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MANUSCRIPT A 7

Introduction

This extract is sealed by three sheikhs. It was produced by a woman, who had been born a Tekalawia and captured and enslaved in the Mahdia, as a proof of the fact that she was freeborn and not enslaveable.

Apparently it is from the same source as A 10.

This is the pedigree of el Tom bint Kerayb,

copied from the great original. I In the name of God ....

Praise be to Him who made men races and tribes that they might know one another, and blessings and salutations upon him that said

"Ye know from your pedigrees how ye are connected," and upon his family ....

II Now the preservation of pedigrees is obligatory, ordained by the law, and to guard them is a duty in the past and in the future.

III The pedigree is as follows: el Tom daughter of Kerayb son of

. . .{as in tree, q.v. as far as el Sayyid el 'Abbas).

A 7 (NOTES)

"The great original" is S^-J^Jl ^'s)l ("The great mother"). I Cp. BA, III, XXIII, XXXII.

Ill The " meks " mentioned are those of Gebel Tekali, and it is of interest

to notice that they are said to be descended from Gamti'a, i.e. to belong to the Gamu'ia branch of the Ga'ali family.

The name "Gayli" (^J^cf.) seems to attach to the ruling family at Tekali from generation to generation. Curiously enough, far to the East,

between the Blue Nile and the Atbara, is Gebel Gayli (or "Kayli" as it should be written) where a small branch of Shukria HasanAb have their headquarters, and the Sheikh of these people uses the hereditary name

of Gayli in place of his father's name; i.e. instead oi (e.g.) "Muhammad walad Ahmad" or "Adam walad el Nur" he is known as "Muhammad Gayh" or "Adam Gayli."

Crowfoot (Arch. Survey..., xix, Mem. p. 24) says Gayli "is a Nubian word meaning 'red.'" Burckhardt (Nubia) gives it in Nuba dialect as "geyla" and in Kanzi as "geylem." The Midobi for "red" is "Kayli"

and the Birked "Kayle."

" 'Adnan" for " 'Adi" occurs also in A 10. "Yatil" and "Hatil" are transposed by an error.