CHAPTER 4
The Guhayna Group (continued)
(a) THE KABABfSHi
I The Kababi'sh perhaps present a more interesting study in racial
composition than any other tribe in the Sudan.
At the present they are outwardly a homogeneous whole under the
control of a supreme sheikh {''ndsir") to whose authority the sheikhs
of the subtribes and the individuals alike bow. They are also the
largest and most wealthy tribe of camel-owning nomads in the country. The term "tribe" is therefore quite applicable to them; but none the
less they are really a congeries of heterogeneous Arab elements^,
modified to some extent by Hamitic (Bega and Berber) and negro
(slave) admixture, but more essentially Arab than the majority of the nomadic tribes and, a fortiori, than any of the sedentary population.
II The grovv1:h of the tribe to its present state is the result of a
series of accretions which have been taking place for several centuries, and the particular cause responsible for this process has been the
geographical advantages offered by the country inhabited by the
Kababi'sh. This comprises the whole of the high land of which the
line Um Badr-Katul-Kagmar-Um Inderaba is, approximately speak-
ing, the southern boundary.
On the north the Kababi'sh are only limited by the deserts of the
Sahara. Westwards they wander beyond the Wadi el Melik to the Darfur border, and on the east, in the dry season, they water their
flocks in the Wadi Mukaddam. There is also a large section of the
tribe in Dongola Province, chiefly nomadic but having some cultiva-
tion in the Nile valley.
In northern Kordofan they have certain patches of cultivation in
the vicinity of their chief watering places, but the cultivators are only
dependants left behind for the purpose while the tribe as a whole is
grazing further afield, or, occasionally, poor men who have only a few sheep and goats.
^ See also MacMichael, Tribes..., Chap, xv, and in Vol. XL, 1910, of jfourn. Anthrop. Imtit.
^ Their heterogeneity is indicated by the diversity of their camel-brands. There
is no single brand peculiar to the tribe nor any trace of such. Each main division, however, has a brand common to all its members. These are specified in my brochure on Cainel Brands used in Kordofan, and certain of them are mentioned in the course of this chapter.
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