Some of these were multipurpose interviews, mostly with informants associated with craft families whom I had interviewed on earlier occasions about craft industries. I was hopeful that I could insert questions about slavery into interviews on craft issues.

      My lead translator for the interviews was Suleiman Ajao. Also present at the interview was Busayo Simeon. For further information on them, see  3.1a Introductory information on the Lovejoy-Adesiyun materials. I discussed the interviews with both of them, in an effort to clarify/amend/add information, though I had only limited time in which to do this.

     In most cases, the formal interviews that I conducted were not tape recorded, for various reasons (see 8.1 Appendix 1: Notes on Decisions regarding Tape Recording of Interviews). In this series of interviews, one interview (that with Nafisatu) was partially taped, but taping had to be stopped, as I remember, when the interviewee withdrew her permission. Only one interview was taped in its entirety (that with Baba Magaji), and this enabled discussions and the production of detailed translations (of which one is extant, and is included here).

      The arrangements described above generally worked well, but from the translation of the taped interview by Suleiman Ajao I see that the long, complex answers produced in that interview proved particularly challenging to him.

     I include in this section background information on the interviews, and the text of the interviews, in translation.

At the end of this section, I append selected text from two interviews conducted by Suleiman Ajao on my behalf in late 1998 and early 1989.