HISTORY OF HIGGI
The Origin of Higgi people remain obscured and controversial. The Higgis myths of origin are many and varied. One of the legends trace the origin of Higgis from the Nubian region, according to this, insecurity made the Higgi flee to the Chadian region where they settled for a very long time. they were victims of mai wars of kanembu or kanem Borno Empire. This then forced them to move further to a safer place namely the Madara Mountains. There, they set up a ruling dynasty at Sukur on the hills of Madagali. today, they trace family ties with various tribes in Gwoza and Madagali local government areas of Adamawa state. when tactically looked into, we can safely conclude that the Higgi ancestors left their place of origin as a result of dynastic feud. of the myth of origin among the Higgi, one stands up to the test of socio-historical analysis. this myth holds that the ancestors of the Higgis, Jabaniand Pulthlumu, were originally from the famous "Nchokili" to "Sukwe" (Sukur) a place somewhere in the present day Cameroon Republic.
According to this myth, the chief of Sukur had many sons, and because the subject people respected and intended to have one of the two last princes as their next chief, the elder princes conspired to kill them. on hearing of this plot, both Jabani and Pulthlumuescaped to establish their own dynasties with their followers, over distant people, who were the first generaion of the people known taday as the Higgi.one would have characterised. them as nomadic as their migration seemed unending. these two moved toMugodi. After some time, they left Mugodi for Ghum nzwa which was not so good and favourable to them. that triggered off their transit to Kamale. They did not stay there long. as they were about leaving kamale, one of their wives went into labour. that did not however hamper their movement. Jabani left behind pulthlumu with some group of persons to see her through, after which they were to catch up with the rest, since fresh leaves were going to be dropped on whatever path they followed as sign of direction to follow. Those left behind tried tracing them, but gave up along the line. Having left kamale. Jabani moved successively to Sine, ghye, Nkafamiya, then finally settled at Mukafachita among the kashafala and kamitifu he conquered. At the same time, Pulthlumu moved successively from kamale to Futu, Tili, Chikae, Vi then finally settled at Mukulo on the mountain overlooking present-day Ndakwa (Bazza) town.
Two sets of people seemed to have been living already at Mukulo before the coming of the Higgi people. They were the Ka'uba, popularly known as Kilba, who are found mostly in Hong local government area of adamawa state today, and Ka'kirghe, that is the Kirya people living behind Betso today, adjacent the present day Bazza town. With the coming of the Higgis to Mukulo Mountains however, these two left. A tradition holds that the Ka'uba sowed their gunea corn but did not wait for it to germinate before they let for a better place at Pela Mountains. these two have their place of worship and rituals on the Mukulo Mountains till today.
The movement from one settelement to the other was motivated by the quest for a secure and fertile land where they could live peacefully and prosperously. To illustrate the point, when Jabani moved from Kamale to Ghye and finally to the hilly plains of the present day Michika, he was looking for a place where, first, he would be inaccessible to his brothers who wanted to kill him. Secondly, he was looking for a place that was fertile enough to sustain him and his followers. Similarly puthlumu moved through all the stages mentioned, in search of the same type of landscape, which he finally got at Mukulo.
From this account, we see some universal elements in human myths of origin. in the first place, because of dynastic feud of one type or the other, an element common to such myths, the weaker princes had to escape to form ruling dynastic in faraway places. Like any other people's myths of origin, the direction which the escapees followed, was not only determined by security purposes but by many other factors e.g fertility of land, availability of water and place of worship. As regards place of worship, we see that among other things, these people choose Michika and Bazza probably because they were and still are at the foothills of two of the highest peaks of the Mandara Mountain range, the Hundou and Mukulo at Michika and Bazza respectively. Furthermore, puthlumu left Futu primarily because the environment was too rocky hence was not fertile enough to sustain him and his people. Finally, when these princes settled, through peaceful means or conquest, they established ruling dynasties.
In addition, twelve grand parents have so far existed from "Nchokili" to this day Chronologically, puthlumu, Jabani, Bethlem, Huabaratua, Surotike, Keneva, Hwoala, Dzo-dzo, Kuje, Tsakma, Wanduma and vandu Tsanamao. Even though, today it would seem as if Nkafa and Dakwa are the two major communities in Higgi land, there are at least eight or nine district dialects of Higgi further broken into sub-dialects. In Nigeria, Nkafa has become the central dialect, which can be understood to some extent by the other subgroups. In the camaroon they are known as Kapsiki.
To conclude the section on the origin of Higgi people, it will be relevant for us to know why they are called Higgis. The Margi people who, according to Kirk-Green were invaded and driven away from the East by the Higgi who eventually occupied the central Massifs of the Mandara range, up to the western scope and gave their invaders the name Higgi. The term Higgi, meaning ab-originals was conffered on them by the Marghi and was adopted by the Fulani in the form of Hiji. The people themselves, though using the word prefers to be known as Kakhuma (Kamwe) or people of the hill. Because they lived on top of the Mountain. Their houses were constructed, arranged and build with stones, which they called "Pyeh".The name Higgi giving by neighbouring tribe Marghi derived from the word " Hagi" meaning grasshopper which was symbolic of the word of these invaders.
Just like the descent of the Higgi, Michika from Nkafamiya, led by Kwada was later named Kwada Kwaka (meaning Kwada on the plain land of Michika) and the Michika i.e "Mwechika" which means a hill of careful and silent steps approaching a prey. The descent Higgi Dakwa and Society ruling dynasty at mukulo, finally moved away to the plain after the arrest and subsequent exile to Yola of hammayaji and other prominent Fulani namely Garga, Ngida and Bekere, his brother, their father, and the chief of Mubi who posed a tremedous threat to the life, peace and freedom of the Higgi people by the British.
RELIGION
The Kamwe was religion conscious perior to their migration to Sukur. They perform their worship through a method called "Mirie", Kamwe was prepared to have a change in their method of guide to embrass the new religion-Islam of their neighbours the Fulani, but their undemocratic approach and their hatred for a non-Muslim forced the Kamwe to resist Islam is the late eighteen centuaries and when Christianity came with an open hand between 1945-1950, the large Kamwe population welcome and accepted it on the bases of the simplicity and the democratic approach of the Christian preachers.
