Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/572

 468 APPENDIX H. they are chiefly concentrated about the left bank of the White Nile, nnd farther west towards the headstreams of the I3ahr-el Arab (Baqqata-el- Homr). The word is derived from baqnr = an ox. Allawin. . . El-Arish district on the road between Egypt and Pulestlne. Amran. . . Isthmus of Suez. Iluweitat. Arabian desert between the Suez Canal and the Nile. McMzeh. . • ••«. The " Goatherds," a powerful tribe ranging over the Arabian steppe, from the Nile to the Red Sea, between the parallels of Assiut and Beni-Suef. Have been identified by Maspero with the ancient Libyan Mazu people, but have now been assimdated in speech and religion to the Arabs. Aulad-Ali. . The dominating tribe in the Libyan desert west of the Nile delta. Uawarah. . . West of Keneh, Upper Egj-pt ; till recently supplied the Khedival Government with most of its in-pgular cavalry. Total population of all the Arab tribes in Egypt, about 250,000. V. HAMITIC GROUP. TiBU Branch. The true affinities of the Tibus, long a subject of discussion among anthropologists, may now be determined in the light of the fresh materials recently brought to Europe by Dr. Nachtigal, and partly published in his monumental work, " Sahara und Sudan."* The Tibu domain comprises the whole of East Sahara from about 12=" E. longitude to the Egj'ptian frontier, and from Fezzan southwards to Kanem, Wadai, and Dar-Fur. There are two main branches : 1. The Teda, or Northern Tibus, possibly to be identified with the Tedamansii, a tribe of Garamantes placed by Ptolemy in Tripolitana ; 2. The Daza, or Southern Tibus, through whom they gradually merge southwards in the Kanembu, Kanuri, Zoghawa, Baele, and other Negro or Negroid peoples of Central and Eastern Sudan. The Tibu language follows precisely the same course, passing from the Northern and primitive Teda through the more highly developed Daza to the mixed Kanuri and other forms in the Tsad basin. But the physical and linguistic features revolve, so to say, in different planes, implying apparent antagonism between the ethnical and philological conditions. Both are found in their purest and most original state amongst the Northern Tedas, a point that has been clearly established by Nachtigal. But while the Teda physical tj'pe is not to be distinguished from that of the neighbouring Imoshagh or Tuarik (Berber Hamites) of the "Western Sahara, the Teda language shows no affinity either with the Hamitic or tlie Negro groups. It stands entirely apart, constituting the nucleus of a widespread linguistic family, with extensive ramifications in Dar-Fur, Wadai, Kanem, Bornu, Baghirmi, and generally throughout Central Sudan. In this region it appears to have been profoundly affected by Negro influences ; but no such influences can be detected in the Tibesti uplands, probably the cradle of the Tibu race and the centre of dispersion of the Tibu language. It follows that the Tibus must be regarded as a branch of the Hamitic stock, who, during their long isolation in Tibesti, have had time to develop an independent idiom no longer traceable to a common Tibu-Berber source. A notable feature of this idiom is the absence of grammatical gender, placing it even on a lower level than many Negro tongues of the Upper Nile and Kilima-Njaro regions. It appears, however, to supply what may be called the " raw material," out of which gender has been elaborated in the Hamitic languages. Thus o seems to be characteristic of masculine, d or t oi feminine terms, as in o-mri = man ; d-di = woman. With this feminine dental may be compared the Berber t, which is both pre- and post-fixed, as in akli = negro ; taklit = 11 egress. • Two volumes only have so far appeared (Berlin, 1879, 1881). The remainder, with riih philo- logical data, are afixioiisly await* d by i-tudents of African ethnology.