French enterprise in Africa

by Hourst

Then, again, Duveyrier travelled for more than a year in the Tuareg districts, guided and protected by Ikhenuakhen, chief of the Azgueurs. Not only had he nothing to fear from them, but he was actually saved from insult even from the Senussis and the tribes which had risen against the French under the leadership of Mohammed ben Abdallah.

Our case was therefore no isolated one, and our experience would no doubt be repeated if it were decided to enter into more intimate relations with the Tuaregs. We should avoid the unreasonable fear of finding ourselves amongst traitors and assassins, but at the same time take such precautions as are needed in the Sudan, where there is at yet no police force.

There are indeed few if any races who can pride themselves on a more ancient lineage than the Tuaregs.

Speaking in their own dialect they say, “We are Imochar, Imuhar, Imazighen,” all which words come from the same Tamschenk root—ahar meaning free, independent, he who can take, who can pillage. (We shall see later what the Tuaregs mean by pillage.) In the Tamschenk dialect the word ahar also signifies lion.

If we go back to the days of antiquity, and read our Herodotus, we shall find that he speaks of the Mazique tribe as dwelling in Libya. There are Numidians of Jugurtha and of Maussinissa, and the last word is translated almost literally into the dialect now employed, mess n’esen meaning their master, or the master of the people, whilst the word Mazique is evidently the Greek form, from which is derived the present name of Imazighen.

If this etymological proof is not sufficient, there exists another, this one absolutely irrefragable, viz. the Tuareg writing.

Here, there, and everywhere in their country, now cut with a knife on the trunks of trees, now engraved on the rocks, we meet with inscriptions in peculiar characters known as the tifinar; and at this very day every Tuareg who has to wait, or who suffers from ennui for any reason, always wiles away the time, whether on the banks of the Niger, on the tablelands of Air, or on the summits of the volcanic Atakor n’Ahaggar, by writing according to the best of his skill his name and that of his sweetheart on a rock or on the trunk of some tree, now and then adding a sentence or two, or in rarer cases a complete poem.

Now the letters employed in these tifinar, ancient or modern, are the same, or very nearly the same, and are therefore identical with those used in the celebrated Tugga inscription, dating from the time when Carthage was still a thriving city.

Imochar, of which the singular form is Amacher, is the name by which the Tuaregs of the Niger districts generally speak of themselves. They are, say the Arabs, Tuaregs (singular Targui); Surgu, say the Songhay; Burdane, say the Fulahs.

Now not one of these various appellations comes from a root signifying anything evil, and a Tuareg would be sure to use one or the other according to the dialect he speaks in referring to his people. Some have pretended that Tuareg means abandoned by God, for Arabs are very fond of explaining everything by puns and plays upon words. Yet another Arab root from which the word might possibly be derived is one signifying nomads or wanderers.