Festivals connected with social life are not interesting. Births occur without unusual or curious celebrations. The naming of the child is supposed to be in the hands of the local holy man, but the mother brings her influence to bear in his choice by suitable payments. Marriages are celebrated with feast and rejoicing after the bridegroom has wooed his bride and paid the stipulated portion. Burials equally follow the Moslem practice. The body is laid in the ground on its back, the head to the north and the feet to the south, with the face turned towards Mecca. The rope by which the body is lowered into the grave is left lying to rot away on the tomb. The grave is marked by one or two standing stones according as the deceased is male or female. The graves in Air are intimately connected with the architecture and dwellings of the Tuareg, and are dealt with in a later chapter. There are cemeteries all over Air: the little one now in use at Auderas lies on the south side of the valley under the hills of Tidrak, opposite the site of our camp. In the rains, malaria claimed several victims. They were mournful little processions which I used to see from my hut. One such occasion particularly impressed itself upon me. I was returning from South Bagezan one evening, climbing down on a rough path in a ravine with three camels and three men, when Ahodu, El Mintaka and a few more appeared, carrying a man to his grave. They were walking quickly so as to have done as soon as possible, proclaiming as they went that there was no God but God. They did that which there was to be done in haste, and returned at their leisure near sundown when the sky and the mountains of Todra were on fire. It had been raining and the black clouds were still in sight, covering the place of sunset. Above, everything was as red as the light of a blast furnace shining on Todra. Already the darkness had gathered in the north-east and the stars were coming out, and the deep valley with its white, sandy bottom was scarcely seen for the many trees in it. A chilly wind blew down the valley, waving the palms and troubling the gardens. As I reached my hut, Ahodu and his men joined me, and night fell, leaving purple and then dark red and then a yellow glow in the west. Last of all came the pale zodiacal light climbing up nearly to the zenith of the night, and the wind died down. Ahodu did not speak of death because it was unlucky, but he sat on the sand and told me many things. Ultimately came the information that a raid of Ahaggaren had plundered some villages in Kawar. He was afraid they would come on to Air, and that the village would have to be abandoned, and that his people would have to retreat into the mountain which towered as a black shadow in the east. He had left this subject to the last, because there was nothing in the matter to discuss. The raiders either would or they would not come. There was a proverb: “Reasoning is the shackle of the coward.”
PLATE 19
BAGEZAN MOUNTAINS AND TOWAR VILLAGE
[150]Cf. Barth, Vol. I. p. 387. The village of Aerwan wan Tidrak is presumably to be placed in these hills, where there are numerous remains of hamlets. The “village” of “Ifarghan” at Auderas is presumably a mistake, for “Ifargan” means “gardens” in Temajegh. Several of the Auderas gardens are at the point where Barth placed this so-called village.
[151]Barth, op. cit., Vol. I., p. 385.
[152]Mount Dogam is not west of the Ighaghrar (Arharkhar) valley as shown in the Cortier map, but to the east at the head of three tributary streams and adjoining the Todra massif. The latter on the map is not named and is erroneously given as a south-western spur of Bagezan, from which it is really quite distinct.
[153]First half of August, 1922.
[154]Three sorts of gourds do exist, but they are valuable.
[155]As does the Arab, and with some reason, for real negroes in the sunlight have, in fact, a blue-black appearance.