The advent of Europeans in Auderas caused a certain amount of excitement, but the novelty soon wore off as the routine of life was resumed. I was welcomed by Ahodu’s wife and other persons with a present of fresh dates, which were then ripening,[153] and newly-made cheese, known as T’ikammar, which is excellent food. The Tuareg live very simply and take so little trouble about their food that for Europeans it is almost uneatable. The staple diet is milk and cheese, but the more sedentary people eat locally grown or imported grain. The millet is pounded in a mortar as in the south and cooked with water, making a sort of porridge; but whereas in the Hausa countries this “pura,” or “fura” as it is called, can be quite palatable when seasoned or eaten with meat, the Tuareg in Air are too poor and too lackadaisical to dress it in any way. They often even forget to add salt, and without it the mess is peculiarly nasty on account of a certain glutinous consistency which it acquires. The finer flour obtained from the millet after it is pounded is also mixed with water and dry powdered cheese and drunk uncooked as very thin gruel; the dry cheese gives it a sour taste to which in time one gets used, and then it becomes really rather refreshing if one is thirsty. It is much better on the march for the stomach than large quantities of plain water. The drink is called “ghussub” in the south; it is often the sole means of sustenance of a Tuareg travelling quickly without baggage or when a scarcity of fuel makes it impossible to light fires. In the place of millet, guinea corn is also eaten; it is pounded and baked in embers into a heavy tasteless cake which is slightly more edible than millet porridge. The best food in Air is undoubtedly the wheat “kus-kus” of the Arabs and Berbers in the north: it is made in the same way by grinding wheat into rough flour, and then steaming and rubbing it until it forms grains about the size of small barley. It is carried dry and can be prepared by boiling in water or stock for a short time. It has the great advantage of requiring very little fuel to cook it. With no other adjunct than a little salt it is very good indeed. During the latter part of my stay I lived almost exclusively on kus-kus and rice, with hardly any meat, but as many vegetables as I could procure. When neither millet, guinea corn nor wheat is available, the Tuareg collect the seeds of various grasses and grind them, notably of the grass called Afaza and of the prickly burr grass. The former is a tall grass with stems of such strength that they are used when dry with a weft of thin leather strips for making the stiff mats which are spread upon their Tuareg beds. The stalks grow as much as five feet high; the grass is dark grey-green when fresh, or yellow when dry. The burr grass is fortunately rare in Air. One can only be thankful that Nature has found some useful purpose in this damnable plant as food for the Tuareg.

Of all the Tuareg food their cheese is best. It is usually made of equal parts of sheep’s or goat’s and camel’s milk, but any of them alone will do. The rennet is obtained from the entrails of the goat; the curds are pressed in matting made of dûm-palm fronds and formed into cakes about 4 in. × 5 in. × ¾ in. thick. The fresh cheese is pure white and soft, but nevertheless crisp; it is delicious with dates or with any other form of food, for it has no sour or “cheesy” flavour. It dries yellow and hard and is carried about by all Tuareg as a staple commodity, but in this state requires soaking or crumbling before use, and acquires rather an unpleasant sour smell. Butter is made of goat’s or sheep’s milk, churned in bottle-shaped gourds or in small skins. It is not bad mixed with kus-kus or rice or in cooking, but indifferent on bread or biscuits. Meat is very little eaten, for it is a luxury. But even when an animal is slaughtered and divided up the Tuareg do not seem capable of turning it into a very edible dish. They neither roast nor fry; they either stew their meat in a pot with vegetables or with millet porridge, or on the march broil it in the hot sand under the embers of a fire until it becomes shredded. If ever there is a surplus supply of meat, it is preserved by soaking in brine and drying in the sun strung on cords.

The preparation of food in the villages is done by the women, on the march by the “buzu,” or, where there is no slave present, by the youngest member of the party, whatever his caste or status, so long as he has not reached his majority. When there are no minors or slaves an Amghid does the work, but where all are of the same caste, the duty reverts once more to the youngest member of the party. The most arduous function is preparing the millet flour. Nowadays the millet is almost invariably pounded in a mortar with a long pestle, and the meal is then graded and separated from the husk and other impurities by shaking it with a circular motion on a flat tray. The mortar and long pestle, which is used by men and women standing up and working alone or pounding rhythmically with one or more companions, is certainly a southern invention; the wooden pestle is double-headed and some 3 feet long; the mortar is cut out of one piece of wood and stands about 12 inches high. The indigenous and more primitive fashion is to grind grain on the rudimentary saddle-stone quern, a form which has been preserved unchanged since prehistoric times. A large flat stone is placed on the ground, and the person grinding the wheat or millet kneels by it with a basket under the opposite lip of the stone to catch the flour as it is made. The wheat or other grain is poured on to the flat stone and crushed by rubbing it with a saddle-stone or rounded river pebble about the size of a baby’s head, held in both hands and worked forwards and backwards. As the grain is crushed the flour is automatically sorted out and pushed forward into the basket in front, the heavier meal remaining on the flat stone. These querns may be seen lying about all over Air on all the deserted sites; the lower stones can readily be recognised by the broad channel which is worn along their length. Except for wheat, which is too hard to be pounded, they have largely been discarded in favour of the handier mortar and pestle. I do not think a more widespread use of the quern necessarily indicates that wheat was more extensively eaten than millet in olden days nor yet that agriculture was formerly more pursued than nowadays. The explanation of the fact is merely that pounding grain in a mortar was found a simpler method in a country where millet was the staple cereal and the consumption of wheat a luxury. Moreover, the Northern Tuareg when they came to Air were probably less familiar with millet than with wheat, and only modified their habits and utensils after they had settled down.

Though certain wild herbs are employed for medicinal purposes, I know of none which is used in cooking. Besides Afaza and the burr grass, several other seeds or berries are used by the more nomadic Tuareg for food; there are said to be some twenty odd varieties in Air which ripen at various times of the year. The Abisgi (Capparis sodata) leaf has a biting taste and is sometimes used as a condiment; the tamarind does not grow so far north; limes are found only in Bagezan, and are rare. Dates are eaten fresh, or are preserved by soaking them for a short time in boiling water, and pressing them into air-tight leather receptacles, which are then sewn up. The practice of drying dates and threading them on a string is resorted to in Fashi and Bilma but not in Air.

Food is cooked in pear-shaped earthenware pots of red clay. The vessels are only half baked when they are manufactured, principally in the Agades neighbourhood, and have to be fired before they can be used. They are plain and unornamented, with a lip or rim round the mouth, which is bound with a cord to prevent cracking. More elaborate pitchers with a blue design are used for liquids, since the universal calabash of the south is comparatively rare in Air.[154] These pots are also made near Agades. The designs appear to be of local origin. The Sudanese jars and pots with bands of geometric design in straw-coloured slip and blue pigment are not used in Air. Many small pots for inks, spices and condiments are found in the houses of Northern Air: black and red pottery is used for such vessels and for saucers and little bowls. With the exception of what may be termed the “grape design” ([Plate 22]), none of the pottery is very remarkable. The pots used in the urn cemetery at Marandet seem to have been shaped like the common cooking-pot or with a slightly more round appearance: they are reported to have stood in saucers or plates. None of the pottery is wheel-turned.

Auderas being essentially a sedentary and servile community, did not contain many characteristic noble Tuareg. Neither Ahodu nor his wife represents the fine physical type of the race, for he is of somewhat mixed parentage, having, according to his own tradition, some Arab blood in his veins, while she is a Kanuri woman. Among the Tuareg, as in all races, it is hard to find the absolutely pure type. I came across one or two examples, and must count myself lucky to have seen so many. I was never able to confirm the story one had so often heard of Tuareg with blue eyes, but such accurate observers have recorded this feature that its occurrence must be admitted. In Air it must certainly be most uncommon; nowhere is it the rule; light brown and grey eyes, however, are not unusual, nor is it rare to see hair which is not so much black as dark brown and wavy; it is never crinkled or “fuzzy” unless there has been an obvious infusion of negro blood. Very fair skins, as fair as among the people of Southern Europe, are comparatively frequent, but the transparent white skin of the North is not known: no deduction can be drawn from this, as skin pigmentation is notoriously unreliable. Fair skins are held by the Tuareg to represent the purest type: a range of every shade to the black of the negro occurs. The Tuareg of Air differentiate the colouring of people somewhat arbitrarily: they call the pure negro “blue,”[155] but the dark-brown Hausa, “black”; the Arab is always “white,” whatever shade of bronze he happens to be; the Tuareg himself is “red,”[156] which is the most complimentary epithet he can apply to others. Fairness of complexion is much prized and is a social distinction, though when carried to such extremes as among Europeans it is apt to be regarded as strange and odd. Certain tribes in Air are reputed, even among the Tuareg, to be more than usually fair. When von Bary was in Air his acquaintances seem to have chaffed him about his celibacy; they offered to find him a woman of the Iwarwaren tribe, for, they said, she would match his own complexion.[157] Once on a time in Auderas I dressed completely as a Tuareg, a disguise which was not difficult, for I had grown a full dark beard and was very deeply sunburnt all up my arms and legs from wearing a sleeveless tunic, diminutive shorts and no shoes or stockings—the ideal garb for hot weather and an active life. I rode into the village on a great white camel by a circuitous path: the people were puzzled about my identity, and some, as I was later told, decided from the colour of my limbs that I came from the Igdalen tribe. It was typical of the Tuareg that they eventually recognised not me, but my camel, and so guessed who I was.

PLATE 17

THE AUTHOR DRESSING A WOUND AT AUDERAS

In spite of the occurrence of many fair-skinned people, it must be admitted that the vast majority of Imajeghan and Imghad in Air are comparatively dark, yet these Tuareg are among the purest of their race. Their skin pigment seems to have changed before other characteristics. The darkness of their complexion in Air is accentuated by the prize set upon indigo clothing, which is so impregnated with dye that it wears off on the skin of the proud owner, whose ablutions are conspicuously infrequent. The Tuareg does not believe in washing unless it is absolutely necessary, and he avers that an indigo-stained skin is good protection against strong sunlight, which may or may not be true. In justice to my friends, I must admit that they washed their clothing, especially their white trousers, very frequently, and when they washed their person, they did so very thoroughly from head to foot, with much rubbing and a prodigious splashing of volumes of water.