258 THE GUHAYNA GROUP in. 2. xix.

Kordofan he conciliated the Zaghawa and settled them at Kagmar,

enslaved the Kura'an, and placed himself under the protection of

the Fung. A general concentration of the Dar Hamid in Kordofan

followed, and during the period of Fung ascendancy in that province

the tribe seems to have paid them tribute.

The " tiahds" remained with the Awlad Akoi for three generations

after 'Abd el Hamayd, and then passed into the possession of the Hababin, who had become the richest and most powerful section of

the tribe, and whose sheikh Um Beda wad Simawi was their leading

warrior.

From Um Beda the ''nahds" descended to his sons Tumsah and 'Abd el Salam^ and his grandson Simawi "Giraygir^."

It is on account of the chieftainship having been in the hands of

the Hababin throughout the Turkish period that travellers not un- commonly spoke of "the Hababin" when they intended to denote

the whole of Dar Hamid^.

XX At the present day each of the sections has its own sheikh and

there is no single head of the tribe with a " nahds." The most nomadic

of these sections, because the richest in herds = is the Meganin^, the

bulk of whom are on the western confines of Dar Hamid and roam

almost as far north-west in the rains as do the Kababish and Kawahla.

It is only lately that they have begun to clear parts of their country

for cultivation and to form villages and to tap their forests for gum. Grazing their cattle and sheep and raiding those of their neighbours had long been their only occupations.

They have now become entirely separate from the rest of the

tribe^, and are still more or less unregenerate.

A section of the Megani'n lives apart round el Hashaba in eastern Kordofan and is completely cut off from the rest of the tribe. They were first noticed by Baron J. W. von Miiller between 1847 and 1849^.

^ Q.v. Cuny, p. 154.

" Slatin's " Grieger."

^ £'.^. M. Parkyns and Cuny (pp. 154, 161, 173).

* Sing. "Magnuni" (i.e. "Madman"). A curious example of the cheerful and wholesale acceptance by a tribe of a depreciatory nickname (see Andrew Lang, The

Secret of the Totem, Ch. vi).

® They are mentioned by el Tunisi as a large tribe rich in herds and paying

tribute to Darfur (Voyage au Darfour, p. 87). He includes them and the Mahamld,

the Beni 'Omran, the Beni Gerar and some of the Messiria Zurruk under the term "Fezara" (" Ferara by misprint; see lac. cit. p. 129). Nachtigal {Oiiaddi, p. 71) alludes to them in Wadai as "de la famille des Mahamid's." Cuny (p. 78) speaks

of them as a separate tribe and says they, the Ma'alia, the Kababish, the Beni Gerar, and the Zayadia, meet at Um el Bahr in northern Kordofan. However, when in 1906 their sheikh bought a " nahds" for the Megani'n, even his own tribe regarded his action as presumptuous and would not allow it to be beaten.

« Se-ijfourn. R. G. S. Vol. xx, 1851.