72 THE NON-ARAB RACES OF DARFUR i. 4. viii.
been expelled from that part of Africa now, nominally at least, under
the dominion of Tunis." This story also has nothing to recommend it.
Browne refers, too, to an alleged custom practised by the Dagu
of lighting a fire on the inauguration of their king and keeping it
burning till his death. A similar custom appears to prevail in Uganda^.
El Tunisi mentions the Dagu, the INIasalit, the Mima, the Kashmara and the Kura'an as the five aboriginal tribes of Wadai^,
and of the first-named says
:
Les Dadjo sent au sud du Dar-Seleih [i.e. Waddi], voisins des Koukah...
[lis] sent generalement d'un noir fence ; leur caractere est encore sauvage.
lis sent, aux yeux des Ouadayens, ce que sent les Berty aux yeux des
Foriens [i.e. people of Ddrfur]. Les Berty sent au nord du For, et les Dadjo au sud de Ouaday.
El Tunisi here of course refers not to the Dagu of Darfur but to
those of Dar Sula in southern Wadai. The former group he mentions
briefly in his book on Darfur as living next the Bayko under a
tributary "Sultan" of their own^.
Barth speaks of the Dagu as having dominated Darfur in the
tenth century of Islam and as being called in his time (1849-55) "Nas Fara'on" ("Pharaoh's Folk"*). He regarded them as entirely
different from the Zaghawa and thought they might have come from the mountains of Fazoghli south of Sennar. Their traditions lend
colour to this theory and their customs suggest a Bantu connection.
Nachtigal (1872), who met the Dagu on the frontier of Darfur and Wadai, speaks of them^ (the western or Sula branch, that is) as "black as jet," strongly built, and hideously ugly. As regards their
state of culture they were nominal Muhammadans with numerous pagan beliefs.
^ Browne, p. 306. A survival of this custom, now forgotten, may lie in the use of the word " nar" ("fire") as the equivalent of " sovereignty ": thus it is said that such and such a tribe is "in the fire of" ("ff nar") another tribe, meaning it is subject to it; or again that so and so has been appointed "to the fire of" ("ff nar") a tribe, meaning he has been made chief over it. When I directly questioned the Dagu as to the truth of the story told by Browne, they denied it, but spoke very vaguely of some similar custom which, they believed, had prevailed among the Dagu of Dar Sula. One man vouched for the fact that Sultan Bakhft Abu Rfsha of Sula (deposed by the French in 191 6) had six times caught his slaves (probably Fertft,
q.v.) lighting some such fire against his wishes and had caused it to be put out. Cp. Roscoe in Harvard Afr. Stud, i, 37, 38 ; and Ba!>anda, pp. 103 and 202.
^ Voy. au Ouaday, pp. 245, 248. The spelling is taken from the Arabic {q.v. pp.728ff.).
^ Voy. au Darfour, pp. 128-138.
'' Vol. Ill, Ch. LI, p. 426. The Tibbu are called "Nds Fara'on" in the "Tadkh
el Khamis," a native MS. of Waddi (see Carbou, i, 116). Cp. remarks at the close of this chapter.
* Voy. au Ouada'i, p. 68.