THE ANCESTRY OF THE TUAREG OF AIR
After the close of the classical period, the works of that great
historian and philosopher, Abu Zeid Abd el Rahman ibn Khaldun, are our
most fruitful source of information regarding North Africa. Himself
a native of North Africa, whose inhabitants he esteemed inferior
to none in the world, Ibn Khaldun compiled a monumental _History of
the Berbers_, which has become a classic in the Arabic language. His
lifetime, falling between A.D. 1332 and 1406, was still sufficiently
early for him to have had experience of conditions and people before
they had fallen so completely under the influence of the Arabs as
we find them a century or two later. On the subject of the Tuareg,
or Muleththemin as he calls them, the work is perhaps a little
disappointing, for the author seems to have drawn his material from
several sources; he is not wholly free from contradictions. To avoid,
however, adding unduly to the complications attending a study of the
divisions of the Tuareg in the Central Sahara, it will be preferable
in the first instance to examine the account of another historian,
Leo Africanus. Hassan ibn Muhammad el Wezaz el Fazi or el Gharnathi,
to give him his full name, was also a North African, but born, probably
in A.D. 1494 or 1495, at Granada. In the course of his life he became
converted to Christianity, when he relinquished his original name. He
travelled extensively in North Africa, and after living for some time
in Rome, died at Tunis in 1552.[297]
According to Leo,[298] in the interior of Libya there was a people
who wore the Litham or Veil. The nations of this people were called
Lemtuna, Lemta, Jedala, Targa,[299] and Zenega; in other lists the
names are given as Zenega or Sanhaja, Zanziga or Ganziga, Targa, Lemta
and Jedala. While “Lemta” and “Lemtuna” have been regarded
in some quarters as two forms of the same name, the groups are only
ethnically connected, inasmuch as both were Muleththemin. In Leo’s
descriptions of the deserts of Inner Libya the Lemta figure in the
country between Air and the Tibesti mountains; the northern part of
their area is almost identical with the present habitat of the Azger
Tuareg. The Lemtuna, on the other hand, as we shall presently see,
were a subdivision of the Sanhaja who lived much further west. The
passage is a little obscure, but I find it difficult to agree with
the interpretation put upon it by the learned editors of the Hakluyt
Society in their reprint of Leo’s works.
[Illustration: LEO’S SAHARAN AREAS
F. R. del.
Emery Walker Ltd. sc.]
Leo writes:[300] “Having described all the regions of Numidia,
let us now proceed with the description of Libya, which is divided
into five parts. . . .”
“The drie and forlorne desert of Zanhaga which bordereth the
westward upon the Ocean Sea and extendeth eastward to the salt pits of
Tegaza”[301] is clearly the Atlantic area, now called Mauretania by
the French, between Southern Morocco and the Upper Niger and Senegal
rivers. The Zanhaga are the Sanhaja, a famous part of the Muleththemin
early in their recorded history, but now fallen into great decay.
The second area appears to be east of the first. The great steppe and
desert area bounded by Southern Morocco and Southern Algeria in the
north, and by the Niger country from Walata[302] to Gao[303] in the
south, is divided into two and shared between the Sanhaja in the west,
inhabiting his first area, and the Zanziga or Ganziga in the east,
inhabiting his second area. The latter names are akin to the former
and the people, if not identical, are probably related.
The third area was inhabited by the Targa. It commences from the
desert steppe west of Air and extends eastwards towards the desert
of Igidi.[304] Northward it borders on the Tuat, Gourara and Mzab
countries, while in the south it terminates in the wilderness around
Agades and Lower Air. The boundaries of this area are quite clear:
they include the massifs of Air and Ahaggar and the deserts immediately
east and west of the former.
The fourth and fifth areas we will come to later.
Leo is obviously attempting to describe the principal geographical
divisions of the Sahara and the Veiled People inhabiting them. The
boundaries of each area are given in terms of intervening deserts,
or of countries inhabited by sedentaries or by other races which
did not wear the Veil. His divisions, therefore, are not deserts
but habitable steppe or other types of country bounded by deserts,
or non-Tuareg districts.
Some confusion reigns in regard to the third area, the eastern limit
of which is described as the Igidi desert. What is known as the
Igidi desert to-day is a dune area south-west of Beni Abbes in South
Western Algeria; but the position of this Igidi, lying as it does on
the road from Morocco to Timbuctoo, cannot be the _eastern_ boundary
of the third area. This Igidi is, in fact, in the northern part of
the second area, which is that of the Zanziga. Now this second area
is said to contain a desert zone called “Gogdem,” a name which
cannot now be traced in that neighbourhood, though the well-defined
Igidi south-west of Beni Abbes immediately jumps to the mind as a
probable identification. The eastern boundary of the third area, which
includes Air, or, as Leo calls it, “Hair,” must lie between these
mountains and those of Tibesti. This vast tract is in part true desert,
with patches of white sand dunes, and in part desert steppe with scanty
vegetation; it also contains a few oases. In it is one particular area
of white dune desert crossed by the Chad road and containing a famous
well called Agadem.[305] One of two hypotheses is possible: either
the names “Igidi” and “Gogdem” in the paragraphs[306] dealing
with the second and third areas respectively have become transposed in
the text and Gogdem is to be identified with the Agadem dune desert,
or else the whole phrase relating to the desert of Gogdem has been
bodily misplaced at the end of the section dealing with the Zanziga
area, instead of standing at the end of the succeeding paragraph on
the Targa area, in which case Leo would be calling the Agadem dunes
the Gogdem desert, within or near another Igidi[307] waste. Agadem is
quite sufficiently important as a watering-point on a most difficult
section of the Chad road to give its name to the area, nor is it hard
to account for the corruption of the name into Gogdem[308]—such
changes have occurred in many travellers’ notes.[309] The first
hypothesis is the most probable; it affords a simple explanation of
an otherwise obscure passage and renders Leo’s boundaries lucid.
The fourth of Leo’s areas inhabited by the Lemta is described as
extending from the desert east of Air _as far as_ the country of the
Berdeoa. This area seems to be that in which the Chad road and the
wells to the east of it are found. It would include a part of the
desert of Agadem, the Great Steppe north of Lake Chad, and oases like
Jado and the Kawar depression.
The fifth and last area is that _of_ the people of Berdeoa; it adjoins
the Fezzan and Barca in the north, and in the south the wilderness
north of Wadai, including presumably Tibesti and the Libyan desert
west of the Nile Valley. It is said to extend eastward to the deserts
of Aujila, though north-eastward would have been a more accurate
definition.
Between the people of Berdeoa and the Nile Valley are the Egyptian
oases inhabited by the Arabs and some “vile” black people.
Leo’s description of the Sahara is far from being incorrect or
confused; his information may be summarised as follows:[310]
_Areas I and II._—South of Morocco and Western Algeria; north
of the Niger and Senegal rivers; between the Atlantic littoral and
the Ahaggar and Air massifs with their immediately adjacent deserts
or steppes. Inhabitants: Sanhaja in the west and Zanziga in the east.
_Area III._—Air and Ahaggar, with their adjacent areas; south of
Tuat, Gourara and Mzab, and north of Damergu. Inhabitants: Targa.
_Area IV._—Desert and steppe between Air and Tibesti from
Wargla and Ghadames in the north to the country of Kano and Nigeria
generally in the south, including the country of Ghat and the Western
Fezzan. Inhabitants: Lemta.
_Area V._—The Libyan desert of Egypt, the Cyrenaican steppes
and desert, a part of the Eastern Fezzan and Tibesti, Erdi and
Kufra. Inhabitants: the people of Berdeoa with Arabs in the
north-east and some blacks in the south-east.
In the fourth area the Lemta were in the country where the Azger now
live, but the southern and the eastern sides have since been lost to
the Tuareg. Kawar, whence the Tuareg of Air fetch salt, is under the
domination of the latter, but, like the other habitable areas on the
Chad road and in the Great Steppe, is now inhabited largely by Kanuri
and Tebu. There is nothing improbable in the statement that the Lemta
covered the whole of the fourth area. We have quite other definite
and probably independent records of the Tuareg having lived in the
Chad area and in Bornu, whence they were driven by the Kanuri, who are
known to have conquered Kawar in fairly recent historical times.[311]
The people of Berdeoa are the only inhabitants of any of the
five areas who were not Muleththemin. I have little doubt that
they are the inhabitants of Tibesti, where the town or village of
Bardai is perhaps the most important of the permanently inhabited
places. To-day they are Tebu, a name which seems to mean “The
People of the Rock,”[312] with an incorrectly formed Arab version,
Tibawi. The racial problem which they present can only be solved
when they are better known. Keane[313] assumes that they are the
descendants of the Garamantes, whose primeval home was perhaps in
the Tibesti mountains. He notes the similarity of the names of their
northern branch, the Teda, and a tribe called the Tedamansii, who seem,
however, to have lived too far north to be connected with them.[314]
The Southern Tebu or Daza section is certainly more negroid than the
northern, and there are reasons for not accepting the view that the
Garamantian civilisation was the product of a negroid people. Leo[315]
records the discovery “of the region of Berdeoa,” which from the
context is probably a misreading for _a_ “region of the Berdeoa”
in the Libyan desert of Egypt. The area is described as containing
three castles and five or six villages. It is probably the Kufra
archipelago of oases. The story of accidental discoveries of oases
is also told of other places; Wau el Harir,[316] an oasis in the
Eastern Fezzan, was reported to have been found by accident in 1860,
and the Arab geographers relate similar stories of other points in
the Libyan desert. The accounts of Kufra by Rohlfs and Hassanein Bey
go to show that before it became a centre of the Senussi sect, with
the consequent influx of Cyrenaican Arabs and Libyans, the population
was Tebu. The identity of Berdeoa, which I think must be Bardai, was
the subject of some controversy before circumstantial accounts of
its existence were brought back by travellers in modern times. The
name was for long assumed to be a misreading for Borku or Borgu, as
D’Anville suggested. In Rennell’s map accompanying the account of
Hornemann’s travels at the end of the eighteenth century the town
(_sic_) of Bornu north of what is presumably meant to represent Lake
Chad is a mislocation for Bornu province, while Bourgou in Lat. 26°
N., Long. 22° E. is intended to represent Bardai in Tibesti, the
Berdeoa of Leo. The “residue of the Libyan desert”[317] (_i.e._
other than that of the Tebu people of Berdeoa), namely, Augela (Aujila
oasis) to the River of the Nile, we are told by Leo was inhabited
by certaine Arabians and Africans called “Leuata,” a name which
coincides with the Lebu or Rebu of Egyptian records. Idrisi places
them in the same area as Leo, calling them Lebetae or Levata. The
stock is referred to under the general name of Levata or Leuata
by Ibn Khaldun in several connections. An ethnic rather than a
tribal name seems to be involved, and this is natural if they are
the descendants of the Lebu. Bates concludes that in the name of
this people is the origin of the classical word “Libyan.”[318]
The Leuata[319] assisted Hamid ibn Yesel, Lord of Tehert, in a war in
Algeria against El Mansur, the third Fatimite Khalif. In A.D. 947-8,
when El Mansur drove Hamid into Spain, the Levata were dispersed into
the desert; some who escaped found refuge in the mountains between
Sfax and Gabes, where they were still living in Ibn Khaldun’s day;
others he places in the Great Syrtis and in the Siwa area. In Byzantine
times they are shown in the Little Syrtis. El Masa’udi states that
the Leuata survived in the Oases of Egypt. Their principal habitat is,
in fact, not far from the country of the Lebu, who were in Cyrenaica
according to Egyptian records. Both the Tehenu further east and the
Lebu are known to have been subjected to pressure from the Meshwesh
in the west, and some fusion between the two may well, therefore,
have occurred. The ancestors of the Levata of Arab geographers and
the modern Libyan inhabitants of Siwa and the northern oases of the
Western Desert of Egypt are either the product of this fusion or the
descendants of the Lebu alone. The Levata and Lebu seem to have this
in common, that they are probably a non-Tuareg Libyan people immigrant
from across the Mediterranean at the time of the invasions of Egypt
by the Libyan and Sea People. In the course of history they were
displaced and reduced; only in the north-east of the Libyan desert
did they remain at all concentrated or homogeneous.
The Targa who inhabited the third area of Leo concern this volume most
particularly, as their zone includes Air as well as Ahaggar. So long as
the Tuareg were believed to be only a tribe they were identified with
the Targa, but when the former term was discovered to have a wider or
racial significance it was not clear, unless it was a proper name,
why Leo used it of any one section of the Muleththemin. The exact
significance only appears when Ibn Khaldun’s narrative is considered.
In his History of the Berbers Ibn Khaldun attempted to make a
comprehensive classification of the Libyans. After working out
a comparatively simple system which emphasises both the obvious
diversity as well as the superficial appearance of unity[320] of the
population of North Africa, he proceeds to elaborate more complex
schemes of classification which are difficult to reconcile with one
another. He seems throughout to have derived his information from
two or more sources which he was himself unable to co-ordinate.
Ibn Khaldun divides the Libyans into two families descended from the
eponymous heroes, Branes and Madghis, a theory which recognises the
difficulties involved by the assumption that they all belonged to a
single stock. The division may be traced even to-day. In many Libyan
villages the inhabitants are divided into two factions which, without
being hostile, are conscious of being different. The factions are
not found among the nomadic tribes, where opportunities for living
in separate places are greater than in the sedentary districts,
but their existence among the latter, however, is hardly otherwise
explicable than by the assumption of separate racial origins. This
view is suggested by Ibn Khaldun’s classification, and also by
the result of a detailed examination of the different constituent
elements of the Libyan population. Among the Tuareg, whom I consider
belong to a single stock, different from that of the various races
which composed the other Libyans, these factions do not exist even
in the villages where tribal organisation is in process of breaking
down and people of different clans live together under one headman.
Out of deference to the patriarchal system of the Arabs—a habit of
mind which pervades their life and often distorts their historical
perception—Ibn Khaldun has given to the two Libyan families of
Branes and Madghis a common ancestor called Mazigh. Both “Madghis”
and “Mazigh” are probably derived from the common MZGh root
found to be so widespread in North African names.[321] All three are
almost certainly mythical personages. The selection of Mazigh as the
common ancestor points to an attempt having been made, in accordance
with patriarchal custom, to explain the one characteristic which
is really common to all the Libyans including the Tuareg, namely,
their language. While the MZGh root is not at all universally used as
the root of a national appellation, its occurrence in various parts
of North Africa might well allow one to talk of “Mazigh-speaking
People,” or, as we might more comprehensibly say, “Berber-speaking
People.” And so I would confine the use of both “Berber” and
“Mazigh” to a linguistic signification, analogous to that of the
word “Aryan,” which simply denotes people, not necessarily of the
same racial stock, speaking one of the Aryan group of languages.[322]
Ibn Khaldun places the home of most of the divisions of the Beranes
and Madghis Libyans in Syria. They were, he says, the sons of Mazigh,
the son of Canaan, the son of Ham, and consequently related to the
Philistines and Gergesenes, who did not leave the east when their
kinsmen came to Africa. All Moslems possess a form of snobbishness
which is displayed in their attempt to establish some connection,
direct or indirect, with an Arabian tribe related to the people of
the Prophet Muhammad. In Morocco this feeling is so strong that it is
common to find Libyan families free from all admixture with the Arab
invaders, boasting ancestral trees descended from the Prophet. The
Maghreb is full of pseudo-Ashraf; a term in the Moslem world which
is properly reserved for the descendants of the Leader of Islam. The
same occurs in Central Africa. Much of the legendary history of the
Libyans relating to an eastern home may therefore be discounted as
attempts on the part of Moslem historians to connect them with the
lands and race of Islam. Nevertheless, even when all allowances have
been made for this factor there remains to be explained a strong
tradition of some connection between North Africa and the Arab
countries. Not only is it commented upon in all the early histories,
but it is to some extent still current to-day among the people. I am
not convinced that it cannot be explained by the presence among the
Libyans of one element which certainly did come from the East in the
period preceding and during the invasions of Egypt, when the people
of the Eastern Mediterranean co-operated with the Africans in their
attacks on the Nile Valley. The undoubted occurrence of migrations
within the historical period both from Syria and from the east coast
of the Red Sea are alone sufficient, if the characteristic of Moslem
snobbishness is taken into account, to account for such traditions
regarding their home. It is unnecessary to attribute these stories
to the original appearance of the Libyans proper in Africa even if
their cradle is to be looked for in the East. This may be inherently
probable, but must be placed at so remote a date as to ensure that
traditions connected therewith were certainly by now forgotten.
Ibn Khaldun divides the families of Branes and Madghis respectively
into ten and four divisions. Four of the ten Beranes people, the Lemta,
Sanhaja, Ketama and Auriga, are called the Muleththemin, or People
of the Veil.[323] The descendants of Madghis, with whom we are not
concerned, include the Louata or Levata. The hypothesis previously
brought forward for their non-Tuareg origin gains support from the
fact that in Ibn Khaldun’s classification they are not placed in
the same family as the People of the Veil.
We now come to Ibn Khaldun’s views regarding the origin of the
Muleththemin. The four divisions of Lemta, Sanhaja, Ketama and Auriga,
though in the Beranes group, he regarded as of a different origin
to the other six sections. The inconsistency of the patriarchal
classification is apparent. He states that certain traditions which
he is inclined to accept as true connect the Sanhaja and the Ketama
with the Yemen.[324] They were Himyarite tribes which came from the
east coast of the Red Sea to Africa under the leadership of Ifrikos,
the hero who gave his name to Ifrikiya, which is now called Tunisia. In
examining the organisation and history of the Aulimmiden Tuareg who
live between the Air mountains and the Niger bend, Barth[325] found
that they also claimed to be descended from Himyer. Now the Aulimmiden
in name and history are a part of the Lemta who migrated from the
area in North Africa where the rest of the section still lives under
the name of Azger, and where we are first able to identify them from
our records. What is true in this respect of a part is true of the
whole, and three out of the four divisions of the Muleththemin thus
seem to be racially different from the other six Beranes divisions,
the fourth section in question being the Auriga people, who are also
called Hawara. The latter present one of the most difficult problems
in the early history of North Africa. Suffice it here to state that
in the course of the early Arab invasions many of them lost so much
of their individuality that we must rely largely on Ibn Khaldun’s
classification of them among the four divisions of the Tuareg for
their early identity.
There are then, according to Ibn Khaldun, two separate families of
Libyans, and in one of these is a group apparently different racially
from the remainder of the two families.
It is a complicated classification which attempts to establish some
sort of unity among all the Libyans, and at the same time indicates
without room for doubt that the learned historian felt he was dealing
with a mixed population. His difficulties are clear. His statements
support the view that the Tuareg are separate from the rest of the
people called Libyans, who are themselves composed of at least two
stocks, though more than this regarding the origin of the Tuareg I
should not yet feel entitled to deduce from his account.
At a later stage, when the origins of the People of Air come to be
examined, another reference will be found, in the writings of an
authority in the Sudan, to the migration of a people from the east
coast of the Red Sea into Africa. This Himyaritic invasion is so much
insisted upon in various works that the presumption of a migration from
that direction, with which the Tuareg were associated, is tempting,
though it is not clear whether the Sudanese authority was merely
copying Ibn Khaldun’s statements or whether he was working on
independent information. I have mentioned the theory because it is
one of the more usually accepted explanations of the origin of the
Tuareg, but I do not think the problem can be so easily resolved. My
own view is that the Tuareg are not Himyarites, but that the memory
of an invasion from that quarter which undoubtedly did contribute to
the population of Central Africa was adopted by their own traditional
historians and accepted by Ibn Khaldun to establish a connection for
the People of the Veil with the land of the Prophet. The migrations
across the Red Sea are far more likely to have accounted for the
early Semitic influence in Africa, especially in the Nilotic Sudan
before the rise of Islam, and in Abyssinia, than for the origin of
the Tuareg, who, I am convinced, were already in the continent at a
far earlier date.
Ibn Khaldun now introduces a further classification which again
emphasises the separateness or individuality of the Tuareg. He states
that among the Beranes were certain divisions collectively known as
the Children of Tiski. Among these were the Hawara, Heskura, Sanhaja,
Lemta, and Gezula. The Hawara we know were the same as the Auriga;
the Sanhaja and Lemta have already been mentioned. The Heskura and
Gezula may therefore be subdivisions of the Ketama, and the Children of
Tiski, therefore, probably a collective term for all the Muleththemin
as a whole.
Ibn Khaldun’s writings are voluminous and have a baffling tendency to
jump about from subject to subject. Having given us these explanations,
which though complicated are comprehensible, he suddenly brings in a
host of new names, and proceeds to inform us that the Muleththemin are
descended from the “Sanhaja of the second race” and to consist
of the Jedala or Gedala, Lemtuna, Utzila, Targa, Zegawa and Lemta
divisions. It is not within the scope of this work to examine all
the Tuareg groups in Africa in detail. To investigate the Zanziga of
Leo’s second area or the Utzila or Jedala of Ibn Khaldun would only
serve to complicate the issue which deals with the Tuareg of Air. But
the Sanhaja, although they lived in the furthest west of the Sahara,
played such an important part in the history of all the Tuareg that
they must be briefly mentioned in passing.
At one period nearly all the People of the Veil were united in a sort
of desert confederation under the dominion of the Sanhaja. The era
terminated with the death of Ibn Ghania in about A.D. 1233, some
150 years before Ibn Khaldun wrote, even by which time, however,
the inner parts of Africa had hardly recovered. The memory of the
Sanhaja empire, which extended from the Senegal River to Fez and
eastwards perhaps as far as Tibesti, survived in the additional
classifications of Ibn Khaldun and in the stories about the Tuareg
collected by his contemporaries. It is possible to suppose that
the first ethnological systems he gives refer to the state of the
Muleththemin before or during the Sanhaja confederacy, but that
when he gives the list of names of six divisions descended from the
“second race of Sanhaja” he is referring to the People of the
Veil after the death of Ibn Ghania. At that time the name of the
dominant group in the confederation had been given by the other
inhabitants of North Africa generally to all the Tuareg. In the
process of disintegration of the empire several truly Sanhaja tribes
were absorbed by other Tuareg groups. It is difficult to accept the
alternative view that the Sanhaja of the second race are a different
people from the earlier Sanhaja, for such a conclusion would imply
that the Muleththemin were made up of more than one racial stock,
whereas their most obvious characteristic is unity of type and habit.
The Sanhaja division of Ibn Khaldun’s first grouping are obviously
the same as the people of Leo’s first area on the western side of
the great desert which extends between Beni Abbes and Timbuctoo. After
their period of fame they came on evil days, and were reduced to
the position of tributaries when they lost many of their Tuareg
characteristics. Their remnants are the Mesufa and Lemtuna tribes. The
relationship of the Sanhaja and Lemta noted by Barth either means
nothing more than that they were both Muleththemin, or dates from
their association with each other during the Sanhaja empire; for they
were ever separate ethnic divisions of the People of the Veil.
Much trouble has been occasioned by the confusion of the names Lemta
and Lemtuna. The apparent derivation of the latter from the former
may also have been due to the association of the two main divisions:
it is important only to emphasise that while the one is a subdivision
of the Sanhaja now living in the north-west corner of the Sahara near
Morocco, the other is a branch of the Tuareg race co-equal with the
latter. It is in this confusion of names that the explanation is to
be found of the statement so often heard and repeated by Barth, that
the Lemta were the neighbours of the Moorish Walad Delim of Southern
Morocco. The position of the Lemtuna makes this statement true of
them, but not of the Lemta, whose home, both on the authority of Leo
and on other evidence, was far removed from Mauretania, and, to wit,
in the Fezzan. The erroneous association of the Lemta with the Walad
Delim is largely responsible for the wrong account of the migrations
of various sections of the southern and south-eastern Tuareg given
by Barth and his successors.[326]
But let us return to the people who were the ancestors of the
Air Tuareg. The Hawara, according to Ibn Khaldun, El Bekri and El
Masa’udi, inhabited Tripolitania, the deserts of Ifrikiya, and even
parts of Barca. They lived, in part at least, side by side with the
Lemta, Wearers of the Veil, who were “near,” or “as far as”
Gawgawa. It has been assumed that this Gawgawa was the Kaukau of Ibn
Batutah’s travels, and consequently Gao or Gaogao or Gogo or Gagho
on the Niger. But it is more reasonably identified with Kuka on Lake
Chad, and if this is so, the Lemta according to Ibn Khaldun extended
precisely as far as the place referred to by Leo, in speaking of
his fourth area.[327] It is clear that Ibn Khaldun meant “as far
as” and not “near,” for in referring to the Hawarid origin of
a part of the Lemta people he says that they may be so recognised
“by their name, which is an altered form of the word Hawara: for
having changed the و (_w_) into a sort of _k_ which is intermediary
between the soft _g_ and the hard _q_, they have formed “Haggar.”
The latter are, of course, the Ahaggaren, who then, as now, lived in
mountains called by the same name a very long way from Kuka on Lake
Chad; even so they were coterminous with the Lemta, a point which
coincides with the evidence of Leo and others. Further indications of
the extension of the Lemta as far as Lake Chad will be dealt with in
the next chapter; they are confirmed both by the sequence of events
in Air and by the occupation of Tademekka by the Aulimmiden-Lemta,
culminating in A.D. 1640 when the former inhabitants of that area were
driven towards the west.[328] All this would be incomprehensible if
Gawgawa were identified with Gao on the Niger, or if Ibn Khaldun’s
“near” were not interpreted as “towards” or “as far as.”
It may appear strange to find Ibn Khaldun referring to the Hawarid
origin of the Lemta when they are repeatedly given elsewhere by
him as separate and co-equal divisions of the Muleththemin. It is
possible that originally “Hawara” or “Auriga” may have been
the national name of all the Tuareg, and that on the analogy of what
we know happens in the case of tribes which have split up, one group
may have retained the name of the parent stock. But if this ever did
take place it must have happened long before the Moslem invasion, by
which time the Tuareg had already become established in the divisions
which we know; such an occurrence would have no practical bearing
on conditions prevailing to-day. It is therefore easier to assume
that all he meant to convey was the existence of a certain rather
close connection between the Hawara and Lemta. We know in fact that,
though not identical, the two groups have interchanged tribes, some
of each division being found in the other one. This connection would
account for the suspicious etymology of the word “Haggar,” which
sounds uncommonly like an attempt on his part to prove philologically
what is known traditionally to be the case.
The Hawara as we know them to-day are not all Tuareg or even Libyans,
although they were included among the Beranes families under the name
of Auriga, and were specifically numbered among the People of the
Veil. They were described as an element of great importance among the
pre-Arab Libyans and reckoned co-equal with the Sanhaja. Ibn Khaldun
does, however, add that at the time of the Arab conquest of North
Africa they had assimilated a number of other tribes of different
stock, which probably explains the rapid “Arabisation” of a part of
them. It was the non-Tuareg part which became readily proselytised and
so passed under the influence of the new rulers of North Africa. The
Hawara were much to the fore in the occupation of Spain and generally
in the Arab doings of the Fatimite era. Some of them in common with
other Libyans supported the Kharejite schism in Islam; yet another
part which had become “Arabised” established itself under the name
of the Beni Khattab in the Fezzan, with their capital at Zuila. But
those of them who most retained their Tuareg characteristics represent
the original stock. In referring to certain Libyans by the name of
Hawara, Ibn Khaldun is obviously not speaking of Tuareg people;
one may therefore conclude that he means the strangers whom they
assimilated.[329] Consequently I prefer to use the name “Hawara”
for the whole group, but when the section which preserves its Tuareg
characteristics is indicated the name “Auriga” is more applicable.
It may be conceived that a people of such importance left some trace
of their name among the Tuareg of to-day, in addition to the name
“Haggar,” where Ibn Khaldun’s etymology seems suspicious. The
name can be recognised in the form “Oraghen” or “Auraghen,” or
in an older spelling “Iuraghen,” a tribe in the Azger group. The
root also occurs in the name “Auraghiye” given to the Air dialect
of the Tuareg language. These instances are valuable evidence.
Duveyrier[330] records of the Oraghen tribe that “according to
tradition they originally came from the neighbourhood of Sokna.[331]
Before establishing themselves where they are now located, the
tribe inhabited in succession the Fezzan, the country of Ghat, and
Ahawagh, a territory situate on the left bank of the Niger, east of
Timbuctoo. It was in this locality that the tribe divided; one part,
the one under review, returned to the environs of Ghat, the other
more numerous part remained in the Ahawagh. . . .” The Ahawagh or
Azawagh is some way east of Timbuctoo, it is, in point of fact, as
Barth rightly points out, the area south of Air. He says:[332] “Their
original abode was said to be at a place called Asawa (Azawagh)[333]
to the south of Iralghawen (Eghalgawen) in Southern Air.” While
the exact sequence of movements thus recorded may not be accurate,
the indications are of importance in considering the origin of the
people of Air as they refer to a southward migration through Air and
a partial return north. But whereas in the Azger country the Auraghen
are a noble tribe, in the Southland they are a servile tribe of the
Aulimmiden.[334] This fact is very significant and seems to provide
an explanation of the ancestry of the Tademekkat and of some of the
People of Air,[335] who are in part of Hawarid origin. The date of the
expulsion of the Tademekkat people towards the west and north by the
Aulimmiden prior and up to about A.D. 1640 coincides with the legend
recorded by Duveyrier of a party of southern Auraghen who came to
the assistance of their cousins among the Azger and helped to break
the domination of the Imanen kings of the Azger. Those Auraghen who
remained behind in the Tademekka country were eventually reduced to
a state of vassalage and pushed westward during the general movement
which took place in that direction.
But in spite of the occurrence of a tribe with this name among the
Azger, it is not the latter group but the Ahaggaren who were originally
Auriga, even as the Azger were in essence Lemta, notwithstanding the
considerable exchange of tribes which has taken place between the
two groups.
In another place I have had occasion to doubt whether the usually
accepted derivation of the word “Tuareg” applied, as it now is, to
all the People of the Veil was entirely satisfactory. The derivation
seemed founded on the fallacy of “post hoc, ergo propter hoc.”
The name Targa in Leo and Ibn Khaldun appears to be the same word
as Tuareg, in a slightly modified form; but in these authors it
is not used of all but only of a part of the Muleththemin. It is
a proper name like Sanhaja, or Lemta, and the group which bears it
is as important as the other main divisions. Now in one place Leo
names the divisions of the Muleththemin as the Sanhaja, Zanziga,
Targa, Lemta and Jadala; in another as the Sanhaja, Targa, Jedala,
Lemta and Lemtuna, of which we can eliminate the last named as a
subdivision of the Sanhaja. Elsewhere again he calls them the Sanhaja,
Zanziga, Guenziga, Targa and Lemta. Further, in Ibn Khaldun we learn
that the Sanhaja, Hawara, Lemta, Gezula and Heskura are in one group
as the Children of Tiski, and again he divides the race into four
divisions only, the Sanhaja, Auriga, Ketama and Lemta. Of these we
can eliminate the Lemtuna as a part of the Sanhaja. Leo’s Zanziga
and Guenziga are modifications of the latter name and were given to
the Tuareg immediately east of them, probably during their desert
confederation; Ibn Khaldun’s Heskura and Gezula seem to be two names
for one division which possibly was the Ketama. Now if the remaining
names are considered, it is noteworthy that in no one of the lists do
the two names Targa and Hawara or Auriga occur. They are therefore
quite likely to be different names for the same group. Furthermore,
in Leo’s third area the veiled inhabitants of the Air and Ahaggar
mountains are both called Targa, and the latter and a large part of
the former are known to be Hawara. The conclusion is that “Targa,”
so far from being merely a descriptive or abusive term, is another
name for Hawara-Auriga. The fact that the dialect spoken in Air is
called Auraghiye alone would justify Leo classifying the inhabitants
both of Air as well as of Ahaggar under one term, namely, Targa, if,
as is highly probable, the name is an alternative for Auriga or Hawara,
or for at least a large part of them.
Having suggested this equivalent we must return to the question,
already foreshadowed, namely, whether, from an examination of
the present tribes of the Ahaggaren and Azger groups of Tuareg,
any conclusion can be drawn showing that at one and the same time
a connection between the two divisions and a separate ancestry
existed. It is necessary to postulate for the moment, as has already
been done, that the Azger were the old Lemta, for the evidence can
only be considered in detail a little later. It might have seemed
more rational to deal with it now, especially as their history is of
greater importance to Air than that of the Ahaggaren, but for various
reasons which will become apparent it will be found more convenient
to examine the latter first.
In Air and in the south generally the two divisions are referred
to collectively by the name of Ahaggaren. The reason is that the
Azger are now so reduced in numbers that the world has tended to
forget their name for that of their more powerful and prosperous
western neighbours; the Ahaggaren on account of their trading and
caravan traffic have also come more into contact with the outside
world. The Azger, on the other hand, instead of becoming better known,
as a result of the French penetration of the Sahara have migrated
eastwards further and further away from Europeans into the recondite
places of the Fezzan mountains, which they now only leave to raid
Air or Kawar in company with rascals like the northern Tebu and the
more irreconcilable Ahaggaren, who have refused to submit to French
administration. Although in Air “Ahaggaren” has come to mean just
Northern Tuareg, it has no strict ethnic signification.
Many travellers in the Ahaggar country have heard the tradition current
among the population that the Ahaggaren are considered originally to
have formed part of the Azger division. Duveyrier[336] records that
the Ahaggaren and cognate Tuareg to the north-west are divided into
fourteen principal noble tribes:
Tegehe[337] Mellen,
Tegehe n’es Sidi,
En Nitra,
Taitoq,
Tegehe n’Aggali,[338]
Inemba Kel Emoghi,
Inemba Kel Tahat,
Kel[339] Ghela,
Ireshshumen,
Kel Ahamellen,
Ibogelan,
Tegehe n’Essakkal,
Ikadeen,
Ikerremoïn.
Bissuel,[340] however, declares that the Taitoq, Tegehe n’es Sidi
and Ireshshumen form a separate group of people living in the Adrar
Ahnet, who are sometimes called collectively the Taitoq, but should
more correctly be described as the Ar’rerf Ahnet. The noble tribes
of this confederation, the Taitoq proper and the Tegehe n’es
Sidi, claim to be of independent origin and not related either to
the Ahaggaren or the Azger. The Ireshshumen are said to be a mixed
tribe composed of the descendants of Taitoq men, and women of their
Imghad, the Kel Ahnet. There are also four Imghad tribes: the Kel
Ahnet and Ikerremoin, who depend from the Taitoq, and the Tegehe
n’Efis (probably n’Afis) and the Issokenaten, who depend from
the Tegehe n’es Sidi. These Imghad live in Ahnet, but in 1888 were
as far afield as the Talak plain west of Air.[341] The Ikerremoin of
the Ahnet mountains—though probably of the same stock as the noble
tribe of the same name in Ahaggar—are a distinct unit; they were
probably a part of the latter until conquered in war by the Taitoq. The
Tuareg nobles of Ahnet may be considered a separate branch of the race,
possibly descended from the Ketama. They are neither Auriga nor Lemta
and probably not Sanhaja either. The Taitoq tribes must therefore be
omitted from Duveyrier’s record.
He states that a split occurred between the Azger and Ahaggaren. About
fifty years before he was writing, or, in other words, about a century
ago, the Kel Ahamellen, like other Tuareg tribes in the area, were
under the rule of the Imanen kings of Azger. The latter rulers are
described as of the same stock as the Auraghen and as “strangers”
among the Azger. Such a description is logical if they were, as we
may suppose, an Auriga stock living among the Lemta or Azger. The Kel
Ahamellen were settled on the extreme west of the country held by the
latter division, and according to the story became so numerous that
they divided up into the sub-tribes whose names occur in this list,
and so broke away from the allegiance of the Imanen kings. But if
in Duveyrier’s day the Kel Ahamellen had only broken away from the
Azger confederation as recently as fifty years previously, and were,
as he also says, in a state of internal anarchy, it is out of the
question for one clan to have increased sufficiently rapidly to form
fourteen large noble sub-tribes covering an area reaching from Ghat
to the Ahnet massif. The supposition is that the Kel Ahamellen did in
fact break away from the Azger about then, for tradition is strong on
this point, but that instead of being alone to form the new division
they joined a group of other tribes already in existence, namely, the
descendants of the original Auriga-Ahaggaren stock. It is immaterial
whether the latter were also under the domination of the Azger Imanen
kings a century or so before, though it may be remembered that this
reigning clan was itself from Ahaggar.
PLATE 46
[Illustration: FUGDA (R.), CHIEF OF TIMIA AND HIS WAKIL]
[Illustration: ATAGOOM]
Kel Ahamellen, or the “White People,” is a descriptive and
not a proper name, a circumstance which points to the view that
such was not their original appellation. In the course of time the
unit became divided into three tribes, the Kel Ahamellen proper, the
Tegehe Aggali (dag Rali) and the Tegehe n’Esakkal. The “I name”
of the original stock was lost, and so the group collectively bore
the same label as the smaller Kel Ahamellen tribe. By the beginning
of this century, when the French advance took place, the Ahaggaren
were already organised under their own king Ahitagel. When their
country was finally occupied, Musa Ag Mastan was reigning over them
and contributed largely to the pacification. He continued as Amenokal
of Ahaggar until his death in December 1916. Of the fourteen Ahaggar
tribes, therefore, the three Kel Ahamellen are closely related to each
other, and appear to constitute the Azger nucleus among them. There
may, of course, be other Azger among the remaining eleven Ahaggaren
tribes who are the Auriga element, but no other information seems at
the moment available. The traditional connection of these two Tuareg
divisions is so strongly associated with the three Kel Ahamellen that
it is they who must be regarded as the most recent and perhaps as the
primary or principal offshoot of the Azger among the Ahaggar people.
The presence of the Kel Ahamellen in the west would account for the
traditional common origin of the Ahaggaren and Azger. The warlike
qualities of the latter would inevitably tempt a vain people even
though of different stock to associate themselves with so famous a
division. The fact that both Ahaggar and the Azger were at one time
under the domination of the Azger Imanen kings would, moreover, have
the same effect. That some explanation of the sort which I have given
is correct seems to be clear from the two different forms in which
the traditional connection is recorded. Ibn Khaldun postulated the
Hawarid origin of the Lemta, and adduced as proof the etymology of
the name “Haggar.” Duveyrier, on the other hand, declared that
his researches led him to believe that the Ahaggaren were originally
Azger.[342]
The Azger, whom all are agreed to-day in regarding as a distinct
group of Tuareg for all that they are connected with the Ahaggaren
and the people of Air, range over the country between the eastern
slopes of the Ahaggar mountains and Murzuk in the Fezzan. Whereas
the Ahaggaren control the caravan roads between Algeria or Tuat and
Ahaggar, and share with the Tuareg of Air the western tracks between
their respective mountains, the Azger consider the roads from Ghat
to the north and to the east as their own property. They share with
the people of Air the main caravan track by way of Asiu or In Azawa
to the latter country.
It is very difficult to say much of the present state of the
Azger. Their movement away from contact with Europeans and their
intractable characteristics have kept them from becoming known. This
is all the more regrettable, since, owing to their association with
the Fezzan, a knowledge of their history and peculiarities might
throw light on the puzzling problem of the Garamantian and Tuareg
civilisations. They seem also, in spite of their very reduced numbers,
to be the purest of all the Tuareg. Duveyrier’s[343] account of
them is the best one which exists. They have always enjoyed a most
remarkable reputation for courage and even foolhardiness. It is
said that it takes two Azger to raid a village out of which twenty
Ahaggaren would be chased.
The Azger count six noble tribes, the Imanen, Auraghen, Imettrilalen,
Kel Ishaban, Ihadanaren, Imanghassaten. The last-named tribe is of
Arab origin descended from a Bedawi stock of the Wadi el Shati in the
Fezzan. Its members are the fighting troops of the Imanen and have
come to be regarded as Noble Tuareg. Though the People of the Veil
recognise nobility or servility of other races, I know of no other
instance where a foreign stock has achieved complete recognition
among these people as Imajegh or Noble. In all other cases foreign
stocks, even of noble caste according to the standards of the Tuareg,
technically become servile when conquered or absorbed. In the case of
the Imanghassaten, their assimilation to the nobility must have been
due to the fact that they lived side by side with the Azger and were
never conquered by them. In other instances of Arabs associated with
Tuareg the racial distinction remains clear and is recognised. Among
the Taitoq of Ahnet the Arab Mazil and Sokakna tribes supply the
camels for the caravans crossing the desert to Timbuctoo, where the
Arab Meshagra, who dress like the Tuareg, used to be associated with
the veiled Kunta tribe until they were evicted by the Igdalen Tuareg
from their homes and took refuge with the Aulimmiden.[344] But though
associated with them, none of these three Arab tribes have ever been
counted as Tuareg nobles.
Parallel to the Azger Kel Ahamellen among the Ahaggaren are the
Auraghen and Imanen in the Azger group, for they belong to the Auriga
family. Other Azger tribes may also have been Auriga, but there are
no records on the subject.
Nearly all the Azger tribes have dependent servile tribes in addition
to slaves, but there are two classes in the confederation described
as neither noble nor servile but mixed in caste. These are the Kel
T’inalkum[345] (the Tinylkum of Barth) and the Ilemtin tribes,
and two tribes of Inisilman or Holy Men, the Ifoghas and the
Ihehawen. These are accorded the privileges of nobles.[346]
The name of the “Ilemtin” is interesting. It is another form
of “Aulimmiden,” the Tuareg who live in the steppe west of
Air, and is, of course, identical with “Lemta.” Moreover, the
Ilemtin are in the very area where Leo had placed the northern part
of the Lemta division. With their kindred the Kel T’inalkum, who
also are neither noble nor servile, and perhaps with the Ihehawen,
they represent the old parent stock of the Azger-Lemta. Their very
antiquity, together with their tradition of nobility among the other
tribes in the confederation, may be held to account by progressive
deterioration for their curious caste. The Ifoghas and the Kel Ishaban
are said to have been of the Kel el Suk or Tademekkat Tuareg: in the
case of the former, at least, I do not think that this is so. They are
a very widespread tribe in the Sahara, but indications will be given
later showing that they too are probably Lemta. Their association with
Tademekka is doubtless due to a part of them being found in a region
to which they presumably migrated when the other Lemta people invaded
Air from the south-east and also formed the Aulimmiden group.[347]
In late classical times the northern part of the Lemta area of Leo
was occupied by the Garamantian kingdom and by the nomadic Ausuriani,
Mazices and Ifuraces.[348] The Ausuriani and Mazices were people
of considerable importance and behaved like true Tuareg, raiding in
company with one another into Cyrenaica and Egypt. The Maxyes, Mazices,
etc., people with names of the MZGh root, seem to be the Meshwesh
of Egyptian records. They are probably some of the ancestors of the
Tuareg, and may be assumed to have been related to the Ausuriani,
with whom they were always associated. The latter, who are also called
Austuriani, are described by Synesius as one of the native people of
Libya, in contrast with other Libyans whom he knew to have arrived
at a later date.[349] Bates[350] thinks that the Ausuriani may be
the Arzuges of Orosius. Now the form of the name Arzuges, and more
remotely that of Ausuriani or Austuriani, points to an identification
with the Azger. But that is not all. The position of the Ausuriani
in late classical times agrees well with that given by Ammianus for
the home of the Astacures, who are also mentioned by Ptolemy.[351]
This name is intermediate between “Ausuriani” and “Arzuges,”
and again is similar to “Azger.” Duveyrier[352] has come to the
independent conclusion that these people under various but similar
names must be identified with the Azger, who therefore for the last
fourteen centuries appear to have occupied the same area in part
that they do now. Their northern limit, it is true, has been driven
south as a result of the Arab and other invasions of the Mediterranean
littoral, and their southern territory has been lost to them, but in
the main their zone has hardly changed.
One may, however, adduce further evidence. Among the Lemta-Azger are
the Ifoghas, a tribe of Holy Men. There is little doubt that these
people are the Ifuraces of Corippus and others, whose position east
of the Ausuriani is only a little north of where their descendants
still live.[353] Incidentally both the area in which they live and
the area in which they were reported in classical times may be held
to be well within the boundaries of Leo’s Lemta zone. Last of all,
there arises the question of the Ilaguantan or Laguatan of Corippus,
who are not, I think, to be identified with the Levata or Louata, but
are the people who gave the name to the country now called Elakkos,
or Alagwas, or Elakwas, to the east of Damergu and south-east of Air,
at the southern end of the Lemta area of Leo. In view of the course
taken by the migration of the Lemta southwards there is nothing
inherently improbable in the people, who in late classical times
appear in the north, having migrated to a new habitat near the Sudan.
The migration of the Lemta is intimately connected with the history
of the Tuareg of Air, and accounts for the position of the Aulimmiden
west of the latter country. In commenting on the organisation of the
south-western division of the Tuareg, Barth[354] says that the whole
group is designated by the name of Awelimmid, Welimmid or Aulimmiden
(as they are known in Air), from the dominating tribe whose supremacy
is recognised in some form or other by the remainder, “and in that
respect even (the Tademmekat or) Tademekkat are included among the
Aulimmiden;[355] but the real stock of Aulimmiden is very small.” He
goes on to make the statement, which is obviously correct, and which
my deductions absolutely confirm, that “the original group of the
Aulimmiden (Ulmdn is the way the name is expressed in T’ifinagh)
are identical with the Lemta,” the name probably signifying
literally “the Children of Lemta, or rather ‘Limmid,’ or the
name may originally have been an adjective.” As already stated,
I do not agree with him that the Lemta, who became the Aulimmiden,
descended from the Igidi in the north and drove out the Tademekkat,
for I believe that the people in the north were the Lemtuna, living
near the Walad Delim or Morocco, and that they were therefore a
Sanhaja and not a Lemta tribe. If the Lemta had been in the area
where Barth would have them, as opposed to where Leo placed them,
it means that the latter’s account is fundamentally wrong. Nor
would there be any adequate explanation of several phenomena just
now indicated such as the westward movements of the Tademekkat and
the presence of the Ilemtin in the Azger country.
The vicissitudes of the Lemta and Auriga in the history of Air may
be summarised as follows:—The Azger represent the old Lemta stock
in the northern part of the area which Leo allocated to them. They
are identical with the Ausuriani, Asturiani, Arzuges or Astacuri, and
included the Ifoghas (Ifuraces) and Elakkos people (Ilaguantan). The
Mazices are probably also in the same Lemta-Azger group, but I can
find only circumstantial evidence for this supposition. The southern
end of the Lemta area, which reached the Sudan between Lake Chad and
Damergu, was lost to the Tuareg under pressure from the east. They
were driven out of Bornu, where we shall see the Central African
histories placed them in the early days. This part, as well as
the Kawar road down which they came from the north, and the steppe
north of Chad, was cleared of Tuareg by the Kanuri and Tebu from the
east. In Elakkos, the country named by the tribe which in classical
times was in Tripolitania, is the boundary to-day between Tebu and
Tuareg. Progressive ethnic pressure from the east drove the eastern
boundary of the Tuareg westwards, but it also forced the Lemta to
find room in the west for their expansion. Some of the latter, as
we shall see, entered Air from the south; others went on to occupy
Tademekka and drove the inhabitants westward. The Lemta movement
was of long duration and directly involved the first invasion of Air
by the Tuareg: it took place south and then west, not, as Barth and
others would have it, south-eastwards from North-west Africa. Before
these movements took place Ahaggar was held by a Hawara stock which
later received an admixture of Azger by the Kel Ahamellen who had
split off from the latter. Air, which had first been occupied by
a group of Lemta from the south-east, was then invaded by another
wave of Tuareg from the north. They were almost certainly a Hawarid
stock. By the time Leo wrote Air was therefore in a large measure
occupied by the same race and group as Ahaggar, and like the latter
was therefore rightly described as held by the “Targa popolo.”
[Footnote 297: The works of Leo Africanus were published by the
Hakluyt Society in three volumes in 1896.]
[Footnote 298: Leo, III. p. 820.]
[Footnote 299: The learned editor of the Hakluyt Society calls one of
these nations the Tuareg. In my view all five nations were Tuareg,
which term I have throughout used as equivalent to Muleththemin. Of
these five nations, one apparently had Targa as a proper name.]
[Footnote 300: Leo, III. p. 797.]
[Footnote 301: In the Western Sahara north of the road from Arguin
to Wadan, and probably near Sabha Jail.]
[Footnote 302: North-west of Timbuctoo on the road to Wadan.]
[Footnote 303: Also spelt Gago, near the north-west corner of the
great Niger Bend. I have called it Gao throughout, as in the ancient
and uncertain spellings it was often confused with Kuka on Lake Chad.]
[Footnote 304: Leo, III. p. 799.]
[Footnote 305: About Lat. 17° N., not to be confused with the town
of Agades in Air.]
[Footnote 306: Leo: on pages 798 and 799.]
[Footnote 307: “Igidi” is more a term for a type of desert country
than a true proper name. There are other Igidis in North Africa.]
[Footnote 308: Compare also a name of similar type, the place called
Siggedim, in about Lat. 20° on the road between Kawar and the Fezzan.]
[Footnote 309: Compare Barth’s corruption of the name Gamram in
Damergu to Gumrek. Cf. Chap. II.]
[Footnote 310: The map on p. 331 gives a more accurate idea than the
one in the first volume of the Hakluyt Society’s publication.]
[Footnote 311: _Vide infra_, Chap. XII.]
[Footnote 312: Cf. Kanem-bu = the people of Kanem.]
[Footnote 313: Keane: _Man, Past and Present_ (new edition), p. 473.]
[Footnote 314: Ptolemy, IV., sec. 3, 6. An emendation making
the word read “the people of Cidamus” (Ghadames) is more
tempting. Cf. Bates, _op. cit._, p. 63.]
[Footnote 315: Leo, _op. cit._, III. 801.]
[Footnote 316: Minutilli, _Tripolitania_, p. 413, and in El Bekri
_passim._]
[Footnote 317: Leo, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 318: In Byzantine times B and V were often
interchanged. Cf. Βάνδιλοι for Vandal, _apud_ Justinian.]
[Footnote 319: Ibn Khaldun, Book I. p. 234.]
[Footnote 320: Unity, that is, in so far as all the non-Arab Libyans
have been called Berbers and speak the same language.]
[Footnote 321: Cf. Appendix V.]
[Footnote 322: Cf. Boule: _Fossil Man_, p. 316.]
[Footnote 323: Ibn Khaldun, _op. cit._, I. 273.]
[Footnote 324: Ibn Khaldun, _op. cit._, I. 184 sq.]
[Footnote 325: Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. V. p. 553.]
[Footnote 326: _Infra_ in this chapter and in Chap. XII.]
[Footnote 327: _Vide supra_.]
[Footnote 328: This could only follow upon an invasion from the east
or south-east, and not from the north or north-west, as Barth thought
in consequence of his assumption that the Lemta were the Lemtuna near
the Walad Delim. See Barth, _op. cit._ Vol. IV. p. 626.]
[Footnote 329: An instance of the assimilation of an Arab tribe by
the Tuareg will be found on examining the Azger group (_infra_ in
this chapter).]
[Footnote 330: Duveyrier, _op. cit._, p. 347.]
[Footnote 331: In the Fezzan.]
[Footnote 332: Barth, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 231.]
[Footnote 333: This Azawagh must not be confused with the Azawagh
(Azawad) or Jauf, the belly of the desert north-west of Timbuctoo,
though the two words are derived from the same root. _Supra_,
Chap. II. See also Notes in Leo, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p. 198.]
[Footnote 334: Barth, Vol. V. p. 557.]
[Footnote 335: Namely, the Kel Geres. _Infra_, Chap. XII.]
[Footnote 336: _Op. cit._, p. 330.]
[Footnote 337: “Tegehe” appears to mean “descendants” or
“family” in the female line.]
[Footnote 338: “Ag Ali” = son of ’Ali. The _’ain_ in Arabic
when transliterated by the Tuareg becomes _gh_, and ’Ali, ’Osman,
’Adullah, etc., become Ghali, Ghosman, Ghabdullah, etc. The _gh_
in Temajegh is so strongly _grasseyé_ (as the French term the sound),
as to be very nearly an R. It is consequently very often transliterated
with this letter instead of _’ain_. The Ag ’Ali tribe is therefore
very often referred to as the Dag Rali or Dag Ghali, the prefixed D
being grammatical.]
[Footnote 339: Sometimes written Kel Rela (cf. note 3).]
[Footnote 340: Bissuel, _Les Touareg de l’Ouest_, Alger, 1888,
p. 13 sq.]
[Footnote 341: Bissuel, _loc. cit._]
[Footnote 342: Cf. diagram showing the migration of the Air Tuareg
on page 388.]
[Footnote 343: Duveyrier, _op. cit._, p. 330.]
[Footnote 344: See von Bary, _op. cit._, pp. 181 and 190.]
[Footnote 345: A descriptive geographical name, and perhaps originally
a branch of the Ilemtin.]
[Footnote 346: Schirmer perhaps rightly considers that the Ifoghas
are less holy than Duveyrier imagined. They are as ready to fight
as other tribes, and those in the south have not even the reputation
of sanctity.]
[Footnote 347: See Chap. XII.]
[Footnote 348: Bates, _op. cit._, Map X, etc.]
[Footnote 349: Cf. conclusions at the beginning of this chapter.]
[Footnote 350: _Op. cit._, p. 68, note 7.]
[Footnote 351: Bates, _op. cit._, p. 64.]
[Footnote 352: Duveyrier, _op. cit._, p. 467.]
[Footnote 353: The presence of some Ifoghas west of Air will later
be shown to be connected with the Tuareg migrations into Air.]
[Footnote 354: _Op. cit._, Vol. IV. App. III. p. 552 sq.]
[Footnote 355: Doubtless because they were conquered by the
Aulimmiden.]