204 THE GA'ALlfN AND DANAGLA GROUP iii. i. xi.

The only record of the KusAs is, I think, in a passage of Burck-

hardt. Speaking of the Howara of Upper Egypt in Mamluk days he

says^:

On the south, the tribe of Kaszas ((.^1-as) [i.e. KusAs] who people

the country on the west banks from Thebes to near Esne, and to whom

belong the inhabitants of Gourne, Orment, and Reheygat (all celebrated

for their bold plundering enterprises) were their determined enemies;

although both these and the Howara report that they have the same origin from Barbary.

Both tribes have left their names in some of the small hills east

of the Blue Nile near Abu Delayk. With the Ghodiat, Kunan and KusAS the ^^nisbas'' commonly include the Batahin^ whose ancient home was among these same hills.

XII On the other hand the Ghodiat are universally allowed to be

largely Fung^ by race.

They are also obviously as much negroid as Arab. The inference

then to be drawn would seem to be that certain members of the group which also formed the substratum of the "Ga'aliin" tribes of the

present settled at some early period in the vicinity of Abu Delayk

;

and that certain of them took an active part in the Arab-Fung move- ment at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and in connection

with that movement penetrated westwards into Kordofan and settled

there among the Nuba and intermarried with them. Or, as an alter-

native, it is possible that the Ghodiat may have formed a part of the

racial wave that flowed into Kordofan from Dongola two centuries

before the foundation of Sennar and have subsequently acquired the Fung connection in Kordofan itself.

XIII Their traditions relate that they took up their abode at first

near Gebel Kurbag and Melbis and after a time drove the Nuba from their stronghold on Gebel Kordofan and usurped their position.

The Bedayria-Gawama'a group are said to have submitted to

their overlordship^. The story as Pallme heard it in 1838 is as follows

:

The aborigines are negroes from Nubia, who, even at the present time,

inhabit many parts of Kordofan. The word Kordofan itself is of Nubian

derivation. Three tribes subsequently immigrated : the Hadejat, el Giomme, and Bederie^. The period of this immigration, however, cannot be definitely

determined. These three nomadic tribes distributed themselves over the country round about Mount Kordofan, occupied themselves with cattle-

breeding, and each tribe had its sheikh, or magistrate; but from these

^ Niihia, p. 532. ^ Cp. the genealogical trees of the "A" group.

^ D I, ccix says Hamag instead of Fung.

^ So tradition. Cp. Pallme, pp. 11-12, Prout and Petherick.

* The names appear so in the original German also. The tribes meant are the Ghodiat, the Gawama'a and the Bedayria.