III. 3. IV. THE GUHAYNA GROUP 273

Bakkara tribes have crystallised into more or less permanent shape,

but in Darfur, where the old conditions prevailed until the deposition

of 'Ali Dinar in 191 6, the old process continued in a marked degree and many families of other tribes were continually seeking the protection

of the powerful Rizaykat, while others, such as the Beni Helba, decamped into Wadai. The occupation of Darfur was the signal for most of these Beni Helba and other refugees to start returning to

their previous pasturing grounds.

The Bakkara are seen at their best in Kordofan, where the type

has remained virile and independent. They are probably at their worst in Darfur, the Rizaykat excepted, for there they have been

consistently oppressed and robbed and have become half sedentary,

dirty, lazy and mentally inert.

III The present distribution of the Bakkara is as follows : on the extreme east, on the banks of the White Nile, are the Beni Selim. In Kordofan, from east to west, are the AwlAd Hamayd and a branch

of the Darfur Habbania, both living south of Um Ruaba and round

Tekali. Then the Hawazma, between El Obeid Dilling and Talodi^; then the Messiria, south of Abu Zabad ; and, lastly, the Humr between El Odaya and the Bahr el 'Arab.

In southern Darfur are the Rizaykat, comprising the Mahamid Mahria and Nawaiba, the Habbania, the Ta'aisha, the Beni Helba and a few Beni Khuzam; and farther north some Messiria, Ta'elba,

or Tha'aliba, Hotia, Sa'ada, Tergam, Beni Husayn and Bashir.

In Wadai, Bornu and Bakirmi are Beni Helba, Beni Khuzam, Nawaiba, Beni Rashid (Rowashda) and Ziud, and the Salamat.

IV The writers of the "nisbas" were riverain folk and evidently knew little of the distant Bakkara: they either omit them or per-

functorily allot to them some more than usually shadowy ancestor

;

but the general impression one receives from the traditional gene-

alogies is probably a correct one, namely, that the Bakkara and the camel-owning Fezara group to the north are both branches of the same great "Guhayna^'' group, and that, furthermore, the non- Fezara portion of this group are not all Bakkara but divided in the

case of each tribe into cattle-owners in the south and camel-owners

in the north. Thus it arises that, for instance, the Mahamid and the Mahria are independent nomad tribes of camel-owners in northern Darfur and Wadai, while other Mahamid and Mahria compose two-

thirds of the Rizaykat in southern Darfur. It is easy to see how this

^ There is also a small colony of them in the Fama district of the Upper Nile Province (A. E. Sudan, i, 196).

^ It will be seen that the term " Guhayna" is loosely used to include a number of connected Arabian tribes, particularly Harb.

M. S. I iS