When all has been said of the European penetration of the Tuareg country, it is not very much. The world outside the society of those white men who, during the last fifty years, have spent their lives in the Sahara, can know but little of this race or of their country. The modern literature on the subject is small, even in French; in English it is almost non-existent. On the Tuareg of Air there are only two works of any value: the one by a French officer is recent in date and sadly superficial;[10] the other is incorporated in H. Barth’s account of the British expedition of 1849 and subsequent years to Central Africa.[11] There are a few other works in French about the Tuareg of the north and south-west, but I am not aware that anyone has attempted a general study of the whole people, who have been rather neglected by science. The principal object of this volume will have been achieved if it in any measure fills a want in English records or if it arouses sufficient controversy to induce others to undertake a thorough investigation of the race.
The Tuareg are not a tribe but a people. The name “Tuareg” is not their own: it is a term of opprobrium applied to them by their enemies, and connotes certain peculiarities possessed by a number of tribal confederations which have no common name for themselves as a race. The men of this people, after reaching a certain age, wear a strip of thin cloth wound around their heads in such a manner as to form a hood over the eyes and a covering over the mouth and nostrils. Only a narrow slit is left open for the eyes, and no other part of the face is visible. From this practice they became known to the Arabs as the “Muleththemin” or “Veiled People,”[12] while they themselves, in default of a national name, are in the habit of using the same locution in their own tongue to describe the whole society of different castes which compose their community. Whatever the social position of the men, the Veil is invariably worn by day and by night,[13] while the women go unveiled. Few races are more rigidly observant of social distinction between noble and servile tribes; none holds to a tradition of dress with more ritual conservatism.
PLATE 2
ELATTU
The larger divisions of Tuareg have names by which they are known to themselves and to their neighbours: these names designate the historical or geographical groupings of tribes. In each group of tribes the existence of nobles and serfs is recognised; there are appropriate terms to describe these social distinctions. The nobles are called Imajeghan;[14] the servile people, Imghad. But no name other than Kel Tagilmus,[15] the “People of the Veil,” exists to describe the society of nobles and serfs alike, irrespective of group or caste. These details will require fuller examination in due course, but it is important to realise immediately that the name Tuareg[16] is unknown in their own language and is only used of them by Arabs and other foreigners. It has, however, been so universally adopted by everyone who has had to do with them or who has written of them that, although not strictly accurate, it would be pedantic not to continue using it. The Tuareg all speak the same language, called Temajegh, which varies only dialectically from group to group. They have a peculiar form of script, known as T’ifinagh, which also is practically identical in all the divisions of the Tuareg, but is apparently not used by other peoples. Lastly, the Tuareg are nomads by instinct and, save where much intermarriage has taken place, of the same racial type. The conquest of foreign elements in war and their assimilation into servile tribes have, in the course of time, led to some modification of physique and a growth of sedentarism in certain areas. As a whole, however, the nation has survived in a fairly pure state which is readily distinguishable. There is, I think, no justification for considering the People of the Veil a large tribal group of Berbers in North Africa; they are a separate race with marked peculiarities, distinct from other sections of the latter, and, as I believe, of a different origin.
They formerly extended further west almost to the sea-board of the Atlantic; their northern and eastern extension can also be deduced from what is known of their migrations. Their neighbours to the south are the negroid Kanuri, Hausa-speaking peoples,[17] and the Fulani; to the east are the Tebu, and in the west the Arab and Moorish tribes; finally, in the north the nomadic and sedentary Arabs and sedentary Libyans of Algeria, Tunisia and Tripolitania. The N.E. corner of Tuareg territory, the Fezzan, is ethnically of such mixed population as to admit of no summary classification; Arab, Libyan, Tebu and negroid peoples are all inextricably mingled together. The Tuareg wander as nomads over the country generally, the negroes and sedentary Libyans till the ground, and, in addition to a proportion of all those already enumerated, the towns are inhabited by yet another people of noble origin, whose connection with the ancient Garamantes of classical authors may be assumed if it cannot be proved. With the exception of the Fezzan the Tuareg are now predominant within their own country. It includes two great groups of mountains, Air and Ahaggar, together with certain smaller adjacent massifs.
It is unfortunately not possible to deal with Air in history nor with the Tuareg of Air, by considering the mountains and their inhabitants alone. The migrations of the Tuareg of Air have been so intimately connected with that part of the Sudan which we now call Nigeria that the northern fringe of the area and the country intervening between it and Air must receive attention. This intervening steppe and desert, largely overrun by Tuareg, lie on the way which I followed to reach the mountains. The neglect to which these areas have been subjected justifies me in devoting a chapter to them before coming to Air itself. Again, the concluding chapters of this volume will deal as much with the Southland as they do with Air, for the history of the latter cannot be divorced from that of the former.
Since mention will be continually made of the various Tuareg groups as they exist to-day, and of the tribes which they contain, it will be as well to explain that there are to-day four principal divisions of the people, all of whom possess characteristics common and peculiar to the whole race.
The main groups are:—