Consanguineous marriage among the Fulani

The Fulani are a broad ethnic category of nomadic and seminomadic pastorali sts and agropastoralists living in the semiarid Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. The Fulani are patrilineal, patrilocal, and moderately polygynous, with arranged first marriages accompanied by the payment of bridewealth, i deally in the form of cattle. Consanguineous marriage is frequent, with fir st or second cousin marriage preferred. In this paper we present data on le vels of consanguineous marriage among the Fulani of northern Burkina Faso a nd test the hypothesis that inbreeding may be more frequent when there is a scarcity of cattle available, since bridewealth demands are thought to be reduced with close-kin marriage. Among 308 women's marriages, 203 (65.8%) w ere between kin up to and including second cousins, and 102 (33.1%) were be tween nonkin. Among 276 men's marriages, 196 (71.0%) were between kin up to and including second cousins, and 77 (27.9%) were between nonkin. The mean population inbreeding coefficient (a) was 0.0355 for women, and 0.0374 for men. No increase was found in population levels of inbreeding estimated fr om marriages contracted after the droughts of 1973 and 1984, which drastica lly reduced the Fulani's cattle stocks. However, a significantly higher rat e of consanguineous marriage was found in families owning the fewest cattle .