m. 1. XIII. THE GA'ALlfN AND DANAGLA GROUP 205

three tribes, collectively, a head was chosen, who acted as impartial judge

in all questions of difficulty, and, in fact, as the last authority.

About the middle of the seventeenth century^ the Fung, having

consolidated their power in the Gezira, proceeded to make raids over

the White Nile in the direction of Gebels Tekali and Daier. In the

following century they became paramount in those regions and an- nexed them to Sennar, but according to their usual policy they left

in power the chiefs of the conquered districts, and thus the chief of

the Ghodiat confederacy between el Obeid and Daier was given the

title of "MdngU" and was expected to pay a yearly tribute of cattle and iron hoes^.

No doubt a number of Fung settled during the two centuries mentioned in the newly acquired province, and while it is possible

that it is due merely to this that the Ghodiat are commonly considered

as half Fung, it is far more probable that the connection was more

ancient and dates from one or other of those periods of unrest and

expansion, the beginning of the fourteenth century and the beginning

of the sixteenth century.

The Fung control in south-central Kordofan was a very fluctu-

ating quantity. It reached its zenith between 1748 and 1758 with the

defeat of the Musaba'at of Darfur, and ended in 1788, The period

in which the Ghodiat were most powerful was between 1755 and

1768^, a fact which confirms the tradition that they were the special

proteges and allies of the Fung and dependent upon them for the maintenance of their position*. In 1768 central Kordofan, Kordofan proper that is^, passed to the Musaba'at, but there was apparently no particular animosity between these and the Ghodiat, and the

latter were left in possession of their lands south of the capital^, and

^ See D 7, xxix.

^ Called "Hashhash Um Henana." That these hoe-heads came to be used not merely as a useful medium of exchange but solely as coins I have argued in Tribes

of Northern and Central Kordofan (p. 67). See also Riippell, p. 139. This traveller, speaking of the years 1824-5 says: "In Obeid bedient man sich bei kleinen Aus- lagen einer eigenthiimlichen Munze; es sind kleine, drei Zoll grosse Stiicke Eisen in Gestalt von T; die vorige und jetzige Regierung setzte solche in Circulation. Man nennt diese Eisenstiicke Haschasch." They were also used in Darfur: see

el Tunisi, Voy. ati Darfour, p. 320. For "Mdngil" see p. 246.

^ See D I, ccix.

* It is said el Obeid was built during the Ghodiat period of ascendancy, but

this is not certain.

* To the present day the hillmen of Kaga and el Haraza and the nomads in the north (Kabahish, etc.), and also the Hamar of "Western Kordofan," speak of "going to Kordofan," meaning to the cultivable sandy districts now comprised in

el Obeid, Bara, Um Dam and Um Ruaba districts. The extension of the name to the north and west (and for some years to the Nuba hills in the south) was a purely arbitrary administrative act.

^ For the above see also MacMichael , Tribes..., pp. 9-13, 62, 67, 68.