CHAPTER VIII
ARCHITECTURE AND ART
The Bagezan group looms large in Central Air, but even its general features are unknown. The mountains have neither been reconnoitred nor mapped. The area they occupy figures as a blank on the Cortier map. I travelled around Bagezan and climbed up into one broad valley in the heart of the massif, but my own additions to the cartography hereabouts are confined to a few details along the towering sides. Buchanan in 1919-20 crossed the western side, from Towar to a valley which runs into the Anu Maqaran basin, where it is called Abarakan. A detachment of Jean’s first patrol to Air visited the southern valleys. But no European has ever entered the eastern or north-eastern part of the group. The reason for this apparent lack of enterprise is due to few of the mountain tracks being fit for camels; many of them are not even suitable for donkeys, and the complications of travelling in this sort of country, where none of the inhabitants will act as porters, thus become considerable.
The massif rises some 2000 feet above the general level of the central plateau, except in the north-east, where the latter at 3500 feet above the sea is itself over 500 feet higher than in the north and west. The principal peaks must be well over 6000 feet, the bottoms of the upland valleys perhaps 3500 to 4000 feet above the sea. Many of the latter contain perennial streams, and rumours reached me of a small lake somewhere in the unexplored north-eastern part; but this may only be a fairy tale. The southern sides of Bagezan fall almost vertically on to the central plain between Towar and Arakieta on the upper Beughqot valley. Several small villages are hidden in the folds of the mountains above, wherever there is a permanent supply of water. In some cases the streams are sufficient to irrigate a few gardens; at one or two points there are some date palms and the only lime trees in Air. The climate is cooler and everything ripens some four to six weeks later than on the plateau below. Frost is common in the winter.
A few of the villages, notably those like Tasessat and Tadesa, near the southern edge of the massif, have been visited by French patrols. In addition settlements known as Atkaki, Emululi, Owari, Agaragar and Ighelablaban have been reported to exist, but generally speaking, owing to the difficulties of intercommunication, the villages are almost unknown. They are said to consist of stone houses apparently of the earliest period associated with the Itesan tribes, in whose country the mountains lay. Some of the houses, however, differ from any of those encountered in other districts of Air.
In order to see the type of country and visit some of the people of the mountains I climbed from Towar up to the Telezu valley, where there were some Kel Bagezan, to-day a composite tribe made up of portions of Kel Tadek imghad and various Kel Owi elements. They are under the chief Minéru or El Minir, who owes allegiance to the Añastafidet. My way from Towar led past the ruined town of Agejir to the Tokede valley, which soon turned east and disappeared into the mountain. I subsequently found that the Tokede was the same valley as the one called Telesu higher up and Towar further down. The path turned west along the foot of Bagezan, past a scree of enormous boulders, ranging from five to twenty-five feet across, on which numerous families of red monkeys were playing. There we turned, T’ekhmedin, Atagoom and myself, and wound up the side of the mountain by a path so steep and rough that a self-respecting mule would have walked warily. The camels went up and up over loose stones. The left side dropped away precipitately into the deep valley which divides massifs of Bagezan and Todra. A stream roared in a gorge hundreds of feet below at the foot of a cliff of gleaming rock. Still we climbed over stones and boulders by a two-foot path gradually turning north and then north-east and then east. We followed up a narrowing tributary bed of the stream in the gorge until we came to a pass between bare earth-coloured hills, the tops of which were only a few hundred feet above us, and at last dropped gently down the other side past some grazing camels which seemed interested in our arrival and followed us inquisitively into Telezu. An enclosed plain opened out full of big green trees and grass with wonderful pasture and plenty of water in the sand. It ran from west to east before turning and narrowing southwards to fall over the edge into the Tokede below. The valley was shut in all round by low peaks and rough crags along the sky-line. One had no impression of being so far above the plateau of Air on a higher table-land. The great summits of Bagezan had become small hills.
There was no other way out of Telesu except on foot, either over the hills or down the ravine made by the stream falling towards Tokede, so we returned as we had come, after drinking milk with the Kel Bagezan who were living there. The descent was terrific; the camels had to be led and we only made Towar by nightfall. After reaching the bottom of the scree we cut off a corner instead of going by Agejir, and marched towards the standing rock of Takazuzat (or Takazanzat), which looks like the spire of a cathedral, on the edge of the Ara valley near the isolated peak of In Bodinam.
All the ways up to the Bagezan villages are similar, if not harder. The agility of the camels that have to negotiate these paths is unbelievable until it has been experienced.
The only account which I can give of the houses of Bagezan is second-hand, and this is the more unfortunate, because Jean’s description[216] of them as the first houses in Air does not correspond with the character of the earliest ones I saw. I will quote his exact words, as the point is important: “Les premières constructions édifiées furent Afassaz et Elnoulli; maisons à dôme central recouvrant une grande pièce sombre entourée de nombreuses dépendances; l’étage aujourd’hui effondré avait été solidement étayé par des piliers de maçonnerie à large et forte structure.” To Afassaz, a large group of villages in a valley east of Bagezan, we will turn later; Barth erroneously supposed it lay near Towar, having apparently confused it with Agejir. “Elnoulli” I was entirely unable to trace under this name, and concluded that Emululi, which is one of the Bagezan villages, was intended.
PLATE 27
[Illustration: HOUSE TYPES.]
PLATE 28
[Illustration: HOUSE TYPES.]
My interest in Tuareg architecture was first aroused near Tabello, east of Bagezan, a point reached while I was circumnavigating the massif. From Auderas we had been to visit T’imia, whence we returned to the Abarakan valley. We then climbed laboriously up the bed of the Teghazar[217] tributary, and so reached the plateau east of the Central massif. We camped at about 3500 feet, by the spring of Teginjir. The water here is strongly mineralised, and comes out of the ground at about 90° F. charged with carbonic acid gas. Within a short distance of the spring is the volcanic crater and cone of Gheshwa,[218] the only recent vent which I came across in Air. It was visited and described by Von Bary, but curiously enough is neither referred to in other works nor shown on the Cortier map. The cinder cone is small and rather broken down on the west side, but the sides are still exceedingly steep and covered with loose scoriæ. The lava flow which came out of the vent extends from the foot of the cone, for some five miles to the south-east; it appears to have originated in the course of a single eruption. The lava stratum is level and about 20 feet thick, overlying the Teginjir plain, which consists of a surface alluvium from the neighbouring mountains, and, at one point, a disintegrating crystalline outcrop. The lava is acid and vesicular, resembling in appearance recent flows from Vesuvius or at Casamicciola on the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples. The surface of the Teginjir flow proved indescribably rough and devoid of vegetation; it has as yet had no time to disintegrate and is undoubtedly still in the same twisted and cracked form which it had assumed during the cooling process. E.S.E. of Mount Gheshwa are two small black hillocks which appear to be minor cinder cones, not connected with any lava flows. The eruption which formed the Gheshwa cone and neighbouring lava flow is certainly posterior to the general configuration of the plateau and is a most recent geological phenomenon, but I found no tradition among the natives of any volcanic activity within living memory.
The ground drains eastward from Teginjir along the southern side of the T’imia massif to the Anfissak valley, named after the buttress hills which form the south-east corner of this group. East of Anfissak the plain extends towards and beyond Mount Mari in the north; a number of hillocks litter the plain to the south. The caravan road from Tripoli to the Sudan runs down this plain by the Adoral valley past Mari well, which is now filled in, by Anfissak well, and by Adaudu and the Tebernit water-holes to Beughqot. Thence it goes due south to Tergulawen and over the Azawagh to Damergu and Nigeria.
A short distance to the south the Anfissak valley changes its name to Tamanet, so called after a watering-place which we reached in one day’s march from Teginjir. At least it was meant to be a watering-point, but we found that insufficient rain had fallen that year in Eastern Air and there was no water in the sand of the valley bed. We camped and left next day on a short ration of water over one of the most difficult parts of Air which I encountered in the whole of my journey. The plain is not boldly accidentated, but the valleys have cut deep into the disintegrating plateau. Their sides are steep and the flat places between them are so thickly covered with boulders that the area is almost impossible to cross. We eventually reached the Tebernit[219] valley just above Adaudu and sent camels up the valley to find water at a point called Emilía on the way to Ajiru. Our supply had completely run out. It was thirsty work waiting for the watering party to return, and one’s worst apprehensions were of course aroused. I prowled about to relieve the tedium, and found a place where a ridge of rock crossed the bed or channel of the valley. I began digging in the sand to find water, for it seemed a likely place for an “Ers,” as there was an old village site near by. Sure enough I found water about two feet down, and everyone cheered up, as the Emilía party was not due back for several hours. The place became known to the expedition as “Rodd’s Ers.”
Marching from here to Tabello was light work; we camped in the valley where the Arakieta tributary comes down from Bagezan near a small hut village, and then made an easy stage to the rendezvous of the salt caravan. The valley known as Tabello we discovered to be the upper part of the Beughqot: it was another example of the confusing habit of giving a multitude of names to a single system. Each section bears a different name to which a traveller, according to where he happens to be, may refer. The Ajiru, Tellia, Tebernit and Afasas are really the same valley; similarly the Telezu, Tokede, Towar, Tessuma and Etaras are another, while the Abarakan, T’imilen, Agerzan, Bilasicat, Azar and Anu Maqaran are also one and the same watercourse.
The country east of Bagezan now belongs to the Kel Owi confederation. The northern part of the plain is the country of the Kel Azañieres, but before their advent the Immikitan came as far south as Tamanet. The Kel Anfissak, living presumably at Barth’s well of Albes, are a Kel Azañieres sub-tribe. Ajiru was the home of Belkho and the head-quarters of the Igermaden; but Tabello belonged to the Igademawen. It was at Ajiru that Von Bary was detained as a virtual prisoner by Belkho until he decided to abandon his projected journey to the Sudan.
The countryside had evidently at one time been quite thickly inhabited, but presumably before the immigration of the Kel Owi, for nearly all the ruined villages contained a characteristic type of house, which every Tuareg agreed was built by the Itesan, who of course came to Air long before the Kel Owi. In the Beughqot valley where it is called Tabello a great deal of water is available all the year round in the sand, and consequently several villages sprang up on both banks. The largest group, which will be described in detail, is the northernmost on the west bank, called Tasawat. The houses here are all of the characteristic “old type,” which is culturally far the most advanced dwelling in Air. Many of the buildings here are very well preserved except for the roof, which in almost every instance has collapsed. In the Tabello houses the walls are for the most part well preserved, but elsewhere in Air the constructional material was less good, for little remains of the oldest type dwellings but the ground plan.
The oldest houses, which I will call the “A type,” are rectangular in plan and have two rooms, a larger one with two or three outer doors, and an inner one with one door in the partition wall and no outer doors. All the houses of this type and most of the later houses in Air are oriented in the same direction, namely, within a few degrees of north and south, with the smaller room at the northern end. There were a few exceptions in the fourth group which I examined at Tabello; they were houses on a N.N.W.-S.S.E. line, or oriented E.-W. with the small room at the west end. The latter is an interesting point, because although the Air dialect of Temajegh contains a proper word for north (“tasalgi”), the word for west (“ataram”), which in some other dialects of the language has acquired the significance of north, is also sometimes used for this cardinal point.
PLATE 29
[Illustration: TIMIA: “A” AND “B” TYPE HOUSES AND HUT CIRCLES]
[Illustration: TABELLO: INTERIOR OF “A” TYPE HOUSE]
The big rooms of these “A type” houses in all the village groups examined varied but little in size, the largest one I measured being 29 ft. × 14 ft. inside. The small rooms varied rather more, ranging between 9 ft. and 12 ft. in length, the breadth being the same as for the big room. The head room was in all cases remarkable, one house I measured being as much as 12 ft. from the floor to the underside of the dûm palm rafters of the roof. In every instance the height was more than sufficient for a man to stand upright, a feature which does not obtain in the later houses. The large room was usually provided with three doors, the east and west ones being of similar dimensions, the south door rather smaller. In two cases in one group at Tabello and in other instances in the north I noticed that the east doors of the old houses had small buttresses outside as if to enhance their importance, though in one house the east door had been reduced to a small aperture; but this was exceptional. Buttresses were not observed on any of the west doors. In two cases I noticed here there was no south door, an omission which also occurred elsewhere among the later houses. The east and west doors, varying slightly according to the size of the house, were 4 ft. or more in height by 3 ft. 6 in. to 4 ft. in breadth. In all the Tabello houses the door openings were recessed on the inner side to take a removable wooden door some ten inches broader and taller than the opening itself. The recess was continued for a sufficient space laterally to allow the frame to be pushed to one side without taking up room space. One side of the recess was provided with an elbow-hole in the outer wall of the house about 2 ft. from the ground for access to a latch for securing the door frame. In the later houses, but not at Tabello, the sliding frame door gave place to one swinging from stone sockets in the threshold and lintel; these doors are in some cases over 3 ft. broad and cut out of one piece of wood: they also were provided with a latch or bolt fitting into a catch in the inner part of the elbow-hole by which the door was secured and sometimes locked with a rough padlock of Tripolitan or Algerian manufacture. No doubt the door frames of the earlier houses were provided with a similar latch and lock, but none of the woodwork has survived. The neatness of design of the sliding door recess was particularly striking in these dwellings.
The threshold of the doors in the older houses was on the floor level, which was a few inches above the outside level. The larger rooms had quadrangular niches of different dimensions at odd points in the walls, as well as certain peculiar and characteristic niches in the partition walls. The inner rooms were provided with small niches made of pots built into the walls; in many cases there were four shelves across the corners some 3-4 ft. from the ground made of heavy beams, evidently intended to carry considerable weights. The surfaces of these shelves, like all the inner walls of both rooms, were carefully plastered with mud mortar whitened or coloured with earths similar to those used in the washes on houses at Agades. In one case a dado or wainscot of a different colour had been applied with a finger-drawn zigzag border of another shade. The stucco surfaces were brown, earthy crimson, ochre, yellow or white.
One characteristic feature was observed in all the “old type” houses which still had walls standing of sufficient height for something more than the mere ground plan to be seen. On either side of the doorway in the partition or north wall of the large room there was a niche of very peculiar shape. The top was rather like a Gothic arch, and a recess was cut out in the base. The niches and the door in some cases were ornamented with an elaborate border, in other cases they were entirely unadorned. The shape of the niche, however, was constant and the size generally uniform. The style of decoration will be seen in Plates 29 and 30.
The later houses in Air are clearly an adaptation of the earlier type, for they have many common characteristics. These houses I have called the “B type” to distinguish them from the “A” or “Itesan type.” The “B houses” also are rectangular but single-roomed; for the most part they too are oriented north and south. An Imajegh whom I questioned on this point at Iferuan said he did not know why this was so, but that all the correct houses of nobles were built in this manner, including the one in which his own family had always lived. He added that the three usual outside doors were called Imi n’Innek, the Door of the East, the Imi n’Aghil, the Door of the South, but the west door, instead of being called the Imi n’Ataram, was called the Imi n’Tasalgi, which properly means the Door of the North. When I asked him to explain this curious fact, he told me that it was because the Tuareg came from there, a statement which seemed inadequate, albeit significant. The confusion of west and north is especially curious; and the explanation of the house oriented E. and W. at Tabello is probably due to a misunderstanding on this point in the mind of the early builder. The problem is not unconnected with the varying sense of the word Ataram. Analogies between the “A” and “B” types of house are not, however, confined to those peculiarities of orientation and doors. A door in the north wall of the “B type” houses is very rare; on the other hand, in the majority of examples of this type I noticed that there was a long, very low niche on that side of the room. These recesses were not more than four or five inches high by eighteen to twenty-four inches long; they were used for keeping the Holy Books in and for no other purpose. The position of these niches, it is true, was not absolutely constant, nor was the type of niche for the Holy Books in the north walls always that shape, but the conclusion I reached from their frequent occurrence was that they in some way correspond to the ogive niches of the earlier houses, which I conceive had an indisputably ritual or religious significance. In a “B type” house at Assarara in Northern Air I came across two rectangular niches in a west wall which were obviously developments of the ornamented ogive niches of the “A type” house, and may also have been used for Holy Books, but this example of displacement with the varying and fortuitous practices adopted in the later dwellings convinced me that the use which had prescribed the earlier fashion was in process of being forgotten as modern times were approached, and that no explanation was therefore likely to be obtained by consulting local learned men. In the “B type” houses, as in the earlier dwellings, there was usually a profusion of other niches in the walls serving different household purposes.
The niches and the style of ornamentation of the “A type” houses of Air occur in the Sudan, but the formality of planning, the constant orientation and the ritualistic properties of the recesses, so far as I know, have no analogies outside Tuareg lands. I am not aware that attention has hitherto been drawn to these points either in the accounts of Air prepared by the French or in descriptions of dwellings in other parts of Africa, with the exception of one reference in Richardson’s account of his travels in 1845-6 in the Fezzan. He describes the houses at Ghat as having niches, and, from sketches he made, some of them are evidently of the same type as those in the Air houses of the first period.[220] They afford a problem which requires elucidation and which might throw much light on the cultural contacts of the Tuareg, among whom they seem to be traditional.
PLATE 30
[Illustration: HOUSE INTERIORS.]
The constant type of the houses, despite their disparity of date, is so marked that it cannot be fortuitous. I examined in the course of my stay in Air the villages and towns of Auderas, Towar, Agejir, the Tabello and Afassaz-Tebernit groups, T’imia, Assode, T’in Wansa, Igululof, Anu Samed, T’intaghoda, Tanutmolet, Iferuan, Seliufet, Agellal, Tefis and Anu Wisheran, and found the “A” and “B types” or their derivatives predominant to an extent which made it quite clear that some fundamental principle was involved in their construction. The earlier houses betray so highly developed a technique of building that we are clearly concerned with the remnants of a far higher cultural state than that which the Tuareg now possess. I say “remnants” advisedly, for since the date of the “A type” dwellings there has been a progressive deterioration in the art of construction. Technically, in Air, what is best is earliest. The first houses of the Tuareg were obviously planned and executed with care. The walls, where still standing, measured about 2 ft. 9 in. to 3 ft. at the base, tapering 9 to 12 in. to the top. The inside faces were perpendicular, all the taper being on the outside, where it is clearly visible in the profiles of the corners. The outsides of the walls were roughly faced with mud stucco; the insides were more carefully plastered to produce a very smooth surface, which in the best houses appears to have been procured with a board; hand marks on the plaster surface seemed rare. The dûm palm rafters of the roofs, door lintels and tops of recesses were carefully placed so that any curve of the wood was upward in order to give as much height as possible. The most noticeable feature in the construction of the “A type” houses was certainly the squareness and accuracy of the corners, which were sharp and cleanly finished. The later houses were less carefully executed and the corners, instead of being square, were rounded both within and without. The walls were less perpendicular and straight, the rectangular planning was sometimes out of true, the stucco-work, while better conserved on the outer walls owing to their more recent date, was manifestly rougher; there was often, nay usually, hardly room to stand upright inside the dwelling.[221]
The constructional material of both types of house was observed to vary very much according to the supplies available on the spot. Small stones up to six inches long set in mud mortar are generally used. The coursing of the stones was carefully levelled, and in the “A type” very regular; a deterioration was seen in the later dwellings. The influence of the Sudanese style of construction is reflected in one or two houses at Tabello, where dried mud cakes have been used instead of stones; but even in these cases the mud cakes have been used like stones, set in mud mortar, levelled and regularly coursed, and contrasting with the more irregular methods of the Southland. Generally speaking the numbers of “A” and “B type” houses in Air built only of mud seemed exceedingly small. In the stone, as in the mud constructions, some re-surfacing every year after the rains must have been inevitable.
The roofs are made of palm fronds, brushwood and mud mortar with a low parapet around the edge, and often with six pinnacles, respectively at the four corners and half-way along the longest sides.
The ruins of the “A type” houses at Tabello and Afasas were nearly always surrounded by other derelict buildings within an enclosure of large stones marking a sort of compound. The enclosures were not formal; they sometimes surrounded the whole house, sometimes only one side. The outhouses in the compound had no particular character: they were storehouses or the dwellings of the slaves. The buildings were as formless as the main houses were formal: they were either one-roomed or many-chambered with or without inter-communicating doors. They rarely adjoined the “A type” buildings, and were invariably more roughly constructed, many more of them being built of mud. In the “B type” settlements one was struck with the greater absence of outhouses and enclosing walls. Where subsidiary dwellings existed there had been a tendency to build them on to the main dwelling. A large number of both “A” and “B” houses in the Ighazar had wooden porches or shelters outside the east door, and were surrounded by a sort of wooden fence or stockade.
Such are the two most characteristic types of house in Air. Other forms of dwellings I will refer to as the “C,” “D” and “E types.” The last-named “E type” can be disposed of immediately, for it is of no particular interest in connection with the Tuareg. Plate 28 gives the plan of one such a house formerly inhabited by Fugda, chief of T’imia, before the inhabitants moved to the present village and lived in huts. It is characteristic of the Southland both in design and construction, and, like all the recent “E type” houses, was built of mud.
The “D type” is a many-roomed dwelling, apparently occupied by several families. The largest example I saw was at Tabello. The plan is given on Plate 28. In this case the construction was of stone and mud, but principally of the former. The technique was very inferior; several periods of construction were observable. The individual dwellings in this group were apparently at least four, consisting of areas numbered in the plan 1 to 7, 8 to 10, 13 to 17, and 20 to 26, respectively. Areas numbered 4, 9, 21, 22 and 24 were courtyards, the entrance to 21 having holes in the wall for wooden bars, and being apparently designed as a cattle-pen. The group had at least one well in area 16, and possibly another one in 12, though the latter might only have been a grain-pit. Another example of the “D type” house situated in the Afassaz valley group is given on Plate 28. It lay at the foot of a rock, beneath which there is a permanent water-hole in the sand. A few hundred yards away was a village of “A type” houses. Along the valley in the same vicinity were enclosures of dry stone walls on the tops of the hills bordering the valley. I hazard a conclusion that these “D type” dwellings were used by the inhabitants of the area when the larger settlements were abandoned by the Itesan and Kel Geres in their move westward as a result of raiding from the east.[222] The “D type” dwelling is a semi-fortified work, or at least a defensible building where several families who had remained in a dangerous area might congregate for safety in times of trouble. These dwellings with the hill-top enclosures along the Afassaz valley are the nearest approach to fortifications which I discovered in Air.
The last type of house to be described represents a later development of the “A type.” The “C type” houses retain many of the characteristics of the earlier buildings, and although it is not always easy to date them, their preservation indicates that they are more recent. The rectangular formality of the earlier type survived but the orientation has been lost. The technique in many cases is better than in the “B type”; but the ogive niches are absent and the interior stucco-work was often very rough. The various forms which the plan may take are given in Plates 29 and 30. Some of the “C type” houses belong to the Itesan period and are descended from the “A type” building, while some of them are certainly late Kel Owi houses. The town of Agejir, north of Towar, from which the plans on Plate 27 are taken was an Itesan settlement, probably founded when these tribes moved away from the plain east of Bagezan. Here I found only one true “A type” house, but as there must be over 300 ruined houses, I may well have missed many more. The state of the buildings here was very bad owing to the lack of good mud mortar, which has preserved those at Tabello. The better houses at Agejir seemed to fall into two categories: the one a single-roomed structure of about 20 ft. × 10 ft. internal dimensions, having usually two doors in the centre of the longest or east and west sides; the other a two-roomed structure. In the latter, the larger room was about the same size as in the single-roomed dwellings, the smaller room being about 10 ft. × 7 ft.; the common wall was not pierced, which may have been due to the use of inferior building materials. All the other buildings at Agejir were formless quadrangular structures, but the two types described are clearly descended directly from the “A type” house.
Of the three villages at Towar, the modern one is a collection of mud huts; the older site on the same bank is a group of single-roomed “B type” houses, while the oldest of the three settlements is on the west bank and is called the Itesan village. Among the twenty ruined houses which I examined there I found three very good examples of the “A type,” correctly oriented north and south, in addition to several others of the single-roomed variety, the better ones being similar to those at Agejir. The 100 odd houses on this site were in too ruinous a condition to be readily identifiable.
The houses in Northern and North-eastern Air will be described in a succeeding chapter, but the subject cannot here be left without reference to certain dwellings which I encountered at Faodet at the head of the Ighazar basin. Here, side by side with some ordinary “B type” dwellings, were a few straw and thatch huts of about the same size constructed on a rectangular plan in obvious imitation of the neighbouring masonry dwellings. They were correctly oriented and had flat thatched roofs. Their inhabitants, though using an unsuitable material, had evidently tried to construct that type of dwelling which they felt was more correct for permanent occupation than the temporary round huts, a more suitable shape, of course, for brushwood, grass and matting construction. This example of innate sense of formality is most significant.
It is possible to draw certain conclusions on the style of Tuareg house construction in Air, even without the material evidence necessary for a more detailed study or comparative dating. Could excavation be undertaken, information would not be lacking, for pottery and stratified débris abound, only, unfortunately, time was not available for such investigations in the course of my journey.
The “A type” houses, according to the unanimous tradition of the present inhabitants, were built by the Itesan. Their vicarious distribution in Air suggests that all the Tuareg of the first wave used this style of dwelling. That fewer have survived in areas from which they were dispossessed by the Kel Geres and Kel Owi is natural. It is not, therefore, fortuitous that the present Tuareg call the houses Itesan rather than Kel Geres, despite the later association of the two groups of people; whatever claim has been put forward on behalf of the latter for a share in the earlier architectural development I am inclined to regard as simply due to their comparatively recent historical association. The later immigrants do not appear to have been so troubled by traditions of the formality which imbued their predecessors. In the essentially Kel Geres areas west of the Iferuan-Auderas-Agades road, other than the part which the Itesan occupied astride the line in the Auderas area, the “A type” houses occur, but are rare. The “B” and transitional “C types,” predominate. Nevertheless these Kel Geres “B type” houses are larger and better in technical execution than the late “B type,” which are known to have been made and used by the Kel Owi. The latter in their dwellings display a more formal conception than the Kel Geres; many of the old characteristics, like orientation, arrangements of the doors, ritual niches and proportion come out more strongly in North-eastern Air than, for instance, in the Agellal and Sidawet areas. The formless quadrangular buildings of Assode with very few of the old peculiarities are apparently Kel Geres work. The influence of the first or Itesan immigrants was, however, still sufficiently powerful to render their technique of construction in many respects superior to that of the Kel Owi.
The persistence of the characteristics of the Itesan period among the later Kel Owi, in fact its existence till quite recently among all the Air Tuareg in one form or another, is proof that we are not concerned with any fortuitous manifestation. Both the sentiments held by the people to-day and the occurrence of rectangular straw huts on the “B type” plan at Faodet, substantiate this conclusion. But if I am right in my feeling that the characteristics in question were more strongly present among the first Itesan or Kel Innek wave and among the third or Kel Owi wave than among the Kel Geres, then the explanation is tenable that the features are derived from the civilisation of the Lemta or Fezzanian branch of the Tuareg, who, we shall see, are the original stock from which the first and last wave of immigrants into Air were probably derived, the former by way of the Chad countries, the latter also from the north or north-west, but perhaps by way of the Adghar of the Ifoghas and Tademekka.[223] This line of reasoning, which is put forward very tentatively, indicates that the Fezzan requires to be examined in some detail before an advance in the solution of the problem surrounding the cultural origin of the Air house can be made. Even if the evidence of their houses were all, I should be satisfied that the culture of the Air Tuareg was a shadowy memory of some higher civilisation. I will hazard no guess regarding its first cradle, but only suggest that some clues may be found in the Fezzan.
Another aspect of Tuareg architecture in Air remains to be examined. It concerns the style of their mosques. These buildings are comparatively numerous and all on much the same plan. The simplest form is a long, narrow construction running north and south with a “Qibla” in the centre of the east side. It is noteworthy that in several cases the “Qibla” gives the impression of having been added to the building, after the main walls had been erected, but this may only be an illusion due to defective workmanship. The larger mosques have one or more “aisles,” the wall or walls between them being pierced at many points to give the illusion of columns supporting the low roof. With the exception of one at Agejir, the head room of all the mosques I examined never exceeded 6 feet. Even the mosque at Assode, which was the largest in Air, had so low a ceiling that it was scarcely possible to stand upright anywhere inside. In one or two examples which I saw there was a separate construction, consisting of a single or double “aisle,” standing some feet away, west of the mosque proper. These buildings were of the same dimensions from north to south as the latter and served as alms-houses or “khans” for the distribution of food to the poor, who were also allowed to sleep there when travelling from village to village. In the mosque of Assode and in that of Tasawat in the Tabello group of villages certain portions of the sacred building were reserved for the worship of women, or as schools. In the Tasawat mosque the windows of the “harim” enclosure looked into the main part of the mosque, but had lattice gratings of split palm fronds crossing one another diagonally. This mosque was certainly later than any of the “A type” houses in the vicinity. Its construction was indifferent, but noteworthy for the elaboration of the holes pierced in the partition walls, every alternate one being shaped like the ogive niches in the partition walls of the “A type” houses with the same recess cut out of the base. Neither in these openings nor in the niches of the houses has the principle of the true arch been applied: the ogives were built up by a wooden cantilever framing set in the thickness of the walls. With the exception of the great mosque at Agades, which is of the same type as the other holy buildings in Air, Assode is the only example which possessed a minaret. It is curious that the early houses of the Tuareg should be so noteworthy for the height of the roof, while the mosques should be equally remarkable for the lowness; the feature is one associated with a late period of building.
It is very difficult to date any of the mosques, or indeed any of the other buildings or graves in Air, absolutely, in the absence of archæological field evidence. Jean[224] has collected a tradition to the effect that the mosque of Tefis is the oldest in Air, and this accords with my information. He dates it, however, at 1150 years ago, and states that it was built by the Kel Geres, who, according to him, were the first Tuareg to reach Air. Though I cannot agree with the last part of this conclusion, I concur in finding that the Kel Geres were the first Tuareg to enter Air by the north, and that they were, therefore, perhaps responsible for the introduction of Islam into the country. If this should prove to be the case, it is indeed probable that they built the first mosques. But Jean’s acceptance of the traditional dating of the mosques is closely connected with the dates which he assigns to the advent of the Tuareg, namely, the eighth century A.D., a period which for reasons given elsewhere I am inclined to consider too early.
The traditional date for the founding of the mosque at Tefis in the eighth century A.D. is hardly admissible, for it is more than doubtful whether Islam had spread so far south by that time. It is alternatively uncertain whether a Christian Church then existed in the land. By the year 800 A.D. Islam had only penetrated Tripolitania and Tunisia to a limited extent and in the face of much opposition which persisted for long. Jean’s dates must be regarded, not as absolute, but only as indicating a chronological sequence. The second mosque according to him was founded at T’intaghoda fifty years after the one at Tefis. The building, he states, was made by the Kel Owi, but if they were responsible for its construction the date must be set down as much later. My information agrees with its having been the second mosque in Air to be built; and this much of Jean’s information I accept, but discard its Kel Owi origin.[225] The third mosque was built at Assode about 100 years later than Tefis. The one at Agades followed after an interval of 40 years, 980 years ago, and is said to have been offered to the second Sultan of Agades as a present from the tribes. Chudeau adds to this information the additional detail that the minaret of the mosque of Assode, which, according to him, was 1000 years old, fell four centuries ago, but as the débris has not been cleared away to this day, the accuracy of the statement seems doubtful. Both Chudeau’s and Jean’s dates are all too remote. Undue importance must not be attached to the round figures in which the Tuareg are prone to reckon their traditional history.
PLATE 31
[Illustration: MOSQUES.]
PLATE 32
[Illustration: MOSQUES.]
The etymology given by the Arabs to the word “tarki” or “tawarek,” even if not strictly accurate, indicates that the People of the Veil adopted the Faith of Islam long after the other inhabitants of North Africa. When they did so, they appear to have been lukewarm converts and to have retained many practices which the Prophet directed good Moslems to abhor. At Ghat, which was ever under their influence and where numbers of them have always lived, the tradition of their recent conversion may be found in the two parts of the town, known as the Quarter of Yes and the Quarter of No, from the people who accepted or refused Islam. At so late a period as when the Kel Owi arrived at the end of the seventeenth century A.D. the Kel Ferwan whom they drove out of the Iferuan valley in Northern Air were still “heathen,” though we are not told what their religion was. A very early date for the mosques of Air is therefore inherently improbable even if the Kel Geres did found Tefis as the first permanent place of worship for the new Faith. Assuming that the Kel Geres came to Air in the eleventh or twelfth century, the foundation of T’intaghoda mosque some 400 years later is not improbable; and it is not wholly impossible to reconcile such a date with the implications involved in the story of the gift of the mosque of Agades to the second Sultan of Air, who, we believe, reigned half-way through the fifteenth century. I prefer to consider that the mosques as a whole are not very old. Their style of construction demonstrates them to be more recent than the “A type” houses, though admittedly this view might have to be altered in the event of excavations providing additional or contradictory evidence.
Apart from the numerous places of prayer marked by a “Qibla” of a few stones laid on the surface of the ground or by a quadrilateral enclosure of small stones, I only came across one site which might have been a pre-Moslem place of worship adapted to the later Faith. In the upper part of the River of Agades, on the south shore below the cliffs, at the entrance of the gulf where the Akaraq valley joins it, there is a square enclosure marked by what looks like the remains of a wall of which only the foundations on the ground level survive. The walls may never at any time have been more than a few inches high; what remains is of stones set in mud cement. At each of the four corners of the square there was a large stone. The four sides, each of some 15 ft. long, were true and square and oriented on the cardinal points. The enclosure was obviously not that of a hut, nor like the ground-plan of any of the houses in Air. In the centre of the eastern side at a later period two standing stones had been set up. The stones were fossil trees, some other fragments of which were lying loose on the top of the neighbouring cliff. They had obviously been brought by human agency, as curious or interesting stones, from another place at no very remote period.[226] The two standing stones were about 2 ft. 6 in. apart. They were intended to mark the east, but were quite clearly later additions to the place, for they were merely standing, and not built into, the foundation of the enclosure. They were not even symmetrical or exactly in the centre of the side. The enclosure may, I think, be regarded as a pre-Moslem place of worship and not merely as a dwelling-house, because the “Qibla” pillars of an Islamic place of prayer could as readily have been set up elsewhere, had there not been a deliberate design to convert a site from one religious use to another. Its form does not resemble that of any of the usual buildings of Air. In the vicinity was a group of graves, some of which were circular enclosures, while others, obviously more recent in date, were oblong and correctly oriented from the Moslem point of view.
The graves and tombs of Air might well form the object of interesting archæological excavation. Many of them display an indubitably non-Moslem appearance. The most common type which continues throughout the period of Tuareg occupation in one form or another is a ring of stones set on edge around a raised area covered with small white pebbles. The grave is too low to be termed a tumulus or mound, it is convex or shaped like an inverted saucer, but the centre rises only a few inches above the surrounding ground. The ring of stones may be roughly circular, oval or elliptical. In the Moslem period the graves are definitely oblong, the major axis being directed north and south, in order that the body may be placed in the grave with the head turned towards the east. The older graves were the round, or elliptical enclosures, the latter with no fixed orientation; the earlier they are the more nearly circular they seem to be. This is especially noticeable in the case of the graves near, and probably contemporary with, the “A type” houses at Tabello. A large central circular grave is often surrounded by smaller oval ones lying in any direction, clustering about a more important burial.
The later Moslem graves are smaller, but the practice of covering the surface with white pebbles or chips of quartz continues. The shape becomes narrower, less circular and more inclined to turn into a rectangle. The appearance of head-stones or head and feet stones, which the Arabs call “The Witnesses,” coincides with correct Moslem orientation, but even in modern times it is rare to find any inscription. The few I saw were rough scratchings in Arabic script and sometimes, in T’ifinagh, of some simple name like “Muhammad” or “Ahmed.” I only saw one instance, at Afis, of an inscription of any length; it recorded the interment of a notable sheikh, and was scored with a pointed tool on a potsherd. Neither in the houses nor in the graves of Air is there any evidence of the Tuareg having attempted to cut stone. Even the petroglyphs are hammered and scratched but not chiselled.
A great deal has been written about the funerary monuments of North Africa known as the “argem.”[227] They are found in many parts of the Northern Sahara, in the Ahnet mountains and the Adghar n’Ifoghas, and in the Nigerian Sudan, but not in Tuat. They have been reported in the Azger Tassili, at In Azawa on the north road from Air and at several points in Air. Bates reports them in the Gulf of Bomba and in the Nubian cemeteries of Upper Egypt.[228]
They are enclosures of piled stones varying in shape from round to square, but generally the former; or they take the form of tumuli containing a cist or tomb. In certain cases the graves are described as surrounded by concentric circles of stones. The distribution of these “argem” recalls immediately the geographical situation of the Tuareg. It would be easy to assume that their existence was due to this people, were it not for the difficulty that the monuments all appear quite late in date. To quote Gautier[229]: “En résumé la question des monuments rupestres du Sahara, funéraires et religieux, semble élucidée, au moins dans ses grandes lignes. Le problème d’ailleurs, tel qu’il se pose actuellement, et sous réserve de découvertes ultérieures, est remarquablement simple. En autres pays, en particulier dans les provinces voisines d’Algérie et du Soudan, le passé préhistorique se présente sous des aspects multiples. En Algérie les redjems abondent, mais on trouve à côté d’eux des dolmens, quelques sépultures sous roche, pour rien dire des Puniques et Romaines. Au Soudan, comme on peut s’y attendre, en un pays où tant de races sont juxtaposées, le livre de M. Desplagnes énumère des tombeaux de types divers et multiples, poterie, grottes sépulcrales, cases funéraires, tumulus.[230] Rien de pareil au Sahara. On distingue bien des types différents de redjem, les caveaux sous tumulus du nord qui sont peut-être influencés par les dolmens et sépultures romaines, les redjems à soutaches du Tassili des Azguers, les chouchets du Hogar qui semblent nous raconter l’itinéraire et l’expansion des nobles Touaregs actuels. . . . Parmi tant de pierres sahariennes entassées ou agencées par l’homme, on n’en connaît pas une seule qu’on peut soupçonner de l’avoir été par une autre main que Berbère.” But here the difficulty appears, for “ceci nous conduirait à conclure que les Berbères ont habité le Sahara dans toute l’étendue du passé historique et préhistorique si d’autre part tous ces redjems ne paraissaient récents. . . . Les mobiliers funéraires contiennent du fer, et on n’en connaît pas un seul qui soit purement et authentiquement néolithique. Cette énorme lacune est naturellement de nature à nous inspirer la plus grande prudence dans nos conclusions. D’autant plus que, après tout, les monuments similaires algériens, dans l’état actuel de nos connaissances, ne paraissent pas plus anciens.”
While the distribution of “argem” seems then to coincide with, and be due to the Tuareg, the “Berbères” to whom Gautier refers arrived in North Africa and spread into the interior before the advent of the metal ages. The last word has certainly not been said regarding the age of these monuments, and in spite of this difficulty of dates I have little hesitation in finding in them evidence of the individuality and racial detachment of the Tuareg stock from that of the other Libyans, who do not seem to have used this funerary apparatus. After all, the late neolithic and early metal ages in inner Libya were hardly separate from one another, and in the south, where we know the Tuareg are only fairly recent arrivals, the lateness of the “argem” is readily understandable. But if we believe them to be due to the Tuareg, the earliest remains in the north must be far older than Gautier supposes.
Although certain remains of a presumed funerary or religious nature in Air have been described as “argem,” it has apparently escaped notice that both the pre-Moslem as well as the later graves of the country are all linear descendants of the older and more pretentious monuments. Yet if the term has any significance at all, there has been a tendency perhaps to describe rather too many enclosures as “argem.” Certain examples illustrated by Gautier are probably devoid of any spiritual significance. There are in Air, for instance, especially in the north of the country near Agwau, a number of groups of concentric stone circles, which were simply enclosures round temporary huts or tents. The old hut circles of the T’imia village (Plate 29) show clearly how an isolated example might be assumed to have been a prayer or religious enclosure. Again, the circular heaps of stones at Elazzas resemble the “argem” illustrated by Bates[231] so much that one might be tempted to conclude that they were such, if it did not happen to be known that they were the raised plinths on which huts used to be constructed. A deduction drawn from the occurrence of the latter might indicate that the origin of the true “argem” was derived from a desire to commemorate in death the only permanent part of a man’s hut dwelling in life. Such an explanation is not only permissible but even probable; it is even possible that in some cases tombs were actually made in the very floor of the hut or side of the pedestal where the deceased had lived.
In the lower Turayet valley in Southern Air I passed a number of graves which seemed to suggest an intermediate type between the large prehistoric “rigm” and the later small enclosure of stones covered with white pebbles. The Turayet graves were small circular platforms like the hut foundations at Elazzas, but not more than 10 ft. in diameter with vertical sides a few inches above the ground level and flat tops covered with white stones. The occurrence of these tombs on the Turayet valley, not far from the mouth of the Akaraq valley, where also is perhaps a pre-Moslem place of worship, and the existence of what may prove a pre-Moslem urn burial cemetery at Marandet, all of which places are in the extreme south of Air, are interesting points when it is remembered that the first Tuareg inhabitants of Air came to the country from the south. It may nevertheless be pure coincidence that there seemed to be fewer obviously ancient monuments in Northern Air than in the southern part.
The absence of funerary inscriptions is in marked contrast with the profusion of rock writings in Air. Written literature is, however, almost non-existent, but traditional poetry takes its place. The esteem in which poetry is held and the popularity which it enjoys are proof of the intellectual capacity which is present in this people.
When it is realised that, alone among the ancient people of North Africa, the Tuareg have kept an individual script, it seems extraordinary that drawing, painting and sculpture should have remained in so primitive a state. Even if we are to admit that the earliest and therefore the best of the rock drawings of North Africa are the work of the ancestors of the Tuareg, it is hardly possible to qualify them as more than interesting or curious. Few of them are beautiful. Some of the “Early Period”[232] drawings were executed with precision and care, but even if full allowance is made for the possibility of their having been coloured there are hardly any artistic achievements of merit. They do not bear comparison with the bushman drawings of South Africa, still less with the magnificent cave paintings of the Reindeer Age in Europe. But while some doubt exists regarding the authorship of the early drawings, the later North African pictures can be ascribed to the Tuareg without any fear of controversy. The Tuareg are still engaged in making them, but this modern work is even more crude. The drawings have become conventionalised; the symbols do not necessarily bear any likeness to the objects which they purport to represent.
The rock drawings in Air display continuity from bad examples in the style of the early period down to the modern conventionalised glyphs. In most cases both the early and the late work is accompanied by T’ifinagh inscriptions. The earlier drawings represent animals which exist, or used to exist, in Air. The most carefully executed I saw were in the valley leading up from Agaragar to the pass into the Ighazar basin above Faodet. The place was near some watering-point, used by the northern Salt Caravan from Air to Bilma. The pictures were somewhat difficult to see as they had in part been covered by later drawings. The execution was rough, consisting of little more than an outline with a few markings on the bodies of some of the animals. As in the late petroglyphs there was no chiselling or cutting: the lines were made by hammering with a more or less suitable instrument and then by rubbing with a stone and sand. Among the animals thus represented, the giraffe and the ostrich in a wild state survive south of Air. An antelope with sloping quarters and large lyre-shaped horns, the ox, the camel, the donkey, a horse, a large bird, and the human figure, both male and female, could also be traced. The large antelope I cannot identify for certain, but the large bird is probably the Greater Arab Bustard.
In the later work the conventionalised symbols remain fairly constant. The ox is shown as a straight line with four vertical lines representing legs, a clear indication of the hump, and two short horns. The rectangular camel symbol had become so debased that for a long time I was at a loss to interpret it. The representations of the human figure are only curious inasmuch as they emphasise the long robe worn by the Tuareg and sometimes the cross bands over the breast, so typical of the Libyans in the Egyptian paintings. An interesting point in these rudimentary examples of the pictorial art is that even in the early period they portray a similar fauna and habit of life to those of to-day. A faint Egyptian influence may be detected in the human figures. I know of no drawings in Air to compare with the ones found by Barth at Telizzarhen, nor any which appeared to have a religious significance. The most interesting example is certainly that of the ox and cart referred to in the following chapter.
The necessity of pictorial expression was evidently less felt than that of poetry, a condition to which nomadism has undoubtedly contributed. Yet even in ornament and draughtsmanship the Tuareg seem once to have reached a higher plane of civilisation in the past than that which they now possess and which their life has led them progressively to abandon.
They have little knowledge of history outside their own tribal or group lore with the exception of that modicum of knowledge derived from a superficial study of the Quran. At the same time, men like Ahodu have heard and remembered stories of the past such as those of Kahena, Queen of the Aures, and of her fighting against the Arabs. Their knowledge of local geography is enormous, of the general form or shape of North Africa small. They know of the Mediterranean and their language has a word for the sea. They have heard of the Nile, of Egypt, of the Niger and of Lake Chad, but they have only very vague inklings of the existence of Arabia or of the whereabouts of Istambul, where the Defender of the Faith lived. They can draw rough maps of local features on the sand and understand perfectly the conception of European maps on a wider scale. When I showed them an atlas with a map of the world and laboriously explained that it was a flat representation of a spherical object, Ahodu and Sidi surprised me by saying that they knew that the world was round, and that if you went in by a hole you would eventually come out on the other side. Duveyrier and others have been surprised at the knowledge of European countries and politics which they have found in the Sahara. The communication of news between distant parts of Africa is highly developed and at times astounding.
PLATE 33
[Illustration: TIFINAGH ALPHABET]
If only on account of their script the Tuareg have deserved more attention in this country than they have received. I have no intention at this juncture of examining either T’ifinagh or Temajegh in detail, as they require study in a volume dedicated to them alone; but, as an ancient non-Arabic script which has survived in Africa, I cannot refrain from a brief description of the former. T’ifinagh is an alphabetic and not a syllabic script, but owing to the abbreviations practised in writing and the absence of all vowels except an A which resembles the Hamza or Alif, it has come to resemble a sort of shorthand. It is usually necessary to know the general meaning of any writing before it can be read. The T’ifinagh alphabet consists of between thirty and forty symbols varying somewhat from place to place. Duveyrier[233] collected an alphabet of twenty-three letters used in the north: Hanoteau,[234] who wrote the best grammar of Temajegh yet published, gives twenty-four letters: Masquerey[235] gives twenty-three letters for the Taitoq dialect and script: Freeman found twenty-five in the Ghadamsi Tuareg dialects. In addition to these letter symbols there are about twelve ligatures of two or sometimes three letters. All these signs are used in Air, but there are also certain additional symbols which may be alternative forms. Of the twenty-three to twenty-five letters in T’ifinagh, some ten only have been derived from the classical Libyan script as exemplified by the bilingual Thugga inscription now in the British Museum. Of these ten letters perhaps five have Punic parallels, while for the thirty known Libyan letters six Phœnician parallels have been found. It has hitherto been assumed[236] that the T’ifinagh alphabet was descended from the Libyan, which, it may be noted, has not yet been found in any inscription proved to be earlier than the fourth century B.C. Many theories have been advanced for the origin of the Libyan script, but Halévy is usually accepted as the most reliable authority on the subject. He supposed that the Libyan alphabet was derived from the Phœnician with the addition of certain non-Semitic symbols current nearly all over the Mediterranean. If this were universally admitted as the correct view it would still not be possible to explain why the T’ifinagh alphabet contains so many symbols which are not common to either the Libyan or Punic systems. On evidence which cannot here be examined in detail, it seems easier to believe that the ancestors of the Tuareg brought to Africa, or copied from a people with whom they had been in contact before reaching the Sahara, an alphabet replenished by borrowing certain symbols from a Libyan system partly founded on the Phœnician one. A consideration of this problem, like the one which concerns the Temajegh language itself, must be left to experts to resolve. As much false analogy and loose reasoning have been used on this question as on the subject of the origin of the Libyan races. One thing only seems to me to stand out, namely, that the T’ifinagh alphabet and Temajegh language were not evolved in Africa but came from without, probably from the east or north-east, into the continent, where they developed independently. To postulate an Arabian origin, for instance, for T’ifinagh and Temajegh could not be construed as evidence in support of any theory regarding the origin of the Tuareg themselves. Linguistic evidence is notoriously unreliable from the anthropological point of view, since more often than not it only indicates some cultural contact. The most interesting aspect of the linguistic question is the evidence which it may afford regarding the cultural development of the older Tuareg. In their present stage of development there is no reason for them to have retained, still less for them to have evolved by themselves, any form of script. Their mode of life does not necessitate the use of writing: they are for the most part illiterate or are in process of becoming so. To have had and in so far as they still use T’ifinagh, to have retained an individual script, is to my mind the most powerful evidence in favour of the conclusion to which I have already on several occasions referred, namely, their far higher degree of civilisation in the past.
In Air, T’ifinagh is dying out. One tribal group is famous for having retained it in current use more than any other section of the Southern Tuareg. The Ifadeyen men and women still read and write Temajegh correctly if somewhat laboriously. They use it for sending messages to each other or for putting up notices on trees or rocks, saying how one or other of them visited the place. Among most of the other tribes a knowledge of T’ifinagh is confined to the older women and a few men. The younger generation can neither read nor write either in T’ifinagh or in Arabic: the scribes and holy men usually only write in Arabic script. In the olden days all the Tuareg women knew how to write and it was part of their duties to teach the children.
The rocks of Air are covered with inscriptions which have neither been recorded nor translated. Owing to the changing linguistic forms of Temajegh and the absence of any very fixed rules for writing it, it is difficult to decipher any but the modern writings. Words are not separated, vowels are not written, and where one word ends with the same consonant with which the following one begins, a single symbol is usually written for the two.
PLATE 34
[Illustration: ROCK INSCRIPTIONS IN TIFINAGH]
T’ifinagh script may be written from left to right or from right to left, or up and down or down and up, or in a spiral or in the boustrophedon manner. The European authors who have written of Temajegh have variously reproduced T’ifinagh running from right to left and from left to right, but the two best authorities, Hanoteau and de Foucauld,[237] have adopted the former direction. It ill becomes me to differ from such learned authorities, but the existence of certain inscriptions in Air leads me to believe that the left to right manner was, there at least, perhaps the most usual system. On Plate 40 is reproduced an _Arabic_ inscription written by a Tuareg in Arabic characters running in the wrong direction, namely, from left to right, nor do I think the writer would have made this mistake unless he had been accustomed so to write in the only other script of which he could have had any knowledge, namely, T’ifinagh. The inscription, of course, records the common “La illa ilallah Muhammed rasul Allah.” I came across two or three other instances of the same sort.
The T’ifinagh inscriptions in Air, like the pictures with which they are so often associated, belong to all periods. Some of them certainly date back to the first Tuareg invasion.
There is a tradition that the Quran was translated into Temajegh and written out in T’ifinagh, a most improper proceeding from the Moslem point of view. But no European has seen this interesting book, which is said to have been destroyed. It may possibly have survived in some place, for Ahodu told me he had once seen a book in Air written in T’ifinagh, though all the documents which I found in the mosques were in Arabic calligraphy. Until a “Corpus” of T’ifinagh inscriptions has been compiled it will be very difficult to make much progress.
Such a collection would assist in the study of Temajegh itself, for the language is in a somewhat fluid state, tending to vary dialectically from place to place and period to period. It is one of the languages termed “Berber,” the only connection in which I am prepared to admit the use of this word. By many it is considered the purest of the Berber forms of speech. Although related to such dialects as Siwi and Ghadamsi, and to western forms like Shillugh or the Atlas languages, Temajegh is distinct; it was not derived from them but developed independently, and probably preserved more of the original characteristics.
The relationship of the original tongue to the Semitic groups of languages has not yet been defined. The two linguistic families have certain direct analogies, including the formation of words from triliteral verbal roots, verbal inflections, derived verbal formations, the genders of the second and third persons, the pronominal suffixes and the aoristic style of tense. Nevertheless there are also certain very notable differences, like the absence of any trace of more than two genders, the absence of the dual form, and verbs of two or three or four radicals with primary forms in the aorist and imperative only. Berber does not appear to be a Semitic language. But the two are probably derived from a common ancestor.
The Air and Ahaggar dialects of Temajegh differ somewhat from each other. They are mutually quite intelligible, and so far as I could judge not more diverse than English and American. Barth stated that, unlike the rest of the Air Tuareg, the Kel Owi spoke the Auraghiye dialect, which is the name often given to the Ahaggar language. The name is, of course, derived from the Auriga or Hawara ethnic group, which, as we shall see, is the name of the parent stock of most of the Ahaggaren tribes. I have it on the best authority, however, of Ahodu, ’Umbellu and Sidi, that the Kel Owi language does not differ materially from the dialect of the rest of Air and am therefore at a loss to be able to explain Barth’s statement.
The absence of the Arabic ع (_’ain_) in Temajegh necessitates its transcription by the letter غ (_ghen_) which is so characteristic of Berber. In all words, therefore, adopted from the Arabic, and especially in proper names like ’Osman, ’Abdallah, ’Abdeddin, etc., the forms Ghosman, Ghibdillah, Ghabidin are used. The Temajegh letter (_yegh_) ⵗ or _ghen_ is common and so strongly _grasseyé_ that it becomes very similar to an R. The difficulty of transcription of the T’ifinagh into European languages is therefore very considerable,[238] for the R and Gh sounds are very confusing. In some T’ifinagh inscriptions the Arabic letter ع is frankly used when Arabic words occur.
The great feature of the Temajegh language and of the Tuareg is the diffusion of poetry. It is unfortunately impossible to give any examples in this volume, but the collections made by Duveyrier, Hanoteau, Masquerey, Haardt,[239] and de Foucauld[240] show the natural beauty and simplicity of this art among the People of the Veil. Their prosody is not strict, but nevertheless displays certain formality. Iambic verses of nine, ten and eleven syllables are the most usual forms of scansion, with a regular cæsura and rhymed or assonated terminations. In the matter of rhymes there is considerable freedom: the use of similarly sounding words is allowed. Terminations like “pen,” “mountain” and “waiting” would, for instance, all be permissible as rhymes. Poetry is sung, chanted or recited with or without music. The themes cover the whole field of humanity, from songs of love or thanksgiving to long ballads of war and travel. The Tuareg are in some measure all poets, but the women are most famous among them. They make verses impromptu or recite the traditional poems of their race which are so old that their origin has been forgotten. One hears of women famous throughout the Sahara as the greatest poets of their time.
Their way of life is attractive. These famous ladies hold what is called a “diffa,” which is a reception or “salon.” In the evening in front of their fires under an African night they play their one-stringed “amzad” or mandoline and recite their verses. Men from all over the country come to listen or take part. They seem to live and love and think in much the same manner as in Europe those of us do who retain our natural feelings. Only perhaps there are fewer _grandes dames_ in Europe now than in the Sahara.
Poetry, music and dancing are all to a great extent branches of a single art in so far as they all depend on rhythm and seek to express the emotions. In Air the syncopated music of the negro has had more influence than in the north, so the “amzad” is less common. Their other instruments are drums, but the lilt of their dance is rather different from that of the south. Their improvised drums are most ingenious. There is the hemispherical calabash floating in a bowl of milk, the note of which varies according to the depth to which the gourd is sunk, and the millet mortar with a wet skin stretched over the mouth by two parallel poles weighed down with large stones lying across their ends. The other various drums of the Southland are also known and used by those who can afford them. The dances of the Tuareg men are done to a quick step on a syncopated beat. The most effective one is a sword dance by a single man running up to the drum and executing a series of rapid steps, with the sword held by both hands at arms’ length above the head. I have never seen any women dancing among the Air Tuareg and it is said not to be their practice. This may be so, for even among the men dancing is relatively uncommon and has probably been borrowed from the south. It seems hardly to be consistent with their grave and dignified demeanour, of which poetry is the more natural counterpart.
[Footnote 216: Jean, _op. cit._, pp. 82 and 176.]
[Footnote 217: Called Assingerma on the Cortier map. Teghazar is the diminutive of Ighazar, and means a small river or torrent.]
[Footnote 218: Also spelt Reshwa. Von Bary calls the cone Teginjir, which is inaccurate.]
[Footnote 219: Which is also called Tellia, as Barth refers to it.]
[Footnote 220: Richardson, _op. cit._, Vol. II. p. 71.]
[Footnote 221: Naturally many more of the “B” houses than of the “A” class still have the roof on them.]
[Footnote 222: Cf. Chap. XI.]
[Footnote 223: The evidence for these movements is in Chap. XI.]
[Footnote 224: Jean, _op. cit._, p. 86.]
[Footnote 225: Jean throughout regards the Kel Owi as very ancient inhabitants of Air, but if due allowance is made for (as I think) this error and his traditions are not taken to refer to an earlier period than the one with which this group is associated, they are still valuable, from the comparative point of view.]
[Footnote 226: Fossil trees exist in the sandstone hills of Eghalgawen and T’in Wana, a few miles away.]
[Footnote 227: Or “rigm” or “rigem” in the singular.]
[Footnote 228: Bates, _op. cit._, App. I.]
[Footnote 229: Gautier, _op. cit._, p. 86.]
[Footnote 230: Desplagnes: _Le plateau Central Nigérien_.]
[Footnote 231: Bates, _op. cit._, App. I., Figs. 90, 93 and 94.]
[Footnote 232: According to the classification of Pomel and Flamand. Cf. Frobenius: _Hadshra Maktuba_, and Flamand, _Les Pierres Ecrites_.]
[Footnote 233: Duveyrier, _op. cit._]
[Footnote 234: Hanoteau, _Grammaire de la Langue Tamachek_, Algiers, 1896.]
[Footnote 235: Masquerey, _Dictionnaire et Grammaire Touaregs_ (Dialect des Taitoq).]
[Footnote 236: As, for instance, by Bates, _op. cit._, p. 88, following Halévy.]
[Footnote 237: De Foucauld, _Dictionnaire Touareg-Français_, 2 Vols., Alger.]
[Footnote 238: Hence the difficulty surrounding the writing of Ghat, or Rat or Rhat. I have used “gh” through this volume, but the French usually use “r.”]
[Footnote 239: See especially MM. Haardt and Dubreuil’s account of the Citroën Motor Expedition across the Sahara.]
[Footnote 240: In R. Bazin’s life of Père de Foucauld.]