Inside Ramatu Zanna Mustapha’s house, the air is cloudy with burning incense. The earthy, smoky scent of gabgab floats through the rooms, settling on the walls and furniture.
Ms. Mustapha also dabs gabgab, a fragrance made from aromatic woods and burned sugar, directly on her skin several times a day. “My husband loves it, and it makes him want to live the rest of his life with me,” explains the 40-something mother of eight. But for Ms. Mustapha, the scent’s significance runs even deeper than romance.
A centuries-old tradition, gabgab is something she and many other women here consider an integral part of who they are – “what identifies us as Borno women everywhere we go,” she says.
Why We Wrote This
War upends ordinary life in ways large and small. In northern Nigeria, the Boko Haram insurgency has threatened a centuries-old perfume-making tradition. But some are putting their lives at risk to save it.
But recently, this aspect of their identity has come under threat. The Islamist insurgent group Boko Haram roams the northeastern Nigerian forests where gabgab trees grow, making the wood’s collection extremely dangerous.
Only a few brave perfume-makers dare to continue.
“If we don’t go, we risk losing the tradition entirely,” says Muktar Alhaji Bukar. “We want to ensure that these scents that keep families together aren’t erased.”
A sweet history
Mr. Bukar comes from a long lineage of gabgab-makers, a profession whose history stretches back centuries, to when northeastern Nigeria was part of Kanem-Bornu, a vast empire stretching across north and central Africa. Camel caravans passing through the trade city of Maiduguri brought aromatic resins and the knowledge of how to turn them into perfume. Locals soon began making their own version with gabgab, or coral trees.
