States of Soudan — Women of Bagirmeh — The Jenakherah — The
Idolatrous Tribes — Their vast Numbers — A Slave-hunt — A
great River — Manners — Manufactures — Peculiar way of going
to bed — Marking Cattle — Cannibals — Origin of the Fullans
— Meaning of “Soudan” — A Tempest — Thunder-bolts —
Darfur and Wadaï.
Of the various constituted states of Soudan, the most vast are
Bornou and Dar-Mella, after which come Darfur, Wadaï, Timbuctoo,
and Bagirmeh. The least in extent are Afnou and Adagez.[40] Wadaï,
although occupying the fourth rank as to extent, has many especial
advantages. The slaves are much handsomer than those of Darfur,
better trained, and more attentive to domestic duties; but the
best slaves of all Central Soudan are, without doubt, those of
Bagirmeh, especially the women, whose docility and gentleness
are beyond all praise. When Saboun invaded that country the women
turned the heads of all the Wadaïans, and almost disgusted them
with their own wives. “Verily,” said they, “we have never
seen women before.” Nevertheless, the Jenakherian girls, which
the Wadaïans take away from the idolatrous tribes situated to the
south of Dar-Seleih, are also remarkable for their beauty; and in
the habitual relations of life have a seductive character which
is not noticed in the slaves taken from the south of Darfur. And
yet the Jenakherian people, to the south of both countries, touch
upon and are confounded with one another; and the slave-hunts from
Wadaï and Darfur often meet. The name of Jenakherah, in its general
application, designates an immense conglomeration of people, of
which God only knows the number, divided into an incredible number of
tribes and clans, and spread throughout a zone that extends from the
south of Sennaar to the south of Kashna, constituting Pagan Soudan.
In a straight line from east to west, there is from Sennaar to
Kordofal a distance of fifteen or sixteen days; from Obeid,
capital of the latter country, to Tendelty, there are ten or
twelve days; and from the Forian Fasher to Warah, there are twenty
days of ordinary marching, or ten days of forced marching. If you
proceed still westward, you come to Bagirmeh; but if you take a
south-west direction you reach Katakou, a province dependent on
Bornou. Between Wadaï and Bagirmeh there is a space of five or
six days’ journey. From Warah to Bornou there are two roads,
one a little north of west, a distance of less than twenty days;
but the second, which traverses Bagirmeh and Katakou, requires
thirty-five days. In fine, to go from Bornou to Adagez, you must
proceed fifteen days westward in a straight line.[41] From Adagez
to Afnou there are four or five days of desert.
The idolatrous tribes to the south of Soudan are divided into groups
and families. They are vastly superior in number to the Muslims,
who are thrown like a chain across the desert, and it is at first
surprising that they do not overwhelm them. The explanation may be
found in the spirit of brotherhood which unites the Muslims, whilst
the Pagans are always divided one against another, each station
being inimical to its neighbour. When the enemy attacks a village,
and takes away the women and children, the people of the next village
look on without attempting to give assistance. They are attacked
next, and their neighbours regard them with equal indifference,
and so on. If these idolaters knew the strength which union gives,
none of the Muslim states of Soudan would dare to attack them.
In fact, the numerous tribes of these Majous, or Pagans, cover a
space which it takes at least three months of ordinary marching to
traverse. The Forian and Wadaïan expeditions have been often out
for six months, but have never succeeded in reaching the southern
limits. The Fakih Medeny once related to me that a Forian expedition
once pushed far into Dar-Fertyt, and resolved not to return until
they had reached the southern boundary of that country. “They
advanced,” he said, “for five months, going straight before
them. Their friends wondered at their lengthy absence, and gave
them up for lost. At the end of the five months the expedition
reached a great extent of water, on the opposite banks of which it
was difficult to distinguish an object no bigger than a man. Some
people, however, dressed in red were descried, who took to flight on
seeing the Forian troop. There being no means of crossing the water,
they were now obliged to return. I asked for information on the
distant countries of many persons who had been with the expedition,
but could obtain nothing further. A long time afterwards I met an
old man who had been on several similar excursions, and he said that
he had once penetrated to the plain of water of which I have spoken,
and that a man from Arabia, who was with him, said that the savages
of the Fertyt somewhat resembled in appearance the Hindoos. But
God knows the truth.”
The various tribes of Pagan Soudan, although very numerous,
have all artificial signs, which distinguish them one from the
other. The Bendeh file all their teeth, except the molars, into a
round shape. The Kara are distinguished by the piercing of their
lips. The Shala have the rim of their ears pierced with a series
of holes, in each of which a quill might be passed. Their women
are distinguished by the thousands of little cuts which they make
upon their stomachs—figuring rings, squares, &c., and serving as
ornaments, for they wear nothing but a very slight cloth round the
middle. Others pierce the upper lip, others draw two of their teeth,
and others make three rows of incisions upon each cheek.
The regions of Pagan Soudan are remarkable for the fertility of
their soil and the purity of the air. The rains are abundant and
prolonged, and in some places cease only two months of the year. In
those southern countries are produced many kinds of tubercular plants
for food, one of which, called oppo, when cooked upon hot coals,
has the colour and the taste of a hard egg. Many fruit and other
trees cover the plains. The people, so savage, so inhospitable,
so far distant from the populations that are advanced in the
industrial arts, display, in the fabrication of certain articles,
a most wonderful address, giving them a finish worthy of the ablest
European artisan. They make for the kings and princes of Soudan
stools and seats of elegant shape and perfect finish. They also
manufacture, with a cleverness that reminds one of the English,
the knife-poniards which are worn tied to the arm above the elbow,
and also the iron-work of lances. I have seen among the Fertyt tubes
of iron, the work of which was of surprising purity and beauty,
reminding one of European industry. These tubes, which are used for
pipes, are not more than a span long, and are bent and twisted like
some European pipes; but are more elegant, more graceful, and are
so beautifully polished that they resemble silver. The bowls are
made of earthenware, adorned with iron circlets. They also make
bracelets and armlets of elegant manufacture.
The Fertyt make no kind of tissue, having no need of garments. The
men wear a kind of apron about a span in breadth, and the women
hide themselves only with leaves of trees, which are renewed
as soon as they wither. The tribe of the Jengueh is richest in
cattle. Their oxen are small, with long horns, and each individual
has his flock. These people, men and women, go entirely naked,
without apron or leaves. They are the most intrepid of the Fertyt,
the most audacious, and the best runners. They are so swift that
none can come up with them or escape them. They sleep both sexes
together, buried in ashes. This is the way the women in each family
prepare the beds: towards evening, when they have milked their cows
and finished their domestic labours, they take a large basket and
go through the country collecting dry dung, until they have made a
great heap before their hut. They then set fire to it and reduce
it to ashes. When they want to go to bed, the wife takes a piece
of butter and rubs her husband from top to bottom, after which he
creeps into his heap of ashes, where he sleeps. In the morning he
goes to the first pool of water and washes himself. What I cannot
understand in this habit is, that being thus buried in ashes,
the Jengueh can breathe without drawing in the dust through the
nostrils. Is this the result of habit? Do they leave their heads
out in the air, or have they any other particular way of protecting
themselves, against suffocation?[42]
The Jengueh do not mark their cattle in the same way as other
nations. Every one knows their animals by the shape of their horns,
for each herd have them in a particular direction, which is given
them as soon as they begin to grow. Thus one master has the horns
of his flocks perpendicular, another horizontal, another makes
them advance forwards, another backwards, or to the right or left,
or crosses them or twists them in various ways. These facts are
certified to me by many individuals who have visited Jengueh, and
I have myself seen some of their cows with horns bent in the shape
of crescents.[43]
The Fertyts constitute an immense population, without any religion
whatever.[44] When they are reduced to slavery they adopt the
religion of those whose property they become. A year before my
departure from Darfur a great Ghazwah, or expedition fitted out
to catch slaves, set out under the command of a king or sultan
of slave-hunts, authorised by the Forian Sultan according to the
established forms. When the expedition was about to cross the
boundaries of the Fertyt country some Bedawin Arabs presented
themselves to the chief, and said that they had discovered a
considerable tribe which had not hitherto been visited, and praised
emphatically their beauty. The king, delighted with this information,
took a body of men and set out; but some days afterwards he came back
much disconcerted, bringing only a few slaves. I was afterwards
told that this tribe was a tribe of cannibals who eat people
alive. “When we reached their territory,” said a man who had
accompanied the expedition, “and appeared before the first village,
an immense crowd of the savages, with a weapon in the shape of a
sickle, very pointed and sharp as a razor, in their hands, rushed
fearlessly towards us. Behind them came an equal number of women,
each carrying on her head a great bowl filled with a thick paste. The
savages rushed upon us, each choosing a victim, and thrusting the
point of their weapons in the shoulder, made an enormous gash. The
blood gushed in abundance, and immediately the women came up with
their bowls, from which the men took large handfuls, and, having
dipped them in the blood, began to eat. They killed several of our
men and devoured them, so that we fled away in a fright.”
“And how,” said I, “do you call this tribe, whom God
confound?”
“They are called,” he said, “the Majanah.”
The Pagans of Southern Soudan stretch, as I have said, far to the
west, even to Dar-Mella, or empire of the Fullans. These Fullans
were formerly considered to be the most contemptible of the people
of Nigritia. In Soudan, it is related that they descend from
a chameleon, and, consequently, never had a human father. The
woman from whom they sprang was found sleeping by a chameleon
and bore a child, from whom all the Fellatahs descended. For my
part, I think that this is a fable, invented with the purpose of
contempt. Now-a-days the Fullans are supposed to be the people who
are the most advanced in intelligence and knowledge, compared with
the other black populations of the centre of Africa. They themselves
pretend to be of the blood of the illustrious Ammar, son of Yasir,
one of the celebrated and virtuous companions of Mohammed.
If we consider the denomination of Soudan, (which means in Arabic
the country of the blacks—Nigritia,) as an expression indicating
only the colour of the people who inhabit that part of Africa,
and not as applied to a certain geographical division, we must
comprehend under it the whole extent of country from Sennaar and
Abyssinia inclusively, that is, from the shores of the Arabian Gulf
to the western limits of Timbuctoo and Mella. But those who consider
the divers regions of this zone in relation to the advantages and
products of each, and the quality of the slaves derived from them,
give the name of Soudan only to the cluster of states that stretch
westward from Bornou exclusively. Thus, when the merchant-travellers
of the Magreb, the Ghadamsees, and the Fezzanis, say that they have
been to Soudan, they mean only that they have been to Afnou, Niffy,
and Timbuctoo.[45] Those who have been to Bornou, Wadaï, or Darfur,
never use this expression. They say that these three states are too
inferior in advantages and commercial resources to be counted amidst
the states of Soudan. When I returned to Tunis, I used often to say
in the presence of merchants, when I was in Soudan such and such
things happened. But they always took me up, saying,— “Thou
hast never been in Soudan, but only in Wadaï and Darfur.”
I shall here make some observations on the climate of Wadaï. Wind,
storms, thunder, and lightning, are very frequent there at the
time of the Roushach. Their violence is such, especially during
the first days of autumn, that it is almost impossible to describe
their effects. During the whole time that I remained in the country
I scarcely ever saw rain that was not preceded by a great wind
that darkened the atmosphere. These storms generally advance from
the east, and, passing over Gauz, or sandy plains, raise immense
whirlwinds of dust, and carry them to a great distance. At the
commencement of the storm the horizon is wrapped in clouds, either
black or dun red. Presently the thunder bursts forth with terrific
rolls. The people, stricken with fear, run to hide themselves. The
shepherds hastily gather together their flocks and urge them towards
the villages. Those who are working in the fields hasten to the
nearest shelter, or run wildly towards the villages. The traveller
seeks the first refuge he can find, for, if he is found abroad,
there is peril. The storm, like a haughty and terrible conqueror
at the head of his black warriors, strikes and shatters whatever it
meets with. Isolated trees are often torn up by the roots, crazy huts
are borne away, and old enclosures beaten to the ground. Even the
beasts instinctively take to flight. The whirlwinds come laden with
sand and gravel, that strike people down as if hurled from a sling.
When I first went to Darfur, on perceiving afar off these immense
whirlwinds, I expected great clouds and showers to follow, but I
was soon undeceived. These dusty masses are seldom brought by south
or west winds. They are often the effects of violent gusts, without
rain or thunder, and for this reason are the more dangerous, for the
rain soon beats down the dust and sand, and restores tranquillity to
the air. Sometimes, during a whole month, these violent burrascos
blow every day, beginning in the afternoon. Generally, in the last
days of autumn, they are entirely without rain. When they happen
at night, they are commonly accompanied by frightful showers and
thunder-claps. The lightning falls, setting fire to villages,
and dashing trees to pieces. Mischief is announced by terrible
detonations, accompanied by long trains of fire descending from the
clouds. Many Wadaïans and Forians have assured me that they have
dug pits in the earth, at the place where the thunder has fallen,
and have found substances resembling ferruginous scoriæ. In the
countries of Soudan where I have travelled the thunder is much
louder and more terrible than in Egypt. I do not know what is the
physical reason of this difference.
From what I have hitherto said of the customs of the Forians, their
manner of life, their food, their constitution, their dwellings,
their diseases, their ideas of medicine, the quadrupeds and birds
that are found in the country, it will be seen that in comparing
them with Wadaï the same conditions of life exist very nearly in
both countries. The analogy is explained by their neighbourhood,
for each people borrows something from its neighbours. The tribes
on the two frontiers, likewise, are closely united in bonds of
relationship. In describing the manners of Wadaï, therefore,
I shall only mention those points which are peculiar to them.