The Kabardians are a branch of the Adyghè (Circassians). The policy of Russia was always to be friendly with the Kabardian aristocracy, who were possessed of feudal rights over the Ossetes, the Ingushes, the Abkhasians and the mountain Tatars, and had command of the roads leading into Transcaucasia. Ivan the Terrible took Kabardia under his protection in the 16th century. Later, Russian influence was counterbalanced by that of the Crimean khans, but the Kabardian nobles nevertheless supported Peter the Great during his Caucasian campaign in 1722-23. In 1739 Kabardia was recognized as being under the double protectorate of Russia and Turkey, but thirty-five years later it was definitively annexed to Russia, and risings of the population in 1804 and 1822 were cruelly suppressed. Kabardia is considered as a school of good manners in Caucasia; the Kabardian dress sets the fashion to all the mountaineers. Kabardians constitute the best detachment of the personal Imperial Guards at St Petersburg.
A short grammar of the Kabardian language and a Russian-Kabardian dictionary, by Lopatinsky, were published in Sbornik Materialov dla Opisaniya Kavkaza (vol. xii., Tiflis, 1891). Fragments of the poem “Sosyruko,” some Persian tales, and the tenets of the Mussulman religion were printed in Kabardian in 1864, by Kazi Atazhukin and Shardanov. The common law of the Kabardians has been studied by Maxim Kovalevsky and Vsevolod Miller.
KABBA, a province of the British protectorate of Northern Nigeria, situated chiefly on the right bank of the Niger, between 7° 5′ and 8° 45′ N. and 5° 30′ and 7° E. It has an area of 7800 sq. m. and an estimated population of about 70,000. The province consists of relatively healthy uplands interspersed with fertile valleys. It formed part at one time of the Nupe emirate, and under Fula rule the armies of Bida regularly raided for slaves and laid waste the country. Amongst the native inhabitants the Igbira are very industrious, and crops of tobacco, indigo, all the African grains, and a good quantity of cotton are already grown. The sylvan products are valuable and include palm oil, kolas, shea and rubber. Lokoja, a town which up to 1902 was the principal British station in the protectorate, is situated in this province. The site of Lokoja, with a surrounding tract of country at the junction of the Benue and the Niger, was ceded to the British government in 1841 by the attah of Idah, whose dominions at that time extended to the right bank of the river. The first British settlement was a failure. In 1854 MacGregor Laird, who had taken an active part in promoting the exploration of the river, sent thither Dr W. B. Baikie, who was successful in dealing with the natives and in 1857 became the first British consul in the interior. The town of Lokoja was founded by him in 1860. In 1868 the consulate was abolished and the settlement was left wholly to commercial interests. In 1879 Sir George Goldie formed the Royal Niger Company, which bought out its foreign rivals and acquired a charter from the British government. In 1886 the company made Lokoja its military centre, and on the transfer of the company’s territories to the Crown it remained for a time the capital of Northern Nigeria. In 1902 the political capital of the protectorate was shifted to Zungeru in the province of Zaria, but Lokoja remains the commercial centre. The distance of Lokoja from the sea at the Niger mouth is about 250 m.
In the absence of any central native authority the province is entirely dependent for administration upon British initiative. It has been divided into four administrative divisions. British and native courts of justice have been established. A British station has been established at Kabba town, which is an admirable site some 50 m. W. by N. of Lokoja, about 1300 ft. above the sea, and a good road has been made from Kabba to Lokoja. Roads have been opened through the province. (See [Nigeria].)
KABBABISH (“goatherds”: James Bruce derives the name from Hebsh, sheep), a tribe of African nomads of Semitic origin. It is perhaps the largest “Arab” tribe in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, and its many clans are scattered over the country extending S.W. from the province of Dongola to the confines of Darfur. The Kabbabish speak Arabic, but their pronunciation differs much from that of the true Arabs. The Kabbabish have a tradition that they came from Tunisia and are of Mogrebin or western descent; but while the chiefs look like Arabs, the tribesmen resemble the Beja family. They themselves declare that one of their clans, Kawahla, is not of Kabbabish blood, but was affiliated to them long ago. Kawahla is a name of Arab formation, and J. L. Burckhardt spoke of the clan as a distinct one living about Abu Haraz and on the Atbara. The Kabbabish probably received Arab rulers, as did the Abābda. They are chiefly employed in cattle, camel and sheep breeding, and before the Sudan wars of 1883-99 they had a monopoly of all transport from the Nile, north of Abu Gussi, to Kordofan. They also cultivate the lowlands which border the Nile, where they have permanent villages. They are of fine physique, dark with black wiry hair, carefully arranged in tightly rolled curls which cling to the head, with regular features and rather thick aquiline noses. Some of the tribes wear large hats like those of the Kabyles of Algeria and Tunisia.
See James Bruce, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile (1790); A. H. Keane, Ethnology of Egyptian Sudan (1884); Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (edited by Count Gleichen, 1905).
KABBALAH (late Hebrew ḳabbālah, qabbālah), the technical name for the system of Jewish theosophy which played an important part in the Christian Church in the middle ages. The term primarily denotes “reception” and then “doctrines received by tradition.” In the older Jewish literature the name is applied to the whole body of received religious doctrine with the exception of the Pentateuch, thus including the Prophets and Hagiographa as well as the oral traditions ultimately embodied in the Mishnah.[1] It is only since the 11th or 12th century that Kabbalah has become the exclusive appellation for the renowned system of theosophy which claims to have been transmitted uninterruptedly by the mouths of the patriarchs and prophets ever since the creation of the first man.