Art of being Tuareg: Sahara nomads in a modern world

African Arts, Autumn, 2006 by Thomas K. Seligman

The moment he saw her, He re-arranged his veil He stopped, forgetting the road, Until his friends became surprised.

They understood, of course And told him he must be patient ...

Before seeing her face, He saw her rings, her tizabatines, He saw her necklace of amulets. He was sick with love ...

--Wasslya Tamzali, Abzim: Parures et bijoux des femmes d'Algerie (Paris: Dessain et Tolra, 1984, p. 106.)

The majesty, stateliness, and beauty of the Tuareg people of the central Sahara, their large, white riding camels and shimmering indigo dress and veils, have fascinated travelers and scholars for centuries. Their ability to master the harsh and forbidding desert environment and to repel, control, or withstand outsiders, colonial powers, and modern governments has engendered an almost mythical quality in the Tuareg. This exhibition, co-curated by the author and Kristyne Loughran, and the accompanying book comprising ten essays by eight authors, presents the art of the Tuareg in metal, wood, leather, song, poetry, and personal presentation. It focuses on the inadan (artists/smiths) social grouping, who make many of the objects on display as well as play other very important roles in Tuareg culture, as organizers of weddings, healers, and ambassadors between different Tuareg groups. This is the first major exhibition in the United States of the historic works of art of the Tuareg as well as their more modern creations. It is also the first significant volume in English to explore the aesthetic dimensions of their lives, past and present. Works in the exhibition come from the collections of the Mus6e du Quai Branly in Paris, the Musee d'ethnographie in Neuchatel, the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, the UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and a private collection.

The first written descriptions of the Tuareg occur in early Arabic texts, including those by Ibn Hawkal in the tenth century, El Bekri in the eleventh century and, more extensively, Ibn Batutah and Ibn Khaldun in the fourteenth century and Leo Africanus in the sixteenth century. These travelers crossed the Sahara following well-established caravan routes, which had also facilitated the introduction of Islam into the region beginning in the seventh century. Islamic penetration intensified with the Hilalian invasion across North Africa of nomadic Bedouins from central Arabia in the eleventh century, which drove many pastoral nomads further south into the Sahara or beyond. The spread of Islam was pronounced throughout the Sahara and western Sudan and had considerable influence on the Tuareg as well.

In the nineteenth century, European explorers often employed the Tuareg as desert guides. Some of these visitors, notably Heinrich Barth and Henri Duveyrier, stayed among the Tuareg and wrote fascinating accounts of their experiences. During the rush to colonize Africa in the early twentieth century, European, and particularly French, interest in the region intensified. The French invaded Tuareg areas in Algeria and tried to dominate them, as well as the other nomadic peoples of the Sahara. The Tuareg managed to resist the French for two decades, often using their mastery of the desert environment to defeat their invaders. Although the French ultimately prevailed, their control of the Tuareg region was always tenuous, punctuated by numerous uprisings and rebellions. The French West African colonies gained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s, and today the independent nations of Algeria, Niger, and Mall are home to the largest concentration of Tuareg, estimated at close to one million.

The Tuareg are a loose confederation of groups of pastoral nomads, settled agriculturalists, and, today, city dwellers, who speak a Berber language that is known as Tamasheq in the northern region and Tamachek in the more populous southern region. They refer to themselves as Kel Tamasheq or Kel Tamachek (people who speak Tamasheq/Tamachek) and sometimes as Kel Tagulmust (men who wear the veil). The four main groups of Tuareg are the Ahaggar, Tassili-n-Ajjer, Adrar des Ifoghas, and Air. While there is considerable variation among these groups, social strata (often referred to as "castes" in the literature) exist within all of them, with powerful nobles (ihaggaren or imajeren) assuming leadership. Nobles are the descendants of the camel breeders who dominated the vassal groups of goat breeders known as imrad. Controlling the caravan trade routes, nobles undertook raids for camels and sometimes enslaved peoples to the south, who were then known as iklan. Other sub-Saharan peoples (izeggaren), who were settled agriculturists, gave part of their crops to the nobles in return for protection. Two other social groups had special relationships to the nobles, as well as to other Tuareg. The first was composed of Islamic teachers (inselemen), who achieved their status through training and religious practice. The second constituted artists or smiths, known as inadan (sg. enad), who form a major focus of "Art of the Tuareg" and its accompanying catalogue.