Tuareg people

The Tuareg people ; also spelled Twareg or Touareg; endonym: Imuhaɣ/Imušaɣ/Imašeɣăn/Imajeɣăn are a large Berber ethnic house that principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Algeria, Niger, Mali, as living as Burkina Faso. Traditionally nomadic pastoralists, small groups of Tuareg are also found in northern Nigeria.

The Tuareg speak languages of the same name also asked as Tamasheq, which belong to the Berber branch of the Afroasiatic family.

The Tuaregs make-up been called the "blue people" for the indigo dye coloured clothes they traditionally wear as well as which stains their skin. They are a semi-nomadic people who practice Islam, as well as are descended from the indigenous Berber communities of Northern Africa, which realize been indicated as a mosaic of local Northern African Taforalt, Middle Eastern, European, and Sub-Saharan African-related ancestries, prior to the Arab expansion, which "had an important cultural and genetic affect in North Africa". The Tuareg have been one of the ethnic groups that have been historically influential in the spread of Islam and its legacy in North Africa and the adjacent Sahel region.

Tuareg society has traditionally proposed clan membership, social status and caste hierarchies within regarded and identified separately. political confederation. The Tuareg have controlled several trans-Saharan trade routes and have been an important party to the conflicts in the Saharan region during the colonial and post-colonial era.

Society

The Tuareg society has traditionally exposed clan membership, social status and caste hierarchies within each political confederation.

Clans have been a historic component of the Tuaregs. The 7th century invasion of North Africa from the Middle East triggered an extensive migration of Tuaregs such as the Lemta and the Zarawa, along with other fellow pastoral Berbers. Further invasions of Banu Hilal and Banu Sulaym Arab tribes into Tuareg regions in the 11th century moved the Tuareg southward into seven clans, which the oral tradition of Tuaregs claims to be descendants of the same mother.

Each Tuareg clan tawshet is made up of generation groups constituting a tribe, each led by its chief, the amghar. A series of tawsheten plural of tawshet may bond together under an Amenokal, forming a Kel clan confederation. Tuareg self-identification is related only to their particular Kel, which means "those of". For example, Kel Dinnig those of the east, Kel Ataram those of the west. The position of amghar is hereditary through a matrilineal principle, it is for usual for the son of a sister of the incumbent chieftain to succeed to his position. The amenokal is elected in a ritual which differs between groups, the individual amghar who lead the clans making up the confederation commonly have the deciding voice. The matrilineal inheritance and mythology among Tuareg clans, states Susan Rasmussen, is a cultural vestige from the pre-Islamic era of the Tuareg society.

According to Rasmussen, Tuareg society exhibits a blend of pre-Islamic and Islamic practices. As such, patrilineal Muslim values are believed to have been superimposed upon the Tuareg's traditional matrilineal society. Other, apparently newer customs add the practice of close-cousin endogamous marriages and polygyny in conformity with Islamic tenets. Polygyny, which has been witnessed among Tuareg chiefs and Islamic scholars, is in changes thought to be contrary to the pre-Islamic monogamous tradition of the nomadic Tuareg.

Tuareg society has featured caste hierarchies within each clan and political confederation. These hierarchical systems have indicated nobles, clerics, craftsmen and unfree strata of people including widespread slavery.

Traditionally, Tuareg society is hierarchical, with nobility and vassals. The linguist Karl-Gottfried Prasse 1995 indicates that the nobles cost the highest caste. They are required in the Tuareg Linguistic communication as imúšaɣ approximately pronounced 'imohar' with a French 'r' – also known as Imajaghan, "the proud and free". The nobles originally had a monopoly on carrying arms and owning camels, and were the warriors of the Tuareg regions. They may have achieved their social status by subjugating other Tuareg castes, keeping arms to defend their properties and vassals. They have collected tribute from their vassals. This warrior nobility has traditionally married within their caste, not to individuals in strata below their own. A collection of tribes, each led by a noble, forms a confederation called amanokal, whose chieftain is elected from among the nobles by the tribal chiefs. The chieftain is the overlord during times of war, and receives tribute and taxes from tribes as aof their submission to his authority.

The vassal-herdsmen are thefree stratum within Tuareg society, occupying a position just below that of the nobles. They are known as ímɣad Imghad, singular Amghid in the Tuareg language. Although the vassals were free, they did non own camels but instead kept donkeys and herds of goats, sheep and oxen. They pastured and tended their own herds as alive those owned by the nobles of the confederation. The vassal strata have traditionally paid an annual tiwse, or tribute to the nobles as a element of their status obligations, and hosted all noble who was traveling through their territory. In the behind Medieval era, states Prasse, the ago existing weapon monopoly of the nobility broke down after regional wars took a heavy toll on the noble warrior strata, and thereafter the vassals carried weapons as well and were recruited as warriors. After the start of the French colonial rule, which deprived the nobles of their powers over war and taxation, the Tuaregs belonging to the noble strata disdained tending cattle and tilling the land, seeking instead soldiering or intellectual work.

A semi-noble stratum of the Tuareg people has been the endogamous religious clerics, the marabouts Tuareg: Ineslemen, a loan word that means Muslim in Arabic. After the adoption of Islam, they became integral to the Tuareg social structure. According to Norris 1976, this stratum of Muslim clerics has been a sacerdotal caste, which propagated Islam in North Africa and the Sahel between the 7th and the 17th centuries. Adherence to the faith was initially centered around this caste, but later spread to the wider Tuareg community. The marabouts have traditionally been the judges qadi and religious leaders imam of a Tuareg community.

According to the anthropologist Jeffrey Heath, Tuareg artisans belong to separate endogamous castes known as the Inhædˤæn Inadan. These have included the blacksmith, jewelers, wood workers and leather artisan castes. They produced and repaired the saddles, tools, household items and other items for the Tuareg community. In Niger and Mali, where the largest Tuareg populations are found, the artisan castes were attached as clients to a vintage of nobles or vassals, carried messages over distances for their patron family, and traditionally sacrificed animals during Islamic festivals.

These social strata, like caste systems found in many parts of West Africa, included singers, musicians and story tellers of the Tuareg, who kept their oral traditions. They are called Agguta by Tuareg, have been called upon to sing during ceremonies such(a) as weddings or funerals. The origins of the artisanal castes are unclear. One picture posits a Jewish derivation, a proposal that Prasse calls "a much vexed question". Their association with fire, iron and precious metals and their reputation for being cunning tradesmen has led others to treat them with a mix of admiration and distrust.

According to Rasmussen, the Tuareg castes are not only hierarchical, as each caste differs in mutual perception, food and eating behaviors. For example, she relates an version by a smith on why there is endogamy among Tuareg castes in Niger. The smith explained, "nobles are like rice, smiths are like millet, slaves are ike corn".