Badge of the week ~ Tagour Provincial Club, Niger

Tagour190

In the province of Tagour there used to be a lot of sword fights. People are notoriously quick to anger in this area and the preferred way to express oneself negatively was, traditionally, the sword. In 1892 there were 240 sword fights recorded in the district, the most frequent causes of which were taken down by the local government statistician as:

Complainant felt wife was insulted.
Complainant felt mother was insulted.
Complainant felt uncle was insulted. Complainant had always been close to his uncle.
Complainant had a lot going on at home and didn’t need a complete stranger remarking on the smallness of his head.

Finally a law was passed in 1908 that forbade sword fights for any other reason than that the two protagonists were violent and excitable men. Nowadays the most popular way of resolving an argument in Tagour is either to debate the matter in front of a peripatetic judge or a wet towel fight. Cameron Carter