A history of the Arabs in the Sudan and some account of the people who preceded them and of the tribes inhabiting Dárûr

III. 1. XXXV. THE GA'ALllN AND DANAGLA GROUP 229

The Ga'afiria as a whole are no doubt connected with the Ga'afiria of Upper Egypt and Dongola, who appear in the "ntsbas"

as Ga'afira and are as a rule said to be descendants of Beni Tai.

Makri'zi^ and Ibn Khaldun^ mention Beni Ga'afir (with the Awlad Kanz north of Aswan) who were Kuraysh by origin. These are the

"large tribe of Djaafere" referred to in the same locality by Burck-

hardt, who says of them

The large tribe of Djaafere occupied the shores of the Nile from Esne

to Assouan; a few families of Sherifs settled in the Batn el Hadjar and a branch of the Koreish possessed themselves of Mahass. For several centuries Nubia was occupied by these Arabs, who were at continual war with each other, in the course of which the kings of Dongola had acquired so much influence over them as to be able at last to compel them to pay

tribute^.

The Ga'afiria may also contain elements of Beni Hilal*. XXXIV The camel brand most generally used by such of the Ga- wama'a in Kordofan as own camels is the '' ruaykih" ("little rider").

It is placed on the right cheek and assumes in the case of the various

sections one or other of the forms a, h, c, d,e. 11

^ ji The Serayhat are an exception and use the 1 1 "^ 1

"shabul," i.e. A, on the right cheek, a fact a 6 c d e

which bears further witness to their connection with the Manasir

on the river^.

XXXV The Gima'A, The early history of the Gima'a, their separa-

tion from the main Ga'ali stock in Nubia and their movement south- westwards to Kordofan, is much the same as that of the Gawama'a.

But they lack the Darfur element that characterizes the GawAma'a,

and, having settled further east than the latter, mixed less with the autochthonous population of the northern Nuba mountains, and during their subsequent career acquired more of the customs and manners typical of the Bakkara, such as their dances and their method

of dressing the hair. Nor did they become completely sedentary in

their mode of life.

Their number was assessed by Prout in 1876 at about 25,000®.

In 1885 their sheikh 'Asakir Abu Kalam was ordered by the Khalifa to bring them all to Omdurman. When they hesitated he

sent Yunis wad Dekaym to crush them. Yunis confiscated most of

^ Q.v. ap. Quatremere, n, 204. "Their territory commences north of Man- falut and stretches east and west as far as Samalout."