History of the First Twelve Years of the Reign of Mai Idris Alooma of Bornu (1571-1583) by Fartua Ahmed Ibn;

Author:Fartua, Ahmed Ibn;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 1926-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

If the inference one would naturally draw from these comparisons is correct, it would seem to suggest that these races are the Kash (Cushites) of the Egyptian monuments and that the early white races’ in Kordofan Wadai Darfur, and Bornu were ibn Khaldun’s “second race of Sanhaja,” who spread North of the Tibesti Massif, till, as ibn Khaldun says, they occupied the whole Sahara, and incidentally provided ruling dynasties for most of the Northern part of the Sudan—from Kanem to Ghana in the West.

With regard to the latter (Ghana) it is interesting to note that its first or ‘white dynasty’ which ruled before the Hejira of the Prophet, was called Kaya magna. As the second element in this word is a Barbar word for ‘great’ we have the somewhat curious coincidence that whereas the Ghana rulers were Kaya, the tribal mothers’ stock of the early Kanem dynasty which began soon after the Hejira, was abo Kayi or Kiyi.

A connection between the two is definitely suggested by traditions, having of course the usual Muslim garb, which are recorded by the Timbuctu Arab historians, to the effect thai an invasion under a member of the army of the Ummayad Caliph Umr ibn Abd ul Aziz, founded both the Kingdom of Bornu (Kanem) and the Kayamagha dynasty of Ghana. (See the Tarikh el Fettach).

Further than this the subjects of the ‘white dynasty’ of Ghana were the Wan-gara or Wa-kore, i.e., just as the Tebu (Gara) were the subjects of the Kayi (Zaghawa) of Kanem, so were the Wan-gara (i.e., Gara people) subjects of the Kaya-magha of Ghana.

This analogy between East and West is carried still further by a fact noted by M. Israel Hamet in his work on Mauretania, viz.: the servile clans of the Sanhaja Barbars were and still are called ‘Anbat’ i.e., the Anbat of the Sanhaja.

It seems not unreasonable to suggest the equation of these Western Anbat to the Nile Nobatae, who coming originally from the Western oases of Egypt were settled in the cataract region of the Nile by the Romans, with the help of whom they crushed and dispersed the Blemmyes from the Nile Valley about 400–500 A.D., and became the basic element in the Christian Dongola Kingdom of which the language—now represented by the Brabra dialects—is in structure very similar to the Tebu and Kanuri languages.

Surveying the whole field, the conclusion to which one inclines is that the ancient rivalry between the Nobatae and Blemmyes was only the first phase or manifestation of a conflict which has gone on ever since between the earlier Kushite (Gara) races of the Sahara and Sudan like the Tebu, and the later Barbar races who like the Blemmyes rose to a dominating position in the Eastern Sudan and Sahara between about 500 B.C. and 500 A.D., the latter being partly, if we may believe the Arab traditions, migrants across the Straits of Bab el Mandeb from Asia though doubtless having in a large measure a Libyan, i.e., Tehenu, admixture.

Had these peoples

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