TUAREG BOYS OF BAGUEZAN MOUNTAINS.
“ATAGOOM,” A TUAREG NATIVE OF AÏR IN TYPICAL DRESS.
The women wear loose cotton garb swathed about them, but, being of diminutive stature, they seldom bear anything of the native gracefulness which is often associated with the men, many of whom have more than ordinary vanity as to their appearance and carry themselves accordingly. The women are much given to wearing bright coloured cottons, and sometimes the effect in sombre surroundings is very pleasant. For ornament the women principally wear bangles both on the wrists and above the elbows, necklaces to which one or more charm is attached, and earrings.
With regard to the wealth of the natives, I think it may safely be said that they are a poor people, if we except one or two chiefs who possibly have fair means. The wealthiest individual that I questioned on this matter was a native of Timia, who possessed thirty camels, which, if valued at £12 a piece—which is a fair average price—would place his total wealth at £360. But the property of the ordinary native of Aïr is usually comprised of one or two camels and a number of goats, ranging from herds of five to thirty according to their means. The camels, besides being the means of transporting private stores of grain from the south, bring in a certain ready-cash return (usually about two francs per camel per day) when hired by traders or military authorities to make up a caravan journey to Hausaland or elsewhere. The goat-herds furnish milk, which is a staple food among the Tuaregs—liquid or in the form of cheese; while male animals are butchered from time to time, the meat eaten, and the hides turned to domestic use or sold.
The Tuaregs of Aïr appear to be a fairly healthy race, but the women do not bear large families, and I am told that there is a good deal of inbreeding wherever there are small local settlements. Outside of Agades there is no European doctor (at Agades there is a doctor, the only one north of Zinder), and the country would benefit greatly if it could support an adequate medical staff.
The language of the Tuaregs, which they call Tamāshack (Temashight and Tarkiye: Barth), is much more difficult to learn than Hausa, and is spoken in a peculiar rapid-running fashion, which makes it very difficult to grasp the distinct sounding of the vowels. Tuareg voices are often pleasantly soft and musical.
I have remarked with interest that tree names and the names of birds and animals are well-known to almost all the natives, even boys at an early age having much knowledge of the nature about them. How many of us at home can name all the trees and birds of the common roadside? But then we are really an indoor, over-civilised people, while those natives of the outdoors must know Nature and something of her secrets, since she provides their livelihood: food, building material, ropes, saddlery, leather, clothing, dyes, medicines, even luxuries—all that is essential to man’s needs, the Tuareg harvests from his countryside, in small portion, whether he seek among the branch-tops, or digs at the tree-roots, or kills with arrow or noose-trap, or sows and reaps grain with the two hands Creation gave him and little else besides the scraps of metal he fashions to bring to his aid.
On the other hand, so far as one can observe, these natives do not discern beauty in the scenes about them, and I have often witnessed them pass by some exceptionally fair picture without paying the slightest attention to it. They are, however, attracted by strange shapes, such as are often to be seen among the rugged mountain-tops, and they sometimes exclaim and point these out.