Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 2.djvu/545

 TUB AZJAB CONFEDERATION. 447 which have been rci)outc-dly riflod by treasuri'-hunti-ni. Hut it can be no longer deU»rmine<l to what populations are to be attributed tht-se reinuin* of bygone times. From lime out of mind the Central Sahara has alwayi* Ixtn roamed by the Tuareg Berbers, who were certainly in jWHwe-yiion of the land when the Arabs pene- trated westwards to Mauritania, and foun<l tln'nis«'lve8 for the firHt time face to face with these children of the desert. It was the Arabs who gave them the name of Tuareg, that is to say, " Abandoned," - Forsaken of God," in connoquencc, «y the Arab writers, of the resistance long offered by these "Sabosan or fetish The Tuaregs, wLo did not accept the teachings of the Prophet till the third century of the Ilegira, call themselves Imohagh, Imosharh, Imajirheu, according to the various dialects. The term is identical with that of the Amzighs of the Jurjura highlands in Algeria, and of tlie Imazighen of Marocco, all these forms being derived from a common root involving the idea of freedom, pr^md indepen- dence of all control. Their origin, however, is manifold, for they are " mingled together and interwoven like the tissue of a tent-cloth, in which camel hair and sheep's wool are so combineing indirectly connected with the jx-digree of the Prophet. The Imohaghs are divided into a vast number of tribes grouixnl in four great confiKlerations — the Azjars and Ahaggars or Hoggars in the north ; the Kel-Owi and Awellimiden in the south. Collectively the Tuareg race occupies alK)ut one half of the Sahara, and the Temahag (Temasheg, Tamazight), as the national language is calle<l, is spread over a fourth part of the continent, from the oasis of Jupiter Ammtm (Siwah) to the shores of the Atlantic. This term Temahag is itself probably to bo identified with that of the Tamahu people mentioned on the old Egyptian monuments of Edfu. The Azjar Confeder.tiox. Of the four confederations, that of the Azjars, occupying the north-eastern section of the vast Tuareg domain betwetm Fezzan and Algeria, takes the foremost rank, not in numerical superiority or wealth, but in general culture and refinement, as shown by the encouragement it offers to international trade. Thanks to the friendly influence of the Azjars, European travellers have been able to i)enctrat« into the interior of the Sahara, and study the physical and social conditions of that region. Of all Tuareg ixniples, the Azjars show the greatest tendency to abandon the nomad for a settled life. One of their tribt^s, the Tin-Alkums, called Tizilkura by Richardson, have even already taken up their residence in some oases cultivated by themselves in the neighbourhood of Murzuk and of Hh&t. Formerly the most powerful Azjar tribe was that of the Imanans, or^Sultons," so-called because to them belonged the amanokal, or sovereign of all the northern
 * x»oplc8 " to the progress of Islam.