A famous legend in Air is that of the column of raiders which by the mercy of Allah was swallowed up suddenly as a result of the prayers of the Holy Man Bayazid. They were on the point of capturing Agades when the ground opened before them, and in proof thereof the Hole of Bayazid is shown to this day. The famous event lives on in memory because at that place the water, which we have already seen is naturally somewhat saline and foul in the immediate vicinity of the city, is said to have been poisoned by the corpses of the band. There is another story, too vague to record, of a legendary hero or religious leader called Awa whose tomb in the Talak area is an object of devotion. The rumour may repay investigation, for the tomb was mentioned to me in connection with the religious practices of the Air Tuareg before they became Moslems.
Divination is resorted to by means of the Quran, and also by playing that curious game resembling draughts which is so widespread all over the world. In Air the game takes the form of a “board” of thirty-six holes[251] marked in the sand. Each player has thirteen counters made of date stones, or bits of wood, or pebbles, or camel droppings. The object of the game is to surround a pawn belonging to one’s adversary, somewhat on the principle of “Noughts and Crosses.” The game is called “Alkarhat” and when a Holy Man presides, the winner of three successive games carries the alternative submitted for divine decision. Another form of divination is resorted to by women who desire to obtain news of their absent husbands or lovers; they sleep on certain well-known tombs, and thus are favoured with a vision of their desire. The women of Ghadames and of the Azger Tuareg do the same. The practice appears to be identical with that described by Herodotus as current among the Nasamonians. It is also reported by Mela of the people of Augila.[252]
The consequence of these beliefs in spirits is that amulets are much in demand. They are especially in request to ward off the direct influence of particular evils, which are, of course, more especially potent when the local Holy Men have not been sufficiently regaled with presents. There is no man in Air who does not wear an amulet—usually a verse of the Quran in a leather envelope—somewhere on his person. The more modest may confine themselves to a little leather pouch tied in the white rag which is worn around the head to keep the veil in place. On the other hand, Atagoom, whose wealth permitted him the luxury, had little leather pouches sewn on to every part of his clothing in addition to some twenty-five strung on a cord round his neck. The manufacture of these amulets is the principal source of revenue to the Holy Men of Air. Besides verses written out on paper or skin other objects are also used. Lion claws are very efficacious, and in some cases fragments of bone of certain animals are good. I saw one bag containing the head of a hawk, and another filled with pieces of paper covered with magic squares. These leather amulet pouches are the principal ornament worn by men, with the exception of the “talhakim,” a most interesting object, the distribution of which in Africa still remains to be ascertained.
The “talhakim” is an ornament shaped like a triangle surmounted by a ring with three little bosses on its circumference. The material used for making these objects is red agate or white soap-stone or turquoise blue glass. They are so prized in the Sahara and Sudan that cheaper varieties of red and white china or glass were made in Austria before the Great War for trade purposes. The stone “talhakim” are not made in Air. They come from the north. I have it on the authority of Ali that they are not made at Ghat or in the Fezzan either, I have, however, still to learn where they actually are made. The stone “talhakim” are beautifully cut and invariably of the same design. The upper part of the triangle is sometimes slightly thicker than the point, and in all cases is divided from the ring part by a ridge and one or two parallel lines with the addition, in some cases, of little indentations. I can neither find nor suggest any explanation of the significance of the design. It may be the prototype of the Agades cross, but I do not think it likely. The bosses on the ring are essential to the design, and somewhat similar, therefore, are agate rings which I used to see worn in the same way as ornaments strung on leather cords around the neck; they seemed too small to be worn on the finger. Most of them had on one side three little bosses analogous to those on the upper portion of the “talhakim.” These rings also came to Air from the north.
The flat tablet or plate of stone or wood hung around the neck, which is so widespread throughout the East, occurs in Air, but is not common. The finest example I saw was worn by a man at Towar; it was made of white soap-stone without any inscription on either surface, but was very thin and finely cut.
The women but not men wear necklaces of beads, or beads and small stone ornaments, resembling small “talhakim.” It has been suggested that these little objects were similar to those which are known, as far afield as Syria, to have been derived from stone arrow-heads conventionalised as trinkets after they had ceased to be used for weapons. In Air, however, I am convinced the necklace ornaments are intended as small “talhakim,” and I am loth to believe that the latter are conventionalised arrow-heads both on account of the difficulty presented by their large size and also on account of the essential upper ring portion, which points to a different origin. Circular bangles and bracelets with an opening between two knobs such as are worn in the north are affected by the Tuareg women; they are made of brass and copper and in some cases of silver. The workmanship of the latter, considering that they are made by the local blacksmith with his ordinary tools, is remarkably good. On these bracelets the knobs are surprisingly accurate cubes with the eight corners hammered flat, forming a figure having six square and eight triangular facets.
Of all the Air ornaments the so-called Agades cross is the most interesting. The lower part is shaped like the cross on the pommel of the camel saddle; its three points terminate in balls or cones. The fourth or upper arm of the cross fits on to a very large ring similar to that on the “talhakim,” and curiously enough also provided with three excrescences, though in this case all near one another at the top of the circle. An elaborate form worn by Ahodu’s wife had a pierced centre, but this was not generally a part of the design. A conventionalised form was seen among the Fulani and Kanuri of Damergu, where in one case the shape had been so lost that it had become a simple lozenge suspended from a small ring. In all the examples which I saw in Air the large ring of the ornament was obviously, as in the “talhakim,” an essential part of the whole; all the rings also had the three protuberances on the circumference. The cross is worn by men and women alike; it is referred to as the Ornament of the Nobles. They regard it as characteristic of themselves. The stone “talhakim” is worn in the Sudan, but the Agades cross is only known in Damergu, where it has been borrowed as a result of contact with the Tuareg, and in a debased form. In Air it seems as characteristic of the race as the face veil, and like the latter it is never put off, as are the amulet pouches and garments when heavy work necessitates stripping.
PLATE 37
ABOVE: FLAT SILVER ORNAMENTS, “TALHAKIM” OF RED STONE, BLUE AND WHITE PASTE, AND SILVER, SILVER HEAD ORNAMENT FOR WOMEN