The Nuba in Sudan...and what do you know about their role in the regional and international framework?
D. Omar Mustafa Sharkian
The Nuba Mountains... Ethnicities and Languages
The interaction of events in recent years regarding the Nuba Question, which cast a heavy shadow over the problem of the bloody conflict in Sudan, has placed it at the center of local, regional and international events. Like any indigenous people, the Nuba possessed an ancient human civilization, and they played a pioneering role in the wide regional scope that surrounded them on the wrist, by virtue of their geographical expansion to the Mediterranean Sea and their commercial and political contact with neighboring nations. However, they were keen on the things that distinguished them from others, and thus they protected their cultural entity, but only for a while. When the horrors and afflictions became severe, they spread across the vast land of Sudan, and were dispersed by the hands of Sheba. (1) Then they contributed - any contribution - to activating the modern history of East Africa, and they crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico to fight the Gentile wars.
In Sudan, the Nuba settled in the Nuba Mountains, defending their homes so that the people would not think that they had been weakened and lost. They were not wood that would split or a stick that would break, and they endured life with some patience and fortitude, worthy of both pity and admiration. Through this study, we attempt to unveil and shed light on the roots, history and secrets of the Nuba issue, and its repercussions on the security and stability of Sudan. Although the Nuba fought fierce wars in the mountains and all the military sites where the Sudan People's Liberation Army fought valiantly - including South Sudan - the Western media often reduces the Sudanese problem to a north-south conflict. The goal of the ruling regimes in Khartoum was - and still is - to confine this national issue to a narrow regional framework that would only accommodate the resumption of the Addis Ababa Agreement in 1972 AD, or to add to it a little. Thus, the rights of the residents of other marginalized areas who took up arms like the people of the South and fought with them in any way were lost, and did not change anything. But first of all, who are the Nuba?
The word "Nuba" is used to describe the Negroes living in the geographical area currently known - and previously - as the Nuba Mountains in the south-eastern sector of the Kordofan region of the Republic of Sudan. If we examine the geography and topography of the Nuba Mountains region, we find that it includes the following facts: The area of the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan is about 30,000 square miles, and is located between latitudes 29 - 31 degrees west and longitudes 9 - 13 degrees north. Also, there is no Nuba population census that can be relied upon due to the political circumstances that the country and its people are going through. It is bordered to the north by North Kordofan State, to the east by White Nile State, which includes areas belonging to the Nuba Mountains, to the southeast by North Upper Nile State, to the southwest by Unity State, and to the west by West Kordofan State, which also includes areas originally belonging to the Nuba Mountains.
The word "Nubians" is used to describe the people of northern Sudan to southern Aswan in Egypt, who still maintain their ancient customs and traditions despite the harshness of history and geography on them. Historians have gone through various schools of thought in defining the word "Nuba", and have adopted ancient methods for doing so. Some of them said that the word is derived from the word "Nub", which means gold in the ancient Pharaonic language, and we know the country of Nubia's fame for gold during the Pharaonic times, as this region was the only one that fed Egypt with these huge quantities of gold. There is still a family in the city of Dilling bearing the name “Sarnoub,” meaning the bracelet of gold, as the Nubians of the north translated it. Some of them said that the word came down to us through the Coptic word (Anoubaor Anobades), which means braided, and in this case the meaning of (nouba) is the one with braided or curly hair. (2) Procopius says that the Roman Emperor Diocletian (in the period between 284-305 AD) invited “Nobatae” from the western deserts (the Kharijah) and settled them in the Nile Valley, so that They stop the Blemmyes and Nubian raids on Upper Egypt, south of Aswan. However, there is an opinion that the word "Nopata" is derived from the capital Napata. We tend to speculate that the word may have been derived from the word (Nubile), which in English means a girl of marriageable age, and it is known that the Greeks used Nubian women as slaves in homes after captivity and slavery. Whatever the case, the Arabs came and gave them the name “Nuba,” just as they gave the name “Al-Maris” (Nobatia) to the Nubia region between Aswan and Dongola. (3)
Whatever these derivatives are correct, what is indisputable is that the land of the Nubians in northern Sudan was rich in mineral resources of gold, iron, emeralds, copper, and others. The Nubians are a people who descended from civilizations. Their land exudes the fragrance of history, and the inscriptions speak of civilizations that were prevalent and then disappeared as a result of the calamities that afflicted their world in ancient times. Slaves were used in mining mines and other hard work that history books always talk about. As a result of forced labor and the slave trade, large groups of Nubians migrated from northern Sudan towards the various regions of Sudan, including the Nuba Mountains. God gave them shelter on earth, and they “carved safe houses out of the mountains” (Al-Hijr 15/82). However, the largest mass migration that occurred among the shepherds of the Meroe Kingdom in northern Sudan was in the third century AD (325 AD) after the fierce war and the terrible defeat inflicted by King Ezana - king of the Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum. In a wonderful review of history, Ezana recorded his victories in a preserved tablet that was later found by researchers. Ezana recorded in his records that the Nuba, who were hostile to him, were of two types: reds and blacks. Most of his battles with his Nubian enemies took place around the Takizi River (currently Atbara).
As for the second migration, historical accounts say that it began after the fall of the Kingdom of Alwa and the destruction that followed the collapse. Perhaps Abdullah Jamaa led the gathering of Arabs around Khartoum and staged a coup against the authority of the kingdom, which had always provided them with security and tranquility, and allowed them to practice their Islamic rituals even though Christianity was the official religion of the kingdom. The roads were crowded with crowds of people fleeing from Soba, the capital of their kingdom, which had become scattered in vain, as they were not comfortable staying in Arbaji (Arabs of Beji) - meaning the Arabs were coming, and they headed towards the west and their paths separated. Archaeologists have found traces of this kingdom, which disappeared, in the areas of Mount Muya between Sennar and Kosti, which means that the kingdom’s influence extended to this region or that these traces were left behind by fleeing people.
However, some historians attribute the presence of Nuba in these mountains to ancient times. It is sufficient for us to mention - in this study - that the Greek historian Herodotus spoke about the fugitive (fugitive) soldiers and he called them “Asham”, which in Greek means those who stand to the left of the king. These soldiers, who numbered 240,000 people, fled and settled in Ethiopia (now Sudan). All attempts made to return them to their homeland, their wives and their children were unsuccessful. In the midst of these hopeless attempts, one of them pointed to his reproductive organs and said: “As long as I have these, I will have wives and children wherever I go.” (4) These are the migrations that have an organic relationship to the presence of the Nuba in the mountain region and other groups in North Darfur, namely the Medob and Barqad, and others who settled in North Kordofan in what are known as the Sea Mountains, before the Arabs and Islam entered Sudan. What are those mountains? What happened to the Nuba in these lands?
These seamounts include Jabal Harraza, Abu Hadid, Umm Durraq, Kaja (Kaga Al-Suruq, Kaja Al-Hafra, Kaja Sudari), Katul, Abu Tubar, Al-Adiya, Al-Afarit, and Al-Atshan. This human group belongs to the Anag tribe. Popular history in Mount Harraza says that the people of Abu Kanaan, who are related to the Anj, lived in their homes during the era of the messengers who preceded the sending of the Messenger, our Master Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace - that is, before the emergence of Islam. They were very wealthy and perished in their homes due to poverty. (5) Until the year 1857 AD, the citizens of Mount Harraza spoke their languages. “Nubawiyya.” The language of Mount Harraza, taking into account the geographical situation, represents the missing link between the Berber languages of the Nile River, Barqad, Medub, and related tongues in North and North-Central Darfur. It is also known that the Barqad was the dominant race in the Kaja Mountains in North Kordofan during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries AD, and their descendants in Darfur mention that they only have lineage with the Medob, and their language is closely related to the languages of the barbarians in northern Sudan. (6) In the year 1911 AD, Daoud Jabara bin Suleiman wrote a historical draft in which he stated that Jabal Abdul Hadi, which Located between Dongola and Kordofan, it was the ancient capital of the Kingdom of Nubia, and the kingdom annexed, among other things, the Nubians on the Nile River.(7) Whatever the case, the draft became a rich subject for discussion for McMichael, who wrote a history of the Arabs in Sudan. Some also said that the city of Bara is the second capital of Nubia after Dongola. Perhaps finding inscriptions north of the Abonjila Mountains in North Kordofan confirms what Daoud said. The inscriptions included, among other things, animal drawings, two crosses from the Orthodox Church, and a manuscript written in the Nubian language, which was translated as follows: “I am Anina of Kush when Aaron was king.” It seems that the sculptor of these inscriptions was educated, proud, and then proud of his kingdom of Meroe and its king Aaron, who may have taken this region as a refuge when his kingdom collapsed in the face of King Ezana. The ethnic mixing in Mount Harraza dates back to the early eighteenth century AD, when a group of Al-Rikabiyya migrated from Mandera in the Blue Nile and settled in the region, after they unjustly expelled its people from their homes and intermarried with each other. Then the second regiment of Al-Rikabiya, which numbered more than 70 people, came to Mount Haraza after the battles that took place between them and Al-Shaiqiya in the Blue Nile, which ended with a terrible defeat for Al-Rikabiya.
The word Anj was used to refer to the inhabitants of the ancient Kingdom of Alwa (before the Arabs entered Sudan), the inhabitants of Marwa Island, and the inhabitants of the mountains located in northern Kordofan, and Anj means ruler. This word is also used in Sudanese genealogy papers as a synonym for the word Nuba. It appears, then, that the Anj were from Nuba and were independent from their first origin. (8) Whatever the case, the mountains of Kaja and Katul witnessed the delegations of many strangers. We mention, for example, the Kanjara, the Barqad, and the Kirubat from the Darfur side, and the Bediyat from central Kordofan, and they settled and intermarried with the indigenous citizens at different stages of history. Al-Badiriya came to this region in the middle of the eighteenth century AD, after which Hashim Al-Masbaawi (referring to the Kingdom of Al-Sabaa’a) attacked the Kutul, cut off their supply routes, killed their families, and sold some of them in the slave market. Then he went to Mount Kaja and drilled a number of wells in the rocks of Sudri and other nearby mountains, namely Fuga, Mazroub, Katul, Koqum, and Al-Muqaynis. Citizens considered this industry a miraculous work that no one had ever done before. What concerns us in this matter is an article written by Mr. Abd al-Rasul al-Nur Ismail - the former governor of the Kordofan region during the era of the government of Mr. Sadiq al-Mahdi (1986-1989 AD). That article, which is part of a study incorrectly described as being characterized by its “objective, insightful view of the issues of the Nuba Mountains region and the optimal vision for their solutions,” was published in the Sudanese press of the unseen era. We would not have paid attention to it had it not been that the matter had gone beyond slander, as slander is always a gain for purposes, as the beneficiaries of these myths are the brokers of strife in Khartoum. The unjust ruler violated irrefutable historical facts regarding the Nuba, the rightful owner of Al-Tahim. So what did the ruler write about falsehood? Who is the one who invited him to delve into what he had no knowledge of, so that he became blamed and distressed? Abd al-Rasul al-Nur says: “The Nuba arrived in the Nuba Mountains and settled there since the year 1323 AD (...) and they found reception and hospitality from their brothers who had settled in the region before them, including Arabs, Dajo, and Chat. Because the Arabs entered this region since the end of the thirteenth century, that is, the year 1317 AD, as most narratives say.” (9) We wonder where he got these historical sources that he is afraid to mention and deny about? Which means that he is deliberately falsifying history, especially because what he reported contradicts self-evident facts according to trustworthy people. The path of the investigating researcher is to review things with care, patience, and freedom from whims and purposes, so he studies them as a critical analyst, investigating criticism and analysis. If he ends his study with a truth or something resembling the truth, he proves it while retaining all the doubt that he should retain that might force him to change his mind and resume his research and consideration again. There is no harm in this doubt and there is nothing wrong with it, not because doubt is nothing but the source of certainty, but because proof and investigation must be based on a solid foundation. What refutes Abd al-Rasul al-Nur’s slander is the migration of the “Ajanq” group, “which (the group) says was their displacement from Dongola after the famous Baqt Treaty in the year 652 AD and their settlement in the northern parts of the Nuba Mountains and their retreat over time to take refuge in the nature of the Nuba Mountains.”(10) The best evidence of this migration is the presence of linguistic kinship between them and the Nubians in northern Sudan. One of the customs brought by these newcomers is the celebration of sounding the horse “Kouj” as a type of ritual. This animal is what made their grandfather, Ankhi, invade Egypt when he learned that the Egyptians were persecuting the horse. The Nuba also decorated the walls of their homes with drawings of the Nile and palm trees, and the custom of the Pharaonic handkerchief, which disappeared later. These are the Nuba, and they were displaced in the wastelands of the land due to oppression and poverty. The German professor, Karl Meinhof, established a close relationship between the linguistic terms used in the Nuba Mountains and the Dangla language, but he insisted that the separation that occurred between them occurred from a very early time. His evidence in proving this claim is the absence of Greek or Coptic words in the Nuba Mountains, which suggests that the separation occurred before the arrival of Christianity and its dominance in the northern Nile Valley. Thus, Meinhof claims that the statement that the Nuba took shelter in the Nuba Mountains to escape the invasion of Arab Muslims is inaccurate.(11) This is the opposite of what other researchers have proven.(12)
A team of distinguished historians and ethnologists, who have spent their lives researching to provide humanity with knowledge, believe that “the Daju fought fierce wars with the people of the Nuba Mountains, especially in the northern parts of the mountains, with the Ajanq group, which is almost the last group of Nuba tribes to reach this region. After these wars, the Dajo withdrew westward, leaving behind small groups such as the Saburi, the Quri, and the Shat, which It is part of Nubia today, in addition to the group that bears the name of the Dajo in the Great House. It continued its migration as far as Darfur and established a famous kingdom there in the early twelfth century around the year 1125 AD and then later in Chad.”(13) The most famous Dajo king in Darfur was Omar Kasforo, nicknamed “The Eater of Fur.” Omar fought a relentless war with the Fur, a tyrant who was then a tyrant. What is known about him is that he tried to shift Jabal Umm Kardos from its current location and annex it to the 99 mountains. The base of Jabal Umm Kardos is still excavated as a result of the failed displacement operation. He was killed by his people, the worst of murderers. This was the case with the Dajo in Darfur.
Returning to the Dajo in South Kordofan, we find that the list of sultans who succeeded the Daju Sultanate in Dar al-Kabir reached thirteen sultans within four generations, starting with their Sultan Mum, who was credited with uniting the Dajo and forming a strong political unit from them. Mum left behind five sons: Shingo, Jiger, Dingus, Sabun, and Wadi. Then Saboun’s grandson ruled, and after him, my son Dingus. However, Adam, one of Dengus's sons, did not enjoy the administration of the sultanate, as the sultanate chain was interrupted when Kodai, a Misseriya Arab who married into the ruling family, seized the throne. This deviation from the ancient tradition reflects the extent of the influence of the Mahdism, which was knocking at the gates of the mountains at that time. It seems that the political and social unrest that swept the country during the Mahdist Revolution (1881-1898 AD) contributed greatly to severing the historical ties of the Nuba people to the distant past, which was fairly quiet. We find that, in some cases, Nubian notables tell you that they have lived in these mountains and terrain since the creation of humanity. These notables say that they are an indigenous people in the region for thousands of years, and not a temporary people. We mention, for example, the Nyimang group, who say that they descended from the sky directly to their current areas west of the city of Dilling - the capital of the region - and their argument for this is that there are human traces on their rocks indicating that they descended before these rocks were level. The Nyimang are the most knowledgeable of the Nuba groups about their origins. Perhaps the presence of the tallest people in the regions of Moro, Ashrun, and Saraf Jamous, and the shortest in stature in the regions of Tira, Heiban, and Shuai cannot be a reason to differentiate between the Nuba as an ethnicity, as Abd al-Rasul al-Nur tried - in vain - to consider it as “fundamental differences that make (the Nuba Mountains) regions and not a single region.” Whatever the physical and linguistic differences, what unites the Nuba as an authentic African people is greater than all these invented formalities by the people of power in Khartoum.
The best scientific study conducted for the people was the one carried out by Dr. Nadel in the period between 1938-1941 AD in the Nuba Mountains. The study covered ten Nubian groups with a focus on the Heiban, Aturu, and Tira tribes. This study was carried out at the invitation of Douglas Newbold, the ruler of Kordofan at the time, to Dr. Nadel to conduct anthropological research on the Nuba groups in South Kordofan, and to highlight the nature of the social and economic life lived by these tribes. For practical considerations, Nadel divided the Nubian tribes into cultural groups using the following three criteria:
Family structure, i.e. according to affiliation on the father's or mother's side.
The nature of the clan and the strength and weakness of “social solidarity”.
Belief in the existence or absence of the world of gods and ancestor spirits in religious matters.
However, the greatest work that Dr. Nadel came out of this study is “The concept of social symbiosis.” The theory of social solidarity means the way of understanding the social structure in which each segment of society carries out limited burdens - whether religious or political - on behalf of society as a whole. Just as the word symbiosis means in biology, the strengthening coexistence of individual living organisms, such that their individual survival contributes to the survival and containment of the entire group, was the nucleus of this social philosophy. Nadel applied this concept to the study of the 29 clans that make up the Kartala tribe, as well as the six mountains from which the Kadru group is composed, in addition to some non-Nuba families that settled in this region and became Nubian in traditions and customs. (14) It is clear from this research conducted by Dr. Nadel, who served the British Empire in the Nuba Mountains as administrators and officers. Politicians, that Nuba has great social customs and noble cultural traditions. They honor the young, respect the elderly, feed the hungry, do not oppress the orphan, do not rebuke the beggar, honor the benefit of the guest, and help the wayfarer in the calamities of time. They also abstain from consanguineous marriage, do not practice female circumcision, and consider murder a heinous crime. Despite the punishment they impose on the killer, such as blood money, abandonment, and repentance, they believe that no matter how far they reach justice for the family of the dead man, the only one who can punish this murderous offender is God, Lord of the Worlds. In Kadru societies, the method of killing and the type of instrument used in the crime determine the manner and type of punishment according to tribal customs. This is a microcosm of the ancient social system that the British and Egyptians found in the Nuba Mountains. They relied on it and developed it while introducing some criminal, civil, and personal status laws to it.
In addition to the Nuba, some Arab groups live in the mountain region - or so they call themselves - such as the Misseriya, Hawazma, and Awlad Hamid. There is also a minority of the Fallata in the region, and the Abyei area is inhabited by the Ngok Dinka, whose administration was transferred by the British to Kordofan (currently South Kordofan) since 1905 AD, and has become a problem in the bloody conflict ongoing between the north and the south. The British also carved out the Muglad area - the home of the Ngok Dinka, under their chief, Malual Kireji - and gave it to the Misseriya Arabs for administrative reasons, or so they claimed. The Misseriya is a tribe with two parts: the Misseriya Blue and the Red. As for the Misseriya Blue, their homeland is around Mount Sinut and Al-Mafra’, and they are divided in Kordofan into the sons of Umm Salim, the Ghazaya and the Deirawi, the sons of Abu Numan, and the sons of Heiban. They entered into a conflict with the “Nubawi” tribes of Kordofan for the purpose of expansion. The Humr is divided into two main branches: the Humr Al-Ajayra and the Humr Al-Falatiyya. The homeland of the Humr is between Al-Baraka and Shekka. Their centers include Al-Adiya and Abu Qalb, and in the Dart season they reside in the Al-Muglad area. As for the Hawazma, their area is located to the east of Dilling in the areas of Singkaya and Umm Alwan, and some villages near Kadugli. The tribe is divided into three sections: Abdul Ali, Halafah, and Al-Rawawaqa. Due to their incursion into the Nuba Mountains, some of them mixed with the Nuba people, to the point that some of them were called the children of Nuba, and they took many of the Nuba names (Koko, for example), and some of their customs and culture, such as wrestling and the Karnak dance. As for Hamid’s sons, their homeland is around Taqli. They say that their grandfather, Babakir al-Abbas, was one of the Ja’aliyin (15) who were displaced to Kordofan around the middle of the eighteenth century, where he resided in an area between Al-Rahad and Sharkila and in the southwest of Taqli. In that region, they disputed with the Habbaniya and a part of the Hawazma tribe before the Mahdism. When the Mahdist revolution broke out, they tried to resist it, but they lost many of their fighting men, so they were forced to support it and join it. In Kordofan, they mixed with some other tribes, and they also mixed with the Nuba tribes, which helped in seeping some Nubian blood into them. As for the Fallata, they were originally Nigerians who came voluntarily and lived in Sudan, or were brought by the British authorities before World War I to work in the construction of the Makwar Dam (Sennaar). The largest mass migration occurred in 1903 AD after the Battle of Burmi, when about 25,000 Fulani refugees fled and settled around the Blue Nile, and the British authorities granted them land for agriculture. The Fallata played a pioneering role in the Sudanese economy despite the fears that began to arise among the British authorities in the year 1910 AD due to the increase in their numbers, which became a latent danger. Among the Fallata notables is Ahmed Omar, who came from the Sokoto region in Nigeria and settled in Omdurman. Then he fled to the Nuba Mountains and sent a call to the Fallata to join him in the mountains, and a small number responded to his call. (16) The Fallata reside in the Nuba Mountains in Al-Farshaya, Al-Takma, Al-Bardab, and Taqli. (17)
In the beginning, the word Kordofan symbolized Mount Kordofan, which is located near the Al-Ain area - one of the railway stations between Al-Obeid and Al-Rahad. It is a term that was removed from the saying of the people (Kald Far), which means boiling. This is the last of the Nuba kings, among whom the Ghadiyat tribe occupied Mount Kordofan. It was their custom to move around after pasture and water, and thus the name Kordofan became widespread among the rest of the population until it became dominant in the rest of the regions. (18)
The most important thing that distinguishes the various Nubian groups - in addition to the customs of weddings and mourning - is linguistic diversity, as language plays an effective role in determining the ethnic divides between these groups. Here it is worth noting that the Jos Plains in Nigeria and the Nuba Mountains in Sudan are considered among the most multilingual regions of Africa. In these two regions you will find villages, which are a few miles apart from each other, speaking completely different languages, “And I will ask the village in which we were” (Joseph 12/82). The number of speakers of some languages amounts to hundreds of citizens. These languages have developed in the absence of external influence, until they are characterized by special linguistic features. Geography and history have proven that the denser people settled in mountainous areas, the more languages became numerous and diverse and their speaking concentrated in small groups. This is also the case on the borders between Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad. This linguistic complexity explains a long history that made these languages diversify, and these mountainous regions are easy to defend. These regions became areas of refuge, where the first citizens were able to defend themselves against the newcomers, and in this way they preserved their languages from extinction, unlike what happened to the inhabitants of the lowland plains. (19) Linguists define language as a means of communication and communication between humans, while dialect is the uses The differences between the same language between the same people or different societies, for example, the Shaiqiyya dialect within the framework of the Sudanese Arabic language, or the Baggara dialect and others. Based on this definition, we find that the Nuba Mountains region includes several languages and dialects. So, how did the Nuba preserve their languages when the region carried within it such a huge number of dialects? Perhaps the residence of the Nuba in the mountainous regions helped the survival of these many diverse languages, and even preserved them from foreign invasion, while the rest of the population of ancient Sudan, who inhabited the plains, fell prey to linguistic fusion with the groups that came to Sudan from every deep valley. The spread of tribal wars and the spread of the slavery trade at the hands of colonial agents in the history of the region prevented the Nuba from communicating with each other. These languages did not mix with each other, despite the presence of some Nuba who spoke the languages of other tribes fluently. The linguistic purity evident in the Nuba Mountains indicates the extent to which the Nuba adhere to their cultures and their pride in their identity. So, what does language mean to any ethnic group? It is worth noting that with languages we can delve into the intelligence and wisdom of lost ancestors, as these proverbs are - in themselves - a testimony to history and past centuries, so the language of any people is described as the soul of that people, and there is no doubt that people look to their languages not only as physical tools for conversation and communication, but as a means of preserving heritage. Therefore, The history of peoples tells us that there is no sure way to create strife and create a political problem other than adopting a national linguistic policy that attempts to erase other national languages. Given the importance of language in the life of any nation, one African wrote: “All tribes and languages must be allowed, or encouraged, to live until the world realizes what is buried under its breasts. Human civilization. If we leave one language to die, we will deprive the world of one of its shining jewels, because language is the only medium through which the spirit of humanity can penetrate.” Despite the Nuba being neighbors with the Arabs and mixing with them at times, and despite the wars and calamities that befell them in some stages of their history, the Nuba remained what their first ancestors left them, and they did not change anything. What the Center for Sudanese Local Languages, which was established in 1993 in the city of Omdurman and with the help of experts from the SIL Group, is doing in researching and developing Sudanese local languages and cultures, receives all our appreciation and praise, because it aims - among other things - to help the Nuba Mountains region in writing down its languages and cultures, preserving them from loss, and paying attention to heritage. And folk dances of linguistic tribes. Here it is worth noting that the Center has completed - during its linguistic work program - the training of cadres annually in the form of courses and workshops held for the linguistic tribes, issuing textbooks and adopting cultural curricula in the field of their languages, and raising awareness and encouraging the linguistic tribes’ committees to establish educational centers for their languages.
As an explanation of the importance of the language above, the brilliant German linguist - Karl Meinhof - divided the Nubian languages into three groups: the language of the Six Mountains, the Sudanese languages, and the languages that use a prefix in their words. The first group includes the Nubia of Jabal Dayer, Dilling, Kudur, Habila, Karkou Group (which includes Dulman, Kundukur, Kokendikera, Kasha, and Shivre), Khalfan Group (in addition to the Morong Mountains), Kadru Group, Wali Group (Wali of Bubai, Wali of Qurum, and Wali of Abu Saida), Abu Januk, Tabak, and Hujjarat (which includes Kabaja, Shanshan, Busha, Sija, Tabak, and Abuqrin), Venda, Kunit (also known as Kujuriya), Debre, Nemang group, and Mendel group. With the exception of Nyimang, Mendel, and Afiti in Jebel Dayr, these groups speak a single language similar to the Dangla language in northern Sudan. (20) Nilotic deserts. According to Greenberg's classification, the Nuba languages are divided into two groups: the Kordofan group, which is a branch of Niger-Kordofan, where the other branch is Niger-Congo, and the second group is Shari-Nile. Linguists say that the Nuba languages belong to different families. (21) Therefore, Nuba can be divided into ten linguistic groups:
The "Ajanq" group that inhabits the northern and western regions of the Nuba Mountains, and has a linguistic connection with the Nubians in northern Sudan and southern Egypt. This group is considered one of the large ethnic groups, and includes the tribes: Jabal al-Dayer, Kudur, Kudru, Dilling, Galvan, and Karko, or what is known as the Six Mountains; As well as Wali, Abu Januk, Tabak, Kasha, Shefer (northeastern mountains), Venda, and Kujuriya. Traditional narrators of history say that the people of Tabq came to this spot coming from Jabal al-Adiya in North Kordofan in the late eighteenth century AD to escape the attacks of the Fur and the raids of the Reds. (22)
The Takli group, which includes Takli itself, Rashad, Kijakja, Taqwi, Tumli, Morib, and Turjok. Among the languages spoken in this region are Taqouqan and Terevit. Herr's research into the Tamuli language, spoken by the people of the Taqli-Taqwa group in the Nuba Mountains, is considered the basis for the study of the historical background of the Sudanese languages, and the forefront in the study of the Nilotic languages by Oisin Hooker.(23)
The Nyimang group, which includes the Nyimang, Mandal, and Afiti tribes on the eastern side of Jabal al-Dayer.(24) The Nyimang come from the Kogia region located west of Al-Adiya, West Kordofan (present-day Darfur), so the Nyimang are the only Nuba who have names dating back to the Darfur region, such as El-Fasher and Darfur.(25)
The Katla unit, which includes the Katla, Jalda, and Tema tribes.
The Telshe-Krongo group is in the southern region of the Nuba Mountains, and includes the Telshi, Kiqa, Meri, Kadugli, Kacha, Kurongo, and part of Abu Senun.
The Temen group, which includes the Temen tribe, Kiga Jero, Tissi or Deneb, and part of Wali. The Wali tribe itself is divided into: the Wali of Bubai, the Wali of Al-Suk, the Wali of Umm Karam, the Wali of Karandu (near Kujuriya), and the Wali of Abu Saida.
The Kwaleb-Moro group, which includes Kwaleb, Heban, Shuai, Aturu, Tira (Green, Mandi, and Lumun), Moro. This group also includes Fangor, Kaw, Nyaro, (26) and Worni in the extreme south-eastern mountains in the area adjacent to the White Nile.
The Talodi-Masakin group, which includes Talodi, Liri, Masakin (long and short), (27) Ashron, Tako, Toruna, and Koko-Lumun.
Lavova Collection, featuring Lavoa herself and Amira.
The Dajo group,(28) includes Dajo, Laquri, Sabouri, Talo, and Shat (Dammam, Safiya, and Tabaladiyya), and small groups in Abu Hashim and Abu Snoun.
The central governments that took power in Khartoum considered the local languages and dialects - including the Nuba languages - one of the obstacles hindering the process of national unity in Sudan. Some have called it gibberish (plural of gibberish meaning unintelligible nonsense), some have claimed that it is not written, and others have begun preparing and finishing it off until it is replaced by the Arabic language and Islamic culture. The pioneers of education in Sudan “have endeavored to improve the performance of young students in non-Arabic-speaking regions of Sudan by recommending that young people, in these regions, be admitted to school at an earlier age than their peers in the regions where Arabic is the mother tongue (...) before they are able to learn the Arabic language.” (29) This foreignness that educators fear will affect the students is - in other words - their languages, which they inherited from their mothers and fathers. And their ancestors. It does not harm the country in the slightest if a young person grows up speaking several languages, knowing that a child at such an early age is able to master more than one language without any difficulty. As for those who rant that the Nuba languages are not written, we tell them that we found in middle schools a reading book in the Nyimang language (NyimangReader), and there are copies of the Bible in the languages of Tira, Heban, Aturu, and others. Indeed, there are studies and research in the Nuba languages that are awaiting a political decision so that they can begin teaching them to children. The SPLM and the Sudan People's Liberation Army began implementing this program to connect the child to the environment and local culture that form the Nuba identity and character.
The Nuba Mountains are rich in natural resources, and there were gold mines in Tira Mendi, Dongor, Tira Akhdar, Aturu, Shibun, Lokha, Shuai, and Taqali. A mixture of those working in linguistics, archeology, paleontology, and history realized - from an early age - that the involvement of the first inhabitants of Nubia in mining confirms an eternal truth that we still repeat, which is that their ancestors inhabited the region extending between the Nile and the Red Sea, and penetrated into the mountains at the moment of the intensification of the Egyptian “invasions” against them. In the year 1791 AD, an Arab Muslim family was displaced from the Blue Nile - as a result of a tribal war - and settled in Mount Shibun. They called themselves "Shwabna", and this family became a link between the Jellaba merchants and the Nuba - the owners of the mines. The indigenous people of Shebun - the Duleep, who are ethnically closer to the Moro - have retreated to Shuai. Shebun flourished and became an important commercial center in South Kordofan in the period 1770-1882 AD.
The identity of the "Shawabna" was not limited to the name only, but the Dharari became a mixture of Arabs and Nuba, and they spoke a hybrid language between Arabic and the language of Terra. In the past, their fate was linked to the Kingdom of Taqli, and Abd al-Rahman bin Yusuf was the deputy king of Taqli in Shebun. The religious rituals that were held around the mines in both Shebun and Tira Mendi, with the personal participation of the King of Taqli, refute the opinions that Islamic historians kept repeating, namely that Taqli was an Islamic kingdom and king. What are these rituals and what were they performed on? The King of Taqli would send - with visiting delegations to his kingdom - a black bull, a black goat, and two black roosters to be slaughtered around the mine. As for Kujur, who had supernatural power and was responsible for guarding the gold, the king granted him the Umm Qarnain card, hundreds of bracelets, and dogs, which were an important food source at that time. The Shawabna are divided into small clans: Muslim, Jamoui, Hasabalab, and Riyash.(30) Because they liked Shaibun’s gold so much, the hakamat (folk singers) from the Arabs of the Hawazma, Kawahila, and Awlad Hamid in the Nuba Mountains began singing songs, and below we will mention some of them:
The weight of shebun gold is more likely than not. Look at how light the gold is on top of the gold.
Dahab Shiboon Al-Lakek - I will sing for you all my life.
The precious gold of Shibun and its color is beautiful. Since leaving you, I cannot sleep at night.
Dahab Shibon Al-Jamrouh My heart is his mail and people are his father.
Perhaps it goes without saying that there is a human presence, in the form of individuals or groups, of the haughty, cosmopolitan merchants, in the various cities of the Nuba Mountains.(31) The presence of these merchants in the region increased with the revival of short-staple cotton cultivation in the year 1924 AD, and the spread of mechanized agriculture projects in Habila and Kartala in the seventies of the last century. They found good soil and cheap labor and became wealthy. Obscene. The state and the World Bank intervened to finance these projects, and irrational agricultural policies led to the consumption of soil, the erosion of vegetation from the mountains, and the extinction of wild animals that served as the region’s livestock wealth. The encroachment of the desert began to threaten these mountains, warning of an imminent natural disaster, and the people became concerned about the environmental and climatic changes that had befallen their homes.
Nubia in the regional context
News agencies - visual, audio and print - reported that General Idi Amin Dada had sought help from members of the Kakwa tribe - to which he belongs and which inhabit north-western Uganda and southern Sudan - as well as the Nupe tribe in the Ugandan army to seize power in Kampala in 1972 AD. This armed force later became the backbone of Idi Amin's regime during the eight years he spent running the country and its people. It was also a force of 3,000 Nubian soldiers from the reserve battalion in Camp Bondo that delayed the collapse and extinction of Idi Amin's regime. What is the secret of the presence of this striking force on Ugandan soil? What is the relationship of its members with Sudan?
After the emergence of the Mahdist Revolution (the armed uprising in the language of the era) in Sudan, and its success in liquidating the Turkish-Egyptian regime in 1885 AD, Amin Pasha - the governor of the Equatoria Directorate - became cut off from the capital, Khartoum. Immediately, Stanley, Jackson, and Peters began a race against time, each wanting to save it. Some may wonder about the identity and importance of Amin, who became famous and about whom contemporary generations may know only a little? Amin grew up and was educated in Germany, moved around the countries and regions of the Middle East and converted to Islam. Amin was a physician, botanist, ornithologist, and linguist who spoke German, French, English, Italian, Turkish, Arabic, Persian, colloquial Greek, and Slavic languages. A German-Jewish doctor named Eduard Schnitzer arrived in Equatoria in South Sudan after working in Türkiye. After his arrival, he claimed to be a Turkish man named Emin Efendi. Perhaps this Amin Effendi, despite his hypocrisy, was not able to convince the Italian comrades Jesse and the British Gordon of his false identity. (32) This was the person who was entrusted with the administration of the Equatoria Directorate in South Sudan, as he was not - at first - fully informed of the details and characteristics of the region. But he toured the region, with its mountains and plains, and met its people and learned their customs and traditions. In the beginning - when the Mahdi revolution was at its peak - Amin refused to submit to the idea of evacuation and leave the vacancy in which he had lived for so long, but his life experiences taught him that bowing before the wind may be necessary at some times. In the midst of this mixture of principles and calculations, Amin packed his bags and left South Sudan.
Amid the anxiety over the unknown fate, Stanley came to the rescue of Amin and his Sudanese soldiers. "In the late nineteenth century, when the remnants of Amin Bey's army began to withdraw southward to escape the Mahdist armies, these remnants began to settle in East Africa, while Amin was continuing his withdrawal towards the Indian Ocean. The remnants of Amin Bey's army, who converted to Islam, settled in the areas of present-day Arua and Bembo, which is located 20 miles from the capital, Kampala, and in the Entebbe region. A part of them also settled in the city of Arusha in Tanzania, and in Nairobi is in a neighborhood called Kibera, and these people, who were later known as “Nubi,” contributed to the spread of Islam and they became their own language, which was called the Nubian language, which is a mixture of the Arabic language with a local accent.”(33) The population of the Nubian tribe in Kenya is about 10,000 people, with their number in Kibera in Nairobi ranging between 3,000 - 6,000 people. Nubians use the Swahili language to communicate with non-Nubian groups, and 30% of them speak English, which means that their education rate is small. What was the political and social situation in Uganda before and after the displacement of these Sudanese soldiers there?
Uganda was made up of scattered kingdoms, and Buganda was one of these ancient kingdoms that ruled the heart of Uganda before the arrival of foreigners from all over the world. In the year 1848 AD, while this kingdom was under the rule of Kabaka (King) Sona, the first Arab arrived there. But in fact, the so-called Saim was a mixture of Arabism and Africanism (Mulatto), and he was followed a year later by Issa bin Hussein, a former soldier from the forces of the Arab Sultan of Zanzibar, and the latter worked as an advisor to King Sona. When Senai bin Amir visited the kingdom in 1852 AD, he found this advisor in the king’s court and had assumed a high position. Arab growth and influence began to increase in Uganda in a turbulent manner, and with the arrival of European Christian missionaries, they found an Arab colony there, where the Arabs practiced the ivory and slave trade. He would trade two males for one rifle, or a red cloth for one male, or 100 bullets for one female. Although the Arabs were spreading religious teachings, their main goal was to work in trade, and therefore they could not Islamize a large group of citizens. In 1875 AD, he met the traveler Henry Stanley Mutesa I - King of Buganda - and wrote a letter on behalf of the king, which was published in the London newspaper "The Daily Telegraph", pleading with Christian missionaries to come to his kingdom. It became clear that Mutesa, who had become fearful of the Turkish-Egyptian presence in South Sudan, was in dire need of weapons to secure his kingdom in the north. The British Protestants came in 1877 AD, followed by the French Catholics in 1879 AD, and began to Christianize the sheikhs of the kingdom and the royal court, as Mutesa was practicing some Islamic rituals, such as fasting during the month of Ramadan in the period 1867-1876 AD. When Christianity came, religion became a tool for political competition and strife. After Mutesa's death in 1884 AD, a sectarian war broke out between Muslims and Christians, with foreigners encouraging both sides, which ended with the defeat of the Muslims and the appointment of the Catholic King Mwanga as Mutesa's successor. Based on the above, the new king became a prisoner of foreign political forces without enjoying the right to dominate them.
After concluding an agreement with King Mwanga of Buganda, Lord Lugard focused his efforts on subjugating the Muslims, who called themselves the party of Muhammad. What helped Lugard in his campaign against Muslims was the unification of Catholics and Protestants under one banner and the formation of a strong Bugandian army from both communities under the leadership of Apollo Kagwa. In the year 1891 AD, the Muslims were defeated in the Battle of Bugangadza, and heavy rains prevented Apollo's soldiers from reaching Bunyoro - the Muslim stronghold. As a result of subsequent events, it seems that Lord Lugard was able to put down the rebellion without working to remove the causes of the conflict. However, the idea of reviving the rebellion did not die in the hearts of Muslims, and in 1893 AD a political party appeared called the Muhammad Watfaq Party, demanding more political powers than the three sheikhdoms granted to its followers. However, what made this harassment a serious matter was the presence of Sudanese soldiers under the command of Selim Bey, who did not hide their sympathy with Muslims who were angry about their political situation. Since the Sudanese soldiers were Muslims themselves, the English authorities feared that if an armed rebellion broke out among the Muslims, and the Sudanese soldiers showed solidarity with them, it would be very difficult to establish security and return life to normal. Consequently, the authorities moved quickly and defeated the Muslims using elements of the Bugandian Protestants, and the Sudanese garrison in the port of Alice (currently Entebbe) was disarmed and Selim Bey was arrested. The action of Captain MacDonald - to whom power in Kampala passed after the departure of Sir Gerald Portal - averted the threat of an imminent civil war.
The Sudanese soldiers, who were famous for their toughness, played an effective role in defeating King Kabariga in the land of Bunyoro - western Uganda, as well as in ending the rebellion of King Mwanga - and his followers - after he revolted against the British when his influence began to decline and the restrictions of Christian missionaries came down upon him from all sides. A conviction took root in Mwanga's mind that he could not live as a prisoner to the whims of Christian priests who interfered in the customs and traditions of the tribe, including the prohibition of multiple marriages and other things, and then he revolted against the situation that existed at that time. As soon as the British authorities forcefully and forcefully ended the Mawanga rebellion, a new danger appeared that threatened the situation. This danger came from the Sudanese soldiers, who were used by the British authorities as an effective tool to control the security situation in the west, east and south-west of the country. Problems began to surface when these soldiers were ordered to head east towards Wadi Dama under the command of Major MacDonald, with the aim of discovering the sources of the Juba River, and repelling the French advance from Congo and Abyssinia and the Mahdist threat in southern Sudan, at a time when Sir Kitchener was marching towards Omdurman - the capital of the Mahdist state in Sudan. The reasons for the outbreak of rebellion among Sudanese soldiers are attributed to the constant change in the leadership of those soldiers, and the low wages they received compared to their counterparts in other regions of East Africa, in addition to the fact that these wages were six months in arrears. However, one of the leaders of the rebellion - Mabrouk Effendi - wanted, with this disobedience, to arouse the situation at that time to create conditions that would allow the control of power in Uganda for the benefit of the Sudanese rebels, and so he used the actual reasons for the discontent as a means to achieve his goals. The issue of frequent movements throughout Uganda can be considered something that the Sudanese soldiers who were exhausted by the war could hardly accept, and it was only a few days before they were summoned from the south for the purpose of fighting the war and its scourges in a remote part of the country.
Whatever the reasons, military mutiny broke out on September 23, 1897, near Wadi Dama, which served as the focus of MacDonald's forces. When MacDonald and Jackson were unable to fulfill the conditions of the Sudanese soldiers, the soldiers marched towards Buganda, killing and plundering until they settled in Luba Castle. The attempts of Major Thurston, who was at the head of the army in Uganda, did not succeed in convincing the rebels to surrender, but he fell hostage into their hands along with two other Europeans, all of whom were later killed. MacDonald, along with his Swahili and Bugandan soldiers, laid siege around Luba. Despite the intense attack on the castle from October 1897 until January 1898, the Sudanese soldiers remained steadfast. The exchange of fire led to the killing of MacDonald's brother, as well as Pilkington, a Christian missionary who translated the Bible into the Luganda language and became known as the Banan in Uganda. While MacDonald remained worried, the British authorities sent military reinforcements of Indian soldiers from Juba and Bombay, and the situation became threatening with the possibility of a rebellion by the rest of the Sudanese soldiers in Bunyoro, Toro, Bodo, and Kampala. What made matters worse was the appearance of another Muang, who announced his conversion to Islam, and gathered 2,000 armed soldiers. At this moment, MacDonald withdrew west to confront Mwanga. The Sudanese seized the opportunity and headed towards Bunyoro to join the Sudanese garrisons there, especially since it had shown a clear desire to join the rebellion. The situation was brought under control after Lieutenant Scott arrived with the Indian soldiers and was able to disarm the Bunyoro garrisons and stop the advance of the Sudanese towards them. The last force of the rebels was stationed in Kabagambe on Lake Kyoga, and they were eliminated in February 1898 AD. Remnants of them fled across the lake and began raiding government points from time to time until they were dispersed by militias from the Lango tribe in the year 1901 AD. With the defeat of the Sudanese soldiers, the idea that had entertained Mabrouk Effendi’s imagination died. Perhaps it might become one of the possible goals. (34)
From the above discussion, we find that the Nuba, or Nubians, however you like to call them, have contributed to framing the social, cultural, and political life in East Africa, to the point that they have now become an integral part of the peoples of the region. They were not a passing heritage or anthropological phenomenon that ended with the end of a stage of social and historical development, but rather they became an essential part of the vital structure of society, and therefore their effectiveness in the movement for social and political change cannot be denied as we witnessed in Uganda, including the exploitation of the religious factor - Islam or Christianity - as a main tool in fueling political and tribal conflict. This regional integration took place in an era when there were no political borders, and the Nubians - despite the change in time and political conditions - became a social unit with their own language, customs and traditions, which they preserved from collapse and extinction. This is what happened to the Nuba in the regional framework. What do you know about their role in the international framework?
Nubia in the international context
During the reign of Khedive Said Pasha, Sudanese soldiers were sent to Mexico (1863-1867 AD) to assist Emperor Maximilian in the Mexican Civil War, and they performed well. Prince Omar described their valor in a letter published in Egypt in 1933 AD entitled “The Sudanese-Egyptian Horseshoe Championship in Mexico.” In one of the battles in which the Sudanese participated on October 2, 1863 AD, the Governor of Veracruz wrote in his letter to the Commander-in-Chief: “This engagement crowned the Sudanese, who bore its burdens and received the highest reward, as they did not care about the intensity of fire they received from the enemy, who outnumbered them by nine to one, but they defeated them in the end.” However, their bravery did not receive attention from French circles except in medical studies, as the Sudanese were not affected by yellow fever, which was severely killing Europeans. These European doctors attributed the reason for the resistance of the Sudanese to the nature of the Negroes, and there is no doubt that most of these soldiers were Nuba who captured them as slaves from the Nuba Mountains and conscripted them into the armies of the Turkish-Egyptian government, as it was reported in several sources that about 200,000 of them were captured and taken in handcuffs to Egypt until the year 1839 AD, and thousands more were taken by Arabs. The plains surrounding them and sold to Arab slavers in the local markets.(35) In another letter from Veracruz to the Commander-in-Chief on April 22, 1864 AD, the messenger stated: “The Egyptian-Sudanese army is advancing in a way that confirms their courage in battles against an enemy that is numerically superior to them, but they are still at a high level of valor – as we have already seen. Therefore, the Commander-in-Chief was hardly He concealed his admiration for them until he wrote to his superiors in the French Ministry of War on July 12, 1864, telling them about what he witnessed of the incident. What did the writer write in the letter? He wrote: “The spirit of the Egyptian-Sudanese soldiers, who would not allow themselves to leave a prisoner of war alive, shone on the battlefield. I have never seen such firm determination and unique determination in my life as I saw in this battle. Their eyes tell the story of their feelings, and they have great courage. They are not human, but rather cruel.” The recruits and soldiers, who were recruited from Kordofan and Darfur, gained the admiration of the Egyptian police in Alexandria the moment they left for Mexico on December 28, 1862 AD. The Sudanese soldiers returned - via Paris, where they received the highest military decorations in France - to Alexandria on May 28, 1867 AD, and they were received by Khedive Ismail Pasha, the successor to Said Pasha.(36)
When Sir Samuel Baker arrived in Khartoum in January 1870, he found officers who had served in the Mexican campaign among the soldiers who would accompany him to the Equatoria District. Among these officers are Major Abdullah, Captain Marjan Sharif, Captain Abdullah, Lieutenant Marjan, and Lieutenant Fertak (?). They accompanied Sir Samuel Baker - two years after his arrival in Khartoum - to the Ugandan land of Acholi and Bunyoro. In the Bunyoro region, Major Abdullah became commander of the Fatiko garrison, and he clashed with slavers in this region many times. Major Abdullah was also a recipient of Colonel Shali Long, General Gordon's envoy to King Mutesa - Great of Buganda.(37)
In this research, in which we summarized the historical narrative, the conditions of geography, the political factor, and the ethnic and linguistic diversity in the Nuba Mountains, we used the specific to the general approach, although we know with certainty that some prefer the general to the specific approach. Whatever the approach, we have traced the life of the Nuba in ancient and modern Sudan, and their contribution regionally in East Africa, and internationally across the Atlantic Ocean to Mexico to fight battles against peoples with whom we had no quarrel. However, this local, regional and international contribution has not earned them anything but oppression from the people of the solution and contract in Khartoum, for no reason other than because they wish to preserve their heritage, traditions and religions. The men of the northern Islamic parties began to argue with them about the Qur’an as much as they could, and when they saw that the argument had become useless, they resorted to plotting, then declaring a jihadi war against them. The war in which the Nuba continued to endure cruelty and abuse was only to preserve their identity against those who were eager to erase it - or at least - who wanted to keep them in such a way that they would not appear unless they were subordinate to others. The Nuba as a whole refused to submit to the conditions of surrender, except for those who were satisfied with slandering at (or from) the tables of persecution, the deviants have weak prospects, and the deviant has no judgment. The Nuba raised the slogan with which the poet Abu Nawas used to attack those who quarreled with him, just as he used to attack those who tempted him with prestige and power:
I am not eager for a blow nor is there any prince in authority over me!
It would have been better for the rulers of modern Sudan to develop these national languages in the mountains and others throughout the vast country, shower them with governmental sponsorship, and reduce the dominance of one culture over others, because the problems arising in Sudan today are essentially caused by the meeting of two - or more - different cultures and religions, and these problems can only be solved through negotiation that results in mutual respect and acceptance of the other in his or her form. The tension resulting from the state of blatant cultural and ethnic pluralism in the country necessitates a balance between it and unity. The Sudanese must realize that any attempt to jump on heritage and the facts of life is a denial of reality and history, and failure to acknowledge diversity has cost us a heavy price.
Conclusion
From the research we have reported, it is clear that the Nuba Mountains region has remained - and still is - home to diverse ethnic groups. These different groups in this region - despite the thorny events of history and the difficult factors of geography - have lived a life punctuated by tribal wars, most of which were to satisfy the desires of the central governments since the Turkish-Egyptian era in Sudan (1821-1885 AD) until this moment. The Turks used the Baggara tribes in their campaigns to obtain slaves from Nuba, the Mahdi used them to subjugate the Nuba, and the British exploited them to put down the Nuba rebellion and disobedience. Likewise, the national governments did after the demise of the Numeiri regime in 1985 AD in “ethnic cleansing” against the Nuba, considering them rebels and “apostates.” However, what unites these human groups is their participation in poverty, ignorance, and disease. This social trinity did not receive close attention from the people of power in Khartoum, and the situation worsened soon after the civil war reached this part of Sudan. Peace and harmony are two dear demands of every society that seeks political stability, economic development, and social justice. Therefore, it was necessary for the local and central authorities to explore ways to extend security and reassurance to the human groups inhabiting these lands before rushing after comprehensive peace (Charitybegins at home). Here we can use the theory of "social solidarity", which Dr. Nadel used in his anthropological study of Nuba societies, as we mentioned earlier. There was a Nubian mechanism for resolving disputes and resolving conflicts within one group or those that erupted between different ethnic groups, including the Arab groups that settled in the region and adopted (that is, became or adopted Nubian traditions and customs). Using prevailing custom and applicable law, the SPLM and the Sudan People's Liberation Army succeeded in concluding peace agreements and peaceful coexistence with the Baggara tribes in the region. We mention among them the Baram Agreement in 1993 AD, the Regevi Agreement in 1995 AD, and the Ken Agreement in 1996 AD. (38) Sensing the importance of peace and security for the peoples of the region, the conferees recommended - among what they recommended - at the Kauda Conference in the Nuba Mountains, which was held between the period of 2-5 December 2002 AD, the necessity of holding a peace conference between the Nuba and the non-Nuba tribes. Nubaism is endemic in the region in order to reach the standards and foundations of peaceful coexistence and “social solidarity.” This recommendation aims to remove the tragic gap between the past and the present. It also seeks to build a prosperous future that can be used to instill rational concepts about peace, out of mercy for people and compassion for them not to get involved in disagreement and disagreement in what should not be disagreement or disagreement. We do not think that the Nuba - after this injustice and persecution - will insist on following the example of the Haitians in the nineteenth century, when the freed slaves rose up on the island of Haiti and defeated the British, French, and Spanish. Then the Secretary-General swore to the uprisings that the free Haitians would use the white man’s skull as an inkwell, his skin as paper, and blood instead of ink to write the General Declaration of Independence in 1804 AD.(39) Rather, the Nuba will follow the words of their late leader, Youssef Kawa Makki, in his poem “My Africa”:
(...) I will build my civilization
Then I will rest
I will forgive those who deliberately erased my identity
Because love and peace are my goal
However, this beautiful forgiveness and pardon will not include the immoral killers, whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent Nuba that was shed, the innocent souls that were lost, and the innocent souls that were killed.
The Nuba Mountains region has never lived in isolation from the external forces that came to Sudan, whether from the north, east or west. Rather, the region was a refuge for those fleeing - fearful of death - from political unrest and environmental change in the Nile River valleys. (40) The characteristics of this human interaction are evident in the ethnic, cultural and religious diversity in the region. However, the central authorities tried to exploit this situation for their political interests and continued to fragment this social fabric, which was already suffering from fractures. Therefore, Al-Bashir's government was not pleased with the successes of the SPLM and the Sudan People's Liberation Army in concluding the aforementioned agreements, and came close to making them fail. What is happening today in the Taqli area is an example of what we are saying. We have witnessed how some pastoral groups forcibly permitted the farming of citizens by force of arms in the Taqli region, without conscience or deterrence from the Sultan, carried by the pride of victory and the exaggeration of arrogance. Shepherds armed with firearms do not hesitate to shoot unarmed farmers. Cases of shooting deaths of farmers who dared to prevent livestock from farming reached 17 cases around the city of Abbasiya alone, forcing a delegation from the region, headed by Prince Mukhtar Jili and comprising a number of mayors and sheikhs, to visit Khartoum to file a complaint with officials in the central government. The inability of the competent authorities to deter the murderous aggressors or to collude with them gives the victim a natural right to search for other ways to defend himself, his honor, and his money. (41) This type of attacks and the inaction of the authorities was one of the reasons that prompted the Nuba to join the Popular Movement and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army to obtain weapons in order to protect themselves and defend their honor, and what is happening today in Darfur confirms this. Accordingly, we see under the ashes a flash of fire, and we fear its burning.
Footnotes and referrals
(1) The abundance of strife and civil wars caused the dispersal of the tribes of Sheba throughout the Arabian Peninsula, to the point that they became a proverb for dispersing, and it was said that they were dispersed by the hands of Sheba. There was a great dam in their kingdom that stopped the torrent of rain in Yemen, and aram is the plural of arama as farha, which is a dam.
(2) See D. Shawqi Al-Gamal: The History of Sudan and the Nile Valley: Its Civilizations and Relations with Egypt from the Earliest Ages to the Present, Part One, Cairo, 1969 AD.
Vantini, G, Christianity in Sudan, Bologna, 1981; and Stevenson, R C, The Nuba People ofKordofanProvince: An Ethnography Survey, KhartoumUniversity Press, 1984.
(3) Professor Abdullah Al-Tayeb says in “Al-Ittihad International” newspaper: 4/6/1999 AD that Al-Maris is from “Al-Mars” - meaning the rope, as sailors were forced to pull boats with ropes in this region, and it is known that “Al-Maris” is a weakly intoxicating drink made from corn and mixed with the hands before being placed in drinking vessels. And Marissa - one who touches something in water if you put it in it to soak. Some sources say that Al-Maris is a Coptic word meaning south.
(4) Herodotus, TheHistories, Edinburgh, 1954.
(5) MacMichael, H A, The Tribes of Northern and Central Kordofan, Cambridge, 1912.
(6) Newbold, D, SomeLinks with Anag of Gebel Haraza, Sudan Notes and Records, 1924, Vol 7, No 1; andNewbold, D, The White Nuba of Jebel Haraza, and White Races of North Africa, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol 7, No 2, 1924.
(7) Bell, H, An ExtinctNubian Language in Kordofan, Sudan Notes and Records, 1973, Vol 54.
(8) Dr. Abdul Aziz Amin Abdul Majeed, Education in Sudan: from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century and the psychological and social foundations on which it is based, Part One, Cairo, 1949 AD.
(9) Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper: 1/23/1999.
(10) Al-Ittihad International newspaper: 10/20/1997.
(11) Meinhof, C, SudanNotes and Records, Vol 3, No 4, 1920.
(12) Caputo, R, Sudan: Arab-African Giant, The National Geographic Magazine, Vol 161, No 3, March 1982, Pages 346-378.
(13) Al-Rai Al-Aam newspaper: 1/31/1999.
(14) Nadel, S F, TheHill Tribes of Kadero, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol XXV, Part I, 1942; Nadel, SF, The Nuba: An Anthropological Study of the Hill Tribes in Kordofan, Oxford, 1947; Hawkesworth, D, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol XXIX, Part I, 1948; andSalat, J, Reasoning as Enterprise: The Anthropology of S F Nadel, 1983.
(15) Holt, P M, A ModernHistory of the Sudan: From Funj Sultanate to the Present Day, London, 1961.
For more information on the meaning of the designation and attribution of the Ja’aliyyin to Al-Abbas, the uncle of the Prophet, may God bless him and grant him peace, see the good article written by Ali Halib called “The Negro Origin of the Names of Sudanese Towns... Meanings and Dimensions,” Sudanile: 5/7/2003 AD.
(16) Manger, L O, Fromthe Mountains to the Plains: The Integration of the Lafofa Nuba into SudaneseSociety, Uppsala, 1994.
(17) See Siraj al-Din Abdel Ghaffar Omar: History of the Conflict in the Nuba Mountains: The Period 1984 AD - 1996 AD, Khartoum, 1996 AD.
(18) Awad Abdul Hadi Al-Atta, The Political History of Kordofan in Mahdia (1881 AD - 1899 AD), Khartoum, 1973 AD.
(19) Africa Today, London, 1996.
(20) Hawkesworth, D, The Nuba Proper of Southern Kordofan, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol XV, Part II, 1932.
(21) Al-Ittihad International newspaper: 10/20/1997 AD; Al-Ittihad International newspaper: 10/21/1997.
MacDiarmid, D N, Notes on Nuba Customs and Language, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol X, 1927; MacDiarmid, P A and MacDiarmid, D N, The Languages of the Nuba Mountains, SudanNotes and Records, Vol XIV, Part II, 1931; Stevenson, R C, Linguistic Researchin the Nuba Mountains – I, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol 43, 1962; Stevenson, RC, Linguistic Research in the Nuba Mountains – II, Vol 45, 1964; Stevenson, R C, The Present Position of Research in the Nuba Mountains Languages, Directions inSudanese Linguistics and Folklore, co-edited by Sayyid Hamid Hurreiz and HermanBell, Institute of African and Asian Studies, Khartoum; Hair, P E H, A Layman’sGuide to the Languages of the Sudan Republic, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol 47, 1966.
(22) The reds and the reds are from the Arab tribes that live in North Kordofan.
Henderson, K D D, Nubian and Nuba, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol 18, Part II, 1935.
(23) Hair, P E H, The Brothers Tutschek and their Sudanese Informants, Sudan Notesand Records, Vol 50, 1969.
(24) Kauczor, P D, The Afitti Nuba of Gebel Dair and their Relation tothe Nuba Proper, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol VI, No 1, 1923; Hawkesworth, D, The Nuba Proper of Southern Kordofan, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol XV, Part II, 1932; and Bolton, A R C, The Dubab and Nuba of Jebel Daier, Sudan Notes andRecords, Vol XIX, Part I, 1936.
(25) “Al-Sharq Al-Awsat” newspaper: 9/4/1998.
(26) Kingdom, F D, Bracelet Fighting in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol XXI, 1938; Riefenstahl, L, The People of Kau, London, 1976.
The best person to describe the values and customs of the Nuba in the Kao-Nyaro region is Professor Abbas Mustafa Sadiq in his novel “The Ordeal of the Kao”. In this story, the author intends to draw a realistic picture of the lives of people in the Nuba Mountains, and the rituals they practice in some areas. In this novel, Professor Sadiq narrates the conditions of drought and desertification that imposed - with their exhausting and arduous burdens - on the lives of people in the Al-Kaw region, where misery and poverty were mixed with ignorance and backwardness (Al-Wefaq newspaper: 2/20/1999).
(27) Luz, O and Luz, H, Proud and Primitives, The Nuba People, TheNational Geographic Magazine, November 1966; and Riefenstahl, L, The Last of theNuba, London, 1973.
Luth presented a social study of poor people, short and tall, including their way of living, burial rites, harvest rituals, methods of cultivation, harvesting, wrestling, and others.
(28) Sudan Notes and Records, Vol V, 1922; Hillelson, S, Notes on the Dago: withspecial reference to the Dago settlement in Western Kordofan, Sudan Notes andRecords, Vol VIII, 1925; and Macintosh, E H, A Note on the Dago Tribe, SudanNotes and Records, Vol XIV, Part II, 1931.
(29) Dr. Abdullah Paula: The Ghoul genealogy in the problem of cultural identity and human rights in Sudan, “New Paths” magazine, first issue, Asmara, August 1998.
(30) Dunn, S C, Native Gold Washings in the Nuba Mountains Province, Sudan Notes andRecords, Vol 4, No 3, 1921; and Bell, G W, Shaibun Gold, Sudan Notes andRecords, Vol 20, Part I, 1937.
(31) On 5/9/1994 AD, Al-Khartoum newspaper published the paper presented by Dr. John Garang - head of the SPLM and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army - before the Seventh African Conference, which was held in Kampala - Uganda - in April 1994 AD. In that paper, the head of the Popular Movement said that the Jellaba are a social group that has developed and grown in Sudan since the fifteenth century. They played a role in the slave trade and possessed economic and social power, which turned into political power. They inherited power from the colonizers and applied the ideology of Arabism and political Islam to protect their economic, political and social positions in Sudanese society.
(32) Trench, C C, Charley Gordon: An Eminent Victorian Reassessed, London, 1978.
(33) Al-Ittihad International Newspaper: 11/29/1998.
(34) March, Z and Kingsnorth, G W, An Introduction to the History of East Africa, Cambridge University Press, 1965.
(35) Strachan, R, With the Nuba Hillmen of Kordofan, The National GeographicMagazine, Vol XCIX, No 2, November 1951.
(36) Kirk, R, The Sudanese in Mexico, Sudan Notes and Records, Vol 24, 1941.
(37) Thomas, H B, Notes on the Sudanese Corps in Mexico (1863-1867) and on FortMagungu, Uganda Journal, Vol 8, Part I, 1940, Pages 28-32.
(38) Suliman, M, The Nuba Mountains of Sudan: resources, access, violent conflict andidentity, London, 2001.
(39) The Economist, March 6, 2004.
Despite the hatred and hatred that the Haitians showed against the white man, they could not break free from his grip. This white man has always seemed to be an outsider in the affairs of this island since the arrival of Columbus in the year 1492 AD until the departure of Father Jean-Bertrand Aristide on February 29, 2004 AD. Haiti's disasters began with reparations, then economic embargoes, and finally conspiracies. In 1915, American forces intervened for what were claimed to be humanitarian reasons, but the main goal was to reduce German influence in the region and preserve American interests. The American occupiers built infrastructure and eradicated tropical diseases, but the forced use of workers led to the outbreak of a second uprising in which thousands of Haitians were killed. The Americans imposed a superior constitution on them, installed a weak, subordinate president, and left the country in 1934 AD. However, Uncle Sam's interference in Haiti's internal affairs has not ended yet, as the American administration supported the Duvalier dictatorship against what it called Castro's communism in Cuba until the popular uprising in 1986, and the American government helped exile Duvalier Jr. outside the country. Then we came to the coup of the generals who overthrew the first Aristide government in 1991 AD, a coup that the CIA is accused of being behind. Whoever was carrying out this coup, the deposed Aristide fled to America until the administration of President Bill Clinton returned him to power in 1994. Finally - and perhaps not the last chapter - America persuaded (or kidnapped) Aristide and took him into self-imposed (or forced) exile in the Central African Republic.
(40) Davidson, A P, In the Shadow of History: The Passage of Lineage Society, London, 1996.
(41) Alwan newspaper: 1/25/2004.