JANUARY 1918.
NO. t.
Sudan Notes
AND Records
NOV 6 H975
Foreword: Page.
Gen'^ Sir F. R. Wingate^ g.c.b., etc 1
Outline of the Ancient History of the Sudan:
Prof. G. A, Reisner 3
Scent and Sight amongst game and other animals:
Major C. H. Stigand 18
The Sakia in Dongola Province :
W. NichoUs 23
Arabic Nursery Rhymes :
S. Hillelson 28
Nubian Elements in Darfur :
H. A. MacMichael, d.s.o 33
Editorial 54
Reviews 57
Notes 59
PRICE 15 P. T. (3/-).
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Transliteration of the Arabic Alphabet
adopted by the Editors of Sudan Notes and Records.
( at beginning of
\ \ word omit, hamza
1
[ elsewhere
b
jj th (coll. t or s)
^ jorg
- h
^ kh
:> d
J
cr
«
t
db (coll. d)
r
z
s
sh
8
d
t
z
t gh
J
q (coll- g)
i!
k
J
1
r
m
0
n
*
b
^
w
^
y
fat/m a.
kasrn i,
rZamma u,
VOWELS.
lengthened
a
1
(i
DIPHTHONGS.
j^ — ai (as in aisle).
y — au (as in mauser).
Tbe J of the article always remains /.
The silent / (3) is omitted.
NOTES.
1. The system is not applied to well-known names, such as Khartoum,
Omdurman, etc.
2. The vowel sounds of e in " get " and o in "hot " with the corresponding
long vowels (a in " gate " and o in " home ") which occur only in the colloquial
are expressed by e, o, e, 6.
E.g. beled, Mo/mmmed, bet (or belt), Aosh.
ei may be used as an alternative to e.
1
Sudan Notes and Records
FOREWORD
BY GENERAL SIR F. R WEVGATE.
It was with the Hveliest satisfaction and pleasure that I learned
that the proposal to establish a scientific journal for the Sudan
had matured. The need of such a publication is a very real one
and the field of its study will be wide and, in a great measure,
virgin soil. I say this without any disparagement of the really
admirable work already performed by individuals (the names of
several of whom I am glad to see on the Editorial Staff of the
new journal) : but, having regard to the extent of the Sudan and
to the obstacles to systematic research, it will be admitted that
our knowledge of the country and its people requires to be
extended in many directions.
Knowledge is power, in Africa and elsewhere, and if, as I
confidently hope, this journal will be the means of recording and
disseminating information that will conduce to a clearer outlook
on the country and a better understanding of its natives, their
past history, social conditions and future development, it will
confer a lasting benefit not solely on those responsible for
Government but also on the community at large.
There is one corner in particular of the wide field of research
to which I suggest early and careful attention should be paid if
valuable material is to be rescued from oblivion. The creeds — I
refer of course chiefly to those parts of the country untouched by
Islamic culture — the superstitions and the folk-lore of primitive
tribesmen are subjects of the deepest interest in themselves and,
apart from their anthropological and ethnological values, are of
importance as contributing to that sympathetic comprehension
of the people and their mentaUty which is so essential to a
SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
successful administrator. There are, I think, few branches of
research requiring more time and patience, more tact and
conscientious application, than this : nor in view of the rapid
spread of new ideas, with changed conditions and material
advancement, is it a branch of study which can safely be deferred
indefinitely. The membership of the Editorial Committee gives
satisfactory assurance that no pains will be spared to render
Sudan Notes and Records a really valuable publication and I,
with all those interested in the country, wish it every possible
success now and in the future.
Reginald Wingate.
OUTLINE
OF THE
ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN
BY PROF. G. REISNER.
PART I. — EARLY TRADING CARAVANS
(4000 TO 2000 B.C.)
The country called by the ancient Egyptians the " Southern
Lands " included all the vague region of Egyptian influence which
lay to the south towards Central and Eastern Africa. Among its
inhabitants, the inscriptions name the red men of the famous land
of Punt which lay perhaps on the Somali coast, the black men of
the southern districts, the Nubians of the Nile valley; the Libyans
of the western desert, and the nomads of the eastern desert. Thus
the Anglo- Egyptian Sudan forms the greater part of the "Southern
Lands" and indeed much the same part with nearly the same
races which was administered by the Egyptian officials of the New
Empire. The northern part, now called Berber, Dongola and
Haifa Provinces and Lower Nubia, is that whose history is most
fully revealed by the Egyptian inscriptions. This territory was
called in the earliest times " the land of the negroes", but later,
the most frequent names were Ta-sety (" land of the bow ") and
Kash. Kash is the Cush of the Bible, the Ethiopia of the classical
writers. Strictly speaking, Kash was a smaller district, but the
first independent kingdom which arose in this part of the world
called itself the kingdom of Kash and ruled with shifting bound-
aries from Egypt to Central Africa. Thus the name Kash, or its
equivalent, Ethiopia, may very properly be applied to all this
region.
Ethiopia is in natural resources the most povertv-stricken
\
4 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
Stretch of the Nile valley. The rock-hemmed river has left
scattered alluvial deposits at the mouths of the lateral ravines
and occasional wider banks of alluvial soil where the rocks are
more distant. The grazing lands are arid or difficult of access.
The inhabitants, always called " wretched " by the Egyptians,
have never initiated any industries worthy of mention. Yet, at
times, the government of Ethiopia has been rich and prosperous,
and always the men of Egypt, ancient Egyptians, Arabs, or
Turks, have been drawn southwards to gain control of this poor
land. The reason for these incongruous facts lies in the geo-
graphical situation. Ethiopia has always been the land of the
trade-routes which run between Egypt and Central Africa, the
land of the caravan roads along which passed the gold of
Abyssinia, ostrich feathers, ivory, ebony, resins, oils, animal
skins, captive wild animals, and above all the black slaves so
greatly desired by the Oriental world. This peculiarity of its
geographical situation is the great fact which underlies the whole
history of Ethiopia.
As Ethiopia was the land of roads between Egypt and Central
Africa, its history is inseparately bound up with that of Egypt
and can only be understood in the light of the history of its great
northern neighbour. The list of the Egyptian kings and dynasties
begins with Menes, the uniter and first king of Upper and Lower
Egypt. His date is reckoned by conservative methods at about
3300 B.C. With his reign begins the dynastic history of Egypt
and much is alreadv known of the long age before his time now
called the Predynastic Period. Thousands of predynastic graves
(see Part III, No. l)*^" have been excavated in different parts of
the valley from Cairo to Dakka and have provided a fair insight
into the manner of life and the development of the culture. The
period reaches back to a late neolithic age when men were still
dependent on stone, bone, and wood for their weapons and
implements. The earliest graves may be dated between 4000
and 4500 B.C. Even in the early part of the period, the Egyptians
(^) To appear in a later uuinber.
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN. 5
had obtained possession of quantities of copper ore and made
from it a green cosmetic which was in use by all the tribes. The
great event of the whole age was the discovery that this ore
=!
Fig. 1.
1-00 0-50
-Predynastic grave, 17/65 at Khor Ambikol, slightly restored.
Objects :
1. Large red-polished jar, pottery.
2. Slate paint-palette in form of fish.
3. Rough grind-stone.
4. Rubbing stone for same.
5. Small pottery jar of black-topped red-polished ware.
6. Bowl of red-polished pottery.
7. Large pointed jar of black-topped red-polished ware.
8. Small jar like 5.
9. Large bowl of red-polished ware, with basket (11).
10. Beaker of black-topped red-poHshed pottery.
11. A flat basket lying on 9.
could be converted into a malleable metal, as far as we know the
first discovery of that metal by man. Gold was already known
and used especially for beads and various other ornaments such
as cases for bow tips and the handles of flint knives, rings and
SUDAN NOTES AND RECOBDS.
bracelets. Copper seems to have been first used in similar
ornaments as a substitute for gold, and the process of reducing
the ore to metal may possibly have been discovered in some
attempt at obtaining gold. The first effective use of copper,
which seems to have followed soon after the discoverv of the
metal, was for the manufacture of serviceable weapons, the prime
necessity of early man. Copper tools were soon added to copper
weapons. The increased power thus placed in the hands of the
discoverers is manifest — power over the neighbouring tribes,
over wild animals, and over the hard materials of the earth. We
can only surmise the course of the revolution eff"ected in the life
of the Egyptian tribes, but within a century of so, this impelling
discovery had brought the Egyptians to the first united monarchy
and to the brink of the first great civilisation known to man.
The time of the first three dynasties, known as the Early
Dynastic Period (about 3300 to 2900 B.C.), was marked by the
development of writing, of the arts and crafts, and of mud-brick
architecture, of all those technical methods and many of the forms
which were to dominate all future ^\ork in Egypt. The time of
the IVth to Vlth dynasties, the Old Empire (about 2900 to
2500 B.C.), was the period of the development of sculpture and
stone architecture. These six dynasties form the great creative
period of the Egyptian arts and crafts. After that time, the
Egyptian learned little more of technical processes and seldom
strayed far from the traditions then established. The later history
is rather a story of political and religious development.
During the Predynastic Period, our knowledge of Ethiopia is
very scanty. The graves of the neolithic Egyptians have been
found as far south as Dakka in Lower Nubia, but these were only
just previous to the dynastic period in date. The early pre-
dynastic Egyptians do not seem to have lived so far south. In
Egypt, however, the predynastic graves contain now and again
a negro, while ivory and resins are abundant and figures of the
elephant, the giraffe, and the ostrich appear in the draAvings on
the pottery. It may be concluded therefore that the trade routes
to the south had been opened even in those early days. The
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN. 7
material is meagre, affording a mere glimpse; but one is inclined
to infer a Central Africa as it was centuries later and an Ethiopia
already serving as a land of roads.
The first direct mention of the south in an Egyptian inscription
occurs in a reference to the reign of Seneferuw, the builder of the
second great stone pyramid (at Dashur) and a great king of about
2900 B.C. Both in early dynastic Egypt and in Babylonia of the
corresponding age, the years were designated, or named, by the
chief events in each. One of the earliest uses for which writing
was invented was the registration of these year names. Among
the most ancient examples of hieroglyphic writings are the year-
names written on little wooden or ivory tags found in the graves
of the kings of the first dynasty. Lists of year-names were
prepared, probably in very early times, but the only one which,
has come down to us was written about the end of the Vth
dynasty (about 2600 B.C.), although it was certainly made up
from earlier lists. This is the famous stone first discovered in the
museum at Palermo whither it had been brought in some obscure
manner from Egypt. Originally the Palermo stone had borne the
year-names of all the reigns of the first five dynasties, but only
about a third of the stone is preserved. On that piece, one of the
years of Seneferuw is named : " Year of the building of . . . ships
of 100 ells (52 metres) of mer-wood, the devastation of the land of
the negroes, the bringing of 7000 captives, men and women, and
200,000 head of cattle, large and small". In fuller terms, a
military force had been embarked on a number of large Nile boats
and sent on a raiding expedition to the " land of the negroes "
whence it brought back 7000 male and female slaves and 200,000
head of cattle of all sorts. The only difficulty lies in the inter-
pretation of the word negro (Egyptian : nehsi) and the resulting
conclusion as to the situation of their land. At this time. Lower
Nubia as far as Haifa was inhabited by Egyptians, or at any rate
descendants of the neolithic Egyptians altered by an admixture
of a negroid race. In the Middle Empire, some 500 years later,
the population of Dongola Province was negroid but not negro,
and yet Sesostoris II, in his Semneh proclamation, forbade the
8 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
" boats of the negroes " to pass Semneh except to go to a certain
market place further north. The nehsi represented on the
Egyptian monuments is a typical woolly-haired black man.
Nevertheless it is quite clear that both Seneferuw and Sesostris
used the term nehsi for the negroid Nubians as well as for the true
negroes. Thus it is probable that Seneferuw harried what is now
Haifa and Dongola Provinces.
It may be mentioned in passing that the grandchildren of this
Seneferuw were buried in the great mastabah-tombs north of the
second pyramid at Gizeh. In these tombs, a number of portrait
heads in white limestone have been found representing the
princes and princesses of that generation. Among these, in
Mastabah G. 4440 the wife of one of the princes is plainly a
negress. Other representations of negroes occur in the royal
monuments of the Vth dynasty found by the German expedition
at Abusir. The products of the southland are depicted abundantly
in the reliefs and paintings of the IVth and Vth dynasties, and
some of them, such as ebony, ivory, resins and ostrich feathers,
have been found in the graves of quite common people.
All this material points to certain permanent relations between
Egypt and the south, but it is only the inscriptions of the Vlth
dynasty which permit a fuller comprehension of these relations.
The great officials, in particular those of Elephantine, who led the
caravans and the military expeditions, have left us a number of
inscriptions on the walls of their tombs in the cliffs opposite
Assuan and in other parts of Egypt relating their adventures in
the " southern lands ". The Archaeological Survey of Nubia has
given us a clear picture of the population and the conditions in
Lower Nubia during this time which assists us in interpreting
these accounts. The population had lost its Egyptian character,
inherited from the predynastic period, and had become the
curious negroid race which is hereafter known as the Nubian race.
It was living in an impoverished condition in small agricultural
settlements founded on the little patches of alluvial soil in the
mouths of the side wadys. Except for an occasional bronze (or
copper) awl and a few beads of Egyptian manufacture, the people
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN, 9
were in a neolithic condition. The inscriptions show that the
land was harried by the southern tribes up to the walls of
Elephantine, the southern gate of Egypt. It may well be that
earlier raids from the south had caused the disappearance of the
older Egyptian population or its retirement behind the frontier
fortress of Elephantine, and that Nubian tribes with little to lose
had drifted in to win a precarious livelihood in the harried
territory. One could always save his life by swimming the river
or taking to the hills for a day or two. Egyptian expeditions were
also passing on their way to the south, and Lower Nubia thus
became a sort of no-man's land with no possibility of prosperity
— a land of no value to the Egyptians and of no use to the strong
southern tribes except as a good place to surprise and loot
caravans. Further south the conditions were very different but
for our picture we must turn to the inscriptions and to the
excavations at Kerma.
The Egyptian monarchy was now at a great height of magni-
ficence. The divinity of the king as the living Horus w^as the
basis of all court etiquette. The luxury and the ostentation of
the palace was borne by a system of taxation based on a biennial
census and by the income of vast personal estates acquired
doubtless by age-long violence. The power of the king, depending
largely on these material resources, was supported by a number
of great officials, many of them with a tribal following, and by a
regular mercenary army. The Governor of the south, Weny, in
his tomb at Abydos, gives an enlightening account of the levying
of an army by Pepy I to make war on the Siniaitic Bedawin :
" His Majesty made an army of many ten thousands of men,
(taken) from all the southland southwards from Elephantine, and
northwards from Aphroditopolis, from all the northland on both
sides, from Sezer and from the fortresses, from Irthet of the
negroes, Mazoi of the negroes, lam of the negroes, from Wawat of
the negroes, from Kauw of the negroes (and) from the land of the
Temehuw (Libyans). His Majesty sent me at the head of this
army, while the provincial princes, the royal seal bearers, the
sole companions of the palace, the governors and the command-
10 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
ants of the south and the north, the caravan leaders, the high
priests of the south and the north, and the overseers of the royal
domains, were each at the head of a company of the south or the
north, of the fortresses or of the towns which they commanded, or
of the negroes of these foriegn lands".
Under these circumstances of wealth, luxury and power, the
Egyptians naturally reached out their hands for all they desired
from neighbouring lands, the oils and the cedar-wood of Syria,
the turquoises and hard stones of Sinai, the slaves, the gold and
the other products of the southern lands. The usual procedure
appears to have been to send a royal expedition \vdth a small
military escort. In Sinai, the records of these expeditions are
numerous enough, beginning as far back as the reign of King
Semerkhet, the seventh king of the 1st dynasty. The first
authenticated expedition to Punt is recorded on the Palermo
stone as taking place in the reign of Sahura of the Vth dynasty
and bringing back myrrh, electrum, and some kind of wood, but
many expeditions to Punt must have taken place both before
and after this time. As for Ethiopia, the most instructive account
is that of the expeditions led by Harkhiif about 2570 B.C. : " The
"Majesty of Merera, my Lord, sent me with my father, the sole
companion, the lector-priest, Iry, to lam to open a road to that
country. I did it in seven months and brought back all the
products thereof, I was greatly praised therefor. His
''Majesty sent me a second time and alone. I went forth on the
"road of Elephantine and came back through Irthet, Makher,
"Tereres, Irheth in a matter of eight months. When I came down,
"I brought the products of this land in great abundance. Never
"had the like been brought to this country (Egypt). I came
"down from the district of the ruler of Sethuw and Irthet after
"I had opened up these lands. Never . . . , had any caravan
"leader done so who had gone to lam before this. Then His
"Majesty sent me a third time to lam. I went forth on
"the road of the Oasis and found the ruler of lam had gone to the
"land of the Temehuw (Libyans) in the western quarter of the
"heavens. So I went after him to the land of the Temehuw and
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN, 11
"I pacified him so that he gave praise to all the gods for the king's
"sake .... (several unintelligible lines). Before Irthet and
"behind Sethuw, I found the ruler of Sethuw and Wawat ....
"I came down with 300 asses laden with incense, ebony, castor (?)
"-oil, saf-grain, leopard skins, ivory, throwing-sticks(?)^
"every good gift. Then the ruler of Irthet, Sethuw and
"Wawat saw the strength of the company of lam which came
"down with me to the court together with the soldiers sent with
"me (from Egypt), and so this ruler brought and gave me bulls
"and goats, and guided me into the mouth of the roads of the
"hills of Irthet (i.e. the aqaba of Irthet) because excellent was
"the watch which I kept more than any caravan leader who had
"ever been sent to lam."
Harkhuf made other journeys to the south and he reproduced a
letter which Pepy II sent to meet him at Assuan on his return
from one of t]^em. Harkhuf had sent word to the king that he was
bringing back a dancing dwarf "like the dwarf which the sealer
of the god, Ba-wer-ded. had brought from Punt in the time of
King Isesy". The king in his delight replied urging great care
that the dwarf might not fall into the river or meet with any
other accident on the journey down to Memphis.
The inscription of the caravan leader, Pepynekht, of the time
of this same Pepy II, gives a picture of a different kind of an
expedition : " His Majesty my lord sent me to devastate Wawat
''and Irthet, and I acted so that my Lord praised me. I
"slaughtered a great number there, children of the chief and
"excellent leaders of his court, and I brought away a great
"number of living captives, for I was a hero at the head of
"many mighty warriors. His Majesty satisfied his desire therein
"in every expedition upon which he sent me. Then His Majesty
"sent me to pacify these lands and I did it so that my lord praised
"me more than anything. I brought the two rulers of these
"lands to court in safety, and living cattle and goats which
"th^y to court, together with the children of the
"chief and the court leaders who were with them."
The inscription of Sebni, of about the same time, gives a still
12 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
different view of these early expeditions to the south : in the
mutilated beginning lines, it is related that a ship's captain named
Yentef brought word that the father of Sebni had died while on
an expedition to the south and that Sebni set forth "with a troop
''of my estate and 100 asses laden \\dth ointment, honey, clothing,
"and faience objects of every sort in order to make presents (?) in
"these countries. Now these were the countries of the negroes
" I sent men who were in the Door (of the South) and
"I made letters to give information that I was come forth to
"bring back my father who was dead in Wawat and Wetheth.
"I set at rest these lands I found this sole companion
"(his father) on an ass and I caused him to be borne by the
"company of my estate. I made for him a coffin I brought
"him ^\^th me out of these lands I came down to
"Wawat and Wethek, while the royal Iry, with two men
"of my estate were (sent) in advance bearing incense, , and
"a tusk of 3 ells to bring word that the best one was a tusk of
"5 ells (about 260 cm.) and that I was bringing my father and all
"the products which he had brought from these lands." Further
on Sebni tells how he handed in the goods brought by the
expedition to the royal store-house in the presence of the
members of the expedition, apparently as an evidence of his
honesty.
Add to these inscriptions the fact that the rocks of Nubia as
far as Semneh bear the graffiti of dozens of caravan leaders and
we get a clear idea of the remarkable traffic between Egypt and
the Sudan in the third millennium before Christ. It is more
difficult to determine how far south these expeditions penetrated.
Harkhuf took eight months on his second journey to lam. How
far could a donkey caravan go and come back in eight months?
Even with all the delays of trading and treating with native chiefs,
Harkhuf must have reached Dongola province. The actual
travelling time of a slow moving caravan is less than a month
between Assuan and New Dongola (el-Ordi). In the troubled
times of 1820-1821, Cailliaud, delayed by the neghgence and the
ill-will of Turkish officials and by frequent stops to examine and
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN, 13
plan ancient ruins, went from Assuan to Dongola in 50 days, to
Gebel Barkal in 78 days and to Berber in 104. But owing to
delays of the Egyptian army and to 14 days stay at Meroe,
Cailliaud took 211 days to reach Sennar. Harkhiif took 240 days
for his whole journey. There would have been no difficulty, so
far as the mere travelling goes, in reaching Sennar in that time
and returning to Egypt. But we have no means of knowing the
length of the delays caused by negotiations with local chiefs and
by the actual trading operations. Perhaps the nearest parallel
to these operations would be the trading expeditions of the Arabs
in East and Central Africa described by the European travellers
previous to the partition of that country. It is quite clear that
most of the products brought back, whatever their origin, might
have been obtained in trade anywhere between Dongola province
and Sennar. From the excavations at Kerma, it is known that
resins of several kinds, ivory, ebony, and ostrich feathers were
abundant there about 2000 B.C. even among the native population.
To sum the matter up, I doubt whether the Egyptians of the old
Empire went as far as Sennar, and 1 infer that their advance, if it
reached so far, would have been along the Blue, not the White,
Nile.
Two further references in the inscription of Weny and two rock
inscriptions of King Mernera must be mentioned in order to
complete the material. Weny says in line 42 : "Never had the
visit to Ibhet and Elephantine been made with only one war-ship
in the time of any king." Ibhet is not far south of Elephantine.
In line 45, he says : His Majesty sent me to excavate 5 canals in
the southland, to make 3 freighters and 4 towing boats of accacia
wood from Wawat while the chiefs of the lands of Irthet, Wawat,
lam, and Mazoi brought wood therefor. I did the whole thing
in one year, launched and loaded with great granite blocks for
the pyramid called Mernera-kha-nefer.'''' The two royal inscrip-
tions are on the rocks on the east bank at Phile and record a visit
(or visits) of King Mernera and that " the rulers of Mazoi, Irthet,
and Wawat kissed the earth and gave praise greatly."
From these inscriptions it appears that the country southwards
14 - SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
of Assuan was inhabited by a series of tribes whom the Egyptians
designated as negroes. The names of the Wawat and the Mazoi
are known in later inscriptions and there can be no doubt that
these tribes hved in the districts between Dongola and Assuan.
Our present evidence is that they were not true negroes. All
these tribes, schooled by experience, feared and respected the
king of Egypt, and they were quite content to take presents from
the ofl&cial expeditions and to pass them in safety. But occasion-
ally, too grasping, or badly treated, they fell upon and plundered
an expedition and had to be punished by a military force sent
for this purpose. In our day, we all understand fully the nature
of these conditions. The references of Speke in his journal to the
trading-stations, the caravans and the wars of the Arab traders
of Zanzibar are particularly instructive. One imagines Harkhuf
and the chief of lam, sitting on Egyptian stools, and discussing,
like Speke and the chief of Karagwe, men and gods and all
visible things. The tale of the divinity of the king of Egypt and
the building of his pyramid, the magnificence of his court, and
the order of his administration, lost nothing in the telling and did
not fail to stir in the chief the desire to send his sons to Memphis
to see and to learn. One imagines the later returns of Harkhuf to
lam and the greetings between him and his old friend. It was
such friendships which opened the roads to the trading caravans
and kept them open for many generations. Equally easy of
mental reconstruction is the affair of Pepy-nekht who first acting
as leader of an army broke the power of the chief of Wawat and
Irthet and then returned to make peace with him, in order to
reopen the trade routes. The chief, whose influence over his own
people had been shattered by defeat, came in chastened and
humble mood, probably with his garments hanging in disarray
as an outward mark of his mood, to place himself at the mercy of
the Egyptian and to swear unending loyalty to the king of
Egypt. He and his children were taken to the Egyptian court
to impress them with the greatness of Egypt, and while the
children were probably kept as hostages, the chief himself was
sent back to Wawat to serve the roads as before.
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN. 15
The goods sought in the south were resins, woods, ivory, oils,
certain special grains, incense, myrrh, and leopard skins (the
ceremonial dress of the Old Empire). Gold, which became so
prominent in the later inscriptions, is never mentioned. In
exchange, the Egyptians brought faience objects, presumably
amulets and beads (always one of the chief commodities in
Africa), ointment, honey and woven cloth. It may be mentioned
that at Kerma there is a mud-brick building, probably an old
trading station, under the Middle Empire Fort, near which we
found fragments of a large number of alabaster ointment jars
inscribed with the name of Pepy I. Fragments of larger stone
vessels were also found which may have contained honey. In all
probability, copper implements and weapons also formed part of
the stock in trade of the Egyptians. The goods were carried on
donkeys, and if we may judge by the Kerma evidence, stations
of mud-brick were built at one or two points where the expeditions
made their headquarters for longer periods. The collection of
the "good gifts" sent to Egypt appears to have been by barter
and trade, but of course the military expeditions simply looted
the country or exacted tribute. Their chief profit was in captive
slaves and in cattle. The military expeditions do not seem to
have been numerous and in the long run they could not have been
so profitable as the trading expeditions.
Such was the condition of aff"airs in Ethiopia during the Old
Empire, down to about 2500 B.C. Then follows a time in Egypt
when the central government was weakened and a period of
general poverty prevailed, which lasted for three or four centuries.
During this period nothing is known of conditions in Ethiopia.
Certainly the tribes lost their fear of Egypt and free of foreign
interference strengthened their tribal organisations or fought
among themselves after the manner of the African tribes of the
nineteenth century of our era. Trade is to the interest of all
concerned and trading caravans almost everywhere among
primitive races have enjoyed a certain measure of tolerance or
even active protection. It is probable therefore that the inter-
course between Egypt and Central Africa was maintained
16 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
somehow, either by Egyptian or by Nubian caravans. Possibly
the Nubian merchants came down by boat to Haifa or Assuan,
a very ancient market for southern goods, and the Egyptians
came south to meet them. The large and prosperous Nubian
population found at Kerma in the Middle Empire must have
been gaining headway during this intermediate period, and the
natural conclusion is that all the Ethiopian tribes securing for
themselves a larger share of the profits of the trade between
Egypt and the south became prosperous and fairly strong.
Towards the end of this period between the Old and the Middle
Empires, Egypt began to recover both politically and econo-
mically. Northern Egypt felt the revival first and the rulers of
Heracleopolis (Xth dynasty) made a successful effort at the
domination of the whole country. But in the end, the southern
provinces united under the Theban princes proved the stronger,
and King Menthuhotep I (Xlth dynasty) of Thebes re-established
the monarchy of united Egypt. From the time of Pepy II of the
Vlth dynasty to that of Menthuhotep I, no mention of Ethiopia
has been found in the Egyptian monuments. Even in the time
of Menthuhotep I, there is only a relief from a temple at Jebelen
(between Luxor and Edfu) representing the king smiting four of
his enemies, one of whom seems to be an Egyptian, while the
other three are named ''Nubians", "Asiatics" and^Libyans".
The accompanying inscription, referring to the king, reads
(according to Prof. Breasted) : "Binding the chiefs of the Two
Lands, capturing the South and Northland, the highlands and
the two regions, the Nine Bows and the Two lands". These
epithets of the king, taken with the pictures of the defeated
enemies, would seem to indicate that Menthuhotep I had made
an effort, perhaps successful, to curb the independence of the
Ethiopian tribes. This inference is supported by the next notice
which appears in an inscription of Menthuhotep II on the rocks
near Assuan (recorded by Prof. Petrie) : "Year 41 under
Nebkheriira (Menthuhotep II), came the royal treasurer, the sole
companion, the overseer of the sealers, Khety, born of Sitra ;
^hips to Wawat, ". Without doubt, the traffic with
OUTLINE OF THE ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SUDAN. 17
the south was being maintained much as it was in the Old
Empire. The phrase "ships to Wawat" may, however, be
significant. Hereafter it is by ship and not by donkey caravan
that the communications with the south are to be chiefly
maintained. It may be doubted whether the high-sounding words
of the inscription of Menthuhotep I refer to anything more than
a punitive expedition, but the power of Eg^^pt was growing and
the time was at hand when Ethiopia was to pass under the
administration of resident Egyptian officials.
George A. Reisner.
SCENT AND SIGHT AMONGST GAME
AND OTHER ANIMALS
BY MAJOR C. H. STIGAND.
Most persons know that the sense of smell plays an important
part in the life of such game animals as the hollow-horned
ruminants, the carnivores and the pachyderms. Not all perhaps
realize that this sense is so predominant that — in the daytime
at least — the sense of sight plays, by comparison, an unimportant
and subsidiary role. The average mammal is almost wholly
guided by scent, whilst searching for food or prey, in avoiding its
enemies and in seeking a mate and breeding.
With the great majority of mammals the power of vision is'
poor during the daytime — with some, such as the elephant and
rhino, sight seems almost non-existent. Their eyes appear to be
especially adapted to obtain a maximum power in the dark ; at
night they see well — much better than the average human being
— and this power enables them to move about freely in the dark
^vithout fear of running into obstacles.
Any poacher, or mole-catcher, knows that if he touches his
snares, or traps, with the bare hand nothing will come near them.
A hare or mole can recognise the human scent clinging to such
things many hours afterwards and whilst some distance from
them. The animal's nose warns it, whereas if there is no scent —
as when gloves have been used in setting the traps — his eyes
generally fail to show him anything peculiar about the snare and
so he is caught. Every huntsman knows that his hounds hunt
purely by scent until a few feet of their prey. A hare may
double close in front of a pack and the pack overshoot the trail
and have to pick it up again by casting. If any one of the hounds
used its sight it could not fail to have seen where the hare had
gone.
Many of the greater game, notably elephant and buffalo, can
SCENT AND SIGHT AMONGST GAME AND OTHER ANIMALS. 19
wind their chief enemy — man — at an immense distance when
the breeze is favourable. In a dry country water is detected by
the same sense. In following a spoor across the wind one has
noticed the track suddenly turn at right angles up the wind and
proceed unerringly to some little mud hole or rainpool a mile or
so distant.
Selous mentions an incident which occurred in a drought in,
I think, Khama's country. A herd of cattle were driven to a
waterhole and it was found to have dried. At that moment a
light breeze sprang up, the animals tossed up their heads and
started up-wind whilst their herdsmen, not being able to turn
them, followed behind. After travelling for a considerable
distance they arrived exhausted at a waterhole which neither the
cattle not the natives had visited before.
An animal in danger seems to depend almost entirely on scent
— a dangerous scent conveys an instantaneous warning to the brain
and the animal bolts without hesitation. If an animal sees
anything suspicious it generally looks for a little, then bolts a
short distance and then often turns to look again. On hearing
anything it will generally wait for confirmatory evidence, unless
it was anything very startling, such as a rifle report. Elephant
on being disturbed by a rifle shot will stampede down wind for
about a thousand yards, or a mile, and then stop, turn round
and take the wind for half a minute or more. After this pause they
will, as a rule, go off^ niore leisurely but for an immense distance.
So invariably do elephant stop for this testing of the wind, after
being alarmed by sound, that, if one races behind them directly
after firing one can generally count on getting up for another shot
in about five minutes. However, this practice, when followed in
thick grass or bush, is apt to lead one into the most disagreeable
situations.
Game animals practically always graze up-wind and bolt
down wind, depending on their range of scent to keep them out
of any danger threatened. After bolting to a safe distance
they will circle round and come up wind again to some spot they
have ascertained free from noxious scent.
20 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
Animals which He in open country depend to a greater extent
on sight for the detection of their enemies but even so I have
proved their vision defective on so many occasions that I feel
sure that they cannot focus well, or see anything clearly in
dayhght. They are often quick enough to pick up a moving
object but such objects must appear to them blurred and without
defined outline — they tell by the manner of its moving whether
it is friend or foe, whether familiar or strange. If the object is
distant they have to watch it for a considerable time ; a stationary
object defeats them.
I believe that the average hollow-horned ruminant would walk
up within a few yards of any stationary object — even if it was
a man or a lion — without detecting it, provided such object was
absolutely motionless and the breeze was in the right direction.
Such unfortunate recontres seldom occur owing to the animal's
almost invariable habit of grazing up wind, or, at least, guarding
itself against surprise, like the steamer fearful of the submarine,
by taking a zigzag course. Sometimes they will omit taking
such precautions and I have occasionally had animals walking
up within a few yards of me when I have been sitting or standing
quite still. I have had hartebeest, duiker, warthog, bushpig,
waterbuck, lion and several other kinds of game within a few
yards of me and quite unaware of my presence until I moved,
fired or the wind betrayed me. With the blinder game, such as
elephant and rhino, it is not generally necessary to keep still, so
long as one makes no noise or rapid movement. I have also
known of cases where hartebeest and zebra have been killed by
Hon under such conditions that it is only possible to assume that
they walked up within the lion's springing distance.
If gazelle, or other animals in captivity, be observed it can be
noticed how blind and unable to detect still objects by shape or
colour are the majority. For instance some food it is fond of,such as
a banana, is dropped within a few inches of a warthog's nose, where
it must be visiltle to any normal vision. Yet the warthog quarters
the ground, sniffing backwards and forwards, for an appreciable
time before finding it. This seems to show that in finding its
SCENT AND SIGHT AMONGST GAME AND OTHER ANIMALS. 21
food it is dependent on scent alone and offers one explanation
of the fact that animals practically always graze upwind,
although considerations of safety also would account for this.
Horses and mules do not seem to see well, they cannot distin-
guish a stationary object, such as a motionless rhino, but are
filled with alarm if they get its wind, or smell its spoor. Even in
detecting moving objects they seem very slow. I could tell the
moment a certain mule of mine had sighted a rhino, as he suddenly
stopped dead and stared at it. It was not often that he saw one
although there were plenty about.
Horses do not shy at or try to avoid distant stationary objects
— it is only when they get within a few yards of an alarming
object that they shy. Although much of this is affectation some
at least is genuine and seems to prove that they are unable to see
such objects clearly until close up to them. Coming from Fasher
to Nahud on a camel which shied and made a detour to pass
every dead camel on the road, I had several opportunities of
estimating the range at which he could distinguish these, to
him, alarming objects. Whereas I could recognise a dead camel
at perhaps a thousand yards distance, he would give a start
and then bolt off the road at thirty yards or so.
The other day I was observing my mule plucking grass as we
rode along. The grass was of two kinds, a fine and a coarse one,
and the mule would only eat the former. Once having noticed
the difference I found no difficidty in distinguishing a clump of
the one kind from a clump of the other twenty yards ahead. Not
so the mule, every time he wanted a fresh mouthful he made for the
nearest clump and put his nose into it, then if it was the right kind
he plucked it whilst if it was the wrong kind he turned away in
disgust to look for another clump. It seemed obvious that he had
sufficient vision to detect a clump, but not clear focus which
w^ould enable him to distinguish a fine from a coarse grass.
As regards mating, scent is all important, the male as a rule
locates the female by scent and knows in that way when she is
ready for mating. Many of the antelope have scent-secreting
glands, on face, foot or elsewhere, which are supposed to be of
purely sexual utility.
22 STTDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
The he-goat rushes round a zariba, sniffing the females alter-
nately, to see if any are ready for his attentions. He sniffs at,
say, a speckled she-goat and evidently decides that she is of no
use. He then sniifs a second and next to this the speckeld one
again, having failed to notice that it is the same goat which has
moved to a different part of the zariba. If she moves about
much he perhaps comes back to her half a dozen times before
he has inspected all the other females. If sight played any part
in this proceeding, he would surely be able to distinguish every
member of his particular herd and know that there was only
one speckled one amongst them.
As to sight at night, it is undoubted that most mammals see
at this time very much better than the human being. It is
inconceivable that herds could stampede wildly over difficult
country on a dark night, without breaking neck or limb, or even
falling unless they could see where they are going. A horse can
see well at night, it can pick its way and often stumbles less
than in the daytime. Practically all mammals, except apes, are
nocturnal — either purely nocturnal, such as the carnivores,
porcupines, rats, etc., or partly nocturnal such as elephants and
the hollow horned ruminants, ^\hich graze and court chiefly at
night but also graze during the day. Of the latter I believe the
buffalo is the least nocturnal as it seems to he down for part of
the night.
If sight plays an important part in the hfe of the ordinary
mammal, it is because it is of the kind adapted to the dark
rather than to the light. In fact, the sight of the majority is of
a kind, rarely and imperfectly known amongst human beings,
called, I believe, nyctalopia ; the sign of which is an immensely
enlarged pupil and the effect is that the sufferer is almost blind
in a bright light and can see well in twilight or the dark.
If the eye of a gazelle or antelope be examined, it will be seen
that the pupil is out of all proportion to that of the human eye — a
condition shared by the owl. Most birds, on the other hand, are
diurnal in habits, like ourselves, and seem to see as much as we
do except that their sight, particularly in the raptores, is much
longer ranged. C. H. Stigand.
THE
SAKIA IN DONGOLA PROVINCE
BY W. NICHOLLS.
The word " Sakia " (Saqiyah), which Kterally means a Water-
Wheel used for irrigating land, is now in Dongola Province more
generally used to denote not only the Wheel itself but also the
plot of land which it is used to irrigate.
For cultivation purposes every sakia must have a samad or
overseer (except in some parts of Dar El Shaigia). This samad
may or may not have any share in the ownership of the land.
In many cases, especially where the owners of the land do not
themselves work it, a suitable man is put in to act as samad and
receives a fixed share of the crop as his remuneration. Care
must be taken not to confuse this cultivation overseer, or " samad
moiya " as he is called, with the samad appointed by the owner
of the sakia and registered in the Government books as the
headman of the sakia, who is responsible for the collection of the
tax from the various owners and for its payment to Government.
They may be one and the same person in many instances but
it is not necessary that they should be.
The people who work under the samad and assist him in the
cultivation and watering of the land are called the turabla
(plural of turbal) and there is also the boy who drives the oxen
which turn the wheel, and who is called the auretti.
The samad is responsible for (a) the working of the water-
wheel lb) the making of the hedan (plural of hod) or small basins
into which the land to be cultivated is divided up for the purpose
of watering it and (c) the sowing of the seeds.
All the other work of the sakia is performed by the turabla
alone except the following duties in which the samad takes his
share with the turabla :
24 SUDAN NOTES AND BECORDS.
1. The clearing of the kodek or excavation in the river bank,
beneath the water-wheel, from which the water is drawn.
This work is generally performed at the tettig (the midday
interval).
The samad's particular share in this is the clearing of the
gawatti which is the well in the kodek into which the pots of the
water-wheel dip.
2. Frightening off the birds from the crops. Many devices
are adopted for this purpose. The most usual is to erect high
w^ooden platforms here and there among the crops joined together
by ropes from which are suspended old tin cans and various
oddments which when shaken make a noise. Each platform has
its tenant, generally a child, who now and then pulls the ropes.
Another device is a thick rope which is cracked like a whip.
When wdelded by a skilful hand it produces a very loud report,
like that of a gun.
3. Clearing the gadwal (or water conduit), called in Dongolawi
malti, of weeds and grass. The samads special charge in this
work is the main conduit of the sakia (El gadwal el daker),
which is cleared every eight days ; the turabla looking after the
subsidiary gadwals.
After the main gadwal has been cleared of weeds and grass
the samad drags a large stone, called the maltin ochil, to which
a rope has been attached, along the bed of it in order to smooth
it out and facilitate the floAv of the water along it.
4. If the wheel has to be worked by night as well as by day,
as is very often done when there is a large area under cultivation,
the samad and the turabla share this extra work.
The night work is divided into two shifts of approximately
four hours each ; the first, beginning shortly after sunset and
called the 'Isha, being done by the samad and the second,
called the Figrawi, which begins at about 1 a.m., being carried
out by the^Jturabla.
This work during the day is done by the auretti.
THE SAKIA IN DONGOLA PROVINCE. 25
5. When any heavy work has to be undertaken which the
samad and his turabla cannot do alone, such as making a new
main gadwal or when a crop has to be put down quickly, a
crowd of neighbours is summoned in to help. This crowd is
called a faza'.
The faza' does not receive any pay or wages but is supplied
with food and drink by the samad and the turabla, each supplying
half.
Sometimes a sheep is slaughtered but there is always a plentiful
supply of merisa (native beer). This is a sine qua non.
We have thus considered the duties to be performed by each
of the persons who work on the sakia. The next point to con-
sider is the remuneration which each of them receives for his
toil.
Remuneration is always in the form of a share in the crop
except in the case of the auretti who is generally hired at a
monthly wage, usually amounting to from 15 to 20 piastres. Of
course when the samad and the turabla have children of their
own capable of doing this work, no auretti is hired, the work
being done by the children in turn.
To examine the question of the division of the crop we will
take firstlv the most difficult instances, that is when neither the
turabla nor the samad have any share in the ownership of the
land, or the wheel or the bulls and when the seeds have had to
be borrowed.
Then when the division of the crop takes place the first call
upon it is the repayment of the man from whom the seeds were
borrowed.
The actual amount he receives will have been arranged at the
time of borrowing, such as an ardeb and a half for each ardeb
borrowed or any other amount as previously fixed.
Then one sixth of the crop is set apart for the owners of the
land, one fifth for the owner of the wheel and, as the samad is
merely a " samad moiya ", one eighth is set apart for him as his
remuneration.
This roughly disposes of half of the crop. The other half is
26 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS-
divided up between the turabla and the owners of the bulls on
the arrangement that each bull receives half a turbal's share.
Thus when there are four turabla and eight bulls, a very usual
number, the turablar receive one-quarter of the crop and the
owner of the bulls receives one-quarter.
In Argo the number of turabla seldom or never exceeds four
and the usual arrangement is for each of the turabla to produce
a bull and the samad to produce one for each one the turabla
produce.
The amount paid for the hire of the water-wheel varies some-
times, as if there is a shortage of wheels and a good demand for
them, the owners of them naturally put up their prices. The
same is also the case with the amount paid for the hire of land ;
in the case of high permanent land (called barjok), which is
difficult to water and not very fertile the landlord may get as
little as one-tenth of the crop as rent while in the case of newly-
formed alluvial land (called gurer) he may get as much as one
quarter of the crop. Among the Shaigia also the " samad " is
very often dispensed with and all the turabla work together
without any headman.
There are many minor claims on the sakia to be satisfied from
the crop such as the ra'is of the ferry-boat who generally receives
8 hods, the basir or native carpenter who keeps the wheel in
repair, the Arab who makes and supplies the baskets for carrying
the manure (marog or sibakh), the persons who supply the
donkeys for carrying the manure, in case the cultivators have
none of their own, and the blacksmith who repairs the hoes
(toriya or fas). These latter four though sometimes paid in
money are very often remunerated in kind, a certain number of
hods being set apart for them.
The payment of the tax is always a matter of arrangement
between the land owners and cultivators ; a very usual arrange-
ment being that the cultivators pay half the tax on the land
cultivated while the landlords pay the other half and also all
the tax on the uncultivated land (called " biir tax ").
The above cultivation arrangements are very much simplified
THE SAKIA IN DONGOLA PROVINCE. 27
in the case when the samad is the owner of the land and the
wheel. In this case the turabla supply half the bulls and half
the seeds and pay half the tax on the cultivated land while the
samad supplies half the bulls, half the seed s and the auretti and
pays half the tax on the cultivated land and all the bur tax.
All the crops are then halved, the samad taking one half and the
turabla the other.
W. NiCHOLLS.
ARABIC NURSERY RHYMES
BY S. HILLELSON.
The specimens of nursery lore presented in the following pages
require only a few words of introduction and comment. They
were obtained from school boys at the Gordon College and are
known to everybody in this part of the country. As might be
expected the texts of these jingles are not in any way fixed, but
are quoted in many different versions, though it did not seem
worth while to note any variants. Our material is rather
fragmentar^'^, but for fuller details about child life and the manner
and customs of the nursery one would have to go to the women-
folk, a source of information that is not easily accessible to the
inquisitive official. Perhaps the specimens given in this number
will bring in further examples from other contributors in different
parts of the country.
Students of folklore know that nothing is so universally
distributed among the human race as the simple tales and
jingles of childhood. Whether the common fund is the inheri-
tance of a common origin, or whether the stories have wandered
from tribe to tribe, and if so by what routes, these are questions
not easily solved. A glance at the Arabic specimens is sufficient
to show that they also belong to the common stock. But for
the accidents of local colour they bear a very close resemblance
to the nursery rhymes of Europe, and numbers 3 and 4 definitely
belong to a very common group the English versions of which
are familiar to everyone. It is perhaps worth mentioning that
one of the oldest known examples of this type belongs to the
Semitic East : it is the Aramic story of the goat (Khad gadya)
which has found its way into the Passover service of the Jews.
1
Yd tali'' esh-shedera hat lei{^) ma'ak bagara
halabat el-'ashara tahlih ta'ashshTni
(^) Pronounced with the dipthhong.
ARABIC ?fURSERY RHYMES.
29
ji maHaga siiii
min he''ashshini ?
liget habib Allah
giddamo hamam akhdar
vd retni kan dugto
Oh. you going to the forest,
with milk enough for ten ;
in a china spoon,
who will give me my supper ?
I found the Beloved of God,
a grey pigeon before him,
wish I had tasted it,
el ma'-laga inkasarat
rauivahte bet Allah
ga'id lo fog bambar{^)
Yita'''iTn lo Ji sukkar
hatta en-nabl zurto.
bring me home a cow
then milk her and give me my supper.
The spoon is broken,
I went to the house of God,
sitting on a stool,
he feeds it on sugar,
I would have made pilgrimage to the
Prophet.
Another version of the same rhyme was quoted with the
following introductory lines :
Gumrlya dibdsa
gal tek el-Khalifa
Ji gar^a nad'ifa
Dove and pigeon
the khalifa said to you :
in a clean gourd.
um halgan miicasa
siffi marlsa
nishrab negogi{^)
fi hillat Selogi
with the soft throat
make marisa
that we may drink and
make merry in the village of Selogi
Et-ter el-khudari
ajirrak w ativika
shebdbi nur el-ivadi
Zaghdwa{*) hdrabona
dabahna lehum zarzar
kaf ahum jot Allah{^).
ah rishan birdri
ashuf shebdbi fika.
el lahemar{^) u bddi.
u sheddb jemdlun{^) jona
zarzar md kafdhum.
(1) A stool with a seat of rope like an angarib
(^) Meaning uncertain.
f) Note the redupUcation of the / ; this is a regular feature in Sudan Arabic.
(*) A tribe in Kordofan and Darfur.
(s) Jemdlun= ^^^ : the h is silent.
(«) Jdt Allah=^ dJl ;j^
said to be a crested bird.
30 SUbAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
jot Allah yah gotlyai^) humarik, yd Rogaiya.
Rogaiya bitt ahanna{'^) um sha'ran mitanna.
The grey bird with shining feathers ;
I will spread your wings and fold them, I behold my delight in you ; My delight
is the light of the valley, the red and shining. The Zaghawa made war upon
us, they saddled their camels and attacked us. We killed sparrows for them,
but sparrows did not satisfy them. The hoopoo satisfied them ; Oh hoopoo
of the hut ; your donkey, Rogaiya. Rogaiya is our daughter, she with the
curly hair.
3.— A LULLABY(').
Doha ya Doha Doha shal bet Makka jab lei ma'^aho ka'-ka
el-ka'ka fil-makhzan el-makhzan '•d''iz muftdh,
el-muftah Hnd en-najjdr en-najjdr 'a'rs gaddum
el-gaddiim Hnd el hadddd el-haddad ^a'iz fulus,
el-fulus 'ind es-sultan es-sultdn ^d''iz 'ariis,
e/-'arus '•d''iza mandil el-mandil Hnd el-juhhdl,
el-juhhdl '•a^iza leban el-leban taht el-bagara,
el-bagar •d''iz hashish el-hashlsh taht el-jubdl,
el-jubdl '•aHzin matar, yd rabb, tejib el-matar.
Doha, oh Doha, Doha went to God's house at Mecca, he brought me back some
cake.
The cake is in the cupboard, the cupboard wants a key.
The carpenter has the key, the carpenter wants an adze.
The smith has the adze, the smith wants money.
The king has got the money, the king wants a bride.
The bride wants a kerchief, the babies have the kerchief.
The babies want milk, the cow has the milk.
The cows want grass, the grass is at the foot of the hills.
The hills want rain, Lord Thou givest rain.
4.— THE GOAT THAT WOULD NOT GO HOME.
Kan fi ghanamdyat'en, es-sughaiyara isema{*) Kret,
■el-kabira tamrug takul el-gash shes-samih u tekhalli ukhta{^)
(^) Gotiyah, pi. gatati : a grass tukl.
(-) Ahanna ■= LJLa-
(') This is said to be of Egypt origin, but is fairly well known in the Sudan.
(*) = l«^l.
ARABIC NURSERY RHYMES. 31
teramrin fil wisahkat.
Balden Kret galet le ukhta : alia tekhallini amrug ma'-aki ?
wakit maraget u ligat el-khudar es-samih abat ma tirja'- el bet.
1. Baden ukhta koraket : yd-l-marfaHn, ya-l-marfa''in, ta'al ukul Kret.
Kret md leKd ? Abat md tinzil el-bet.
Abet md bdkul Kret.
2. Yd kildb, ta''dlu imbahujil marfa'in.
El marfa'Tn shin sauwa ? Aba ydkul Kret. Kret shin sauwat ?
Abat timshl l-bet. Abena.
3. Ya H-'asdya, ta'dH duggi H-kildb. El-kildb shin sauwo ?
Abo ye'-addo ''l-marfa''in. El marfa'Tn shin sauwa ?
Abd ydkul Kret. Kret shin sauwat ? Abat teshil eUbet.
4. En-ndr ta''dli ukuR ''l-'-asdya. El-'-asdya shin sauwat ?
Abat ma tedugg el-killdb etc.
5. El-moiya ta'-dll it fi 'n-ndr. En-ndr shin sauwat ?
Abat tdkul el-^asdya, etc.
6. El-jemel, ta'-dl jerjib el-moiya. El-moiya shin sauwat ?
Abat titfi'n-nar etc.
7. Esh-shuwdl ta'dl, taggil el-jemel. El-jemel shin sauwa ?
Abd md yishrab el-moiya, etc.
8. El-fdr, ta'-dl gidd esh-shuwdl. Esh-shmvdl shin sauwa ?
Aba ma yehammil el-jemel, etc.
9. El-kadis, ta'-dl ukul el-fdr.
El-kadis gal bdkul el-far.
el-fdr gal begidd esh-shuwdl,
esh-shuwdl gal behammil el-jemel,
el-jemel gal bashrab el-moiya,
el-moiya galet batfVn-ndr,
en-ndr galet bdkul el-'asdya,
el-'asdya galet bedugg el-kildb,
el-kildb gdlan benimbah el-marfa''Tn,
^l-marfa'-in gal bdkul Kret.
Kret raja'-at el bet.
It will be sufficient to give a translation :
There were two goats, a little one and a big one, the name
of the Uttle one was Kret.
The big one used to go out to eat the luscious grass and left
her sister to rummage among the filth at home.
32 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
One day Kret said to her sister won't you let me go out
with you ? When she was outside she enjoyed the pleasant
herbage so much that she refused to go home.
1. Then her sister called out : Hyena, come and eat Kret.
What is the matter with Kret ?
Kret won't go home.
Won't eat Kret.
2. Dogs, come and bark at the hyena. What has the hyena done ?
Won't eat Kret.
What has Kret done ? Won't go home. Won't.
8. Mouse, come and gnaw the sack,
Sack won't burden camel, camel won't drink water, water won't put out fire^
fire won't burn stick, stick won't beat dogs, dogs won't bark at Hyena,,
hyena won't eat Kret, Kret won't go home.
9. Cat, come and eat mouse.
The cat said : Right I'll eat the mouse,
Mouse said : I'll gnaw sack. Sack said : I'll burden camel. Camel said r
I'll drink water. Water said : I'll put out fire. Fire said : I'll burn stick-
Stick said : I'll beat dogs. Dogs said : we'll bark at hyena. Hyena said i
I'll eat Kret.
Kret went home.
S. HiLLELSON.
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR
BY H. A. MacMICHAEL.
When the Arabs, after the conquest of Egypt in the middle
of the Vllth century, turned their attention southward to the
Sudan, they found their way blocked beyond Aswan by the
Christian Kingdom of Dongola, which extended upstream for
some short distance beyond the junction of the Blue and White
Niles.
The organization of this Kingdom was very loosely knit and
its people were not homogeneous. The inhabitants of the
southern districts were to all intents and purposes negroes :
their northern neighbours, living in what are now the provinces
of Haifa and Dongola, though much mixed with negro, appear
to have had very much more in common with the ancient
Egyptian element and to have represented in part the old red-
black stock of the Nile valley.
In the extreme north of Nubia, round Aswan itself, the immi-
grant Arabs in the course of the following centuries amalgamated
with the local Nubians, a process greatly facilitated by the
existence of a matrilinear system among the latter, for by
judiciously marrying into the ruling family of Nubians the Arab
ensured the power passing in a single generation to his own son.
Thus came into being the Kenuz (sing. Kanzi) of the present
day. The Aulad Kanz were originally a branch of the Rabi'a
Arabs from Yemama, who, having entered Egypt in the middle
of the IXth century, eventually settled round Aswan <^* ; but
so completely did they coalesce Avith the Nubian element that
gradually they ceased to speak Arabic as their native tongue
and became all but indistinguishable from their neighbours.
<i) QuATREMERE, Mkmoires..., II, 84-85.
34 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
Thousands of other Arabs also settled in Upper Egypt and
Lower Nubia and at the time when the Kingdom of Dongola
finally collapsed before the arms of the Mamluks of Egypt the
fusion of races ui its more northerly districts was rapidly be-
coming complete.
Broadly speaking it was the Arabs of Juhaina, a powerful
Kahtanite tribe from the Hejaz, and various branches of the
Ismaihtic Quraish, the Prophet s own tribe, that were most
plentifully represented in Upper Egypt and Lower Nubia,
though these were accompanied by many other Arab tribes,
particularly by branches of Qais 'Ailan {e.g. Fezara), Rabi'a,
etc., and by semi-arabicized Berbers, notably Howara and
Luata.
The Juhaina tended to remain nomadic and many offshoots
of them found their way in the XlVth, XVth and following
centuries into the Gezira, Kordofan and Darfur, and there
became the founders of some of the largest Arab tribes of the
present day, camel-owners and Baqqara. ,
The Quraish, on the other hand, do not appear to have gone
far afield. They tended to settle among and intermarry with
the Nubian or Barabra peoples and so became largely responsible
for the Danagla and soi-disant Ja'lin stocks whose habitat
proper is now in Dongola and Berber provinces.
In this latter case the religious prestige attaching to the name
of Quraish has by a natural process led those Nubian tribes who
were brought into contact with them to claim descent from one
or another member of the Prophet's own section of the Beni
'Abbas (Quraish), and hence it arises that, though the Danagla
Ja'lin, etc., may represent an admixture between the Barabra
stock and a score or more of Arab tribes it is only the relationship
with the Quraish upon which they lay any stress in their tradi-
tional pedigrees, and the pretensions of the Ja'hn, to be des-
cended from the Beni 'Abbas are universally accepted throughout
the Sudan at the present day.
Now the linguistic resemblances which were noticed in the
XlXth century as existing between the Barabra and the
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 35
inhabitants of the most northerly group of Nuba hills in southern
Kordofan, reinforced by the similarity between the names
Nuba and Nubia, led to a misconception which was radically
unsound. It was suggested that the Nuba of Southern Kordofan
and the Nubians of Nubia were racially identical or very closely
cognate, and that the latter had once had their home in the
mountains of the south. As a matter of fact it is difficult to
conceive of two peoples who differ more profoundly in all
essential respects, and physically they are almost the antithesis
of one another. It has been assumed and for the purposes of
this argument it need not be denied that the stock to which the
Nuba of the south belong did at one time, previously to the
Assyrian conquest of Eg} pt, spread over the Gezira and occupy
Nubia by force of arms and even conquer Egypt and for some-
thing less than a century rule it, but, even if this be allowed, it
would remain true that the wave of negro aggression was
shortlived and that in time it duly ebbed. It may even have
been responsible for the name of Nuba, but it certainly cannot
be held accountable for the light-coloured lightly built race that
now lives in Nubia.
The facts appear to be that for centuries after the time of the
Arab conquest of Dongola, if not earlier, there was a more or
less continuous flow of slightly arabicized Barabra emigration
from Nubia to the fertile country, well suited to cattle-breeding
and cultivation, which lies to the south of the latitude of El
Obeid. So there came into being the semi-negroid Bedairia,
Jawama'a, Tomam, Tumbab and other tribes which inhabit
that neighbourhood and pretend to a Ja'li descent in the
knowledge that, if that be granted, the Quraish connexion will
be assumed to follow.
Now this connexion between the Nubian (Barabra) tribes and
those of southern Kordofan is a more or less accepted fact, but,
to the best of my belief, little if any evidence has been adduced
to show that the emigrant Barabra penetrated in those early
days in any numbers so far afield as Darfur.
Of course it is common knowledge that the royal houses of
Y
f
36 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
Darfur and Wadai lay claim to a Ja'li descent — in the former
case, illogically, through the Bern Hilal — but even if this were
accepted it would prove no more than that certain individuals
from the Nile found their way so far westwards and by virtue
of their superior attainments and religious pretensions succeeded
in getting the direction of affairs into their own hands. But a
theory to the effect that Barabra settled in Darfur wholesale
would rightly have been regarded as entirely unproved.
The object of this paper is to adduce certain evidence which
may remove the theory from the realms of pure hypothesis and
mfake it at least a presentable assumption.
A word must be said first concerning the population of Darfur
and the lines of approach to it from the valley of the Nile.
As regards the latter point : there have never been any
natural difficulties to overcome betAveen the Nile and Darfur
to one travelling along the line of the Baqqara country south of
the latitude of El Obeid, but this lies too far south to be relevant
to the purpose of this paper. From Central Kordofan the direct
approach to Central Darfur must have been extremely difl&cult
until the Kunjara Sultans (Fur) in the XVIIIth century opened
the line of great rock-hewn wells from El Fasher towards the
Kaga hills, because eastern Darfur and western Kordofan were
practically waterless. The Hamar did not systematically
develop the system of storing water in baobabs until about the
end of the same century, and wells were not opened at El Nahud
until the Mahdist era. Consequently the ordinary road from El
Fasher to El Obeid, instead of running as it does now, used in
the XVIIIth century to turn slightly north from Jebel el Hilla
and pass through Kernak, Kaga Surriig and Foga to Kaga
Sbderi and Katul and thence turn south-east through Bara to
El Obeid ; and it was this line that was invariably followed, in
default of any other sufficiently well watered, by the invading
forces of Darfur.
Now from Kaga and Katul it is also quite feasible to travel
east-north-east along the line of Jebels Abu Hadid and Um
Durrag and El Haraza to the river. In fact, the great Wadi el
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 37
Muqaddam, which must in prehistoric times have been an artery
of the Nile, rises not far east of El Haraza and runs into the Nile
near Korti, and this Wadi, containing water at a shallow depth
all along its course, provides an easy passage to and from the Nile.
The traditions, and the very existence, of the large and long
established Dongolawi colony, known as the Doalib, at El
Haraza provide evidence that the Wadi el Muqaddam was so
used.
Another great Wadi which runs into the Nile some 40 miles
from the mouth of the Wadi el Muqaddam is the Wadi el Melik,
so called, it is said, because it was reckoned the appanage of the
ruler of Darfur. This Wadi rises in the neighbourhood of Foga
near the Darfur border and runs north-east direct to Debba..
Wells can be dug in it at a succession of points and in the rainy
season it is flooded for a great part of its length. There is reason
to suppose from the existence of old deserted stone villages and
the abundance of baobabs in the vicinity of the Wadi el Melik
that five hundred years ago the rainfall was heavier and the
country therefore more easy of transit. There is ample evidence
of early racial movements from Dongola southwestwards by way
of the Wadi el Muqaddam, El Haraza and Kaga and it would not
be unnatural to suppose that the Wadi el Melik was also used.
The journey westwards from Kaga, supposing there were no
wells in the somewhat arid stretch which has to be crossed before
the really fertile districts of Darfur (viz. all but the eastern
district) are entered, could always have been performed with
ease between July and the end of the year, when the rainwater
was still standing.
The only other lines of approach from the Nile to Darfur that
need be considered are the caravan roads that run from Assiut
and Esna through the oasis of Selima and Bir Natron {El Malha)
direct to Midob, and that which starts from New Dongola and
passes through Elai to the same place. These, however, were
primarily trade routes crossing vast desert spaces, and there is
at present no evidence that they were, or could have been^
channels of tribal migration.
38 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
As regards the more important tribes that at present inhabit
Darfur, it is only necessary to make a few general remarks.
In the north-eastern corner is the large range of the Midob
hills. South-west of them are the Tagabo hills peopled by the
negroid Berti. This tribe has linguistic affinities with the
Zaghawa who live west of it and a vague traditional connexion
with the " Arab " tribes of Kordofan and the Ja'lin, and Howara
of the Nile valley. Its country extends to within a day or so of
El Fasher, but within the last half century many Berti have also
settled, for the sake of cultivation, in the sandy and undulating
but poorly watered country which lies east of El Fasher and
comprises much of western Kordofan.
West of Jebel Midob and the Berti live the Zaghawa. These
are neither Arabs nor negroes proper but rather a Tibbu race
from the north-west. Excepting Jebel MTdob the whole northern
boundary of Darfur is held by the Zaghawa and they also extend
in the north-west to the borders of Dar Qimr and Dar Tama,
buffer states between Darfur and Wadai.
In the more southernly parts of their country the Zaghawa
villages are much mixed with those of the Tunjur. These latter
are not easy to place, but they appear to have entered Darfur
as Arabs, some 400 or 500 years ago, either from Tunis or, far
more probably, by way of Dongola,^^' and to have become subse-
<}uently negrified. Traditionally they are always connected with
the Bern Hilal of " Abu Zaid ", who, having been brought over
to Egypt by the Fatimites at the beginning of the Xlth century,
settled for the most part in the Berber country to the west but
are known to have pushed in some numbers up the Nile Valley
to the Sudan.
The Tunjur were the ruling race in Northern Darfur for a time
(1)
Cp. Barth, vol. Ill, chap. LI, p. 430.
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 39
in the XYIth century, but they mostly moved on to the west
through Wadai, and those that remain in Darfur have nothing
but scattered villages among the Zaghawa in the north and the
Fiir in the central districts.
The Fur themselves are a negro race inhabiting primarily the
great range of Jebel Marra, which with Jebel Si and the other
hundred smaller hills that lie near them, forms the main water-
shed or backbone of the whole province. Until the first half of
the XVI Ith century they were savage mountaineers but they
were then brought into touch with Muhammadan Arab influences
from the east and were converted to Islam. Their early Sultans
ruled from Turra in Jebel Marra, but in the XVIIIth century
they not only conquered all the plains on either side of the Marra
range but overran Kordofan, and the Sultan Tirab carried his
victorious arms so far afield as Shendi, Metemma and Omdurman.
The credit for this work of conquest is entirely due to the royal
Kunjara branch of Fur, who represent the semi-Arabicized
element. The wilder and more backward Fur still live in Jebels
Marra and Si and in the southwestern corner of Darfur. The
Kunjara, though mixed with other branches, are mostly east
of the main range or round Kebkebia.
To the east of the southern part of Marra, that is to say some
three to six days south of El Fasher, live a group consisting of
Birqed, Baiqo and Dagu.
The last-named were the paramount power in southern and
central Darfur before the advent of the Tunjur. They claim to
have come from the east and there is some evidence that their
original house may have been in Southern Sennar and Fazoghli.
Other Dagu are in Southern Kordofan in the so-called " Messiria"
jebels, and the Dagu also form the population of Dar Sula in
Southern Wadai. The name " Fininga " by which they call
themselves may possibly be connected with " Funj ".
The traditions of the Baiqo as to their origin resemble those
of the Dagu.
It is with the Birqed that this paper is chiefly concerned.
I
40 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
Of the Arab tribes, Baqqara in the south and Mahamid
Zayadia, etc., in the north, there is no need to say anything but
that, excepting the case of certain of the Baqqara — who are
racially identical with those of Southern Kordofan — they are
few and poor. They were more numerous until the Dervish days,
but the Fiir Sultans have always disliked and oppressed them
and the Dervishes all but exterminated them.
On the west Darfur proper is bounded by the buffer states of
Sula, Masalit Qimr and Tama. Sula is now a part of Wadai.
Both it and the other three " Dars " were, under the old Egyptian
Government and by the Dervishes, counted a part of Darfur.
Beyond them is Wadai.
On the north the Zaghawa of Darfur march with the wild
Bedayat and Qura'an of the Ennedi highlands.
On the south, beyond the Baqqara, are the Dinka and Fertit
negroes of the Bahr el Ghazal.
On the east is Kordofan with a sedentary population of
negroid Arabs and various nomadic Arab tribes.
Arabic is the lingua franca of Darfur and, practically speaking,
it is only in Jebels Marra and Si and in some of the villages west
of them that it is not understood.
Arabs apart, the Qimr and the Tunjur are the only people
among those mentioned who speak Arabic only. Each of the
other tribes has its own dialect, though in some cases, more
especially in the east and near El Fasher, they speak only Arabic
and have forgotten their proper tongue. Further afield they talk
among themselves in their proper tongue and, when conversant
with Arabic, use the latter for intercourse with their neighbours.
But an interesting fact emerges in this connexion. Whereas
the language of the Fur is distinct from any other Darfur dialect
and, so far as I can judge, from any of those spoken by the
Fertit tribes to the south, and Zaghawa belongs to the Tibbu
family, and Berti seems cognate to it, the dialects of Jebel
Midob and of the Birqed both bear quite obvious resemblances
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 41
to those spoken by the Barabra of Nubia. The Dagu and Baiqo
speak dialects which are, generally speaking, distinct in voca-
bulary, but approximate now and then to that of the Birqed.
Now it is notorious that linguistic affinities between two
parties do not necessarily imply community of racial origin, but
none the less it is clear that they can only be explained by the
fact of the parties having at one time or another been brought
into close and prolonged contact — unless they are in fact of the
same stock.
Some account of the people of Midob and the Birqed must
precede any attempt to decide in what way the linguistic
affinities between them and the Barabra are to be explained.
Jebel Midob lies about 400 miles west of Khartoum and 350
miles west-south-west of Debba, the point at which the Wadi
el Melik joins the Nile. It consists of a jumbled mass of hills of
volcanic origin between 100 and 200 miles in circumference.
None of them rise to any great height and they are intersected
by innumerable small valleys. The water supply in the dry
season is from moderately shallow wells dug in these valleys.
In the rains and early winter the people water from pools and
geltis (cavities in the rocks on the hill sides).
They are a semi-nomadic folk : that is to say for the greater
part of the year they constantly shift camp from place to place
in and about the hills according to the grazing facilities ; and in
the rains, though a few^ folk remain stationary in villages for the
sake of cultivation the great majority are away with the flocks
in the great uninhabited area lying east of Midob and west of
the Wadi el Melik, where the Kababish Arabs send their camels
and sheep at the same season from the opposite side. They are
primarily herders of sheep and goats and have very little culti-
vation and keep no fowls. They buy most of their corn from the
Berti to the south.
The huts which compose a Midobi village are of a design which
is unique in my experience of the Sudan. In appearance they
look from a distance hke large rounded boulders or beehives.
42 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
On closer approach they seem to resemble, but on a larger scale,
the round grass huts of the Fellata of West Africa, or else the
similarly shaped shelters of palm-matting built by the Shukriya
and the Arabs east of the Blue Nile. But in fact they are quite
distinct in design and composition from either. As having no
permanent value they are naturally built in a ramshackle man-
ner, and when the site is changed they are generally abandoned.
In shape they are circular and in content slightly larger than
the ordinary village tukl of the Sudan. The sides are formed of
long boughs stuck in the ground so as to lean slightly inwards.
If they are curved rather than straight so much the better as the
curve provides additional room in the house. These boughs do
not converge at their tops so as actually to meet — this would
make the house too small — but the space between their tops is
filled in by interlacing many other shorter boughs horizontally
from fork to fork in such a way that the whole appears at this
stage like the framework of a birds nest upside down. Support
and stability are given to the whole structure by two or more
stout roof- trees, forked at the tops, which are planted side by
side two or three feet apart near the centre of the hut. Smaller
boughs and sticks of anv shape and kind are thrust in among
the forks of the larger boughs and the interstices are plugged
with bunches of grass and cornstalks laid on without any design
and held in place by more forked sticks and boughs.
The doorway opens to the south and is low and formed of two
shaibas or stout forked posts. The interior is not left open and
unpartitioned as in the case of a tukl. On entering the door one
advances along a kind of gangway which extends as far as the
•roof- trees. This gangway consists of a high partition of grass-
matting (Sherqiinia) on either side reaching nearly to the roof.
On one side the partition is continued along the line of the roof-
trees, at right angles to the outer wall of the hut in such a way as
to form a private room in its angle. On the other side the parti-
tion ends near the centre of the hut. The household gear is kept
in the open part of the hut or stuffed into the interstices of the
roof.
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR.
43
The general plan of the hut may best be explained by a
diagram thus :
A
f^oR'^'^
AAA = roof trees.
BB = grass matting partitions.
CC = door posts.
The villages are all on the plain but usually near the foot of
the hills. The people are Muhammadans but there are plentiful
traces of more ancient manners and beliefs. For instance a
matrilinear system of succession and inheritance is still followed
and on the death of a mek he is succeeded by his sister's son.
'' The bone ", they say, " is from the mother, the flesh from the
father ". There are two meks in Midob, one of the northern
portion of the range (Urti section), the other of the southern
portion (Shelkota section). The following genealogical tree,
as supplied by the latter, explains itself
female
Mek Beiri
Mek Baqqara
'Ayesha^=Bahr
Kaltuma
fern.)
Buqqera (feni.) = Khair
Mek Ahmed Angeri
Mek Gamai
Gadda (fem.)
Giddo = Khadija (fem.)
Abukr
44 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
The latest meks in order of succession have been Beiri Baqqara
Ahmed Angeri and Gama'i wad Khair (the present mek), and
the last named will be succeeded by Abukr. Ahmed Angeri and
Gama'i, being sons of sisters are reckoned *' brethren ", but
Kaltuma being the elder sister Ahmed succeeded first.
In the matter of inheritance it is usual nowadays, in order to
conform to Islamic practice while preserving the ancient customs,
for a man before his death to give his wealth to his sons, and the
sister's son finds nothing left to inherit.
The well-to-do men carry a sword, the rest are content with a
few spears or a knobbed stick. The throwing stick or boomerang,
universal in the rest of Darfur, is not used at Midob.
Circumcision of both sexes is practised.
Marriage with the daughter of the father's brother, usual
among the nomadic Arabs to the east, is taboo at Midob, though
the same does not apply to the daughter of the mother's brother.
It is a matter of indifference whether a man marries a girl from
his own section of the tribe or not.
Two annual festivals are held by the southern Midobis. The
first takes place when the corn is ripe and the first heads are
being cut but before the general reaping. On this occasion the
young men and the girls go to Khor Odingar and camp there
for fifteen days enjoying themselves with dancing and horseplay
{e.g. the girls plait the boys hair). The older folk merely act the
part of spectators and bring out the food and drink for the others.
The second fete-day is a harvest festival. The young men have
their heads anointed and go to Khor Tat and take part in manly
sports, running and riding, etc. The women and girls look on.
In the evening each young man has to jump over the Khor, and
then all go home. Some ten to twenty days later the performance
is repeated, but I was unable to find out what factor decided the
exact date of this subsequent occasion.
Just before the rains a ceremony is also held at the holy rock
of Udru, a broken unshaped block of granite some 2^ feet high
lying at the foot of Jebel Udru (called by the Arabs Mogran),
a large prominent detached hill on the south side of Midob. The
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 45
holy rock is called Telli (northern dialect) or Delli (southern
dialect), and the same word in Midobi dialect means " God ".
Over it is built a rough hut of boughs, which is repaired yearly
before the ceremony but left in bad repair for the greater part of
the year. The rock, when I saw it in July, 1917, was still covered
with milk stains. Another smaller boulder near by had similar
stains upon it and some stones and cow-dung on the top of it.
This second boulder was referred to as the son or brother of the
larger one and the reasons of its ha\dng also been honoured was
said to be that the hut built over the big boulder had so consis-
tently fallen to pieces that the people thought the rock was
perhaps annoyed at the neglect shown to the smaller boulder ;
so of late years they had taken to making offerings to both.
The stones and cow-dung had been deposited by children in
play. The ceremony at Udru is performed by certain old women
of the Ordarti section who inherit the privilege from mother to
daughter. The offerings of milk, fat, flour, meat, etc., are handed
by the votaries to these old women and by them placed on the
rock. The rest of the people stand some away off and pass the
time dancing and jumping and singing.
There is said to be another holy stone at which similar rain-
making ceremonies are held a day's journey away to the east at
Jebel Abu Nuqta (in Midob), but this 1 did not visit. It is also
called TeUi (Deili).
Elsewhere in Darfur, among Fur, Zaghawa and others,
analogous ceremonies are held with the object of ensuring good
rains, and in every case the medium is an old woman and offerings
are made at ^ome particular stone or tree. It should also be
noted here that traces of a similar practice were noticed by
Professor Seligman a few years ago at Kaga.
The three main sections into which the Midobis are divided are
the Urti (in the northern hills), the Torti (or Dorti), and Shelkota
(in the southern hills), but there are also certain well-defined
subdivisions such as the Ordarti, the Genana (who seem to have
an Arab strain), the Turkeddi, the Usutti and the Kageddi.
All alike claim to be by origin Mahas from Dongola but they
46 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
preserve no written record nor definite oral tradition as to the
time at which they settled at Midob nor as to the circumstances
of their migration.
They call themselves Tiddi (not " Midob "), a word which in
the Berti language means " white ", but one hesitates to see
more in this than a mere accident.
The old burial grounds at Midob are always at the foot of the
hills and the sites are marked by rough cairns of stones. Exactlv
similar cairns occur between Midob and the Wadi el Mehk, at
Kaga and Katul, on the Wadi el Muqaddam. in the hills immedi-
ately west of Omdurman and again in the hills between the Blue
Nile and Abu Dileig.
The dialect spoken at Midob is a form of Barabra, but more
will be said of this in dealing with the Birqed dialect.
Let us now turn to the Birqed.
They are known to the Fiir by the name of Kajjara and their
country — also known as Kajjara in the days of the Fiir Sultanate
— lies to the east of Jebel Marra between Jebel El Haraiz and
Dar Rizeiqat (Baqqara). Their immediate neighbours are the
Dagu, the Baiqo and the Tunjur. There is also a small but long-
established colony of Birqed a day's journey to the north-east
of El Fasher at Turza.
At the beginning of the XlXth century there were also some
Birqed in Wadai — one supposes the wadi which forms a boundary
between Dar Masalit and Wadai and which appears variously
on the maps as Kajja or Kaja or Kia may be named after them —
and these El Tunisi spoke of as " traitres, brutaux, pillards . . .
la honte et la plaie du Ouaday ". " C'est de cette peuplade
he added, " que sortent les ouvriers en fer et les chasseurs.
The ironworker in Darfur, by the way, is as much despised
throughout the length and breadth of the country as anywhere
else in central or eastern Africa or eastern Asia. So too the
Birqed of Darfur to El Tunisi were " traitres, voleurs et rapaces
a I'exces, sans crainte de Dieu ni du Prophete"*^''.
1?
^^^ El-Tunisi, Voyage au Darfour, p. 133-136. and Voyage au Ouaday^
pp. 249-250.
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 47
Barth merely mentions them (" Birkit ") among the negro
tribe on the Wadai-Darfiir frontier'^*.
Nachtigal says'-' : " This tribe, composed of the slaves of
the Sultan (of Wadai) has remained free of racial admixture.
The Birguid are very dark (" gris fonces "). more so than the
Mabas, and are of a negro type and have the character and
customs of the Central Africans, and speak a language entirely
peculiar to themselves."
The main divisions of the Birqed in Darfur at present are as
follows :
Madargarkei. The ruling house. The cattle brand of this section i^ I ML
which represents a war drum and sticks.
The Serar Buqqre (" cattle folk ") section of Nuba at Jebel el Haraza in
Northern Kordofau similarlv use a brand I (^ representing a (smaller)
round war-drum and stick.
Tuddugei. Said to be Beni Hilal by origin.
Sirindikei.
Togongei. Said to be Ben! Hilal by origin.
Kamunga.
Mirowgei.
Kuldukei.
Izmandikei.
Turingei.
Fileikei.
'Eraiqat. That is some Arab -Eraiqat (Baqqara) Hving with the Birqed.
Tongolkei.
Kagurtigei.
Morolkei.
Sasulkei.
The component parts of these divisions are, in the view of
other tribes than the Birqed themselves, largely adulterated by
alien elements.
In the palmy days of the Darfur Sultanate the Birqed country
was the appanage of the Fiir dignitary known as the Urundulu.
The latter employed four muluk as farmers of revenue there' '..
(1) Travels, vol. Ill, p. 543 (App. 7).
(2) Voyage au Ouadai, p. 67.
(^) TuNisi, Voyage au Darfour, p. 137.
48 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
The Birqed, unlike the Baiqo. Dagu, Zaghawa, Borqu, Mima
and Tunjur had, it seems, no " Sultan " of their own-^\ and it
is stated at the present day that they had only a " shartai ",
or local " 'omda " at the head of their tribe. Consequently, it
may be presumed, they had no nahas (royal war drum).
Their country was known as '' Kajjar " and the Birqed are
still known to the Fur as Kajjara, to the Dagu as Kagarugei,
and to the Baiqo as Kajargei. They call themselves Murgi.
A few Birqed also live in Kordofan south of El Obeid and it is
traditionally reported in Northern Kordofan that about the
beginning of the XVIIIth century they were the ruling people
in the hills of Kaga and Katul but were ousted by the Bedairia.
The tendency among their neighbours near El Obeid is to class
the Birqed, with the Tomam and Tumbab, who have already
been mentioned as negrified tribes with pretensions to a Nubian-
Ja'li connexion, as of Hamaj or Nuba descent.
It was in collecting a small vocabulary of Birqed words in
Darfur in 1917 that I noticed two interesting facts. In the first
place the Birqed (of Turza) mentioned that the people to whom
they were most nearly related in Darfur were those of Jebel
Midob, and in the second the dialect of the southern Birqed —
those at Turza only speak Arabic — bears an obvious similarity
to the Nubian and Kanzi vocabularies collected by Burckhardt.
It will be remembered that the people of Midob claim to be an
ancient colony of Mahas and Danagla from Nubia and that their
language resembles that of the Barabra. It would seem that
the Birqed too found their way into Darfur from Nubia.
Their connexion with Midob, the similarity between the names
Kajjara (Kajargei, etc.) and Kaja or Kaga (which applies to the
whole long broken chain of hills from Katul to Jebel el Hilla)
and Kageddi ( a subtribe of Midob), the local tradition at Kaga
that the Birqed once ruled there and at Katul, and possibly the
^^) Jhid.^ 138. where no Birked Sullan is mentioned.
NUBIAN ELEMENTS IN DARFUR. 49
occurence of old ironworks at El Haraza, all suggest that it was
by way of Northern Kordofan that the Birqed may have come.
There are only faint indications as to the possible period of
their arrival. It has been noticed that two of the Birqed sub-
tribes call themselves Beni Hilal by origin. El Tunisi too
usually groups the Birqed with the Tunjur. The traditional
connexion between the Tunjur and the Beni Hilal is strong,
however difficult it be to define its details, and the Birqed seem
to be implicated in this ethnological embroglio.
Since there is no trace of the Tunjur having ever spoken any
tongue but Arabic, whereas the Birqed still speak a dialect as
well, and since the Birqed are socially indistinguishable from
the Dagu, who preceded the Tunjur in Darfur, and since the
Birqed have forgotten everything about their Nubian connexion
and are generally regarded as having lived in south-central
Darfur from time immemorial, whereas it is common knowledge
that the Tunjur immigrated and are not indigenous, it appears
likely that the Birqed reached Darfur before the Tunjur immi-
gration.
The Tunjur came in the XVth or XVIth century and the
Birqed may have left Nubia soon after the dismemberment of
the Christian Kingdom in the XlVth century, or even earlier.
The so-called Hilali sections of Birqed may be no more than
Tunjur who joined them in Darfur or may represent Beni Hilal
elements who joined the Birqed in the same way as others
joined the Tunjur.
There is even extant what I believe may be a Vllth century
reference to the Birqed (Kajjara) when they were still in Nubia.
Immediately after Ibn Selim's account of the Sudan Maqrizi
places the following passage''^ : " J'ai vu aussi dans une lettre
adressee par certaines tribus a I'emir des croyants ' Ali ben
Abou Taleb ", — that is to say the latter must have been written
within twenty years of the conquest of Egypt — " qu'il etait fait
<^) Ed. Bouriant. d
50 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS,
mention des Bedjahs et des Kadjahs lesquels sont tres mechants,
mais peu pillards*^\ Les Bedjahs sont ainsi ; quant aux
Kadjahs, on n'en connait que ce qu'en dit ' Abdullah ben
Ahmed I'historien de Nubie''."
' Abdulla ibn Ahmed is more generally known as Ibn Sehm el
Aswani, who wrote between 975 and 996 A.D., but what he had
to say about the Kajja (Kajjara ?) we do not know because the
extracts from his work quoted by Maqrizi contain no mention
of them.
I have only learnt a few score words of the Birqed and Midob
dialects, but the percentage among these of words that are
clearly of Barabra origin is high. The following are examples :
*^i* Burckhardt translates {Nubia, p. 509) " Warlike nations who do not make
much booty ".
<^^ Burckhardt translates '' But I know not who the Kedja are ".
NUBIAN ELEMENTS I.N DARFUR.
51
<
133
n
<
PQ
O
pa
o
o
n
en
O
Z
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cs
f, 2
1
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52
SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
• ff' r- 1 c>
- 5 o rs
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rt ire S ,^
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s^ re^r^ -
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:J a 2/ - =3
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, Ak (F.M.)
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ter (F.M.)
tar (F.M.)
), (5rij (F.M.)
(5rim (F.M.))
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5
r 1
r 2
65
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ri (K.D.),
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gil (K.D.),
mbab (K.
ir (K.D.),
er (K.D.),
5su (K.D.
is (K.D.),
i (K.D.), i
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^■UBIAlV ELEMEiVTS IIV DARFUR.
53
1
nanga " as =
d " essig " in
he " ; Baiqo,
of Darfur,
Rmory is not at fault the word
nan " in the Dilling group of
[S. of Kordofan) resembles
oge ". Similarly the first two
es of " Kordofan " were held,
k by Riippell, to be derived
a Nuba word for " man ".
agu of Sula use " yogi ".
CS
2
m
REMARKS.
rdt gives " ai
• " in Nuba an
ngurr ".
f Sula, "katc
chine ". Dagu
ini ".
>
3
4-1
CS "
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O ■»-' -C
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«■ C3 CS
2 3 .^ -!ij
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V
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EDITORIAL.
The Foreword ^vhich His Excellency the High Commissioner
lias most kindly written for this number, relieves us from the
task of explaining why this paper has been started and, in a
measure, what subject matter we hope to provide. A few words,
however, may be offered on some of what Sterne would have
called our " antenatal accidents ". "■ My Tristram's mis-
fortunes, said Mr. Shandy, began nine months before ever he
came into the world " and the troubles of our embryonic life
began more than nine months ago.
In the first place there has been trouble over the printing,
because so long as the War lasts it is out of the question for a
dozen excellent reasons to print in England : happily we have
found at Cairo in the French Institute of Archaeology a printing
house which has been for years turning out works of the highest
scientific character, and, with the permission of the French
Government, we have signed a contract which will both ensure
our appearance in seemly form, and save us from employing
any labour which would otherwise have been better occupied.
Our second trouble was over the contents of our early numbers:
we count ourselves fortunate in having secured from Professor
Reisner of Harvard a series of papers on the ancient history of
the Sudan, about which, in the course of excavations extending
over many years, he has discovered more than any living person :
later numbers will give accounts of his finds at Kerma, Nuri
and Jebel Barkal. Major Stigand writes upon Natural History,
which will be illustrated in later numbers by papers upon Nile
Fishes by Mr. Pekkola. Mr. Nicholls' paper on the Sakia in
Dongola shows what a highly organised system of cooperative
farming this purely native institution represents, and will, we
hope, be followed by other studies of a similar nature : Mr.
Hillelson's note on Nursery Rhymes is of obvious human and
linguistic interest, while in the last article Mr. MacMichael
discusses migrations into Darfur as only he can. Our table of
contents touches therefore most of the objects for which this
EDITORIAL. 55
paper was specially started, but there is one grave lacuna : we
have received nothing at present from the Pagan South, and
though Colonel Logan, Major Stigand and Dr. Oyler have
promised papers dealing with the Beirs, the Nuers, and the
Shilluks, respectively, we must appeal to residents in the Southern
Provinces for generous support lest one of our principal objects,
and one specially signalized in the Foreword, fail of fulfilment.
In succeeding numbers we hope to expand greatly the Section
headed *' Notes and Correspondence ", and it is for this Section
that we appeal for contributions however informal to those who
cannot give us more.
The last trouble which calls for mention here is the old and
much debated question of transliteration. We have printed on
the inside of the cover an alphabet for the transliteration in
Roman characters of Arabic words and names. We do not
propose to apply the system to names which have assumed
already a familiar conventional form : we shall write El Obeid
and Mecca, for instance, instead of Al 'Ubaiyad and Makka,
though in this and in other matters we are prepared to relax our
rules for contributors who conscientiously object to the com-
promise we propose, reserving to ourselves the right in such cases
to insert in brackets our own version after that adopted by the
contributor.
Also, it must be remembered that our alphabet, designed to
represent the sounds and letters of classical Arabic, cannot be
used without the necessary modifications to represent the
colloquial. The spoken dialects all show certain phonetic
divergences from the classical, which it is the more important to
record because natives when writing the vernacular often try to
assimilate the spelHng to that of the classical, and there is further
a wide range of dialectical variations in different parts, peculiari-
ties of local pronunciation, curiosities of vocabulary and grammar
which are of real linguistic interest and should be recorded with
the nearest possible degree of phonetic accuracy.
The alphabet will not, of course, be found adequate for the
scientific transliteration of Negroid languages, and we suggest
56 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS. ,
that, as no uniform system seems yet to have found genera!
acceptance, contributors deahng with these languages should
follow a system analogous to that adopted for Arabic : sounds
which find no place in our Alphabet would be represented by
the Roman letters which most nearly suggest them with a
diacritical mark, a dash or a dot, above or below, a note being
added to explain the exact nature of the sound : e,g. n might be
used to represent the interdental n in Dinka and Shilluk.
REVIEWS.
The Nile-Congo Watershed^ by Major Cuthbert Christy, p. 199/
{The Geographical Journal^ London. September, 1917).
This is the report of a journey made in 1915-1916 from Rejaf i?ra Meridi,
Yambio and Tembura to Deim Zubeir, which for the last hundred miles at
least passed through country which was "praeticallv unmapped and almost
unknown". As the country w^as also largely uninhabited, Major Christy
has not much to say about the people, but he seems to have been favourably
impressed both w ith the intelUgence of those he did come across and with
the fertility of the land. The most important discovery made was that the
"Nile-Congo divide, from the Lado Enclave north-westward as far at least
as Deim Bekeir, is not merely high ground composed of iron-stone hills,
broken ridges, and nullahs, but is a continuous and more or less level strip
of bush-covered country, sometimes as much as 2 miles in width but often
only a few yards". Major Christy thinks that this watershed will provide
an ideal route for one section of the Cape to Cairo railway, joining Rejaf
or Wadelai via Darfur with the Khartoum-El-Obeid line which, he
prematurely assures us, "is being extended as fast as possible to El Fasher".
This may be, but the Sudan is not deficient in continuous level strips of
bush-covered country which it may be more profitable to exploit first.
J. W. C.
The Imatong- Agora Mountains, by H. Pellew Wright, p. 283 /
(The Geographical Journal, London, October. 1917).
Mr. Pellew Wright, District Commissioner in the Northern Province of
Uganda, visited in September. 1916. with Captain Somerset and Captain
Worsley a hitherto unexplored range of mountains on the frontier betw een
Uganda and the Sudan. Hostile natives, heavy rains and swollen rivers
made travel very difficult, and the country w ith its mountains rising over
8000 feet would obviously repay further exploration under more favourable
conditions. The writer mentions elephant and pig. colobus and blue
monkeys, magnificent tree ferns, maidenhair and plentiful flowers.
J. W. C.
58 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
The Physical Character of the Arabs^ by C. G. Seligman, p. 214/
( The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, London, 1917).
This paper deals chiefly with Arab skull forms in Arabia, which are of two
quite difl'erent types, long in the north and round in the south, the latter
conforming in part at least with a known Mesopotamian type. Prof.
Seligman devotes a few paragraphs to the Kababish, who are very mixed,
the richest divisions tending to contain the highest proportion of members
with negroid characters, because they have possessed the largest number
of slaves.
J, w. c.
Butterflies of Southern Kordofan collected by Capt. R. S. Wilson,
Lancashire Regiment, by G. B. Longstaff, m.a., m.d., f.l.s.
{Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1916.— Part II, p. 269-288).
In this paper the author deals with a collection of 223 specimens made
by Capt. (now Major) R. S. Wilson in the Nuba Mountains in 1904 and
presented by Capt. C. A. Willis to the Hope Collection at Oxford. The
collection consisted of representatives of 62 species of butterflies and one
moth and included one species and two varieties new to science. Dr.
Longstafi" visited the Sudan in 1909 and again in 1912 when he made
collections of butterflies on the White Nile. These are referred to in his
Butterfly hunting in many lands (1912, p. 415-423) and in a paper entitled
The butterflies of the White Nile: a study in geographical distribution {Trans.
Ent. Soc. Lond., 1913, p. 11-56).
M. M. }£.,
NOTES.
Blue Nile province.
The charm of Salih ibn Husaina
'"''embroidered with names of the djinns, a miraculous weaving'''.
The rising of Wad Haboba of the Halawin tribe is of recent memory.
Muhammad Ahmad el-Sadlq who is beheved to have been one of the two
who murdered Mr. Scott-Moncrieflf was killed in the fighting, and on his
body was found a charm which appears of sufficient interest to merit
reproduction in these pages. It is written on ordinary native paper in a
careless and ugly hand : apparently the efficacy of the charm hes in the
words themselves and does not in any way depend on the choice of the
writing materials or the manner of the MTiting. The document of which
we give the text and an Enghsh translation speaks for itself : a few points
of interest may be noted by way of introduction.
The object of the charm is to "bind" the senses of the "rulers" so that
they may remain unaware of the brewing sedition and powerless to prevent
it. The word used for "binding" {-aqad) has an old-estabhshed
association with magic : at the present day in the Sudan the tying of knots
and breathing or spitting on them is a common incident of magical practices,
and in the Koran we read of "the evil of women that blow upon knots"
{el-naffdthati fil-'-uqad, Kor. 113).
The text of the charm is a jumble of magical invocations and verses from
the Koran. Characteristic features are the threefold repetition of words
and phrases and the invocation of jinn by name. It would be idle to seek
any particular significance in the names of Dosem, Hosem and Brasem :
the effect aimed at is to create an atmosphere of mystery; and many
similar names of the jinn — all equally devoid of meaning — could be quoted
from the popular books on magic. The Koranic verses are chosen with
some appropriateness to the object of the charm, but without any reference
to their context. In the translation we have folloA\ed Palmer's version
of the Koran.
"In the name of God the Merciful, the Compassionate. God bless our
Lord Muhammad and his people and followers.
"Praise belongs to God, the Lord of the worlds, the merciful, the compas-
*'sionate, the ruler of the day of judgment! Thee we serve and Thee we ask
60 SUDArs IS'OTES Ars'D RECORDS,
"for aid" (Kor., 1, 1). Thou hast bound the heavens to smoke and hast
bound clouds to rain and hast bound rain to air, and hast bound air to the
sun, and hast bound the sun to plants, and hast bound plants to the running
water, and hast bound the mudir Qundus (Dickinson) and the mamur
Muhammad Hilmi and the tongue of the hukmdar 'Abd-el-Ghani and the
mu'awin 'Abd el-Khaliq, and hast bound the tongue of all the rulers, the
sons of Eve, and hast strengthened the strength of the bond, and hast
bound Abraham and Isaac and hast made dumb, made dumb, made dumb
so that they may not speak except with good. Your good is between your
eyes, and your evil and your evil is under your feet. If thou speakest evil,
I will return the words on you. In the name of Dosem, in the name of
Dosem, Dosem, Hosem, Hosem, Hosem, Brasem, Brasem, Brasem.
deafness, deafness, deafness, dumbness, dumbness, dumbness, blindness,
blindness, blindness, so that they may not speak except for good. God
has sealed the tongue of the mudir Qundus, the mamur Muhammad Hilmi,
and the hukmdar 'Abd el-Ghani. "On their eyes is dimness and for them
"is grievous woe" (Kor., 11,6). "And if we please we could put out their
"eyes and they would race along the road : and then how could they see?
"and if we pleased we would transform them in their places and they
"should not be able to go on nor yet return" (Kor., xxxvi, 66). Bind
oh 'Anqud, all the tongues, by the truth of the Loving, the Worshipped,
"At this new discourse then do ye wonder? and do ve laugh and not weep?
"and ye divert yourselves the while. But adore God and serve him"
(Kor., Liii, 59).
"Fear not, thou art safe from the unjust people" (Kor., xxviii, 26).
"Fear not, verily I am with you twain. I hear and see" (Kor. xx, 46).
"God loves not pubUcity of evil speech, unless one has been wronged, for
"God both hears and knows" (Kor., iv, 147). O God. accept the works of
Salih ibn Husaina, whose speech is acceptable. And the prayers and
blessings of God on our Lord Muhammad and on his followers."
J^ J^llL j«-^ jTjdl OAA£.a (^jU-i cll^ Ol-lJI O-ViCj Ol-J^ ^»<..^ll C)-^^^
NOTES. 61
j>>.«--5ij c*«Mk-^!_j o.**-oij jU=--U ^aIj"! vi'Aicft jjirjl oA^ c-o-^i, c^jo- iVj
c^l o^iC" O' >:'-^ ^ 5^^ r^-_5 C:^c ;>. f^ ^Vl ^j^,j^-:^. Ms
jC-'j; ^'^ f^'-^. f^^ fy^ <-,p- *>"_5^ ^^^ ^-l> <-»<.:> ^1j Sv-1^ (•'MXi 1 Co-j.
^^^,u jt ^\s\ ^^ j.^ VI j^jsc^ V ^ J- ^> ^.>«^ <:^ $^ s^ ^ ^ ^
\ • - • - • ^
W. S. and S. H.
Khartoum province.
The sign of the cross.
According to the local chronicles Christianity only ceased to be the official
religion of this district some 400 years ago a\ hen Soba was destroyed by
the founder of the Fung Dynasty, and there are two or three superstitious
practices still prevalent here which can hardly be explained except as
survivals from the Christian period.
For example, when a child is born it is the custom on the first day to
mark a small cross, they call it salib, upon the child's forehead and lines
upon the eyebrows : the marks are made with black grease or with
kohl which is also put on the eyelids as a charm against the evil eye.
<^^' Thus in the original : we have strictly preserved the form and spelling of
the original.
62 SUDAN NOTES AND RECORDS.
On a chair by the side of the mother's bed the people put a copy of the
Koran, a knife, a kohl-pot and an iron kohl-pencil and they beat the last
against the knife in the evening and the morning to frighten away the Jinn,^
which is the object also of the Cross and the Koran. On the seventh day
when a sheep is sacrificed they sometimes mark the cross with blood, and
they renew it with either blood or grease or kohl for the first forty days.
Another use of the cross is as a protection for milk which is allowed to
stand overnight : according to orthodox Muslim practice, if the milk is not
covered, a piece of straw should be laid across the vessel in which it is kept
to protect it from Jinn, but in Omdurman and elsewhere it is the custom to
lay two pieces of straw in the shape of a cross. Similarly on sweets which
are made in the morning for a banquet or wedding feast, it is the custom
to make a cross in almonds, again with the alleged object of protecting
them during the day.
Yet another superstitious use of the same sign I saw once in a village near
Khartoum North. I was with a local Sheikh at the time and a woman with
a boy about ten years old came out to ask for the Sheikh's blessing, the
boy having a large white cross of the Greek pattern chalked on his stomach,
which was explained by the Sheikh as a common charm for pain in that
region.
These practices are all common, though not of course universal, in
Omdurman, the Gezira and Kordofan, and perhaps some of our readers
will inform us whether thev are found in other districts or not? Do thev
exist, for example, in Kassala or the Red Sea Province or aniong the
Dongolawis?
MONGALLA PROVINCE.
We have received two photographs and a note from Captain P. M. Brett.
R.A.M.C, which we hope to utilise on a future occasion.
GELLATLY
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SUDAN NOTES & RECORDS
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ESTABLISHED BY KHEDIVIAL DECREE OF 25*^ JUNE, 1898
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