French enterprise in Africa

by Hourst

The next thing to do is to carry off the booty before those pillaged or the imihagen come back to avenge themselves, for they meanwhile have not been inactive, but by means of messengers, or by fires lit on the tops of the dunes, have let their relations know of their need. A column is quickly formed, and starts in pursuit of the raiders.

It is their turn now to have to flee for their lives. The big camels used as beasts of burden and the flocks and herds hamper their march. If they do not get a good start they are often overtaken, and being far less numerous than those they have robbed they have to pay dearly for their audacity.

The pursuing column now shows considerable skill in getting ahead of the raiders, and awaiting them at some well or pond which they must pass, they there in their turn fall suddenly upon the enemy.

The marauders are by this time weary, whilst the robbed are fresh and in first-rate positions. The robbers are dying of thirst; their enemies have drank their fill at their ease.

One such razzia succeeds another, until at last one party to the quarrel is worn out and sues for peace, a marabout acting as intermediary. Innumerable palavers now take place, the Tuareg warriors holding forth to the assembled crowds in long speeches, for they are as anxious to show off their eloquence as they are jealous of their reputation for military skill. A truce is finally patched up, and though it never lasts long it serves as an excuse for a feast, in which, by the way, the Tuaregs, who are naturally frugal and abstemious, rarely indulge.

Children are very kindly treated in Tuareg camps. Except to compel the girls to empty the bowls of the curdled milk, the drinking of which makes them fat, they are never beaten. As soon as they can stand alone the little boys are taught to fling the spear, small weapons suited to their size being specially made for them. The father looks after the martial education of his sons, whilst the mother teaches the girls to work leather, to sing, and to read the written characters I have already described. This is how it comes about that women can generally decipher inscriptions more readily than men.

A strange custom prevails with regard to inheritance, not only amongst the Tuaregs but in other African tribes, and that is, the nephew is the heir of the uncle, not the son of the father. The child of an imrad woman is a serf, and the son of a slave is a slave no matter whether the father is a free man or not. “It is the womb which gives to the child its complexion,” say the Tuaregs. It is the law of Beni-Omia.

The great Awellimiden tribes, however, repudiate this custom, saying that it reflects unfairly upon the virtue of their women. “One is always sure to be the son of one’s mother,” they say, “but not of one’s father. That is why a race less noble than our own have adopted the custom of inheritance from uncle to nephew. They are sure that in the veins of the latter flows the blood of the former.”

The rest of the Tuaregs, however, who have always been noted for their gallantry, date the origin of the so-called Beni-Omia law from Gheres, the father of the Kel Gheres.

Gheres, they say, had a wife named Fatimata Azzer’a, and a sister called Gherinecha. Each of them had a son; the child of the former was called Ituei, that of the latter, R’isa.