THE FULANI ARE AN IMPORTANT AFRICAN POPULATION, numbering perhaps seven millions, widely distributed in the Western Sudan from Senegambia in the West to French Equatorial Africa in the East, with their main concentration in Senegambia, Upper Niger, Northern Nigeria, and the British and French Cameroons (Fig. I). They are known as Fula in Gambia and Sierra Leone; Fellah by the Arabs of the Western Sudan; Fellaata by the Kanuri and other peoples of the Chad Basin; Peuls by the French; and Fulbe in the German literature. Their own term for themselves is Fulbe (sing. Pullo) and their language Fulfulde. The British in Nigeria use the Hausa term Fulani, and this will be used here, since the information on which this paper was based was obtained in Northern Nigeria.' In Nigeria, the Fulani may be divided sociologically into four categories. First, the ruling dynasties of most of the Northern Nigerian Emirates, established during the Holy War of I804-30 (Hogben I930). Second, the settled Fulani, who fill a range of occupations in Northern Nigerian society - court officials, judges, scribes, entrepreneurs, farmers, and so on. Third, the semi-sedentary Fulani, who are primarily farmers, but who maintain herds of cattle for which pasture has to- be sought at a distance. Fourthly, the Pastoral Fulani (often called Bororo in the literature) who depend completely on their herds of zebu cattle for subsistence, and whose lives are tuned to continuous transhumance, migratory drift, and periodic migration. This last element of the Fulani population, and the various kinds of movement which it practises, are the subject of this paper. The observations of which it mainly consists are based upon field data obtained among the Wodaabe and Wewedbe of West Bornu; the Wewedbe of Pankshin Division, Plateau Province; and the Wewedbe of South Katsina. These are three areas which exhibit significant geographical and historical variations (Fig. i). It is pertinent to give first a brief account of the major forms of social grouping in Pastoral Fulani society. The basic residential and economic unit is the family, moving its few domestic belongings on pack animals with the herd whenever it is moved to new pastures. The family consists of a man, his wife or wives, and dependent children. It is sometimes augmented by other dependents - hirelings and, formerly, slaves; aged parents of the male household head; and some others. Ownership of the herd is vested in the male household head. He has full rights of slaughter, sale, and deployment of cattle in the herd, and is responsible for its fertility-by rational as well as magical means. His sons are his herdboys, and they receive cattle from their father's herd with which to start their own herds on marriage. There is no bridewealth in first marriages, and no bride-wealth in the form of cattle in subsequent marriages. The household head's wife or wives have milking rights in all or a part of the herd. Assisted