Neither to Islam nor to Christianity, however, can be attributed what is susceptible only of explanation as a survival of totemism. The Northern Tuareg[258] believe that “they must abstain from eating birds, fish and lizards, on the score that these animals are their mothers’ brothers. This reason at once suggests that these taboos are both totemic and matriarchal in their origin”; but while the facts have been alluded to by many authors, the possibility that the taboos may be of recent and therefore of Sudanese, origin has not been sufficiently taken into account.[259] As against their southern origin—for birds and fishes are recognised as totemic animals, in Nigeria, for instance—it may be pointed out that no proscription against these animals obtains in Air. Instead, however, another taboo is strongly indicated in the belief which the Tuareg of the latter country hold, that the harmless and vegetarian jerboa is second only in uncleanliness to the pig. Any food or grain which the jerboa has touched must be destroyed, but rats and mice are not abhorred, and the large rat or bandicoot of the Southland is even eaten. Bates cites examples of the ceremonial eating of dogs among the Eastern Libyans, and considers that this may also have been a taboo animal, but these rites are not found in Air, where the eating of dogs, pigs, horses, donkeys or mules in any circumstance is regarded as infamous. Incidentally the prohibition regarding pigs is probably very old, for Herodotus states that none of the Libyans in North Africa bred swine in his day, and the women of Barca abstained from eating pork, as well as in certain cases cow’s flesh, on ritualistic grounds.[260]
PLATE 38
MT. ARWA: DRAWN BY T. A. EMMET FROM A SKETCH BY THE AUTHOR
I have a distinct impression of an animistic view of nature among the Tuareg in Air, but I am unable to base it on any tangible evidence. Herodotus tells us that the Libyans sacrificed to the sun and moon,[261] and Ibn Khaldun[262] certainly states that the early Berbers generally worshipped the sun. Bates deduces that the Eastern Libyans revered the sun, and connects their rites with bull worship and the Egyptian deity Amon. The only surviving Libyan name for the solar deity is preserved by Corippus as Gurzil.[263] A trace of sun worship survives in Air perhaps in association with the Kel Owi tribes. When the sun is veiled by white cloud in the early morning and the temperature is low, it is customary to say that “it is as cold as the mother of the Kel Owi,” or “the mother of the Kel Owi is cold.” I asked for an explanation of the remark, and was told that the sun was the mother of the Kel Owi, and that when the early morning air was cold the saying was used, for the Kel Owi are known to be ungenerous and mean.
The weather superstitions of the Tuareg are numerous. The climate on certain mornings of the year is heavy and still, with a thick cirro-cumulus cloud in the sky; when this occurs it is held to presage some evil event. A north-west wind, with the thick haze which so often accompanies it, indicates the advent of raiders from the north, probably because in the past some famous raids have occurred in this weather. Similarly a haze without wind, or a light north-east breeze and a damp mist, are warnings of Tebu raids. The fall of a thunderbolt is a very evil omen, as also is the rare form of atmospheric phenomenon to which the general name of “Tufakoret” is given. It consists of a slight prismatic halo around the sun in the clear morning sky when there is no evident sign of rain. The phenomenon is probably due to the refraction of low sunlight in semicondensed water vapour derived from heavy dew. A sunset behind a deep bank of cloud causing a vivid or lurid effect but obscuring the disc of the sun is also called “Tufakoret” and is equally a bad sign. A morning rainbow “Tufakoret” was seen in Air shortly before the late European war broke out. An ordinary rainbow in wet weather is a good omen.
The two most noticeable virtues among the Tuareg, that of patience and of a sense of honour, have not come to them from Islam. They are attributable to something older. Their patience is not that of quietism or of fatalism. It is rather the faculty of being content to seek in the morrow what has been denied in the present. They take the long view of life and are not querulous; they are of the optimistic school of thought. Theirs has seemed to me the patience of the philosopher and not the sulky resignation of a believer in pre-ordained things.
Their ethical standards of right and wrong, while differing profoundly from our own, and in no way to be commended or condemned in our shallow European way, seem to come from some older philosophy, some source less obvious than their present religion. Not only have they standards which the Quran does not establish or even approve, but they hold certain codes of conduct for which there can be no legislation. When right and wrong, or good and evil, are not obviously in question, and a Tuareg will still say that a man does not do a thing because it is dishonourable and an action such as no Imajegh would commit, it must mean that his forefathers did learn in an ancient school to seek some goal which is no reward in the present material life.
Such development is only found in societies, whether Christian, Moslem or otherwise, which have for long been evolving under the guidance of a few men who have learnt much and taught much. Yet the feet of the Tuareg are not now kept in this way; their conduct is unconscious. They are no community of philosophers seeking by choice to live in primitive conditions for the betterment of their souls. They hold what they have as an inheritance of grace from bygone generations. In mind, as in custom, they are very old. Only a slight glow of the past glory remains to gild the meanness of their perpetual struggle and the eternal hardship of existence. It is doubtful whether they could still be caught and moulded afresh. There is too little left of the now threadbare stuff; it just survives in the clean air of the desert; it would fall to pieces in the atmosphere of more luxurious circumstance. And then, nothing would remain but lying tongues and thieving hands unredeemed by any saving grace.
[241]Op. cit., Vol. I. pp. 227-8.