as El Bekrí and El Mesúdí, have written nothing respecting any part of
Negroland, except el Waḥat (the Oases) and Cano.” This sentence, which
has been of course copied with little change by Marmol (tom. III. fol.
21), can be explained only by supposing that Cano (Kanó) here means
Ghánah. However ill-considered or obscurely intimated may be Leo’s
opinion, it yet probably influenced not a little the decision of
D’Anville in favour of the identity of Kanó with Ghánah. Major Rennell
most unaccountably assumes that by Cano Leo meant the town of Ganat (or
rather Janat), between Fezzan and Ghát. Perhaps the latter writer’s
statement that “Cano is a great province, about 500 miles distant from
the Niger towards the east,” contained something incompatible with the
Major’s system, and made it absolutely necessary for him to expel Leo’s
Cano from Negroland. Major Rennell disserted always shrewdly, and
sometimes with a very imperfect knowledge of his authors. Thus he
asserts that, under the name Genni (Jenni), Leo meant to describe
Ghánah; and that he was wrong in placing Genni or Ghánah, and Melli,
west of Tomboktú, “for Leo certainly never saw the Niger.” Now Leo, when
he speaks of Genni, says that it is the name used by the natives, and
derives it (with little reason) from Gheneoa (Genéwa), a name as ancient
as Ghánah, and quite distinct from it. Moreover Leo not only saw the
Niger, but actually navigated it to Jenni and Málí (pt. I. c. 3). It is
not easy to discover from Major Rennell’s dissertations the position
assigned by him to Ghánah, but his map shows that he confounded it with
Kanó. These two names, as pronounced in Africa, have much less
resemblance in sound than is commonly imagined. Written in Arabic, they
have but one letter in common. Ghánah begins with a peculiar sonorous
guttural, which is followed by a long vowel; Kanó is like our word
canoe. Einsiedel (Cuhn’s Merkwürdige Reisen, vol. III. p. 435) writes it
_Gnou_.]
[Footnote 158: In order to prove that Kanó was the Ghánah of early
writers, it was necessary to assume not only the close resemblance of
those names, but also that the name Aghades was a corruption of
Aúdaghost. Then the distance between this place and Jermah, according to
El Idrísí, is called in as a confirmation. A single particular is taken
from that writer, all the others with which it stands connected being
disregarded, though the rejected details are founded on experience, and
the retained one on inference alone. Yet this arbitrary reasoning cannot
after all attain its desired ends. Aghades is not twenty-five but forty-
five days from Jermah, and Kanó is not twelve but twenty-eight days from
Aghades (Walckenaer Rech. p. 448; Lyon’s Trav. p. 131). The deserts of
ʿAhír and Káhir, beyond Aghades, are far from being utterly inhospitable
tracts.]
[Footnote 159: According to Sultan Bello (Denham and Clapperton’s Disc.
8vo. II. p. 447), the people of Guber at one time held possession of the
Desert of ʿAhír, but were dispossessed by five tribes of the Tawárik,
who came out of Aowjal (Augila).]
TEKRÚR.
Ibn Baṭúṭah, in describing the course of the Great River below Kársekhó,
makes no mention of Tekrúr, the first converted of the Negro communities
in that quarter. That designation, though widely and vaguely extended in
process of time, was certainly at first applied to a spot between Silla
and Ṣínghánah, and not far from the former of these places. Wárjání, the
chief of Tekrúr who first adopted the Mohammedan faith, and induced his
subjects to follow his example, died in 432 H. (A.D. 1040-1); so that
the conversion of his principality preceded, by thirty-five years at
least, that of Ghánah and Western Negroland in general. Such a priority
explains at once the religious eminence implied in the title Tekrúr
(whatever may have been its original signification), and which caused it
to be usurped till its proper application was at length forgotten.[160]
But though Ibn Baṭúṭah does not expressly mention Tekrúr, yet he says of
Zághah, situate between Kársekhó and Tomboktú, that it was the first
city of Negroland which received the Mohammedan faith. Hence it may be
inferred that Zághah was the proper territorial name of the place styled
Tekrúr. And this conjecture receives from Ibn Khaldún strong
confirmation, falling short of completeness only through the unsteady
orthography which so often hinders the exact coincidence of Arab
authorities. His words are as follows:—“I was told by the Sheíkh
ʿOthmán, a learned man and theologian of the people of Ghánah, and one
of the chief men of that country in respect to rank, intelligence, and
piety, when he came to Egypt on his way to Mekkah in 796 (A.D. 1393),
that the people of Ghánah employ the name Tekrúr to designate the
Zagháï, and give the name Málí to Atakárthah.”—It can hardly be doubted
that the people here called Zagháï derived their name from the place
called by Ibn Baṭúṭah Zághah. The name Atakárthah does not admit of
quite so easy an explanation; yet it may with much probability be
assumed to be the original and complete Berber form of the name, now
written in our maps, Kaarta. The statement of the Sheíkh ʿOthmán then
amounts to this: the people of Ghánah discriminated, in terms naturally
arising out of their local position, between Tekrúr and Málí, giving the
former name to a certain tribe dwelling to the south, and the latter to
a particular region higher up the river, and the frontier of which,
facing Ghánah, was Atakárthah or Kaarta.[161]
The country of Tekrúr or of the Zagháï thus discriminated from Málí,
which lay further west, may be clearly recognized in modern accounts,
notwithstanding the disguise of a variable orthography. Sultan Bello,
after describing the country of Mósí, thus proceeds:—“Adjoining to it on
the north side, the province of Sanghee (Zághí) lies. Its inhabitants
are remnants of the Sonhaja (Zenágah), wandering Arabs and the Felateen.
They profess the Mohammedan faith, and their princes ruled them always
with equity and justice. A great number of learned and pious persons
have distinguished themselves from among them. Next to Sanghee on the
west side, the country of Málí is situated. It embraces the province of
Bambara,” &c.[162]—The situation here assigned to Sanghee, and the
reputed piety of its inhabitants, clearly show that it is the country of
Tekrúr or of the Zagháï mentioned by Ibn Khaldún, and the Zághah or
Zághiyah of Ibn Baṭúṭah. The commercial activity of the people, or
perhaps their social ascendency due to their religious reputation,
appears in the wide diffusion of their language; for, according to Leo,
the _Sungai_ (Zagháï) language was used in Walet, Tomboktú, Jenni, Málí,
and Kághó.[163]
The geographical sketch of Negroland drawn by Sultan Bello, differs
materially from that made by his follower Mohammed Másíní, inasmuch as
the former exhibits the territorial divisions of the indigenous
population, whereas the latter offers only Fellátah names, and totally
overlooks the aboriginal inhabitants. Nevertheless, the Zagháï, or
people of Sanghee, are to be found in Mohammed’s descriptions with
little change of denomination. In describing the road from Sokkatú to
Másín, he places, seven days east of the latter country, “the territory
of Hajrí,”—that is, the rocky or mountainous tract. The Fellátah, he
says, possess the valleys, “but the mountains are inhabited by a people
called Benoo-Hami, of the tribe of Sokai (Zagháï), who are great
warriors. In the middle of this country is a great and lofty mountain,
on which is a town called Oonbori, whose king is named Noohoo-Ghaloo-
farma, of the tribe of Sokai, and is renowned for his generosity and
munificence.” Further on we are told that Oonbori is comprised in the
dominion of the Sultan of Másín, so that the people here called the
tribe of Sokai probably extend from the mountains to the river.
Alexander Scott received from his ignorant companions a distorted
account of the Zachah (Zagháï) dwelling on the eastern shores of Lake
Debú; and the town of Sankhaguibila, placed by Caillié on the right bank
of the river farther south, appears to owe its name to the same tribe
(Ḳabílah).[164]
The Benú Hami, who are also Zagháï, or of the tribe of Sokai, are said
by Mohammed Másíní, to dwell not only in the mountains near the western
course of the Great River above Tomboktú, but also in the desert,
mingled with the Tawárik, on the left bank of the same river below
Kághó, and between that river and Sokkatú. And this information accords
with the statement of Sultan Bello, who, speaking of the province of
Kábi, west of Sokkatú, says, “its inhabitants, it is supposed, had their
first father from Sanghee and their mother from Kashnah;” clearly
implying by this genealogy, that the Zagháï, Sanghee, Sokai, or Benú
Hami, have dwelt from time immemorial in Kábi, intermingled with and
ruling the indigenous population.[165] The advance of the tribe or
nation originally styled Tekrúr, from the vicinity of Jenni eastwards to
Marra or Western Houssa, completely explains why Ibn Khaldún, placing
the Ṣúṣú and then Málí next to Ghánah (an arrangement expressing
historical perhaps rather than geographical relations), and beyond these
Kághó, sets Tekrúr beyond, or, as he supposed, eastward from, the latter
place; and also why Makrízí makes Tekrúr the western boundary of the
great empire of Kánem or Bornú. In the last century Niebuhr the
traveller learned that Tekrúr was the residence of a sultan, the vassal
of Afnú (Houssa), who possessed Mara (Marra) and Adana (perhaps
Ader).[166]
Though the people of Ghánah always kept in view the original application
of the name Tekrúr, even after the territory where it grew into
importance became part of the empire of Málí, yet beyond the circle of
exact local knowledge, such propriety of language was never thought of,
and at a distance the name Tekrúr was employed in a very comprehensive
and indefinite manner. Makrízí, in describing the pilgrimage of Mansá
Músa, King of Málí, in A.D. 1324, styles him King of Tekrúr; but again,
in the annals of A.D. 1351, he mentions another king of Tekrúr, who
likewise passed through Egypt, and who certainly was not Mansá Suleïmán,
at that time King of Málí. It is manifest therefore that Makrízí used
the name Tekrúr in no properly restricted and perhaps in no fixed
acceptation.[167] The Western Fellátah apply the epithet Tekrúrí to the
religious classes of their own nation. In Egypt it is given generally to
Mohammedan devotees, natives of Negroland; and when Sultan Bello makes
Tekrúr comprise all Negroland from Dárfúr inclusively westward, he
offers an example not of the correct use of that name, but of its widest
abuse.[168]
The history of Tekrúr may be thus briefly recapitulated:—The Zenágah
early established themselves on the Great River, above Lake Debú, where
the continued tract of desert conducted them to its banks, and there
founded the city of Zághah, from which they afterwards took their name.
They embraced Mohammedism, nearly half a century before the Blacks in
their neighbourhood, and thereby obtained a reputation of sanctity which
was nowise diminished by their activity as slave hunters. The general
conversion of Western Negroland compelling them to go to a distance for
their prey, they proceeded eastwards to Marra or Western Houssa, where
the hilly region has been always, in an eminent degree, the country of
slaves.[169] They thus broke the path in which they were afterwards
followed by the people of Málí, and more recently still by the Fellátah.
The kingdom of Tekrúr being extinguished in the west by the empire of
Málí, rose more conspicuously in the east: though the people retained
their old habitations, the political denomination completely shifted its
place, and Tekrúr stood between Málí and Bornú. In the meantime the
religious title Tekrúrí being widely usurped, the original and proper
application of the name fell into neglect and oblivion.
* * * * *
[Footnote 160: Tekrúr, according to El Bekrí (Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p.
637), was at no great distance from Ṣínghánah towards the south-west. El
Idrísí always unites Silla and Tekrúr. The date of Wárjání’s death is
given by El Bekrí (MS. B.M. fol. 110), who also states that the people
of Silla embraced Mohammedism at that chief’s persuasion. Wárjání was
probably a Zenágah, a great number of proper names in the Berber
language beginning with the syllable _wer_ or _wár_ (the negative
particle?). A prince of Tekrúr accompanied the Lumtúnah in their first
religious wars.]
[Footnote 161: The name Zagháí زغاي cannot, it is true, be formed from
Zághah زاغة; but considering that they are taken from different authors,
and that the orthography of African names is extremely unsettled, there
is no great boldness in the hypothesis which connects them. It is easier
to believe that one of these names requires a little correction, than
that the Tekrúrí did not bear the name of the town which first received
the Mohammedan faith. Makrízí, or Ibn Sʿaíd, from whom he copies, says
(Hamaker, Specimen Catalogi, &c., p. 209,) “that all the nations
comprised between Abyssinia on the south, Nubia on the east, Barkah on
the north, and Tekrúr on the west, are called Zagháï.” Here the name
Zagháï is derived from Zagháwah, and the Tekrúr spoken of is that of
Houssa. An anecdote related in the ‘History of the Mohammedan
Dynasties,’ by Gayangos (p. 303), shows that in the thirteenth century,
there was a state called Tekrúr in the neighbourhood of Aïwalátin. An
Arab writer of little merit apparently (in the Library of the British
Museum, MS. No. 7,483), says that “the Blacks are now in general styled
Tekrúr; but anciently the name Tekrúr was applied only to the
inhabitants of the country called Atasama اتسمي.” It may be conjectured
that Atasama is an ill-written derivative from Sámah, the country of the
Bokmo or Bagamo. The _t_ is a Berber article; the initial _a_ the sign
of the possessive case, and perhaps also of adjectives derived
therefrom. Thus the Berbers say, Mohammed a-Mohammed a-Mast, to express
Mohammed, son of Mohammed, of or belonging to Messah. Hence also from
Mazig, the reputed ancestor of the Berbers, and personification of the
μαζίκες of the Greeks, was formed the name Amazig (see De Sacy’s
Analysis of Shehabeddin in Not. et Extr. tom. II. p. 153, and the
extract from Ibn Khaldún’s History of the Berbers in the Nouv. Jour.
Asiatique, No. VIII., 1828, p. 132). The reader may consider how far
these remarks are applicable to such names as Atakárthah, Atasama,
Amímah, and perhaps Awalílí or Aúlílí (see Note 107).]
[Footnote 162: For Mósí, the translator of Bello’s History has written
Moosher (Denham’s Discoveries, &c. 8vo. II. p. 455), just as he has
written Bowsher for Baúshí (p. 450). The Arabic letter _ghain_, here
represented by _gh_, easily becomes nasal; and on the east coast of
Africa, where the nasal sound occurs frequently in the native names, as
in Songa, Tongata, Mongallo, it is always expressed by _ghain_ alone.
Hence Zághah in the mouth of a Mandingo, becomes Zanghah and Ṣanghah.]
[Footnote 163: Leo, pt. I. c. 11. Marmol (tom. I. c. 23, fol. 44)
includes Gelofe (the country of the Wolofs), also within the range of
the Zungay or Sungai language; but the origin of this mistake is perhaps
not undiscoverable. He says (tom. III. fol. 22) that the people of
Gualata or Ganata are commonly called Benais, and that they speak the
Zungay language. Whence did the people of Gualata (Walata) obtain that
name? Were they colonists from the capital of Málí? In the ‘True
Historical Discovery of Muley Hamet’s Rising,’ it is said that “the
grasshoppers (locusts) come into Barbary every seven years from the
parts of Benie, or Genie, as the country people imagine.” Although the
names Beni (Benin) and Guinea were often coupled together by old
writers, yet it seems more natural to suppose that, in the passage here
cited, the parts of Negroland nearest to Barbary were intended, and that
by Benie, or Genie, we are to understand the country of Marmol’s Benais,
or Jenni. But Marmol (tom. I. fol. 2 & 15) also places a people named
Benais on the coast near the Senegal. In this, perhaps, he was guided by
the Jesuit missionaries, who visited, from Cape Verde, a king of Bena
(Ragguagli d’alcuni Missioni, 1615, p. 75); probably the Benay of
Mollien. But the king of Bena was a Mandingo or Suso, and boasted of
being superior to all other Farims (Jarric, tom. III. p. 411). Marmol
appears to have confounded the Bena near the coast, with the Benai
people of the interior, and thus to have made one language extend from
the mouth of the Senegal to Houssa. Hence Moore, in his Travels in
Africa, (1737), calls the Wolofe language the Zanguay.]
[Footnote 164: Oonbori, possessed by the Benú Hami of the tribe of Sokai
(App. to Clapperton’s Journal of a Second Expedition, p. 331), is
probably the Anbárah of El Bekrí (see above, p. 39). It is to be
observed, that the chief of Oonbori has the Mandingo title _Farma_, a
remnant of the supremacy of Málí, following his name, contrary to the
usage of the Mandingo language. If the _Sungai_ then be the language of
the Sokai, it is probably the same which Caillié calls the _Kissour_.
May not the pilgrimage on which Scott was led into the country of the
Zachah (Edinb. Phil. Jour. IV. p. 49), have been directed to the tomb of
one of the early apostles of Negroland, and to a consecrated spot of
Tekrúr? Notwithstanding the intrinsic weakness of an argument founded on
the resemblance of ill-written names, there is more of coincidence here
than can be ascribed to accident. Near the site of Tekrúr, the first
converted Negro state, is the town of Zághah, having a like reputation.
The title Tekrúr is given to the Zagháï; the devotees of the desert
direct their steps to the country of the Zachah at that part of the
river; there also we find a country called Sanghee, a tribe named Sokai,
and the Sungai language. It can hardly be denied that these names are
related.]
[Footnote 165: Sultan Bello, in Denham, II. p. 452. From the Benú Hami
of the tribe of Sokai, who live in the desert on the left bank of the
river, the country of Sóghy, where Mungo Park was attacked (Clapperton,
p. 334), obviously derived its name.]
[Footnote 166: Deutches Museum, 1790, cited by Walck. Rech. p. 73.
Yakút, in his Geographical Dictionary, says, that the King of Kaúkaú
made war upon the Moslim of Ghánah on the west, and those of Tekrúr on
the east. According to Ibn Sʿaíd (Hamaker, Specimen Cat. p. 209),
Tekrúr, which thus appears to have been east (rather south-east) of
Kaúkaú (Kághó), was also the western boundary of the Zagháï (of
Zagháwah), or the empire of Kánem.]
[Footnote 167: Not. et Extr. tom. XII. p. 637-8, note.]
[Footnote 168: See _ante_, Note 73. Mollien (Voyage dans l’Intérieur de
l’Afrique, I. p. 176) says, that in the Fellátah language, the word
Toucolor signifies a Mohammedan priest. But he elsewhere (pp. 207, 215)
seems to use that name as the designation not of a class but of a
community. Toucolor, whence the Tucorones of De Barros, is an obvious
corruption of Tokrúr.]
[Footnote 169: The name Boushy (Baú-shi), now given to the hilly country
south of Zegzeg, means the country of the Baúwa, that is, of the
Slaves.]
KÚGHAH — KÁGHÓ — KAÚKAÚ — KARKAR.
Kúghah is said by El Bekrí to have been fifteen days from Ghánah; and if
to this scanty information be added the statements of El Idrísí, that it
stood on the Nile or Great River, and was nine days east of Samaḳanda,
which was four days distant from Ghánah towards the south or south-east,
it will be apparent that Kúghah was the place otherwise named Kághó. It
was, of all the cities of the Blacks, that which furnished the largest
quantity of gold,—the very remark made of Gago (Kághó) by Leo
Africanus.[170] When Cadamosto relates that, of the gold collected in
Melli (Málí), part was sent to Oden (Waddán), part to Tombutto
(Tomboktú), and the remainder to “a place called Cochia, which is the
road to Syria and Cairo,” it is manifest that he meant to speak of Kághó
under the name of Kúghah.[171] But it has been shown that Kághó was also
called Kaúkaú. It is therefore clearly ascertained that one place—the
most important in Negroland—bore three different names,—viz. Kúgháh,
Kaúkaú, and Kághó, of which the last alone was proper to it; the first
two also designating, or appearing to designate, other places. But it is
worth while to inquire more closely into the confusion arising from this
frequent use of equivalent and equivocal names.
El Bekrí does not speak quite so concisely of Kaúkaú as of Kúghah: he
enters a little into detail respecting the former place; he says that it
was nine days from Tádmekkah, which was situate fifty days eastward from
Ghánah, and forty from Ghodémis. Tádmekkah was evidently a Berber town,
in the desert, while Kaúkaú was considered as belonging to Negroland;
yet if we suppose Kaúkaú to have been south of Tádmekkah, or forty-nine
days from Ghodémis, and little more than fifty from Ghánah, still it
could not, within nine days of Tádmekkah, have been in Negroland
properly so called, but only on its frontiers towards the desert.
Indeed, it may be inferred from El Bekrí’s words, that its inhabitants
were of Berber rather than of Negro origin. They were called by the
Arabs, he says, Baẓarkáyín; they dressed _like the Blacks_, they
worshipped idols _like the Blacks_, but their king was a Mohammedan.
They always threw the remains of the King’s dinner into the Nile,—an
expression on which but little stress can be laid. El Bekrí, in tracing
the course of the Great River eastwards from Ghánah, states that
fourteen days below the latter place, it entered the territory of the
Seghmárah; and “opposite to the Seghmárah,” he adds, “on the other side
of the river, is Kaúkaú.” Now the Seghmárah also occupied the country
north of Tádmekkah; they possessed therefore, or roved over, a desert
exceeding a month’s journey in extent. In so wide a compass, it conduces
little to accuracy to learn that Kaúkaú stood opposite to them; and as
to the river, it may have been the theoretical stream uniting the Nile
of Ghánah with that of Egypt. It is plain enough that Kaúkaú, nine days
from Tádmekkah, was a very different place from Kúghah on the Great
River, fifteen days below Ghánah; but since Kúghah was also called
Kaúkaú, it is not quite clear that El Bekrí has not confounded in some
degree those two places, and ascribed to the one the characteristics of
the other.[172]
In El Idrísí’s accounts of Kúghah and Kaúkaú, there is nothing so
remarkable as his tone of uncertainty and the doubts uttered by him.
Thus he says of Kúghah, that “it stands on the northern bank of the
Nile, the waters of which are drunk by its inhabitants. It belongs to
Wanghárah, _but some of the Blacks place it in Kánem_.” Again, he tells
us that “Kaúkaú is the most celebrated city of Negroland: it is large,
and stands on the banks of a river flowing through it from the north.
_But_ many of the Blacks affirm that this city is built on the sides of
a canal; _others say_, on a river running into the Nile; but the more
probable opinion is, that the river of Kaúkaú has a course of many days
before it reaches that city, and is afterwards lost in the sands.”[173]
Doubts of this kind respecting the most important and celebrated cities
of Negroland may be more naturally ascribed to ambiguity of information,
than to actual want of it. Kúghah on the Great River below Ghánah, may
have been confounded with Kaúghah adjoining Bornú, and thus transferred
eastwards into the vicinity of Kánem. The celebrity of Kúghah (called
also Kaúkaú) may have lent a semblance of importance to some place in
the desert bearing apparently the latter name, and the physical
geography of which was but little known.
Respecting the position of this Kaúkaú of the desert, our information is
far from being satisfactory; yet it all points towards the desert
fronting Houssa, or between that country and Aghades. East of Ghánah,
and behind the Merásah, El Idrísí places the nomade tribe of the
Beghámah. Between the Beghámah and the Azḳár who passed the summer on
Ṭanṭanah, the range of hills bounding Fezzán on the south, was a
distance of twenty days. Now from Kúghah to Kaúkaú, he tells us, was a
journey of twenty days going _northwards_ through the country of the
Beghámah. It was the natural consequence of a system which arranged the
frontier of Negroland in an undeviating straight line from west to east,
to suppose that a route from Negroland to the desert went northwards:
but, stripped of such inference, El Idrisí’s statement amounts to
this,—that Kaúkaú was twenty days distant from Kúghah, not in Negroland,
but in the desert. Again, when speaking of Ṭanṭanah and the Azḳár, he
says, “further south are Kaúkaú and the Demdem;” and then repeating the
various opinions current respecting the river of Kaúkaú, he adds, “the
country contiguous to this territory (Kaúkaú) on the east, is chiefly
that of Kawwár, well known and much frequented.” The well-known country
of Kawwár lies half-way between Fezzán and Bornú, westward of which
situation, and consequently in the desert, we must look for Kaúkaú.
Obscure as these indications are in many respects, they are conclusive
in showing that Kaúkaú, according to the Arab author’s conception, was
in the desert, between Kúghah and Kawwár, Ṭanṭanah and the country of
the Demdem.[174]