vi INTRODUCTION

The chief reason for this disappearance of documents is not so much the reluctance of the "fekis" to risk their possessions in alien

hands, though this motive has to be combated where confidence has

not been established, as the indubitable fact that both the Mahdi

and the Khalifa, and especially the latter, gave stringent orders for

the destruction of all modern books and documents^. The Mahdi

feared that research might tend to invalidate his pretensions to

be the Expected One, and the Khalifa, who was a Ta'ai'shi from

Darfur, was only interested in genealogy to the extent of declining

to appear less nobly born than his subjects. Consequently vast

numbers of documents were deliberately burnt during the period of

Dervish rule, many others were buried and so lost, or destroyed by

white ants, and only a few survived to the present day.

My first impression after eximining a medley of these copies

fragments and extracts was to the effect that they v/ere worthless ; but

a closer acquaintance shewed, on the one hand, that there were

various scattered remarks and indications which had a certain value

in themselves, and, on the other, that some passages recurred almost word for word in the majority of the longer "nisbas" and pointed

to a common origin dating from about the sixteenth century.

It also became more and more clear that, however faulty the details

might be, the larger tribal genealogies, particularly those connected

with the name of el Samarkandi, contained in the form of a genea-

logical parable much valuable information concerning the inter-

relation of the tribes of the Sudan.

Even allowing that the intrinsic value of these documents is com-

paratively small it is none the less true that anyone wishing to con-

duct researches into the history or sociology of the country would

have the unwelcome choice either of delaying his work to collect

specimens of these manuscripts from all over the country, and then

examining them for what they were worth, or of ignoring the docu-

mentary evidence altogether. If he could afford the delay he would

presumably choose the former alternative and would rapidly find

himself sinking deeper and deeper into a morass of contradictions

and inaccuracies from which a year or two of work would hardly

serve to extricate him. To obviate the occurrence of this dilemma and

smooth a little the path of research, by collecting, comparing and

annotating such documents as I could find in the course of my work

' Cp., for the case of the Jvlahdi, Slatin Ch. viii.