"When I started my investigation of decorated houses in the walled city of Zaria in late 1976, it was above all to record the rapidly disappearing external wall decorations. Hence, the survey was perceived as a rescue operation to collect as many photographs and drawings as possible before these decorations disappeared altogether, and also to record vital information about them from compound heads living in decorated houses, and from the master craftsmen who created them. During an introductory stock-taking survey we listed nearly one thousand decorated houses. When I concluded the survey in...