Chapter XV: The Tuaregs of Aïr

Before concluding this narrative I would like to make brief reference to the native inhabitants of Aïr.

I have said elsewhere that the total population of Aïr at the present time is made up of 5,000 Tuaregs. And they are strange people—the strangest race I have ever come in contact with— independent, haughty, daring, unscrupulous, and lazy in leisure, yet fit to rank among the finest travellers and camel-riders in the world. If one is to judge these Tuaregs fairly, one must try to conceive their surroundings and realise the all-important fact that they are practically wild people in a wild land that lies remote and unknown, and that they have had no advantages to influence them to be aught but wholly primitive. While, further, it may be well to remember that they are the remnant descendants of a race that was once crafty and able in war; indeed, even in the present day, they consider themselves the aristocrats of the land, and look down with scarcely veiled contempt on all negro tribes.

To the French officers and to many Hausa natives they are known as downright rascals, because they are cunning and deceitful in the most unprincipled way the moment they have any dealings with strangers, and I imagine that among themselves they hold belief that anyone outside their own tribe is a legitimate enemy to be overcome, if possible, by cunning artifice, since strength of arms is no longer theirs.

For my own part I found the Tuaregs of Aïr difficult people to deal with, and impossible people to rely on. Except at Timia and Aouderas, I met with no sincere friendliness at their hands, and was inclined to be wholly harsh in my judgment of them all, until my later experiences prompted me to be more inclined to mitigate my opinion of their shortcomings; for, after all, especially with primitive natives, one must live among such people for a long time to break through that protective reserve that shuts out the stranger as a suspect and interloper, and to learn to know them from an intimate point of view.

In appearance these Tuaregs, who are an Arab-like Semitic race, are not tall. The men are generally of strong, wiry build, inclined, if anything, to slimness, and I have never seen one of their sex in any degree corpulent. The women are smaller than the men, many of them not much more than five feet in height, and, at middle age, often grow to moderate stoutness.

The features of the Tuareg natives are usually of a swarthy copper colour of fairly light hue, while a few of them are as yellowish-white as Arabs. Their features are, of course, not of blunt negro type, and—when they can be seen unmasked—there is a pleasant variety of facial character among them, and no two are found to be alike.

Many of the women paint their faces—especially when attending a marriage or a feast—with a hideous pigment, sometimes yellow and sometimes red.

The men, without exception, wear the _yashmak_ over their faces on all occasions. This is a long swathe of cotton cloth, sometimes white, but generally dark blue or black, which is wound round the head so that the lower folds cover all the face up to the centre of the nose-bridge, while the upper folds are passed over the forehead and overlap the eyebrows, so that a hood is formed to shade the eyes from the fierce rays of the sun. All that remains visible of an individual’s face are two piercing dark eyes that peer out of the narrow slit in the mask. One may know Tuaregs thus masked for months, and identify individuals by little more than their eyes; but should the _yashmak_ ever be removed, the transformation is so staggering that it is impossible to recognise the person at all, since you have never seen the face before in its entirety. The women wear a cotton shawl cast over the crown of the head, in typical work-girl fashion, but they do not cover the face or wear _yashmak_ in any form. Wearing the _yashmak_ is a Moslem custom, but outside its religious purport I am not sure but that it is a very comfortable and sensible thing for those nomads of desert places to wear, for it serves as splendid protection to the face in biting sandstorms, since it completely covers the mouth and nostrils and ears, while it hoods the eyes from fierce and tiring sun-glare.

As to the garb of the men, they are clothed in full-flowing cotton gowns which reach almost to the ground, while folds drop from the shoulders to the elbows to look like wide sleeves without being actually sewn to that form. Underneath this robe are worn loose baggy cotton trousers secured round the waist. The robes are, in general, white or dark indigo-blue (a dye locally obtained in Hausaland, where all Tuareg clothing is bought), and the latter colour is the most becoming. All the men wear leather sandals on otherwise naked feet. For ornament they wear leather wallets containing charms and trinkets, which are hung in front of the person suspended from a cord round the neck. Bangles above the elbows on the arms are also commonly worn, usually made out of soft slate-like native stone, which may be hewn to bangle-shape and then polished to a glossy blackness; sometimes the bangles are of cheap metal, welded out of scraps of brass or tin by the local blacksmith. All Tuaregs carry double-edged swords in a leather sheath slung over the shoulder on a strap.

The women wear loose cotton garb swathed about them, but, being of diminutive stature, they seldom bear anything of the native gracefulness which is often associated with the men, many of whom have more than ordinary vanity as to their appearance and carry themselves accordingly. The women are much given to wearing bright coloured cottons, and sometimes the effect in sombre surroundings is very pleasant. For ornament the women principally wear bangles both on the wrists and above the elbows, necklaces to which one or more charm is attached, and earrings.

With regard to the wealth of the natives, I think it may safely be said that they are a poor people, if we except one or two chiefs who possibly have fair means. The wealthiest individual that I questioned on this matter was a native of Timia, who possessed thirty camels, which, if valued at £12 a piece—which is a fair average price—would place his total wealth at £360. But the property of the ordinary native of Aïr is usually comprised of one or two camels and a number of goats, ranging from herds of five to thirty according to their means. The camels, besides being the means of transporting private stores of grain from the south, bring in a certain ready-cash return (usually about two francs per camel per day) when hired by traders or military authorities to make up a caravan journey to Hausaland or elsewhere. The goat-herds furnish milk, which is a staple food among the Tuaregs—liquid or in the form of cheese; while male animals are butchered from time to time, the meat eaten, and the hides turned to domestic use or sold.

The Tuaregs of Aïr appear to be a fairly healthy race, but the women do not bear large families, and I am told that there is a good deal of inbreeding wherever there are small local settlements. Outside of Agades there is no European doctor (at Agades there is a doctor, the only one north of Zinder), and the country would benefit greatly if it could support an adequate medical staff.

The language of the Tuaregs, which they call Tamāshack (Temashight and Tarkiye: _Barth_), is much more difficult to learn than Hausa, and is spoken in a peculiar rapid-running fashion, which makes it very difficult to grasp the distinct sounding of the vowels. Tuareg voices are often pleasantly soft and musical.

I have remarked with interest that tree names and the names of birds and animals are well-known to almost all the natives, even boys at an early age having much knowledge of the nature about them. How many of us at home can name all the trees and birds of the common roadside? But then we are really an indoor, over-civilised people, while those natives of the outdoors _must_ know Nature and something of her secrets, since she provides their livelihood: food, building material, ropes, saddlery, leather, clothing, dyes, medicines, even luxuries—all that is essential to man’s needs, the Tuareg harvests from his countryside, in small portion, whether he seek among the branch-tops, or digs at the tree-roots, or kills with arrow or noose-trap, or sows and reaps grain with the two hands Creation gave him and little else besides the scraps of metal he fashions to bring to his aid.

On the other hand, so far as one can observe, these natives do not discern beauty in the scenes about them, and I have often witnessed them pass by some exceptionally fair picture without paying the slightest attention to it. They are, however, attracted by strange shapes, such as are often to be seen among the rugged mountain-tops, and they sometimes exclaim and point these out.

These natives have also some meagre knowledge of the great world outside their own land: no doubt scraps of information brought to their ears by their Mohammedan priests, or by those who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca and returned alive. They know, for instance, that there are such races as Japanese and Indians; while they have a Tamāshack name for _fish_, and know that this is a creature that lives in the water and is good to eat, though none exist anywhere in Aïr.

The Mohammedan religion, and sects of Mohammedanism, such as Senussi, constitute the faith of the natives of Aïr, and they are very devout.

In their domestic life, it seems to me, the Tuaregs know little of the beauty of love. Marriage to them is something of an animal instinct, and the devotion of the men is never sacred to one woman, for they have usually from two to four wives. As an instance of their apparent lack of deep devotion, I have seen Tuaregs, after being away on a journey with their camels for months, return to their home-village and alight on the outskirts to enter into promiscuous conversation with the crowd of men that quickly gather to hear the news the travellers bring, and have known them to spend hours thus engaged before they give a thought to go forward to their huts to greet their wives and children: surely a strange indifference to domestic devotion on the part of men who have been long away from home.

In daily life it is the custom of the natives to rise before daylight, and they are already started on the road if they are travelling, or at work about their hut doors if they are in camp, before dawn lightens the eastern horizon. But you are not to conclude from this that they are energetic people, far from it; I believe that, except when travelling, the men are the laziest people I have ever met. By 8 a.m. I have known men to lie down in their huts, and not again make any attempt to rise and exert themselves until 4 or 5 p.m. in the cool of the evening. The dreadfully hot climate tends towards such laziness, but without doubt it is inherent in the blood. And their lazy life begins in childhood, for at an early age the children are sent out by their parents to herd the goats; and through the heat of a long day the youngsters chiefly spend their time sleeping or idling beneath the shade of acacias while the animals wander at no great range. In the cool of the evening the herd-boys wake to exertion, and if flocks have strayed while unattended, they have merely to follow their footprints in the tell-tale sand to come up with them and drive them home to the village.

It is pleasant to be near a native village at sundown: to hear the clear voice of some woman who sets out along a bypath uttering some strange peculiar call known only to her herd, who will in time bleat an answer; then, so that they may be milked and sheltered for the night from prowling, destructive jackals, to see her humour them slowly homeward, repeating her call the while, as the active animals run from bush to bush in haste to ferret out a few last mouthfuls of supper; while shadows of evening deepen and the comfort of coolness sets men and women rejoicing in the village. Then may be heard, above the talk and laughter of the villagers, the thud! thud! thud! of pestle poles as women crush grain for the evening meal in wooden mortar-bowls, and the cries of nursling livestock that await their feeding-time— the bleat of suckling goats and the unhappy roaring call of the milk-hungry, impatient camel-calves.

It is the women who work: they who carry water, tend the beasts, collect firewood, prepare the evening meal; and, besides their many domestic tasks, to them also is credit due for teaching their children all that they know of home-work and bush-work, of school-learning and legend, of folksong and dance.

I would say of the Tuareg men that they are adventurers of the road; seen at a disadvantage in their villages, but active and able when away with their caravans—superb camel-riders, observant trackers, and endowed with that marvellous second sense of direction which belongs only to natives.