People of the veil

by Baron Francis James Rennell Rodd Rennell of Rodd

The history of Air is inextricably mixed up with the problems of Tuareg ethnology. It is best to treat the various questions which arise as a whole. Information for all the earlier events is scanty. As has already become apparent in previous chapters, much must be based on deduction, since no early written evidence of the Air people exists but that contained in their rock inscriptions. In later years the practice arose of keeping book records or tribal histories in Arabic; they were designed to establish the nobility of origin of the various clans, a subject of continual dispute among the Tuareg; but most of these precious books, which used to be kept in the mosques or houses of the learned men, were lost when the whole of Air north of the Central massifs was cleared by French Camel patrols after the 1917 rebellion.

For long the avowed policy of the French authorities was to remove the population of the mountains of Air lock, stock and barrel, and settle them in the lands of Damergu and the Sudan. The Tuareg, as may be imagined, took unkindly to living in the plains away from the mountains and desert to which they were used. They cannot be persuaded to settle on the land as agriculturists except after generations of contact with tillers of the soil, and even then they only adopt the new mode of life in a half-hearted fashion or as a result of intermarriage, and as a consequence lose their individuality. Besides embittering relations to an extent which may prove irremediable, the French policy was otherwise disastrous from a local point of view. After being driven out of their homes in the mountains, these people were not content to live in the half-way house of the Damergu plains or in Damagarim. Many of them moved out of French territory altogether into Nigeria, where they had no quarrel with the authorities and where existence was even easier than in the belt between the Sahara and the Sudan. As many as 30,000 Veiled People left Air; most of them settled in the Emirates of Kano and Katsina.

Depopulation in Air allowed the desert to encroach. Wells fell in, gardens went out of tillage, and the live-stock of the country, more especially the camel herds, were reduced to a fraction of what they had been. These factors in turn contributed to make it harder than ever to reopen the old caravan roads, after they had been closed during the Great War. From the economic standpoint the possibility of obtaining any return from the military occupation of this part of the Sahara became more than ever problematical. Finally, the cruel evacuation of Air, for which there was no administrative excuse save that of short-sighted expediency, made it infinitely more difficult to obtain information regarding the origin and habits of a people who are in any case probably doomed to disappear before the advance of civilisation. The records in their mosques were abandoned to be rained on and gradually destroyed. Tradition is being lost among a younger generation in a new environment. In 1922 the policy of the French was reversed and the population was being encouraged to return to their homes, but one is inclined to wonder whether it was not already too late.

In the course of my stay in Air I heard of two books on tribal lore and history. The one which appeared the most important had belonged to the family of Ahodu, chief of Auderas village, and had long been in the possession of his forefathers. In 1917, when the northern villages were cleared, the book was left in a hiding-place, but all my efforts and those of Ahodu to trace it were in vain. Later I heard of another similar work at Agades, but only after I had left the town. It is kept by a woman called Taburgula, and is quoted by the Kel Geres as their authority for the nobility, etc. of the tribes of the south.[356]

Certain extracts from a Chronicle of Air have been collected and translated by H. R. Palmer, Lieut.-Governor of Northern Nigeria. The information was contained in the notes of a Hausa scribe, who seems to have compiled them on the authority of a manuscript which is probably still extant in Air. The compilation is not necessarily accurate, but ranks as good material, and has already been referred to in previous chapters as the Agades Chronicle.[357]

Finally, there is the record of Sultan Bello, Emir of Sokoto, when Denham and Clapperton reached the Sudan in 1824. Bello was a great historian, and probably the most enlightened ruler in Africa of his day. He has left for us a history without which we should find it difficult to piece together the story of Air and the neighbouring countries.[358]

Such information as it was possible to obtain to supplement these authorities and Jean and Barth was derived from numerous conversations with the older men whom I met in Air. By repetition and sifting it acquired sufficient consistency probably to represent, somewhat approximately, the truth. Apart from an inadequate knowledge of the language, I encountered another great difficulty in research. The years 1917 and 1918 were so calamitous for the Tuareg that circumstances obliged them to change many of their habits of life and scattered their traditions. There was always a danger of being misled by assuming that present practices represented historical customs, or that deductions made in 1922 were necessarily as accurate as if the observations had been made in 1850.

The early history of Air may be resolved into the answers to the three problems: When did the Tuareg reach Air? Where did they come from? And, whom did they meet on arrival? We shall deal with the last first, piecing together such scanty evidence as is at our disposal.

The existence at an early date in North Africa of negroid people much further north than their present limit of permanent habitation is generally admitted. It is logical to suppose that Air, which is an eminently habitable land, was therefore originally occupied by a negroid race. In support of this supposition there is the testimony of Muhammad el Bakeir,[359] son of Sultan Muhammad el Addal, to the effect that the Goberawa originally possessed Air, under the leadership of “Kipti” or Copts. Bello adds that the Goberawa were a free people and that they were the noblest of the Hausa-speaking races. It is not clear what the mention of Kipti can mean, except that the influence of the Egyptian Coptic church was spread as far afield as Air;[360] and this is possible, for traces of Christianity from the Nile Valley can probably be found in the Chad area. It may, on the other hand, merely mean that there was a North African element in the racial composition of the Goberawa; and this is certainly true, for the Hausa people are not pure Negroes. Gober was the most northern Hausa state, and later the home of Othman dan Fodio, the founder of the Fulani empire.[361] The Agades Chronicle states that the people of Daura, who are regarded as the purest of the Hausa, whatever this people or race may eventually be proved to be, first ruled in Air; but they grew weak and were conquered by the Kanuri, who in their turn gave place to the Goberawa.

Asben is the name by which Air is still known in the Southland, and the word is probably of the same root as “Abyssinia” and the Arabic “Habesh.” It may also perhaps be found in the name Agisymba Regio, but no significance need be attached to this, for the name seems to have been applied very widely in Africa to countries inhabited by negroid people.[362]