africa, built on magic and the possession of mediums by spirits. Only part of the Hausa, mostly urban elites, had accepted Islam before the end of the eighteenth century, and the royal courts practised a mixture of the two. Women held powerful advisory roles as Bori priestesses.

Scholars of Islam in the early nineteenth century condemned this mixed faith, and the jihad of Usman dan Fodio around 1800, which founded the Sokoto Caliphate, used it as a reason to overthrow the Hausa sultanates. Bori was partly suppressed, but the possession rituals survived in refuge states such as Konni and Dogondutchi.