320 THE GUHAYNA GROUP iii.4.xviil

using it as a reservoir, thus rendering habitable vast tracts hitherto

useless^. But as a matter of fact one occasionally finds (more often

in the west than in the east) an old tree in which the opening is

differently placed to that usually made by the Hamar, and the work

is then attributed to the 'Anag. On this, if on no other ground, one would suppose that the use of the baobab for water-storage is fairly

ancient, but died out, and was revived by the Hamar as the necessity

arose for them to expand. As they progressed eastwards they cer-

tainly tapped virgin areas.

XIX As soon as the Hamar became at all powerful they parted into two main divisions, the 'Asakira {i.e. "Soldiers") and the Dekakim, and very shortly afterwards—probably about the time of the Turkish

conquest of Kordofan—the bulk of both moved eastwards as a result

of quarrels with the other Arab tribes of eastern Darfur^ and the

insufficiency of their own territories there.

Those of them who stayed behind round Um Shanka and the

districts now known as Dam Gamad^ and Zernakh*, etc., remained

independent under Darfur^.

The rest pushed eastwards, and the family of el Hag Muna'am

settled more or less permanently round Farshaha^, and that of the

Sheikh of the Dekakim in Shek el Dud^, farther to the west. But

their people remained nomad between el Odaya and Foga, and east- wards as far as Abu Haraz and Gebel Abu Sinun, and in the rains

sought more distant grazing grounds along the Wadi el Melik with

the Kababish, Beni Gerar, Zayadia and Dar Hamid, and even

raided as far east as the Bayuda desert^.

The result was that every year in the rains and winter the Hamar found themselves engaged in a series of petty inter-tribal raids and

forays, which in their traditions are glorified under the name of wars^.

^ For many generations there have been wells at Um Shanka, but the country

east of it was a desert until about the middle of the nineteenth century when the baobabs were exploited. There were no wells at el Nahud until the Dervish epoch. The " tubeldi" in western Kordofan is usually called a " homraia"—presumably because the bark has a pink-red sheen over it and the fibre has a dull brick

colour. That the tribe especially concerned with these trees should be called "Hamar" (i.e. "red") is probably no more than a coincidence.

2 Cp. Pallme, p. 142.

^ Meaning " blood has clotted." Fights for " tubeldts," etc., were very frequent

there. * The name of a fly. ® Cp. Cuny, p. 190.

® Cp. Petherick, Upper Egypt..., p. 314, and Cuny, pp. 189-190.

' Literally " Lion's Valley." * Cuny, p. 65.

* In the "war" with Dar Hamid, it is said, each side was accompanied by a poet who encouraged his own people by the recital of verses. The Hamar say maliciously that the men of Dar Hamid were so utterly destroyed that their women went round in a band to neighbouring tribes offering themselves in marriage at a reduced dowry, and only so kept the tribe in existence.