THE TUAREGS OF AÏR
Before concluding this narrative I would like to make brief reference
to the native inhabitants of Aïr.
I have said elsewhere that the total population of Aïr at the
present time is made up of 5,000 Tuaregs. And they are strange
people—the strangest race I have ever come in contact with—
independent, haughty, daring, unscrupulous, and lazy in leisure,
yet fit to rank among the finest travellers and camel-riders
in the world. If one is to judge these Tuaregs fairly, one must
try to conceive their surroundings and realise the all-important
fact that they are practically wild people in a wild land that
lies remote and unknown, and that they have had no advantages to
influence them to be aught but wholly primitive. While, further,
it may be well to remember that they are the remnant descendants
of a race that was once crafty and able in war; indeed, even in the
present day, they consider themselves the aristocrats of the land,
and look down with scarcely veiled contempt on all negro tribes.
To the French officers and to many Hausa natives they are known
as downright rascals, because they are cunning and deceitful in
the most unprincipled way the moment they have any dealings with
strangers, and I imagine that among themselves they hold belief
that anyone outside their own tribe is a legitimate enemy to be
overcome, if possible, by cunning artifice, since strength of arms
is no longer theirs.
For my own part I found the Tuaregs of Aïr difficult people to
deal with, and impossible people to rely on. Except at Timia and
Aouderas, I met with no sincere friendliness at their hands, and
was inclined to be wholly harsh in my judgment of them all, until
my later experiences prompted me to be more inclined to mitigate
my opinion of their shortcomings; for, after all, especially with
primitive natives, one must live among such people for a long
time to break through that protective reserve that shuts out the
stranger as a suspect and interloper, and to learn to know them
from an intimate point of view.
In appearance these Tuaregs, who are an Arab-like Semitic race, are
not tall. The men are generally of strong, wiry build, inclined,
if anything, to slimness, and I have never seen one of their sex
in any degree corpulent. The women are smaller than the men, many
of them not much more than five feet in height, and, at middle age,
often grow to moderate stoutness.
The features of the Tuareg natives are usually of a swarthy
copper colour of fairly light hue, while a few of them are as
yellowish-white as Arabs. Their features are, of course, not of
blunt negro type, and—when they can be seen unmasked—there is
a pleasant variety of facial character among them, and no two are
found to be alike.
Many of the women paint their faces—especially when attending a
marriage or a feast—with a hideous pigment, sometimes yellow and
sometimes red.
The men, without exception, wear the _yashmak_ over their faces
on all occasions. This is a long swathe of cotton cloth, sometimes
white, but generally dark blue or black, which is wound round the
head so that the lower folds cover all the face up to the centre of
the nose-bridge, while the upper folds are passed over the forehead
and overlap the eyebrows, so that a hood is formed to shade the
eyes from the fierce rays of the sun. All that remains visible of
an individual’s face are two piercing dark eyes that peer out of
the narrow slit in the mask. One may know Tuaregs thus masked for
months, and identify individuals by little more than their eyes;
but should the _yashmak_ ever be removed, the transformation is so
staggering that it is impossible to recognise the person at all,
since you have never seen the face before in its entirety. The women
wear a cotton shawl cast over the crown of the head, in typical
work-girl fashion, but they do not cover the face or wear _yashmak_
in any form. Wearing the _yashmak_ is a Moslem custom, but outside
its religious purport I am not sure but that it is a very comfortable
and sensible thing for those nomads of desert places to wear, for
it serves as splendid protection to the face in biting sandstorms,
since it completely covers the mouth and nostrils and ears, while
it hoods the eyes from fierce and tiring sun-glare.
As to the garb of the men, they are clothed in full-flowing cotton
gowns which reach almost to the ground, while folds drop from the
shoulders to the elbows to look like wide sleeves without being
actually sewn to that form. Underneath this robe are worn loose baggy
cotton trousers secured round the waist. The robes are, in general,
white or dark indigo-blue (a dye locally obtained in Hausaland,
where all Tuareg clothing is bought), and the latter colour is the
most becoming. All the men wear leather sandals on otherwise naked
feet. For ornament they wear leather wallets containing charms and
trinkets, which are hung in front of the person suspended from a
cord round the neck. Bangles above the elbows on the arms are also
commonly worn, usually made out of soft slate-like native stone,
which may be hewn to bangle-shape and then polished to a glossy
blackness; sometimes the bangles are of cheap metal, welded out of
scraps of brass or tin by the local blacksmith. All Tuaregs carry
double-edged swords in a leather sheath slung over the shoulder on
a strap.
[Illustration: TUAREG BOYS OF BAGUEZAN MOUNTAINS.]
[Illustration: “ATAGOOM,” A TUAREG NATIVE OF AÏR IN TYPICAL
DRESS.]
The women wear loose cotton garb swathed about them, but, being
of diminutive stature, they seldom bear anything of the native
gracefulness which is often associated with the men, many of whom
have more than ordinary vanity as to their appearance and carry
themselves accordingly. The women are much given to wearing bright
coloured cottons, and sometimes the effect in sombre surroundings
is very pleasant. For ornament the women principally wear bangles
both on the wrists and above the elbows, necklaces to which one or
more charm is attached, and earrings.
With regard to the wealth of the natives, I think it may safely be
said that they are a poor people, if we except one or two chiefs
who possibly have fair means. The wealthiest individual that
I questioned on this matter was a native of Timia, who possessed
thirty camels, which, if valued at £12 a piece—which is a fair
average price—would place his total wealth at £360. But the
property of the ordinary native of Aïr is usually comprised of
one or two camels and a number of goats, ranging from herds of five
to thirty according to their means. The camels, besides being the
means of transporting private stores of grain from the south, bring
in a certain ready-cash return (usually about two francs per camel
per day) when hired by traders or military authorities to make up a
caravan journey to Hausaland or elsewhere. The goat-herds furnish
milk, which is a staple food among the Tuaregs—liquid or in the
form of cheese; while male animals are butchered from time to time,
the meat eaten, and the hides turned to domestic use or sold.
The Tuaregs of Aïr appear to be a fairly healthy race, but the
women do not bear large families, and I am told that there is a
good deal of inbreeding wherever there are small local settlements.
Outside of Agades there is no European doctor (at Agades there
is a doctor, the only one north of Zinder), and the country would
benefit greatly if it could support an adequate medical staff.
The language of the Tuaregs, which they call Tamāshack (Temashight
and Tarkiye: _Barth_), is much more difficult to learn than Hausa,
and is spoken in a peculiar rapid-running fashion, which makes it
very difficult to grasp the distinct sounding of the vowels. Tuareg
voices are often pleasantly soft and musical.
I have remarked with interest that tree names and the names of birds
and animals are well-known to almost all the natives, even boys at
an early age having much knowledge of the nature about them. How
many of us at home can name all the trees and birds of the common
roadside? But then we are really an indoor, over-civilised people,
while those natives of the outdoors _must_ know Nature and something
of her secrets, since she provides their livelihood: food, building
material, ropes, saddlery, leather, clothing, dyes, medicines,
even luxuries—all that is essential to man’s needs, the Tuareg
harvests from his countryside, in small portion, whether he seek
among the branch-tops, or digs at the tree-roots, or kills with
arrow or noose-trap, or sows and reaps grain with the two hands
Creation gave him and little else besides the scraps of metal he
fashions to bring to his aid.
On the other hand, so far as one can observe, these natives do not
discern beauty in the scenes about them, and I have often witnessed
them pass by some exceptionally fair picture without paying the
slightest attention to it. They are, however, attracted by strange
shapes, such as are often to be seen among the rugged mountain-tops,
and they sometimes exclaim and point these out.
These natives have also some meagre knowledge of the great world
outside their own land: no doubt scraps of information brought to
their ears by their Mohammedan priests, or by those who have made
the pilgrimage to Mecca and returned alive. They know, for instance,
that there are such races as Japanese and Indians; while they have
a Tamāshack name for _fish_, and know that this is a creature that
lives in the water and is good to eat, though none exist anywhere
in Aïr.
The Mohammedan religion, and sects of Mohammedanism, such as
Senussi, constitute the faith of the natives of Aïr, and they are
very devout.
In their domestic life, it seems to me, the Tuaregs know little
of the beauty of love. Marriage to them is something of an animal
instinct, and the devotion of the men is never sacred to one woman,
for they have usually from two to four wives. As an instance of
their apparent lack of deep devotion, I have seen Tuaregs, after
being away on a journey with their camels for months, return to their
home-village and alight on the outskirts to enter into promiscuous
conversation with the crowd of men that quickly gather to hear the
news the travellers bring, and have known them to spend hours thus
engaged before they give a thought to go forward to their huts
to greet their wives and children: surely a strange indifference
to domestic devotion on the part of men who have been long away
from home.
In daily life it is the custom of the natives to rise before
daylight, and they are already started on the road if they are
travelling, or at work about their hut doors if they are in camp,
before dawn lightens the eastern horizon. But you are not to conclude
from this that they are energetic people, far from it; I believe
that, except when travelling, the men are the laziest people I have
ever met. By 8 a.m. I have known men to lie down in their huts,
and not again make any attempt to rise and exert themselves until
4 or 5 p.m. in the cool of the evening. The dreadfully hot climate
tends towards such laziness, but without doubt it is inherent in
the blood. And their lazy life begins in childhood, for at an early
age the children are sent out by their parents to herd the goats;
and through the heat of a long day the youngsters chiefly spend
their time sleeping or idling beneath the shade of acacias while
the animals wander at no great range. In the cool of the evening
the herd-boys wake to exertion, and if flocks have strayed while
unattended, they have merely to follow their footprints in the
tell-tale sand to come up with them and drive them home to the
village.
It is pleasant to be near a native village at sundown: to hear the
clear voice of some woman who sets out along a bypath uttering some
strange peculiar call known only to her herd, who will in time
bleat an answer; then, so that they may be milked and sheltered
for the night from prowling, destructive jackals, to see her
humour them slowly homeward, repeating her call the while, as the
active animals run from bush to bush in haste to ferret out a few
last mouthfuls of supper; while shadows of evening deepen and the
comfort of coolness sets men and women rejoicing in the village.
Then may be heard, above the talk and laughter of the villagers,
the thud! thud! thud! of pestle poles as women crush grain for
the evening meal in wooden mortar-bowls, and the cries of nursling
livestock that await their feeding-time— the bleat of suckling
goats and the unhappy roaring call of the milk-hungry, impatient
camel-calves.
It is the women who work: they who carry water, tend the beasts,
collect firewood, prepare the evening meal; and, besides their
many domestic tasks, to them also is credit due for teaching
their children all that they know of home-work and bush-work,
of school-learning and legend, of folksong and dance.
I would say of the Tuareg men that they are adventurers of the road;
seen at a disadvantage in their villages, but active and able when
away with their caravans—superb camel-riders, observant trackers,
and endowed with that marvellous second sense of direction which
belongs only to natives.