In addition to its lightness the Tuareg riding saddle has the inestimable merit of bringing the weight of the rider over the shoulders of the camel, or in other words over the part where the animal is strongest. The hinder parts of the camel are sloping and can carry no weight; all the heavy work is done by the fore-legs. The rider, sitting in the saddle, which must be arranged with padding if necessary over the front part of the withers to bring the seat horizontal, rests one foot against the vertical part of the camel’s neck just above its curve, holding on to the neck with a prehensile big toe. The other leg is crooked below and falls over the opposite shoulder of the camel at the base of the neck. Bare feet are essential for good riding, as, in addition to enabling some grip to be obtained, they are used to guide the camel with recognised “aids.” With a broad cantle and a high pommel between the legs a far better grip can be obtained than on the Arabian saddle, on which a good seat is entirely a question of balance. Provided the saddle cloth under the Tuareg saddle is properly adjusted there is practically no galling of the withers or sides. If provisions or water-skins are carried they are slung under the seat of the riding saddle, their front ends attached to the girth rings, their rear ends tied together behind the hump, resting on a small pad to prevent rubbing over the backbone.
The large goatskins for water and small ones for meal do not differ from those used throughout the East. The goat is skinned without cutting the hide except around the neck and limbs: the skin is peeled off the carcass and well greased. The legs are sewn up and roped for slinging: rents or holes are skilfully sewn up or patched with leather and cotton thread so that they do not leak. A new skin recently greased with goat or sheep fat is abominable, as the water becomes strongly impregnated with the reek of goat. But water from a good old skin can be almost tasteless, though such skins are hard to come by. Some of the water one has drunk from goatskins beggars description; it is nearly always grey or black, and smelly beyond belief. The one compensation is that the wet outside of the skin keeps the water deliciously cool owing to constant evaporation. With a riding saddle, a skin of water and a skin of meal or grain as his sole equipment, the Tuareg reduces the complications of travelling to a minimum.
His weapons are few but characteristic. First and foremost he wears a sword, called “takuba,” as soon as he reaches man’s estate, and before even he dons the veil. His sword has been romantically associated with the Crusaders and I know not who else. It is a straight, flat, double-edged cutting sword of the old cross-hilted type up to 3 ft. 6 ins. long by 2-3½ ins. broad below the hilt, tapering slightly to a rounded point. The guard is square and broad and the hilt is short, for the Tuareg have small hands. The pommel is flattened and ornamented. The hilt and guard form a Latin cross. The type never varies, though of course the blades differ greatly in quality and form, ranging from old Toledo steels with the mark “Carlos V” on them to an iron object called a “Masri” blade made in the north. Some are elaborately ornamented, but the most prized are plain with two or three slight canellations down the middle; they are probably of European manufacture. The commonest Masri blades bear two opposed crescent “men in the moon” faces as their mark; another cheap variety has a small couchant lion. The Tuareg prizes his sword as his most valued possession and many, like Ahodu, speak with pride of a blade handed down in their families for generations. His particular sword was reputed to have magical properties, for it had been lost in a fight at Assode, where the owner, rather than allow it to be captured, had thrown it from him into the air, only, through the instrumentality of a slave, to find it again many years afterwards, buried deep in the rocky ground on a hillock near the site of the battle. The sword is worn in a red leather scabbard slung from two rings by a cotton band over the shoulder. The edges of the blades are kept very sharp. As a weapon these swords are quite effective. Ahodu in a raid received a sword wound from a blow which had glanced off his shield; it ran from the left shoulder to the left knee, and had cut deep into his arm and side. It would have killed most Europeans; he not only recovered but had to ride four days from the scene of the fight back to Air.
Two sorts of spears are used, the wooden-hafted with a narrow willow-leaf socketed blade and an iron socketed butt, and one made throughout of metal. The latter, called “allagh,” is a slender and beautiful weapon up to six feet long.[214] The head is very narrow, not above an inch broad: the greatest breadth is half-way down the blade, which projects on either side of a pronounced midrib. Below the head are one or more pairs of barbs in the plane of the blade. The haft is round and about half an inch in diameter, inlaid with brass rings. Two-thirds of the way along the haft is a leather grip; below that is an annular excrescence, and then the haft is splayed out, terminating in a chisel-shaped butt 1½″-2″ broad. These spears are used as lances or as throwing weapons. They are graceful and well-balanced, but are not made locally. Wherever they appear the influence of the Tuareg can seemingly be traced. It was from this people also that the cross-hilted sword probably came to be adopted in the Sudan, while they themselves certainly learnt its use in the Mediterranean lands, perhaps even from the Romans.
Sheath knives some 6″ long, with fretted or inlaid brass hilts and red leather or leather and brass sheaths, are worn at the waist. The arm dagger is the most typical of all Tuareg weapons. They seem to be the only people to use it: it has a small wooden cross hilt and a long, narrow, flat blade. This weapon is worn along the forearm, the point to the elbow, the hilt ready for use under the hand: the sheath has a leather ring which is slipped over the wrist. The hilt is held in the hand, knuckles upward and two fingers each side of the long member of the cross. It is, in fact, a short stabbing sword, the handiest and most redoubtable of all the weapons of the People of the Veil.
For defence they have large shields[215] roughly rectangular in shape and as large as 5 ft. × 3 ft., of sun-dried hide from which the hair has been removed. The best are made in Elakkos and some parts of Damergu of oryx hide. The edges are bound in leather, but the shield remains stiff yet fairly flexible, as it consists of only one thickness of hide. The corners are rounded and the sides somewhat incurved, the bottom being usually a few inches broader than the top. A loop in the centre of the top side is used to hang the shield from the camel saddle. In use it is held in the left hand by a handle attached behind about a third of its length from the top rim. There are no arm loops, as the shield is too ungainly to move rapidly in parry, though its size effectually protects the whole body. The hide of the white oryx is extremely tough and is said to turn any sword-cut and most spear-thrusts. The shield is especially remarkable for its ornamentation. Some of the more elaborate have metal studs with roundels of red stuff near the edges, but an uncoloured cruciform design worked on the surface by a series of small cuts always appears in the upper part of the shield on the centre line. The design in all examples I have seen, and probably in most cases, is much the same and is certainly symbolic, for we hear of the shield and cross ornament being engraved on rocks. The design seems to be derived from a Latin cross, the lower and longer arm of which terminates in a group of diagonal members, usually three on each side, forming a radial pattern. In this form it resembles nothing so much as the Christian cross standing on a radiating mass representing light or glory, but certain examples have the radiating marks at the top as well as at the bottom of the cross.
The Tuareg does not usually use either bows and arrows or the throwing iron with its many projecting knife-blades. Instances are not wanting in which these weapons have been used, but they are neither typical of the equipment of the Tuareg nor natural to his temperament. Where they have been used they have been consciously borrowed from some neighbouring or associated people, such as the Tebu, who use the throwing iron extensively. The People of the Veil have one most especial vaunt, which is that they fight with the armes blanches and disdain insidious weapons like arrows. The advent of civilisation has brought them the rifle, which they are as proud to possess as any fighting man must be, but they have never been seduced from the sword, spear and knife which are their old allegiances. It is common to hear a Tuareg say that he would be ashamed to stoop to the infamy of the Tebu: he will explain that whatever happens the Tuareg will never creep up to a camp at night and cut his enemy’s throat in the dark. He will fight fair and clean, attacking with spear and sword, preferably by day. He prides himself on the distinction which he draws between murder by stealth and killing in a fight or raid. He may be a liar and not live up to his vaunt; but to have the ideal at all is remarkable; it must be said to his honour that on the whole he has proved that he can live up to his self-set standard. In all the bitter fighting with the French during the last two generations I am only aware of one instance in which the Tuareg have stooped to what in their own view was treachery, and that was when they tried to poison the survivors of the Flatters Mission after the attack at Bir Gharama.
Their tactics in war are the usual ones of desert fighting. Guerilla warfare, ambushes, surprise attacks and harassing descents on stragglers are all known. On one occasion in an attack on a French patrol, which had exacted a fine of camels from a tribe, the men came up in the dark on the opposite side of the square to that on which the animals were lying and called to them, whereupon the animals, recognising the voices of their masters, rose and swept through the sleeping camp, which was over-run and decimated. In the desert men neither give nor get quarter, for prisoners and slaves are encumbrances to free movement. In ordinary raids the losing side is either destroyed or dispersed.
PLATE 26
