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Farmers, Herdsmen and the State in Rainland Sinnār

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Jay Spaulding
Jay Spaulding
Affiliation:
Keane College
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Extract

In earlier publications the present writer was at pains to emphasize that the state of Sinnār was not a mere confederation of nomadic Arab tribes; rather, it rested upon a firm agricultural base and was governed bureaucratically, while incorporating an ingeniously conceived system of nobility. This interpretation, though valid as far as it went, rested largely on evidence from riverain Sinnār and left little room for nomads. The present study, based primarily upon sources from the Sudanese rainlands, proposes that such a view of the place of herdsmen in the society of Sinnār is not well founded, and indeed that the habit of thought which perceives a sharp and enduring distinction between the peoples of ‘ the steppe and the sown’ – however appropriate in other contexts – does not pertain to Sinnār. The vision of rainland life which emerges from the sources here examined reveals a single society of herdsmen and cultivators, a society in perpetual metamorphosis within a framework of possibilities limited by ecology and custom. Ruling houses came and went; tribes grew, sundered and re-formed into new polities. Individuals and groups migrated freely, occasionally over vast distances, and changed their mode of livelihood whenever the opportunity for herding or the necessity for cultivating presented itself. All were subordinate to the state, whose continuity of authority in the long run overshadowed the more ephemeral corporate realities of the moment.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , July 1979 , pp. 329 - 347
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

1 O'Fahey, R. S. and Spaulding, J. L., Kingdoms of the Sudan (London, 1974), pp. 8–12Google Scholar. I am grateful to Drs Lidwien Kapteijns of the Department of History, University of Khartoum, who has shared research notes and advice, particularly concerning the Beja and Dār Fūr; the responsibility for the views expressed herein remains my own.

2 The Condominium government (1899–1955) provided for joint rule of the Sudan by Britain and Egypt; most of the Condominium documents employed in this study date from the approximate period 1900–30. References to unpublished material in the Central Records Office in Khartoum are indicated by the abbreviation C.R.O., followed by the name of the departmental division and the series, box and file numbers. If the author and title of a specific piece is known, this information will be given before the abbreviation C.R.O.; if it is not available, the title of the file will be given after the file number. Material obtained through the courtesy of the Keeper of Oriental Books at the University of Durham Library will be identified at first citation by (Durham), and that from the papers of the Rev. Dr A. J. Arkell (Box 1, File 1: White Nile), deposited in the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, by (Arkell Papers). I have not made use of the very extensive records from the Mahdist period (1881–99) on the grounds that the information pertinent to this study contained therein is probably not commensurate to the difficulty of its extraction. However, several scholars are presently examining the economic and social content of this literature, and their conclusions may compel a revaluation of its significance in this regard.

3 A more thorough discussion of the rainland environment and its uses may be found in Tothill, John D., Agriculture in the Sudan (London, 1948)Google Scholar and Barbour, K. M., The Republic of the Sudan: a Regional Geography (London, 1961).Google Scholar

4 In the case of Kordofan, for example, the light sandy soils (gōz) were highly prized, while the intervening zones of heavy soil (ţīn) could not be farmed profitably until the introduction of modern machinery.

5 For the latter, see Berry, L. and Graham, A. M. S., ‘Rock Pools (Gulut) and their importance as sources of water in the Central Sudan in past and present times’, Kush, xv (1967–1968), 299–307.Google Scholar

6 For an example from the Ja'aliyyīn country at the northern margin of the rainlands, see Crowfoot, J. W., The Island of Meroë (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of the Egypt Exploration Fund, Volume xix, 1911), 10Google Scholar. At Geteina in central Sinnār it was observed that ‘the majority of the inhabitants are semi-nomadic and live in tents; as they usually own [White Nile] riverland they reside on their rainlands during the season of cultivation only’ ([S. H. Ball], ‘Mr. Ball on Geteina Settlement Operations, 1910–1912’, [Durham] 4). Similar mobility was observed among the Amarna between Jabal Moya and Jabal Saqadī in the Gezira: ‘The same land is seldom cultivated two years in succession and, of course, the system, eminently suited to a half-nomad tribe […] the cultivator to follow the rains however local may be their fall’ (Osborne, F. P., ‘Memo. Sennar Province Land Settlement and the grant of Rainlands to the Sudan Plantations Syndicate, 9 March 1913’, [Durham] 7)Google Scholar. For the Ma'tūk region of the Gezira, see C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/5/28 ‘Arakiin’. For the area along the White Nile, and for eastern Kordofan, see the remarks of Maclaren, J. F. P. and Paul, A. in C.R.O. Blue Nile Province 1/28/206 ‘White Nile province Handbook 1934’Google Scholar. The list of similar practices could be greatly extended, but these examples may suffice to illustrate the issue at hand.

7 Owing perhaps to the difficulty in accommodating the nomadic way of life to modern conditions, it is the herdsmen of the rainlands who have received the most attention from anthropologists, whose writings portray vividly the workings of nomadic society. Of particular relevance are Cunnison, Ian, Baqqara Arabs (Oxford, 1966)Google Scholar, and Ahmad, Abd-al Ghaffar Muhammad, Shaykhs and Followers: Political Struggle in the Rufa'a al-Hoi Nazirate in the Sudan (Khartoum, 1974)Google Scholar; a work of similar merit concerning the camel nomads west of the Nile is Asad, Talal, The Kababish Arabs (London, 1970).Google Scholar

8 The respective attitudes of herdsmen and cultivators towards newcomers may be documented in the case of the Jima'a, a group who lived between the White Nile and the Nuba Mountains and who were obliged to abandon herding for cultivation during the Mahdia. Until the Jima'a adopted cultivation ‘the whole tribe had only one end in view, namely that the boundaries of the Dar [tribal territory] should not be trespassed upon by strangers and people settling in the neighbourhood; they considered it [their tribal territory] to be the property of the tribe’. After the Jima'a became farmers, however, their attitude toward newcomers changed; it came to pass that ‘their policy was that those who wished to cultivate, could cultivate wherever they would on land in the Dar and no one disputed it’ (‘Land in Dar Gimma [Karrar Mohammed Beshir], 1928–29’ [Arkell Papers], Folio 94).

9 Ball, , ‘Geteina’, 9.Google Scholar

10 A precise definition of a ‘tribe’ in the context of Sinnār is: that group of people to whom the Sultan, directly or through his subordinates, according to customary law, delegated the right to exploit the agricultural resources of a specific area of land. While the inhabitants of a dār at any given moment might preserve memories of their diverse respective origins, in the course of time they would tend to regard themselves as a single social unit appertaining to their geographical territory. An example of this process from the post-Funj period is afforded by the Musallimīya ‘tribe’ who formed in the lower Blue Nile district of the same name: C.R.O. Civil Secretary 57/33/126 ‘Rough Draft of the Blue Nile Handbook’. Some useful comments on the dā as a legal entity and its relation to the tribe may be found in Mohd, SaeedMahdi, Ahmed El, ‘Some General Principles of Acquisition of Ownership of and Rights over Land by Customary Prescription in the Sudan’, Journal of African Law, xxii, 2 (1976), 96.Google Scholar

11 Dār Dongola, Dār al-Shāīqīya and Dar Ja'al; see O'Fahey, and Spaulding, , Kingdoms of the Sudan, 28–9.Google Scholar

12 Al-Takā is mentioned in the account of the medieval Mamluk emissary 'Alm al-Dīn Sanjar. Other southern areas or groups with early documentation include Fāzūghlī (sixteenth century), Taqalī, the Nuba and the Shilluk (seventeenth century); for various reasons too complicated to discuss here it is doubtful that any of them were representative of the rainland society with which this essay is concerned.

13 In further support of this contention one may note the demonstrable antiquity of some (not all) of the rain-cisterns upon which some (not all) of the rainland farmers and herdsmen depended; see note 5.

14 Taken as representative of the genre are MacMichael, H. A., A History of the Arabs in the Sudan (Cambridge, 1922)Google Scholar, and al-Fahl al-Fikī al-Tāhir, ta'rīkh wa'l-uşūl al-'Arab bi'l-Sūdān (Khartoum, 1976).

15 ‘Note of Turkish Invasion of Sudan’, C.R.O. Intelligence 5/1/6.

16 Another mistake, no less foolish for being my own, would be to construct a model of society in Sinnār from which the nomads were excluded; with apologies, see O'Fahey, and Spaulding, , Kingdoms of the Sudan, 52.Google Scholar

17 Holy, Ladislav, Neighbours and Kinsmen: a Study of the Berti People of Darfur (New York, 1974).Google Scholar

18 Robertson, J. W., C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/8/54 ‘Hamar’.Google Scholar

19 See above, note 8.

20 Ahmed, Abdel Ghaffar M., ‘Nomadic competition in the Fung area’, Sudan Notes and Records, liv (1973), 45.Google Scholar

21 For example, this sentiment was consciously expressed by cultivators among the Hamar and Dār Hāmid, who assured the British officials responsible for them in 1907 that with the return of prosperity after the troubles of the late Mahdia, they would soon become herdsmen. MacMichael, H. A., ‘Report on a Tour of Inspection in Bara District, October 20 to November 25, 1907’, Sudan Intelligence Report, No. 162, January 1908.Google Scholar

22 Haaland, Gunnar, ‘Economic Determinants in Ethnic Processes’, in Barth, Fredrik (ed.), Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Oslo, 1969)Google Scholar, and ‘Nomadization as an Economic Career among the Sedentaries in the Sudan Savannah Belt’, in Cunnison, I. and James, W. (eds.), Essays in Sudan Ethnography (London, 1972).Google Scholar

23 For the case of holy men, see Spaulding, Jay, ‘The evolution of the Islamic judiciary in Sinnar’, International Journal of African Historical Studies, x, 3 (1977), 408–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 This provisional nomenclature is necessary to avoid anticipating the argument that the nāzir was previously called by a Funj title such as mānjil or manfona.

25 O'Fahey, and Spaulding, , Kingdoms of the Sudan, 39.Google Scholar

26 Ibrāhīm, MuhammadSalīm, Abū, al-Fūnj wa'l-ard: wathā'iq tamlīk (Khartoum, 1967), Document 28.Google Scholar

27 Krump, Theodoro, Hoher und Fruchtbarer Palm-Baum des Heiligen Evangelij (Augsburg, 1710), 245.Google Scholar

28 ‘Report on Land Tenure by Mr. Munro’ (Durham), 5.Google Scholar

29 ‘Land Tenure, White Nile Province, 1919, 1927’ (Arkell Papers), folios 91–3 (eastern Kordofan).Google Scholar

30 In the arch-conservative Blue Nile district of Singa, an observer could report as late as 1909: ‘It is possibly owing to the fact that here one is so close to Sennar, the seat of the Fung government, that the idea that no title to land is really valid unless it is derived from the Sultans is so prevalent, and has such weight. I do not mean necessarily derived directly, but if not directly at least from someone whose title was recognized by them’ (Matthew, J. C., ‘Report on Land Customs and Tenure in Singa District…23 March 1909’ [Durham], 2).Google Scholar

31 For contemporary examples from northern Sinnār, see Hoskins, George A., Travels in Ethiopia (London, 1835), p. 89Google Scholar (Dār al-Shāīqīya) and (Muhammad Ibrāhīm Abū Salīm, editor), sādat al-Majādhīb, 3 volumes, no dates, no pagination; scattered references to the ‘estate of the king’ (dār al-malik), i.e. the king of Shandī in eighteenth-century Dār Ja'al. Some examples based on later evidence include Matthew, ‘Report’, 9–10 (Blue Nile), Munro, , ‘Report’, 5–6 (southern Butāna)Google Scholar, Dupuis, C. G., ‘Report on Proposed Settlement of Sennar Markez Land in 1912–1913’ (Durham)Google Scholar, no pagination (central Gezira), ‘Land Tenure, White Nile Province’, folio 93 and ‘Note on Land in Dar Muharrib (Karrar Mohammed Beshir), 1928–29’ (Arkell Papers), folios 111–12 (eastern Kordofan) and Awad, Muhammad Hashim, ‘The evolution of landownership in the Sudan’, Middle East Journal, xxv, 2 (1971), 220 (general).Google Scholar

32 Matthew, , ‘Report’, 41.Google Scholar

33 Munro, , ‘Report’, 5–6Google Scholar; ‘Notes by Nickerson Bey on Land Tenure and Settlement’, C.R.O. Civil Secretary 38/C/4.

34 Munro, , ‘Report’, 7–8Google Scholar (Blue Nile); Osborne, , ‘Memo’Google Scholar, no pagination (Gezira); ‘Note on Land in Dar Muharrib’, folio 114 (eastern Kordofan).

35 In eastern Kordofan, for example, foreign herdsmen were obliged to pay a charge called diyāfa for grazing privileges and 'awā'id for watering rights (‘Land Tenure, White Nile Province’, folio 92 and ‘Land in Dar Gimma’, folio 98).

36 Matthew, , ‘Report’, 43Google Scholar (Blue Nile); Munro, , ‘Report’, 8Google Scholar (southern Butāna).

37 ‘He looked around for a suitable man to found a village on his land, made him sheikh of the village and his representative in the collection of rent and general management of the property’ (Hall, E. G. S., ‘Notes on Land Tenure’ [Durham], no paginationGoogle Scholar).

38 ‘Foreigners had to get the Nazir's permission to cultivate. If he gave it, he would ask them which sheikh they wanted to cultivate with and send them to him… They did not have to pay anything before obtaining permission to cultivate’ (‘Land tenure, White Nile Province’, folio 92).

39 By the early years of the Condominium, Islamic concepts of private property had prevailed in the northern irrigated districts and in towns throughout the Sudan; in the rural rainlands various communal forms of tenure – as understood by the British – were retained. (For a statement of general principles, see Tothill, , Agriculture in the Sudan, chapter 1Google Scholar; for occasionally hilarious attempts to apply them, see ‘Notes by Nickerson Bey’, C.R.O. Civil Secretary 38/C/4, and ‘Land Registration in relation to tribal ownership of lands – Land Registration Committee 1929’, C.R.O. Civil Secretary 38/1/2.) Perhaps the clearest expression of policy was in Kordofan, where ‘the village lands are recognized, though not registered, as belonging…to the village in common without specific portions being appropriated to specific individuals’ (Anonymous, ‘Note on “Individual Rights in Tribal Lands”, 11 August 1930’). Even in the central Gezira, more heavily influenced by Islamic concepts of property, ‘In the majority of villages, though there may be disputes between individuals, tribes or families as to the ownership of the land, each separate claim is for the village land as a whole and there is no question of cutting up the land into small portions of a few feddans each’ (Dupuis, ‘Report’, no pagination). I feel that while there might be considerable debate as to the justification for some of the larger corporate entities recognized as landholding tribes, there need be little controversy on the village level.

40 ‘There are no permanent boundaries or accurate division between the one Khashm El Beit and the other within the tribe… The possession of land by a Khashm Beit depended upon its energy in clearing the land and its numbers’ (‘Note on land in Dar Muharrib’, folio 112).

41 Ibid., folio 114.

42 Ibid., folio 112. One practice that may illuminate how such decisions were reached was described as follows: ‘If two village cultivators have patches a little distance away from each other, and each wants to cultivate the intervening space, they will agree that one of them shall “throw the axe” to settle boundaries of this “haram”. He then throws an axe between his legs backwards standing on the edge of his own plot, and where it falls is the extent of his “haram”, i.e. gives the amount of the intervening space he is entitled to’ (Matthew, , ‘Report’, 40Google Scholar).

43 It would seem that in Sinnār there were official surveyors entitled al-muhāss. This title is mentioned in a rainland context by the Funj Chronicle (al-Shātir Busaylī 'Abd al-Jalīl, makhtūtat kātib al-shūna fī ta'rīkh al-sultāna al-sinnārīya wa'l-idāra al-misrīya [Cairo, 1961], 77), while a detailed example of the type of work the muhāss performed may be found among the land-survey documents from the largely irrigated northlands photocopied in Abū Salīm, sādat al-Majādhīb, volume 1.

44 ‘Land in Dar Gimma’, folio 97.

45 ‘Note on Land in Dar Muharrib’, folio 113.

46 This interesting but complex system of obligations would well repay detailed study. Frequent but gnomic references appear in the documents from Sinnār; while both mention of the names of these obligations and interpretations of their significance may be found in later sources, these latter are often unclear and apparently self-contradictory. For contemporary references see Abū Salīm, sādat al-Majādhīb and al-Fūnj wa'l-ard, and Holt, P. M., ‘Four Funj Land-Charters’, Sudan Notes and Records, l (1969), 2–14Google Scholar. Most of the Condominium documents cited contain some reference to these obligations, while some published sources that offer interpretations include: Dr Abü Salīm's introduction to al-Fūnj wa'l-ard (31–3); 'Awn al-Sharīf Qāsim, qāmūs al-lahja al-'āmīya fi'l-Sūdān (Khartoum, 1973); Awad, Muhammad Hashim, ‘Evolution of Land Tenure’, 220Google Scholar; Matthew, J. M., ‘Land customs and tenure in Singa district’, Sudan Notes and Records, iv, 1 (1921), 11–12Google Scholar; Paul, A., ‘Some Aspects of the Funj Sultanate’, Sudan Notes and Records, xxxv, 2 (1954), 23Google Scholar; Tame, G. B., ‘Legends of the Halawin tribe of Blue Nile province’, Sudan Notes and Records, xvii, 2 (1934), 201–16Google Scholar. Many additional references may be found in the documents in the author's private collection, and Janet Ewald has made substantial progress in understanding the obligations as they appear in her newly discovered documents of Taqalī. Both these collections have been made public by donation of a copy to the C.R.O., but at the time of this writing remain uncatalogued.

47 This right was termed dā'iman mazrū'āt. ‘In the Daiman mazrouat the evidence of landlords and cultivators agrees that there exists a species of tenant right. This however could never merge into a proprietary right however long the occupancy. They all state that provided a cultivator paid to his landlord all the required dues each year, the landlord had no right whatever to evict him. Whatever quarrel happened between them any attempt by the landlord to oust the cultivator would have been an act of injustice. Each successive government would have upheld the cultivator's complaint and ensured his retention of the land. In theory there is no doubt that such a tenant right existed, though probably it was not always enforced in practice. The right was continuous; if the owner of the land died, his successor had no right to evict the cultivator who regularly paid his dues. If the actual piece of land cultivated under the right of Daiman Mazrouat became tired, the cultivator had the right of cultivating a similar area of equal size on some other part of the owner's land’ (Munro, , ‘Report’, 15).Google Scholar

48 ‘Land tenure, White Nile province’, folio 92; ‘Land in Dar Gimma’, folios 98–9; Matthew, , ‘Report’, 19.Google Scholar

49 ‘Land in Dar Gimma’ folios 97–8.

50 Early twentieth-century sources differ as to who received the dugundi. The passage cited above seems to imply that whoever performed the labour of clearing the land for cultivation would be the beneficiary; however, other sources explicitly state that the payment went to the tribal government ‘as a reward or perquisite of the authority for looking after the tribe's interest’ (‘Note on “Individual Rights”’ – Kordofan). For the Butāna and Gezira, this latter practice is confirmed by Matthew (‘Report’, 17, 19) and Hall (‘Notes on Land Tenure’). For the White Nile, see Lyall, C. E., ‘Report on the rights and customs prevailing among the Arab tribes (White Nile)’, Sudan Intelligence Report, no. 165 (April 1908)Google Scholar, Appendix B.

51 Paul, A., Governor of White Nile Province, to the Registrar-General of Lands, 5 June 1927Google Scholar; C.R.O. Civil Secretary 38/1/2.

52 Bruce, James, Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh, 1805), vi, 390.Google Scholar

53 Hillelson, S., ‘David Reubeni, an early visitor to Sennar’, Sudan Notes and Records, xvi (1935), 57Google Scholar. The sultans themselves preserved this pattern as late as the reign of Rubāt I (died 1054/1644–5) before settling in the town of Sinnār. (Sainte-Marie, Jean de, Les estranges evenemens du voyage de Zaga-Christ d'Ethiopie [Paris, 1635], 13).Google Scholar

54 Matthew, (‘Report’, 7)Google Scholar gave the following revealing anecdote concerning the incumbent chief of the Rufā'a al-Sharq in 1909: ‘I have heard Sheikh El-Agab Abu Gin, when galloping at the head of some nomad horsemen, shouting “I am El-Agab Mangil”, thus using the same formula employed by his ancestors at the Court at Sennar: and I have also frequently heard him addressed by natives on the Dinder and Rahad as “Mangil”, and know that it is the common way of speaking to him. I only mention this to show how deeply rooted in the minds of the people are these ideas of hereditary chiefs.’

55 For the example of the Shukrīya, see Hillelson, S., ‘Historical poems and traditions of the Shukria’, Sudan Notes and Records, iii, 2 (1920), 33–75Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Gunnar Sørbø of the Institute of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen, Norway, who has most graciously shared material from his unpublished collection of Shukrīya oral literature.

56 Shuqayr, Na'ūm, ‘The Abdullab Sheikhship’, C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/4/24.Google Scholar

57 Some prominent examples of the central government's intervention in the affairs of rainland nomads by the timely dispatch of slave soldiers may be found in C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/6/35 ‘Shukria’ and C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/3/17 ‘Batahin’. When Mūsā Abū Jinn was invested as mānjil of the Rufā'a al-Sharq, he received all the intangibles plus ‘150 picked men from the Mek's [sultan's] own bodyguard’ (Munro, , ‘Report’, 4–5).Google Scholar

58 Hill, Richard, A Biographical Dictionary of the Sudan, 2nd ed. (London, 1967), 336Google Scholar; Hillelson, S., Sudan Arabic Texts (Cambridge, 1935), 28–35Google Scholar. Bruce, James (Travels, vi, 390)Google Scholar alluded to this practice in the western rainlands by noting that ‘it must be a relation of the Mek of Sennaar that commands at El-aice’.

59 Longe, J., ‘A Note on the Shukria’, C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/6/35.Google Scholar

60 The rulers of the Jima'a, for example, left the Nile valley and served for several generations under various sultans of Wadai and Dār Fūr before returning to settle between the White Nile and the Nuba Mountains (‘Historical Note on the Gima' tribe by Kerrar Mohammed Beshir’ [Arkell Papers], folios 1–44 [in Arabic]). A better-documented case is that of the Musabba'āt, a homeless elite of Fūr-speaking knights-errant who figured prominently in the eighteenth-century history of Sinnār, Kordofan and Dār Fūr; see O'Fahey, and Spaulding, , Kingdoms of the Sudan, 90Google Scholar, 93, 97–100 and O'Fahey, R. S. and Spaulding, J. L., ‘Hāshim and the Musabba'āt’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, xxxv, 2 (1972), 316–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

61 Salāh Muhyī al-Dīn, ‘makhtūta ta'rīkhīya 'an mulūk al-'Abdallāb’, al-Khartūm (December, 1967), 58.

62 For the political relations between lord and overlord in northern Sinnār before the Hamaj coup, see O'Fahey and Spaulding, Kingdoms of the Sudan, chapter four. Thereafter the situation grew confused: ‘All the Meks and rulers from Sennar as far north as Haifa [sic] were feudatory to the Fungs and appointed by the Abdellab…The activities of the Wad Agib and Abu Likeilik families in appointing and deposing Meks were so great and varied in policy that prudent Meks allied themselves in marriage with both of them. They also gave a daughter to one or both of them and if possible endeavoured to intermarry with the Fung sultan’ (‘Note of Turkish Invasion of Sudan’, C.R.O. Intelligence 5/1/6).

63 Hartmann, Robert, Die Nilländer (Prag, 1884), 64, 88.Google Scholar

64 Crawford, O. G. S., The Fung Kingdom of Sennar (Gloucester, 1951).Google Scholar

65 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/11/77.

66 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/11/78.

67 Awhāj, Muhammad Adarūb, min turāth al-Bajā al-sha'bī (Khartoum, 1975).Google Scholar

68 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/11/79.

69 Hartmann, , Die Nilländer, 81.Google Scholar

70 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/11/77.

71 For Gubba, see Garretson, Peter P., ‘Mānjil Ḥamdān Abū Shōk (1898–1938)Google Scholar and the administration of Gubba’, an unpublished paper presented to the fifth Congrès International des Études Éthiopiennes, Nice, France, 19–22, December 1977. For the area west of the Blue Nile, see the author's forthcoming article, ‘Vampires of the borderlands: the rise of the Watāwīt Sultanates of Betà Shangul’.

72 Matthew, , ‘Report’, 6Google Scholar; ‘The Story of the Kamatir’, C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/16/103; C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/4/23 ‘Hamada-Rufa'a’.

73 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/6/38 ‘Shenabla’.

74 Munro, , ‘Report’, 2Google Scholar, and Corbyn, E. N., ‘Report on Land Tenure’, C.R.O. Civil Secretary 38/C/4.Google Scholar

75 Even in the twentieth century some branches of the tribe asserted the primacy of descent through the female line; Jackson, H. C., Notes on the Yacubabi Tribes of Sennar (Khartoum, 1912), 2Google Scholar, and appended genealogical chart.

76 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/8/57 ‘Hassania-Hissinat’.

77 C.R.O. Blue Nile Province 1/28/206 ‘White Nile Province Handbook’.

78 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/4/21 ‘Bedayrieh’.

79 C.R.O. Blue Nile Province 1/28/206 ‘White Nile Province Handbook’.

80 ‘Historical Note on the Gima' tribe’, folios 1–25.

81 M(ansfield) Parkyns, ‘Notes on Tegalla, the Noubas, Dowleeb etc.’, Sudan Collection, University of Khartoum Library, Case 8, manuscript KOPB Parkyns.

82 C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/3/6 ‘Dar Muharib’.

83 Jackson, H. W., ‘Report on Lower Kordofan Route, 1898’, C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/12/80 ‘Shilluk’.Google Scholar

84 Bruce, , Travels, vi, 279–339.Google Scholar

85 Salīm, Abū, al-Fūnj wa'l-ard, documents 21, 29.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., documents 11, 22.

87 Ibid., documents 24, 26; C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/4/23 ‘Hamada-Rufa'a’.

88 Ibid., document 3; C.R.O. Dakhlia 112/5/31 ‘Halowin’.

89 Mengin, Félix, Histoire de l'Ègypte sous le Gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly (Paris, 1823), 11, 225.Google Scholar

90 al-Shātir Busaylī al-Jalīl, 'Abd, ma'ālim ta'rīkh sūdān wādī al-nīl (Cairo, 1955), 261Google Scholar (facsimile) and 262 (printed text).

91 In the discussion which follows, ‘taxes’ are understood to mean only the major rates on grain and livestock, and not the multifarious dues mentioned in note 46. During the eighteenth century some rainland tribes evolved an elaborate scale of voluntary payments to holy men: ‘these religious taxes, however, do not appear to have been enforced by any regulation other than custom, the payment of them being in fact left to the conscience of the individual, whose reputation and influence with his fellows would depend on whether he paid his customary dues in full or not’ (Lyall, C. E., ‘Report on the rights and customs prevailing among the Arab tribes’, Sudan Intelligence Report, no. 165 [April 1908], Appendix B).Google Scholar

92 Mengin, , Histoire, 11, 225Google Scholar. A more sophisticated method of calculation for the shūna rates prevailed in parts of the rainlands: ‘in other tribes the amount paid to the Nazir was in inverse proportion to the number of individuals working on the land belonging to any member of the tribe. For instance, a landowner having 10 or fewer labourers on his land paid ushur to the Nazir, never more; if, however, he had more than ten, the crop would be divided into equal shares numbering one more than the number of workers, and the Nazir would be entitled to the extra share, e.g. a man who had 20 labourers would divide his crop into 21 equal shares and the Nazir would take one share…’ (Lyall, , ‘Report’, Sudan Intelligence Report, no. 165, Appendix BGoogle Scholar).

93 ‘Land in Dar Gimma’, folio 103.

94 Hoskins, , Travels, 207.Google Scholar

95 A similar system prevailed in Dār Fūr, where an observer noted: ‘to supply the troops with food, Ali Dinar [the sultan] has collected large stores of grain in Fasher, and in the different villages of Darfur, where it is kept in “shunas” (stores) in charge of “shertais” (agents)’. C.R.O. Darfur 1/33/169 ‘Events in Darfur 1890–1912’.

96 ‘The remainder was put at the disposal of the Nazir to be spent on relief purposes when necessary…especially in times when the rains were poor and when there was general distress…there should be found reserves in the villages of the previous year's Zaka [tax] which would greatly alleviate the distress’ (‘Land in Dar Gimma’, folios 102–3). Or again, ‘In the time of starvation the Sheikh [would] distribute some of the dura stored to the people’ (El Fatih El Houssein El Hassan, ‘The Fung and Mehadyia at Abu Haraze site’, B.A. Honours Dissertation, Department of Archaeology, University of Khartoum [1977–8], 62).

97 Bruce, , Travels, vi, 358.Google Scholar

98 Krump, , Palm-Baum, 286–9.Google Scholar

99 Bruce, , Travels, vi, 352–6.Google Scholar

100 Ibid., 358.

101 Beccari, C., Rerum Aethiopicarum Scriptores Occidentales Inediti (Rome, 1905–1917), xiv, 60–6.Google Scholar

102 Bruce, , Travels, vi, 357.Google Scholar

103 Ibid.

104 Krump, , Palm-Baum, 245.Google Scholar

105 Bruce, , Travels, vi, 358.Google Scholar

106 ‘Note on the tribute system of Dar Gimma and Dar Muharrib at the Turkish reign (Kerrar Mohd. Beshir) 1928’ (Arkell Papers), folios 81–4; ‘al-jizya bi-dār al-Jima' sābiqan, Arabic 1928’ (Arkell Papers), folios 85–6.

107 The institution of the ‘four highest nobles’ also prevailed at the sultan's court, but it is not certain that these were termed ohad (Krump, , Palm-Baum, 281).Google Scholar

108 ‘One of the factors that encouraged the Sheikhs to collect the tribute and not to leave arrears…was that when the Sheikh paid his first instalment of tribute to [the early nineteenth-century mānjil] Asakir, the latter [re]warded the sheikh with clothing for himself, his wife and children and paid him some money in case the Sheikh was not a wealthy person. These [re]wards were made proportional to the amount of money collected by the Sheikh. The cost of clothing etc. [was] to be levied on the Khashm El Beit and [was] collected from it as part of the tribute’ (‘Tribute System of Dar Gimma and Dar Muharrib’, folio 83).

109 This situation was viewed as ‘a shameful thing to the Sheikh and his Khashm Beit who had to make all efforts to pay what was due from the tribute at the earliest time in order to release the pledge’ (ibid.).

110 Ibid.

111 The foregoing discussion is summarized from ‘Tribute System of Dar Gimma and Dar Muharrib’ and ‘al-jizya bi-dār al-Jima' sābiqan’, folios 81–4 and 85–6 respectively.