So clear is this use of geographical “Kel names” that we shall find repeated instances later on of tribes who, having migrated from a certain area, retain their old names, though these are no longer applicable to their new ranges. Take, for example, the Kel Ferwan—the People of Iferuan, in North Air; they now live in the southern parts of the country. Or, again, there are two Kel Baghzen, called after a mountain group in Central Air; the one group is still in that area, the other, which once lived there, has since migrated to the country north of Sokoto.
In certain forms the word “Kel” corresponds to the Arabic word “ahel,” but the latter seems more usually employed in connection with wide geographical indications of habitat, without much ethnic significance, like Kel Innek. The use of this type of “Kel name” is the exception rather than the rule in Temajegh and has a colloquial rather than traditional sanction. The more common “Kel names,” on the other hand, are definitely individual tribal names, and refer to small areas. They are not by any means restricted to sedentary tribes.[118]
A third category of names commencing with the “Im” or “Em” prefix is regarded by Barth[119] as virtually identical with the “Kel” class, but this is not quite accurate. The “Im” prefix is used to make an adjectival word form of place names; the “Kel names” only become adjectival by prefixing “People of . . .” Thus “Emagadezi” would be more correctly translated as “Agadesian” than as the “People of Agades,” whose correct designation is Kel Agades. “I names” partake of neither of these characteristics. For the most part their significance remains unexplained. It follows that “Kel names,” although proper to the tribes that bear them, being descriptive or geographical, are certainly not so old as the individual and proper “I names.”
There are examples of tribes which have lost their “I names” and are only referred to by a “Kel name,” though in many cases this is more apparent than real. When a tribe with an “I name” increases until the point is reached where it subdivides, one of the subdivisions retains the original “I name,” the remainder take other and, usually, geographical appellations. This process might be shown graphically:—
| Original I name tribe. | |||||||||
| I name sub-tribe (as above) | Kel name sub-tribe | Kel name sub-tribe | Kel name sub-tribe | ||||||
| Collective Kel name often the same asone of the sub-tribe Kel names if the latter has come to play apreponderating part in the group. | |||||||||
This difference of nomenclature has a definite bearing on the difficulties of co-ordinating sedentarism and nomadism in one people, which must have occurred to everyone who has studied the problem in administration. The exact relations between a village headman, the tribal chiefs of the persons who are living in his village and the tribal chief of the area in which the village is situated cannot be defined. One set of allegiances is breaking down and another has not yet been completely formed. This was already going on in Air when the position was complicated by the advent of a European Power demanding a cut-and-dried devolution of authority, and tending to encourage sedentary qualities in order to prevent raiding. These problems in Air to-day are almost insoluble, but they are of an administrative rather than of an anthropological order.
Auderas at the present time is probably the most important place in Air after Agades. As an essentially agricultural settlement it is an excellent example of the village organisation. The valley of Auderas lies about 2600 feet above the sea. Seven small valleys unite above the village and two affluents come in below, draining the western slopes of Mount Todra and a part of the Dogam group. The main stream eventually finds its way out into the Talak plain[120] under various names. The sandy bed of the valley near the village contains water all the year round. Both banks are covered with intense vegetation, including a date-palm plantation of some thousand trees. Under the date palms and amongst the branching dûm-palm woods, where the thickets and small trees have been cleared or burnt off, are a number of irrigated gardens supplied with water from shallow wells. Some wheat, millet, guinea corn and vegetables are grown with much labour and devotion. Onions and tomatoes are the principal vegetables all the year round, with two sorts of beans in the winter. Occasionally sweet potatoes and some European vegetables like carrots, turnips and spinach are grown from seeds which have been supplied by the French. Pumpkins do well and water melons are common. There is also a sweet melon. Three different shapes of gourds for making drinking and household vessels are cultivated. Cotton is found in small quantities, the plant having probably been imported from the Sudan. Its presence in Air is interesting, as in 1850 Barth had placed the northern limit of Sudan cotton in the south of Damergu. The cotton plant does very well when carefully irrigated and produces a good quality of fibre. Two samples which I brought home from Air were reported on respectively as: “good colour, strong, fairly fine 1³⁄₁₆ staple,” and “generally good colour, staple 1³⁄₁₆-1¼ inches, strong and fine”; the materials were respectively valued at 20·35 and 21·35 pence per pound when American May Future Cotton stood at 17·35 pence (May 1924).[121] The Tuareg spin their cotton into a rough yarn for sewing or making cord, but in Air they do not seem to weave. The indigo plant grows wild in Air: it is not cultivated, nor is it used locally for dyeing.
The gardens require much attention and preparation. The ground is cleared and the scrub burnt off as a top dressing. The soil is then carefully levelled by dragging a heavy plank or beam forwards and backwards by hand across the surface. The area is divided up into small patches about six feet square with a channel along one side communicating with a leat from an irrigation well. These wells are usually unlined and shallow, with a wooden platform overhanging the water on one side; on this a rectangular frame is set up with a second cross member carrying a pulley over which a rope is passed. An ox or a donkey pulls up the big leather bucket by the simple process of walking away from the well, returning on its tracks to lower it again. The bucket is a tubular contrivance, the bottom of which is folded up while the water is raised; when it reaches the level of the irrigation channel, a cord is pulled to open the bottom of the leather tube and the water allowed to run out. The other end of this cord is attached to the animal, and the length is so adjusted that the operation is performed automatically each time the bucket comes to the top. The pole and bucket with a counterweight and the water wheel are not known in Air for raising water; nor are any dams constructed either to make reservoirs in ravines or to maintain a head of water for flow irrigation in the rainy season. Each little patch in the gardens is hoed and dressed with animal manure. The seed is planted and carefully tended every day, for it is very valuable. Barth records seeing at Auderas a plough drawn by slaves. This was clearly an importation from the north; the plough is not now used anywhere in the country, which at heart has never been agricultural.
PLATE 15
