Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 3.djvu/185

 THE TOUCOULEUES. I49 the images of their zebus on the face of the rocks in the wilderness ? Or is their origin to be sought beyond the continent, in Malaysia or amongst the gipsies who migrated centuries ago from India ? For all these views have been advanced without helping much towards the solution of this curious ethnological problem. Nor has the Fulah language yet found a definite position amongst the linguistic families of Africa. It has two grammatical genders, not the masculine and feminine, as in most idioms, but the human and non-human ; the adjective agrees in assonance with its noun, and euphony plays a great part in verbal and nominal inflection. In some respects the sonorous Fulah tongue resembles the surrounding Negro dialects, while in the use of suffixes betraying the Semitic influences to which it appears to have been long exposed. But its true position must soon be deter- mined by means of the numerous grammatical works, including one by a prince of Sokoto, that have already been composed in this language. Its general features, combined with the national and historic traditions, seem to assign an eastern origin to the Fulahs, who first crossed the continent from east to west, and then, like the Mauritanian Arabs in more recent times, retraced their steps eastwards. From the banks of the Senegal came those Fulahs who, at the beginning of the present century, founded the Haussa and Massina empires in the Niger basin. Apart from a few tribes, especially those of the Birgo district, the great bulk of the race have long been Mohammedans. Many are even animated by an ardent spirit of proselytism, although their religious zeal has not rendered them intolerant. Their men of letters are quite free from the slavish adherence to the text of the Koran characteristic of the eastern Mussulmans, and when a passage seems unintelligible or contrary to their way of thinking, they freely modify it in accord- ance with their own religious views Like other Mohammedans they admit polygamy, but scarcely practise it, a fact due mainly to their respect for woman and to her influence over her husband. " Let a female slave enter a household," say the Wolofs, " and she soon becomes mistress." Unlike those of the Negroes, the Fulah governments are not despotic, each state generally constituting a theocratic republic, whose almamy, or chief, exercises his temporal and priestly functions with the advice of the elders and notables. The elective element plays an important part in the local administration, and the real rulers are the wealthy families. The ToucouLEuiis. Analogous institutions prevail amongst the Toucouleurs of the four riverain provinces of Damga, Futa, Toro, and Dimar, between the Faleme confluence and Lake Panieful. This collective name, by some scarcely seriously derived from the English " two colours," because the natives are mostly brown or coppery half-caste Negroes, Moors, and Fulahs, took the form of Tacurores in the works of the Portu- guese writers of the sixteenth century. Hence there can be no doubt of its identity with Tacurol, already mentioned by Cadamosto as the old name of the country, and since confused with the Takrur or Takarir pilgrims from West Africa to Mecca,