Short stories from Sudan notes and Records

Sudan Notes and Records II, 1919.
RED SES PROVINCE.
Beni Amer Marriage custom

Pages 74-6.
The following note is intended to give some idea of the marriage custom as practised by
the Beni Amer tribe. It may be mentioned that each section of the tribe regards itself as free to modify or amplify the details here set down.

On the day appointed for the marriage ceremony to commence the male and female relatives of the bridegroom leave him at home and with singing and rejoicing proceed to erect the bridal hut. The material for this hut are as follows,
Seven pieces of white bursh.
The usual number of bent poles over which to stretch the bursh.
Pieces of zaf, i. e. leaves of dom palm, wherewith to tie the bursh to the poles.
An angareb or even simpler form of bed.
Some pieces of hugarit, the local name for a hematite, which is found in Eritrea.

The above intentioned materials are put on a camel and conveyed to the spot arranged where they are all taken off and laid upon the ground.

The male relatives now lake the camel and go themselves to the house of the bride's father. They are met with derisive shouts by the female friends of the bride who seal the testimony of their regard by bespattering the visitors with dung.

(This form of play is indulged in by the bride's female friends for the ensuing seven days.)Nevertheless they return with the men, who load the camel with an angareb or some form of couch and proceed singing to the site of the new hut.The bridal hut is now erected by the female relatives only of the bride and bridegroom: The hut is partitioned into two portions by fixing up light hangings.

Water is next poured over the pieces of hugarit and the resulting solution is taken and splashed over the poles supporting the hut and huge rough crosses are made on the bursh above the entrance to the hut with this same solution.

This ceremony is said to be carried out in commemoration of the tragic murder of the father of the first of the Nabtabs who was beheaded by the Christian King Bulo on the morning following the first night after his marriage with the king's own daughter. (This man is reputed to have been a "holy man" called 'Ali Belas, to whom the King Bulo took such a fancy that he gave him his daughter in marriage.

On the morning after his first bridal night, he was, for a slight breach of etiquette in the presence of the king, summarily beheaded. His one night bride bore him a son,
Mohammed Diglal ibn Mousa, the first of the "Nabtabs".) The ceremony completed, the bridegroom on horseback appears upon the scene accompanied by horsemen and camelmen who encircle the hut seven times.

After the procession has completed the seventh circle, the whole mounted body with a shout, gallop for about half mile in a line due south of the hut. (The reason for going in a southerly
direction is because in ancient times the tribe prayed with faces turned to the south.)

After this has been done, the bridegroom is carried bodily into the half of the hut reserved for him and his friends, and is deposited on the angareb. He is now anointed with water into which have been poured a few whole grains of dura. He also changes his garment and decks himself out with women's jewellery especially bracelets, and a piece of camel dung is inserted in his amma.

The jewellery includes a necklace of alternate gold and other beads and a broad silver bracelet and is worn by the bridegroom until the seventh day when it is given to the bride. He is now ready for the bride who, in due course, approaches with all the women in attendance.

She is carried on the back of a strong slave seven times round the hut and is then brought in and deposited on the angareb in her half of the hut. She is anointed in like manner as the bridegroom.

As soon as the bride is anointed the women in their half of the hut and the men in their half commence singing and rejoicing. The men, however, soon go out and indulge in sports and races.

The marriage feast commences and is kept up for seven days – the men entering and leaving their portion of the hut while the women do the same in theirs. For seven days and seven nights, the bride and bridegroom are surrounded, day and night, by their friends.

Only once during that period does the bridegroom enter the bride's chamber. In the silent watches of the first night, he, accompanied by a friend, by stealth approaches the couch of the supposed-to-be-sleeping bride.

He strokes her face and neck and immediately retires again. This ceremony is performed with the purpose of preventing the jinn from bearing her way or changing her into another being.
At the end of the seven days, the male friends of the bridegroom begin to leave him until by evening only one is left in attendance.

At night the bridegroom and his friend again enter the bride's chamber. This is the signal for all the bride's attendants, except two old women, to rush out of the hut. The bride tries to follow and must be forcibly detained by the bridegroom.

(She has allowed her finger-nails to grow long so that the scratches she makes on his wrist may afterwards be shown to his friends.) If he fails to retain her, so that she escapes to her companions waiting outside, he is made the laughing stock of the village.

If he succeeds he throws her upon the ground and in the presence of the two old women and his friend, he puts his foot upon her neck and proclaims himself her lord and master. The witnesses now leave: the partition is thrown down:
The hut is one. Before the wife can speak to the husband, he must pay her father the sum of £ 10 or give him the present of a camel.

At the end of ten days, the husband is required to leave his wife. He goes away for the purpose of earning the £ 10 or of securing a camel, and quite often does not return for several months.

The purpose of silence seems to vary very much and even though the bridegroom has provided the necessary gift, the bride ought not to speak to her husband for at least six months. If he does not leave her village she yet may not speak to him nor may be live continuously in her house and if he wishes to see her face before the end of six months, he must remove her veil by force.

The period of silence may be extended to two years if the present is not forthcoming. The reason given by the people for this "avoidance" is that if the bride speaks it shows that she has known the bridegroom previously and this is considered disgraceful.

G. J. Fleming.



Sudan notes and Records 4, 1921
RED SEA PROVINCE
MARRIAGE CUSTOMS AMONG THE BENI AMER TRIBE
p. 293-5.

A fuller account of Beni Amer marriage customs was contributed to this journal last year (Vol. II. Pp. 74 ff.) by Mr. Fleming, but the following note is of interest because it contains various new details which are parallel to customs reported from many other countries in both ancient and modern times—for example, the part played by a child whose parents are both alive (compare Frazer, Golden Bough, Vol. Vi. Pp. 236) and the care taken to prevent the feet of the bride-groom from touching the ground Frazer, ib. Vol. X. Pp. 2 foll,).

The gallop in the direction of Mecca, or towards the south according to Fleming, reminds us of the race which occur in the accounts of marriage elsewhere (Frazer Vol. II. Pp. 300 ff.) and these are often combined with similar "historical" legends about the death of the bride-groom and changes in the succession.

On the marriage of a Nabtab, that is to say a direct descendent of 'Amer 'Ali, the founder of the tribe of the Beni 'Amer, the following rites are observed. After the first formalities, the bridegroom and his relations visit the place where the bridal hut is going to be built.

They make choice of a small boy who has not reached the age of puberty and whose parents are both alive, to ensure luck and he with the tip of a sword draws a line along the full length of one of the pieces of matting which is going to make the hut.

This is to commemorate the fact that the Nabtab succeeded to their heritage by the sword. After this has been done the hut is built. An accordance with the customs of the Bello people, who reigned supreme in this part of the country before the coming of 'Amer 'Ali to power, a bull is slaughtered; the bull's blood was formerly used to make a mark like a cross within a rectangle on the hut of the wedded couple, but now this mark is made with red paint and the
blood of the bull is dispensed with.

When the building of the hut is finished the bridegroom mounts a horse and is thus led by two persons seven times round the hut, after which he and his relations, all mounted, ride at full gallop from the hut for several hundred yards towards the east—the direction of Mecca.


THE GASH DAM
P.226-7

The following particulars of an old dam on the Gash may be of interest to readers and can be found on pages 213-216 of "African Wanderings" published in London in 1852.

The period of the construction of this dam was between July and September 1840. The idea of a dam so as to cause the surrender of the Arabs to the invading Turks is credited to Mohamed Ehle of the Halenga, who was then a spy with Ahmed Pasha Abu Uddan's army.

The Halenga tribe furnished the baskets and mats whilst the soldiers and every one else obtainable worked on the earthworks so as to prevent the flood water descending to the Hadendoas and thus deprive them and their herds of the annual replenishments for the exhausted wells.

The khor was 1220 meters broad and the slope of the dam which was 1613 meters long was 45 degrees. The dam was 5 meters broad on the top and the earth stayed by tree trunks erected in the bed of the khor before the bank was made. These tree trunks were sunk into the khor bed and laced or anchored as far as possible.

The dam was situated half an hour from the suk of Huathi. From a subsequent account we learn that the guards on the earthwork, which was then holding up a head of ten feet of water, were massacred by the Arabs. The earthwork was cut and the escaping water entirely destroyed the dam and removed all traces of its construction.

A.E.R.


Sudan notes and Records 9, 1926
p. 84

Notes on the Fellata Melle of Kassala

There are at present to be found in the neighbourhood of Kassala five Farigs of this West
African people, and their coming to the Sudan and subsequent history present certain features
of interest.

They came from the region of Timbuktu some twenty-five years ago and travelled across
Africa in a fairly considerable body under the leadership of El Fagir Mohammed Hashim.

Having made the pilgrimage together, their leader stayed on in El Medina whilst the greater
number returned to the Sudan and drifted to Kassala. For the first few years of their sojourn there they were very poor and maintained themselves by daily labour and by acting as shepherds. Slowly they acquired a few animals (mostly sheep and goats), and as these have
gradually expanded into flocks they have all joined up together again and adopted a nomadic
form of life.

With the local tribes they have established very satisfactory relations, and, though still regarded as "Axhrab" when any matter of rights arises, seem to have no difficulty in securing
adequate watering facilities and grazing.

They have, moreover, adopted many of the local customs and have evolved a type of bet, in
shape like the West African grass bee-hive hut, but constructed on the same principles as the
Hadendoa bet, viz., long stripes of "brush" stretched across and round a framework of bent
branches.

Further, they have adopted the "tiffa" (fuzzy head) and their young men mostly carry the
Hadendoa dagger.

Another remarkable fact is the way they have picked up the local languages and most are
trillingual, viz., Fellata, Arabic and Beja.
Administratively they give no trouble, pay their taxes punctually, and I can remember no
cases of any violence among them during the last few years.

The head Sheikh, Mohammed Ahmed Belu, is a man of considerable religious influence, and there also appears to be a close liaison maintained with El Fagir Mohammed Hashim in the Hedjaz.



Sudan notes and Records
THE STORY OF TAJOJ
By F. L. Harwood
(Sudan Railways)

About the year 1820, during the reign of El Saltana El Zarga, there was born at Jebel Gulsa,
among the Hamran, a branch of the Beni Amer tribe, a girl called Tajoj.

Jebel Gulsa is a hill on the right bank of the River Gash to the south of Kassala. The Hamran are a nomadic people, moving from place to place in the area around Abu Qamal
with their camels, goats and sheep and living in tents made of dom palm matting. They are a
race of handsome men and beautiful women, but Tajoj was of an especial beauty that lives for
us in her story.

At that time, there was recurrent warfare among the various tribes in that part of the Sudan
and the particular enemies of the Hamran were the Hadendoa, another Hamitic tribe.
The Hamran resisted the attacks of their enemies with a success, chiefly due to the skill and
bravery of one young man called Mohallag. (1) He was Tajoj's cousin and was violently in love with her. He composed songs extolling her beauty and sang these so that the beauty of Tajoj became known far and wide.

The Arabs regard such fame rather as notoriety, and count it as an infringement of a girl's
modesty and good name, so that Tajoj's parents were highly displeased and when Mohallag
came to ask for Tajoj's hand in marriage, they refused him. She had other suitors, among them one Oakad (2) of the Hadendoa.

1. Mohallag = money in Beidawi-Ed,
2. Okad (a Beni Amer name)-Ed,

Mohallag was heart-broken at this refusal and pined and became so sick that it was thought
he might die.

The elders of the tribe were much concerned at this and feared that they might lose their
leader in battle. They, therefore, approached the girl's parents and urged them to overlook
Mohallag's fault and to permit him to have Tajoj for wife. At length, they reluctantly agreed
and the marriage took place.

When Oakad heard of the marriage, he came down and challenged Mohallag to mortal
combat and in the ensuing duel Oakad was slain.

Mohallag did not enjoy his lovely bride for long. Perhaps she had been in love with Oakad,
perhaps merely she did not care for her cousin. The story tells that shortly after the marriage,
Mohallag asked her to strip herself naked and walk before him in her unveiled beauty.

Such a thing appears shameful to the strictly conventional Arab and so Tajoj refused. He importuned her again and again, so at length she said that she would if afterwards he would promise her, on his oath, to do her one favour. This he promised.

She stripped herself and then told him that the favour was to be an immediate divorce.
He could not break his oath so they were separated. The end previously feared soon came
upon Mohallag. His heart was broken and he pined away and soon died.

Bereft of their leader, the Hamran were helpless before their enemies. Inspired by thoughts
of revenge for the death of Oakad, the Hadendoa attacked them, many of the Hamran were
killed and among the booty carried off was Tajoj.

Now the Hadendoa began to fight among themselves to decide who should possess her.
Duels and battles had soon caused the death of several of the young notables of the tribe, and it was plain that it might be seriously depleted of the best of the young fighting men if some
drastic action was not taken.

The elders, therefore, held a meeting to decide what could be done and after some discussion
one old man asked to see the cause of all the trouble. Tajoj was brought in and led before the old man. He took her by the arm and, before the onlookers could interfere, drew his sword and slew her. He had come to the conclusion, he said, that this was the only way to put an end to the bloodshed that she was causing.

So she died. She is buried somewhere between Jebel Abu Qamal and Kassala among a
grove of palm trees and her grave has often been visited by Sudanese who are much stirred by
this story of her great beauty and its tragic end. Her story is very widely known and there are
various versions; the above, however, appears to be the most widely accepted.

The songs which Mohallag made to Tajoj were many. The following are translations of parts
of some of those that he made in his despair after he had lost her :-

" Though I am a brave man, yet am I most unfortunate.
I have brought myself misery by my own fault, and through
Light-heartedness and joy I have come to have no rest nor peace."

" 0 Tajoj your teeth are like silver.
0 Tajoj his gone leaving misery increasing upon me."

"Still your song, Oh happy bird singing in the tree,
I am suffering and unhappy. My love has left me and I can
have no comfort without her."


Sudan notes and Records 22, Part 2, 1939
CORRESPONDENCE p. 301-2
To the Editor
Dear Sir,

Among my notes on the history of Kassala which I compiled when at Khartoum, I found a
reference to Jebel Mandera which seems to have escaped general attention. I traced the original work in the British Museum and it is not alluded to by Dr. Crowfoot in his paper "Old Sites in the Butana".

Prince Pueckler Muskau wrote a long account of his travels in Egypt and the Sudan (Egypt
under Mohamet Ali, 3 Vols, 1845). He arrived in Egypt on January 4th 1837 and travelled to
the Sudan via the Nile. Mustafa Bey (later governor of Kordofan) was then in Khartoum.

Prince Pueckler Maskau was accompanied by a dragoman named Giovanni. I think this man
was the celebrated Giovanni Finati whose biography was published by Sir Thomas Bankes in
1830. During May and June Prince Pueckler Muskau was ill at Abu Haraz (Blue Nile).

Giovanni travelled in the Butana and visited Jebel Geili and Mandera. He reported that he had seen some statues in a grotto at Jebel Liberi, a site about five hours journey N.E. of Mandera.


In the XVII th century Mandera was.the headquarters of Fatma, "Negusta Rum" of the
Bega. She surrendered to Susenyos of Abyssinia when he invaded the Sudan during the reign of the Fung Sultan Rubat (1614-1642). This queen was reputed to be a descendant from the ancient royal line of Egypt. There is no mention of this ruler in the published poems and traditions of the Shukria but it is not impossible that she was a descendent of the old rulers of the Isle of Meroe.

During the reign of the Fung Sultan Adlan II (I778-I787) Jebel Mandera was the site of a great battle between the equestrian Rikabia tribe and the camel-herding Shukria tribe, in hich
the Rikabia were defeated and absorbed by the Shukria. Some of the armour and weapons of
the Rikabia were in the possession of the Shukria cavalry at the time of the Mahdist rebellion.

The tradition of a female ruler of the Bega is also to be found at Jebel Kassala. (see Werne, "Wanderings in Africa" p. 207) Werne stated that Fakenda was a great ruin and the reputed seat of a queen of the Halenga. When I was at Kassala in 1908 I walked over most of the outskirts of Kassala town and rode to Sabderat. I took a number of photographs but found
no antiquities except the old (medieval) Moslem tombs at Maman (see Crowfoot, SUDAN
NOTES AND RECORDS, Vol. V. P.83).

I was informed when at Kassala that the ruins described by Werne were on the site of the present Mirghani mosque at Khatmia and that the reputed ancient irrigation works were contemporary with the erection of the ginning factory (i.e., during the American Civil war).

I should be glad to hear through your pages if the grotto at Jebel Liberi has been examined and if the site of Fakenda has been identified. I think Fakenda is more probably contemporary with the Maman ruins than ancient Meroe. The present Eritrean and Abyssinian political frontiers seem to have been based upon natural and cultural limits for some centuries past.

ARTHUR E. ROBINSON


Sudan notes and Records 32, 1951
Ancient villages in Khor Nubt, p. 326-331
Page 330-1

As regards the rock pictures, most of them are of cattle of the longhorned humpless breed.
The true Beja breed is, according to my information, a short-horned beast with a marked hump.

A long-horned humpless beast is also found among their herds and is said to have been introduced from either Arabia or Eritrea. Whether this is the prototype of the rock pictures or
not we have no means of knowing. The Nubt cattle pictures show the same type of cattle as those at Onib, Nurayet in W. Diib, W. Nefirium near Derhib, Rawai and other places. The giraffe and the sitting man may help the archaeologist however.

With reference to the history of the city the following tale is current among the local tribes; however it may savour of the purely legendary, it is perhaps worth recording not only as all an amusing fairy tale but because such legends are often really aetiological myths woven to explain some historical fact.

The community was originally one of " Roumeen, " who are said by some to hive been black and of Abyssinian-like features and by others to have been of European colour and characteristics; and there are supposed to have been a number of such communities from further North down to Tokar within measurable distance of the coast, but none very far inland.

The King of the Roumeen, so runs the tale, had three great possessions; a sword that could cleave through rock itself, a grinding-stone that was harder than granite and could grind anything to powder, and a daughter who was the most beautiful in the world. About this time, which was long before Barakween, the founder of the Hadendowa, and the reputed ancestors of other Beja tribes, had entered the neighbourhood, an Arab tribe named the Baynhilalt (Bani Hilal?) lived on the coastal plain near Suakin.

The son of the Baynhilat Sheikh, hearing of the Roumeen king's daughter, went thither to
see for himself, and sojourned some while, tending the Roumeen flocks and making surreptitious advances to the damsel.

The Roumeen, after a while, suspected him of having had an affair with her, and seized him;
trial by ordeal was decided on. Now the Roumeen were men of great stature and none could
wield their well-buckets but themselves, such was the bucket's capacity.

So the young man was brought to the well at evening, given one of their dalus (buckets) and told, if he was innocent, to fill the troughs, for the flocks to water at, before morning. Then they left him. Sure enough he found himself baffled; but he ran, when it was dark, to his ladylove, the king's daughter, who hurried out with him and, being of similar physique to her brethren, easily wielded the well-bucket and filled the troughs for him.

With the dawn came the Roumeen and were surprised to find the troughs full. However, they had suspicions of the truth, so went back to search, and sure enough found a splash of undried mud still on the lady's breast, which gave the show away. So they killed the young man.

When his father, the sheikh of the Baynhilait, heard of it, he set out with his entire tribe to take vengeance. A prophetess of the Roumeen a local Cassandra - saw lightnings in the eastern sky which she announced would devour the settlement and all its inhabitants; the lightnings were, in point of fact, made by the tinders of the Baynhilalt host as they lit their evening fires.

The struggle took place close to the city, a mile or two up the valley to the Southward.
Some say that the two communities suffered the fate of the Kilkenny cats; others that some of
the Baynhilalt survived and lived on for a time, but then wandered away and were never again
heard of.

When the king of the Roumeen saw that all was lost, he was determined that at least no one
should have his three great possessions. So he took the sword-that-could-cut-rocks and first cut off the head of his beautiful daughter; he then went to the grindstone-harder-than-granite, and with the sword clove it in two pieces, and finally struck the sword, point down, into the earth, which swallowed it up.

The supposed site of the buried blade-an unimpressive dimple in the ground-is still shown, as is the cloven grindstone, a split slab of marble-like stone indistinguishable from many others lying around; white the shade of the beheaded damsel or some more indefinable influence, is believed still to haunt the spot.

Such is the story. It is a pity that the Arabic tombstones examined, whose dates cover a period of just 50 years from 227 to 277 A.H. give no clue to the tribe of the occupants of the graves, whether Bani Hilal or otherwise.

The legend, as such, obviously recounts a historical Arab conquest (presumably one that soon passed on) of the local pre-Muslim inhabitants, but only stimulates rather than allays speculation as to who these inhabitants were by dragging in the Roumeen, nor does it afford any solution of the question what was the attraction that led them to dwell in this particular place, which is neither strategic nor appears to possess gold or any other commercial advantage.