I. 4. XXV. THE NON-ARAB RACES OF DARFUR 115

The earlier waves of the southward-flowing tide were composed

almost entirely of Berbers, but as the Arabs fused with the Berbers

in the north and converted them to Islam its composition was pro-

portionately modified, and by the tenth century there were Arabs

as well as Berbers definitely established in the more westernly king- doms ^ and beginning to work their way eastwards. A Berber or Arab origin is claimed for the ruling house in each of the states that border on the southern fringe of the Sahara^ to the west of Lake

Chad.

But from the fusion of Libyo-Berber and negro farther north had already arisen the Tibbu stock^ which had become all powerful

in the Tibesti hills long before the Arabs began to force the Berbers

southwards. They had also established themselves in northern Wadai and Darfur, and the later Berber-Arab congeries, though their social

influence may have been not inconsiderable, never supplanted them

there*.

Thus one might describe the general ethnological aspect of Darfur as distinctively Tibbu in the north and negro in the south. In addition, however, to the Tibbu and the negro element and to

the numerous Arab tribes which will be dealt with in a later chapter,

there are scattered over the country various debased tribes which, though blended with negro from the south or Tibbu from the north,

are at the same time connected on the one side with the ancient

peoples of the Nile valley or, on the other, with the old kingdoms

lying west of Lake Chad.

^ Cp. Johnston \nJourn. Anthr. Inst. XLiii, 1913, p. 398, and for some general account of the Berber movement see Part II, Chap, i, Appendix.

^ Thus Leo Africanus, speaking of Bornu, says (p. 832): "They have a most puissant prince being descended from the Libyan people called Bardoa"; and again (p. 133), "Some writers are of opinion that the king of Timboto, the king of Melle, and the king of Agadez fetch their originall from the people of Zanaga

[i.e. Sanhaga] to wit, from them which inhabite the desert." Makrizi and Sultan Bello similarly trace the Bornu dynasty to a Berber origin. (See Dr Brown's note to Leo, loc. cit. and cp. Orr, The Making of Modern Nigeria, p. 60, and App. to Part II, Chap, i.)

^ See above, Part I, Chap. 2.

* It is noticeable in this connection that whereas the western states had been converted to Islam centuries before Leo wrote his travels in the first half of the sixteenth century—and Ghana as early as 1076 (see Cooley, pp. 42-86, Brown in

Leo, p. 838), Bornu was still pagan in Leo's day (see Leo, loc. cit.). According to Ahmad Baba's History {q.v. Barth, iv, 407) Tiliitan the great Lamtuna (Berber) chief who died in 837 A.D. had been the first of his people to adopt Islam and con- vert the negroes, and Za-Kasi, King of Songhay, was converted in 1009 by mission-

aries from Egypt.

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