Do Sudanese Origins Lie in the South?

Mahgoub El-Tigani

A research project towards an African rooting of northern civilization

Do the Sudanese origin go back to the southern sources?

D. Mahjoub Al-Tijani

Introduction

Perhaps it is established that the population groups that established the ancient Sudanese civilization known archaeologically in the Nubia region, as confirmed by researchers and cultural anthropologists, have an ancient origin for the races that continued the path of life from those ancient times to the present times. As for archaeologists and social culture scholars, such as Professor William Adams in particular, they have become certain that the contemporary inhabitants of the same historical region have no doubt at all about their genealogical and cultural descent from those ancient groups, and that in addition to the tools of scientific comparison represented by the material monuments on the one hand, the linguistic evidence and emotional affiliations stand as living evidence of that connection, along with the evidence of evidence present in the chests of graves and the remains of edifices.

It is possible that the writer might be led into talking about the ideological and political dimensions of cultural rooting mentioned above. However, another topic, perhaps not far removed from the importance of the sociological analysis of these anthropological and archaeological facts, has been preoccupying my thoughts since I first became acquainted with the author of “Nubia: The Corridor of Africa,” which is what Adams created, since Adams did not stop long at the idea that there is an intimate relationship that has arisen since ancient times between the ancient Nubian civilization and its population groups on the one hand, and the population groups that lived in the south of the Nile Valley, beyond the rich savanna areas on the other hand. The extension of the swampy area and the tributaries of the Nile spread east, west and south to the source lakes.

Accordingly, the concern of this writer is focused on trying to think about the relationship of the ancient Nubian civilization and the many Sudanese cultures and civilizations that emerged from it, or the contributions of the people in the Beja region, North Kordofan, Darfur, and the Egyptian civilization in the northern valley from the angle of what seems to have received a sufficient share of research and analysis, namely the relationship of those civilizations, individually or collectively, with the southern population groups and their various cultures and civilizations.

The writer does not currently have enough references to explore the relationship under discussion. However, the intention of raising the idea with this exciting question, whether the origin of the Sudanese goes back to the southern sources, is to raise scientific hypotheses that are based on a sufficient amount of information, verify and scrutinize them, and then arrive at the results of the research. Accordingly, this paper presents a research project, inviting colleagues, led by Professor Osama Abdel-Rahman Elnur, to participate in the preparation and application. Perhaps their interesting participation will result in a complete research that the cultural and political necessity calls for to push it to the Sudanese Library in the strength and belief in the unity of the human race, the closeness of its cultural roots, and the cross-fertilization of its cultures across the continents, especially the mother continent of Africa.

A- African Nilotic Civilizations

The Nile is a purely African origin and stream, and it is quite appropriate that this great river, which has spread life and development since ancient times in the countries of its valley, and the countries of its mouth and sources that reach deep into the brown continent, be attributed to the African civilizations circulating around its banks, taking from its water and the greenness of its land. Therefore, it is necessary to talk about all the civilizations of the continent that emerged over time in the Nile valleys as Nile civilizations in relation to the ancient river, and with equal importance and importance. Who knows, perhaps the greatest monuments lying under sand dunes or forests and still an unknown secret are the missing evidence to prove the submerged Nile civilizations, and that the civilizations known to the world in the north of the valley and the areas of Nubia are only a small part of the unknown Nile civilizations. There are important facts that require evoking this hypothesis that awaits research and investigation. Africa and its African human being are the origin of the human race of all colors and what created its societies after its spread to other continents of the Earth starting from the mother continent (Karenga,1993). The continent is still superior to the rest of the world in its richness of diverse cultures, its many languages, its ancient religions, and its renewed humanity (Davidson,1970). The assumption that the Nilotic civilizations have a dominant and influential influence on African origins is not an exaggeration. Rather, it may be the elephant that the majority pretended to be blind to its comprehensive weight on Sudan, panting after its shadow that has fallen on the Arabs and Europeans since ancient times.

Africa, the Sudanese homeland

As soon as a thought focuses on the truth of the facts that lie in Sudan’s belonging, heart and soul, to Africa, with its ancient peoples and ancient civilizations, it is immediately ignited by serious matters that have a great impact on a number of national issues that are opposed by the claims of politicians, class divisions, and family grievances over the spread of the homeland, the mini-continent. At the forefront of these matters is that the complete assimilation of Sudan’s Africa as a deep foundation is still submerged under the rubble of cultural, social, political and economic rape alike due to ethnic discord and ignorant fanaticism regarding the merits of the political preferences of the ruling groups in the country’s capital.

Sudan's relations with its African people remained unknown and forbidden, and its politicians lost sight of the solid roots that linked them to the civilizations of Western Africa, and what drew them by blood and history to the Bantu civilizations emanating from the Nile lakes in the depths of the continent. The main features of the Sudanese buried in Baankhi (Biya) and Taharqa, the ancient kings and pharaohs of the Nile, are now overlooked by their descendants of its blatant Africanism, considering it an interrupted legacy. This is not how a civilized people deals with its formative origins. But it is the rejected need to expand scientific research in all its branches and methods to uncover the facts of one blood, one origin, and a common history, and to prepare the existing present to conjure the promising future of a unified Sudanese-African nation.

The cultural roots of Nordic civilizations

We say that they are multiple civilizations, known as the ancient Nubian civilization for its ancient monuments, and most of them may still be buried under the sand. However, the civilizations of the North, including Nubia, include perhaps a large number of the civilizations of the Sudanese peoples who lived in the same country: the Beja and what descended from them across the Nile to the east, west, north and south. The Blemmyes and Medjay, does a researcher limit their cultural presence to the Red Sea hills only? Wasn’t the mixing of immigrant Arabs with them the birth of dozens of population groups that spread throughout the length and breadth of the country? The origin of the Beja that struck east in the Horn of Africa is nothing but an African extension of the same African races that lived to the south, in response to a changing environment according to the rains, winds, and powerful Nile floods. Doesn’t a researcher assume that the Beja, Shilluk, Anuak, Dinka, and Nuer, with their Ethiopian roots, who reach across the Arabian Sea in Central Africa and south to the Masai in Kenya, are indigenous Africans? They were one people and were divided by interests and pursuits in the land, just as people are dispersed in this time? Perhaps the cultural roots of the civilizations of the North are in real need of a comparative study of the customs of those peoples and an exploration of what is similar to them and what is fading away. There is culture, more than physical appearances, colour, height and skull sizes. There is language, effects, and structure.

The cultural origins of southern cultures

Here is an assumption that is recurring and becomes increasingly pressing on the viewer’s mind: Was it all a civilization of the Bantu coming from the far south of the continent? What about the Nile that carries the Nubian boats and the pastures that carry the Beja and the Arabs? What do we say about the darkening and browning of the Nile and the characteristics of a single life throughout its evolving stages, hunting and gathering fruits before agriculture, harvesting crops, and domesticating animals - were they not all practiced on the largest scale by Sudanese African groups? How long has the people of Sudan passed without interaction and integration?

An era has passed in which schoolchildren studied history chapters separated and distinct: Nuba - Mahdia, after Turkish - Istiklal, and the Umma and Ittihadist parties. There is coming an era in which pupils, students, teachers, researchers, and politicians will study the classes of history, archeology, culture, sociology, and politics, united and intertwined. Prehistory, where research must explore Sudan's Africa as a single origin for everything that came after. Africa's Nilotic civilizations, including their unknown secrets. The cultural roots of the civilizations of the North and, equally, the cultural origins of the cultures of the South.

My dear friends, Professor Osama and Professor Ali Othman: Isn’t it time to detail these ideas and push them into research and programming? Maybe we do.

References

Adams, William1977, Nubia, Corridor to Africa, Allen Lane, London,

Davidson, Basil, Africa History: Themes and Outlines, Collier Books, New York

Karenga, M 1993, Introduction to Black Studies, The University of Sankore Press, Los Angeles.

Al-Aswany's text on Nubia and Beja