People of the veil

by Baron Francis James Rennell Rodd Rennell of Rodd

Part II

The Vicissitudes of the Tuareg in Air

As a division of Tuareg the people of Air cannot be said to have achieved great deeds in the history of the world as did the Sanhaja; but as a part of the race they can justly claim to share in its glory. That they brought culture and the amenities of civilisation from the Mediterranean to Central Africa has been mentioned several times. This progress in the past was responsible for the prosperity of Nigeria to-day.

The People of Air are a small and insignificant group of human beings considered by themselves alone. It may only be when that characteristic of the Englishman displays itself and he seeks to extol the virtues, charm and history of some obscure race, that such a people assumes, in his eyes at least, an importance which to the rest of the world may seem unjustified. There is probably no race so vile, so dull or so unimpressive but that some Briton will arise as its defender, and aver that if properly treated it is the salt of the earth. I am not unconscious of the dangers of this frame of mind, but being acutely aware of the mentality, I trust that this characteristic will not have led me over-much to conceal the unpleasant or unfavourable.

A chapter which attempts to deal summarily with the history of the Air Tuareg[415] set in its appropriate frame of Central African history must inevitably seem in some measure a justification for the trouble taken to piece together an obscure and complex collection of facts relating to the country and its people. But the darkness surrounding the arguments contained in the preceding account of the migrations of the Air tribes has seemed so impenetrable that instead of closing the book at this point, I have felt moved to give the reader some rather less indigestible matter with which to conclude.

To obviate the accusation of attaching unwarrantable importance to the People of Air, it may be well to state that the population of the country is small. It was never very large. Perhaps 50,000 to 60,000 souls, including the Kel Geres and the other clans in the Southland, would have been a conservative estimate in 1904. At that time Jean, numbering only the People of Air and some of the Tuareg of Elakkos and Damergu, arrived at a tentative figure of 25-27,000 inhabitants, but he was certainly misled by his local informants into thinking that the tribes were smaller than they really were. Nor did he take all the septs of Air and the Southland into account. His estimate included somewhat over 8000 People of the King, rather more than 8500 People of the Añastafidet, 4-5000 Irawellan, 2000 slaves and 2500-3000 mixed sedentaries in Agades and In Gall.[416] At the time of the prosperity of Agades the population of these countries, not including detached sedentaries and other groups lying far afield, may have attained a maximum of 100,000.

It is impossible to estimate the total numbers of Tuareg in North Africa with any accuracy. It would be interesting to make a serious study of the numbers and general state even of those in French territories.

The internecine struggles of the Air Tuareg are hardly interesting, and have only been mentioned where relevant to the origin and movements of the three immigrations. The wars between the different divisions, like the Ahaggaren and the Azger, are not really more valuable in a general survey. But even to summarise the principal events in Air in the broad outlines is easier than to describe in a few words the events which took place in the Central Sahara and the Central Sudan during the 1000 years of history which have elapsed since first, in my view at least, the Tuareg reached these mountains from their more ancient northern home.

In early times the Tuareg were already in North Africa. They can be distinguished probably as early as the Fifth, and certainly as early as the Twelfth, Dynasty in Egypt. We can follow much of what they were doing and trace where they were living in Roman times, but it is less easy to discern the groups which composed the immigrant waves of humanity into Air until about the time when the first of them came to the south, and even then the picture is obscure.

When Air was first invaded by the Tuareg it was called Asben and was part of the kingdom of Gober, a country of negroid people who lived both in the mountains and to the south. But before the first invasion took place there was already Libyan influence in the country, both due to the northern trade which had gone on since the earliest times conceivable, and also on account of the Sanhaja Tuareg, whose power and glory had extended thus far eastwards.