GENERAL.
THE NAME HAUSA.
The origin of the name Hausa has been the subject of some discussion. Leo Africanus, in his travels, in the first half of the sixteenth century, did not, apparently, know the name, for he says that the people of Katzena, Zanfara, &c., talked the language of Gober.
Ibn Batuta, the famous Arab traveller also mentions Gober in his travels (a.d. 1353).
In the translation of the "Tarikh es Sudan" (a history of the Songhai Empire in Arabic dating, from 1600 a.d.), we find the name Hausa (Haoussa) mentioned five times; the name was therefore well known at that time.
The country appears to have served as a shelter for fugitives from Songhai, and to have consisted of a number of independent tribes not worth while conquering, or perhaps too troublesome.
Barth suggests that the name Hausa may have originated from the northern tribes and be identical with Á'usa, by which name the Western Tuareg denote the country on the north side of the Niger near Timbuktu.
It is not impossible that the name is derived from the Arabic name for the Abyssinians, viz. حَبَش (Habbash), which would become Haushi.
