Tales of the Rimi

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and

November 17, 2024

Trees, big or small are greatly revered and respected in Northern Nigeria. The Hausa words for a tree are Tushi, Iche, or Bishiya. Trees form integral parts of the environment of villages and towns. Individual houses are often identified based on the type of tree grown in the compound. Also, they are used to mark off boundaries, borders, and demarcations separating lands from each other to avoid disputes and clashes over land ownership between families, clans, and villages.

Ceiba Pentandra is one of such trees that is held with reverence and respect in Northern Nigeria, particularly in Hausa culture. Ceiba Pentandra in Hausa is called Rimi (in English it's called Kapok) often mistakenly called Iroko tree too. The West African variant is called C. Pentandra var Guineensis. Rimi trees are very much grown in Northern Nigeria due to the Sahel and Savannah vegetation of the region. They grow in areas where there is little rainfall, scanty, and scattered across the terrain with grasses, shrubs, other trees, and plants around them.

Rimi is a tree that grows from its seed, usually naturally without being planted after its seeds are scattered around the bushes. The tree grows up to about 230 to 250 feet high, with large and wide branches and star-shaped leaves.

Rimi trees are useful for wood, making drums, carving statues, mortars, and pestles as well as their branches used as firewood. The pods of the Rimi tree which contains the seeds and some cotton material are also useful. The seeds are used for oil which is medicinal and the cotton is specially woven for headscarves and facial coverings.

Rimi trees are important, in that their heights and size help in giving identities to families, towns, or individuals. It is very common to see towns named Rimi or variations of Rimi in Northern Nigeria, due to the presence of the Rimi tree in that locality. There are many Ungwan Rimis in my native Kaduna State, notably Ungwan Rimi in Kaduna North Local Government area, where the city campus of Kaduna State University (KASU) and many other corporate offices as well as residential areas for the most influential people in Kaduna, are all situated.

Rimi trees are believed to house the spirits of long-dead ancestors or grandparents. It is also very common to see trees in Northern Nigeria being referred to with names like Rimin Gata, that is Gata's tree. The notion is that when these ancestors die, they are often buried close to these trees and their souls are infused into the trees, hence they are reincarnated into a new form, as trees. So felling of these trees comes with a heavy price, often banishment, heavy fines, or sacrifices to appease the said ancestor.

The trees that are said to contain the spirits of an ancestor are found to have spikes or thorns around them, thus preventing climbing. Also, the leaves of the trees have a dark shade of green, unlike other surrounding trees.

These trees are very important and sacred to Hausa animism beliefs of Maguzanci and Bori, with special priests devoted to the worship and care of these special trees. These beliefs are almost extinct today, however, due to the prevalence of Islam in Northern Nigeria and the influx of Fulani cultures with Hausa traditions in Northern Nigeria.