Duveyrier[330] records of the Oraghen tribe that “according to tradition they originally came from the neighbourhood of Sokna.[331] Before establishing themselves where they are now located, the tribe inhabited in succession the Fezzan, the country of Ghat, and Ahawagh, a territory situate on the left bank of the Niger, east of Timbuctoo. It was in this locality that the tribe divided; one part, the one under review, returned to the environs of Ghat, the other more numerous part remained in the Ahawagh. . . .” The Ahawagh or Azawagh is some way east of Timbuctoo, it is, in point of fact, as Barth rightly points out, the area south of Air. He says:[332] “Their original abode was said to be at a place called Asawa (Azawagh)[333] to the south of Iralghawen (Eghalgawen) in Southern Air.” While the exact sequence of movements thus recorded may not be accurate, the indications are of importance in considering the origin of the people of Air as they refer to a southward migration through Air and a partial return north. But whereas in the Azger country the Auraghen are a noble tribe, in the Southland they are a servile tribe of the Aulimmiden.[334] This fact is very significant and seems to provide an explanation of the ancestry of the Tademekkat and of some of the People of Air,[335] who are in part of Hawarid origin. The date of the expulsion of the Tademekkat people towards the west and north by the Aulimmiden prior and up to about A.D. 1640 coincides with the legend recorded by Duveyrier of a party of southern Auraghen who came to the assistance of their cousins among the Azger and helped to break the domination of the Imanen kings of the Azger. Those Auraghen who remained behind in the Tademekka country were eventually reduced to a state of vassalage and pushed westward during the general movement which took place in that direction.

But in spite of the occurrence of a tribe with this name among the Azger, it is not the latter group but the Ahaggaren who were originally Auriga, even as the Azger were in essence Lemta, notwithstanding the considerable exchange of tribes which has taken place between the two groups.

In another place I have had occasion to doubt whether the usually accepted derivation of the word “Tuareg” applied, as it now is, to all the People of the Veil was entirely satisfactory. The derivation seemed founded on the fallacy of “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.” The name Targa in Leo and Ibn Khaldun appears to be the same word as Tuareg, in a slightly modified form; but in these authors it is not used of all but only of a part of the Muleththemin. It is a proper name like Sanhaja, or Lemta, and the group which bears it is as important as the other main divisions. Now in one place Leo names the divisions of the Muleththemin as the Sanhaja, Zanziga, Targa, Lemta and Jadala; in another as the Sanhaja, Targa, Jedala, Lemta and Lemtuna, of which we can eliminate the last named as a subdivision of the Sanhaja. Elsewhere again he calls them the Sanhaja, Zanziga, Guenziga, Targa and Lemta. Further, in Ibn Khaldun we learn that the Sanhaja, Hawara, Lemta, Gezula and Heskura are in one group as the Children of Tiski, and again he divides the race into four divisions only, the Sanhaja, Auriga, Ketama and Lemta. Of these we can eliminate the Lemtuna as a part of the Sanhaja. Leo’s Zanziga and Guenziga are modifications of the latter name and were given to the Tuareg immediately east of them, probably during their desert confederation; Ibn Khaldun’s Heskura and Gezula seem to be two names for one division which possibly was the Ketama. Now if the remaining names are considered, it is noteworthy that in no one of the lists do the two names Targa and Hawara or Auriga occur. They are therefore quite likely to be different names for the same group. Furthermore, in Leo’s third area the veiled inhabitants of the Air and Ahaggar mountains are both called Targa, and the latter and a large part of the former are known to be Hawara. The conclusion is that “Targa,” so far from being merely a descriptive or abusive term, is another name for Hawara-Auriga. The fact that the dialect spoken in Air is called Auraghiye alone would justify Leo classifying the inhabitants both of Air as well as of Ahaggar under one term, namely, Targa, if, as is highly probable, the name is an alternative for Auriga or Hawara, or for at least a large part of them.

Having suggested this equivalent we must return to the question, already foreshadowed, namely, whether, from an examination of the present tribes of the Ahaggaren and Azger groups of Tuareg, any conclusion can be drawn showing that at one and the same time a connection between the two divisions and a separate ancestry existed. It is necessary to postulate for the moment, as has already been done, that the Azger were the old Lemta, for the evidence can only be considered in detail a little later. It might have seemed more rational to deal with it now, especially as their history is of greater importance to Air than that of the Ahaggaren, but for various reasons which will become apparent it will be found more convenient to examine the latter first.

In Air and in the south generally the two divisions are referred to collectively by the name of Ahaggaren. The reason is that the Azger are now so reduced in numbers that the world has tended to forget their name for that of their more powerful and prosperous western neighbours; the Ahaggaren on account of their trading and caravan traffic have also come more into contact with the outside world. The Azger, on the other hand, instead of becoming better known, as a result of the French penetration of the Sahara have migrated eastwards further and further away from Europeans into the recondite places of the Fezzan mountains, which they now only leave to raid Air or Kawar in company with rascals like the northern Tebu and the more irreconcilable Ahaggaren, who have refused to submit to French administration. Although in Air “Ahaggaren” has come to mean just Northern Tuareg, it has no strict ethnic signification.

Many travellers in the Ahaggar country have heard the tradition current among the population that the Ahaggaren are considered originally to have formed part of the Azger division. Duveyrier[336] records that the Ahaggaren and cognate Tuareg to the north-west are divided into fourteen principal noble tribes:

Bissuel,[340] however, declares that the Taitoq, Tegehe n’es Sidi and Ireshshumen form a separate group of people living in the Adrar Ahnet, who are sometimes called collectively the Taitoq, but should more correctly be described as the Ar’rerf Ahnet. The noble tribes of this confederation, the Taitoq proper and the Tegehe n’es Sidi, claim to be of independent origin and not related either to the Ahaggaren or the Azger. The Ireshshumen are said to be a mixed tribe composed of the descendants of Taitoq men, and women of their Imghad, the Kel Ahnet. There are also four Imghad tribes: the Kel Ahnet and Ikerremoin, who depend from the Taitoq, and the Tegehe n’Efis (probably n’Afis) and the Issokenaten, who depend from the Tegehe n’es Sidi. These Imghad live in Ahnet, but in 1888 were as far afield as the Talak plain west of Air.[341] The Ikerremoin of the Ahnet mountains—though probably of the same stock as the noble tribe of the same name in Ahaggar—are a distinct unit; they were probably a part of the latter until conquered in war by the Taitoq. The Tuareg nobles of Ahnet may be considered a separate branch of the race, possibly descended from the Ketama. They are neither Auriga nor Lemta and probably not Sanhaja either. The Taitoq tribes must therefore be omitted from Duveyrier’s record.

He states that a split occurred between the Azger and Ahaggaren. About fifty years before he was writing, or, in other words, about a century ago, the Kel Ahamellen, like other Tuareg tribes in the area, were under the rule of the Imanen kings of Azger. The latter rulers are described as of the same stock as the Auraghen and as “strangers” among the Azger. Such a description is logical if they were, as we may suppose, an Auriga stock living among the Lemta or Azger. The Kel Ahamellen were settled on the extreme west of the country held by the latter division, and according to the story became so numerous that they divided up into the sub-tribes whose names occur in this list, and so broke away from the allegiance of the Imanen kings. But if in Duveyrier’s day the Kel Ahamellen had only broken away from the Azger confederation as recently as fifty years previously, and were, as he also says, in a state of internal anarchy, it is out of the question for one clan to have increased sufficiently rapidly to form fourteen large noble sub-tribes covering an area reaching from Ghat to the Ahnet massif. The supposition is that the Kel Ahamellen did in fact break away from the Azger about then, for tradition is strong on this point, but that instead of being alone to form the new division they joined a group of other tribes already in existence, namely, the descendants of the original Auriga-Ahaggaren stock. It is immaterial whether the latter were also under the domination of the Azger Imanen kings a century or so before, though it may be remembered that this reigning clan was itself from Ahaggar.

PLATE 46