328 THE KAWAHLA GROUP iiL5.vi.

(b) THE AHAMDA

The Ahamda sometimes appear in the nisbas of the Ga'aliin

group, and figure there as closely akin to the Gawama'a and the

Gima'a^. The Kawahla nisba shows them as Kawahla^. The Bakkara include them in their genealogies but evidently regard them

as an inferior folk : the Humr Felaita, for instance, speak of " Ahamda who was raped by a Nuba" as ancestress of the Ahamda.

The Hammada (Rufa'a) also claim the Ahamda to be descended from the same ancestor as themselves. The most usually accepted

oral tradition has it that Hammad, the ancestor of the Ahamda, was

a Kahli and that for some reason he denied his tribe and was therefore nicknamed "el Nuaykir" ("the little apostate").

The Ahamda are a semi-nomadic tribe, some of whom are in the

northern part of the Gezira, in the Blue or the White Nile Province,

and to the east of the Blue Nile, while others are more sedentary and own a considerable tract of country to the west of the White Nile,

south of Kosti^.

Many of the Ahamda are settled permanently in villages through-

out the year; but the majority of the easternmost group, during the

rains, push some distance eastwards to cultivate in the wddis

between the river and the Butana and to graze their flocks. As the

supplies of water in the hafirs and of grass diminish they retreat

to the river. During this process quarrels usually arise between them and the Hasania and the Batahi'n. Having finally returned to the

vicinity of the Blue Nile these Ahamda similarly quarrel with the

Mesallamia Mahass and others on analogous grounds.

They are, wherever found, but more particularly in the east, a

small decadent and dirty type of Arab, owning a fair number of

cattle, many sheep and goats, and a few small herds of camels. Some

of the Ahamda who are now under the White Nile Province were,

in pre-Mahdist days, farther west and north and formed a section

of the Kababish*, but the bond between the two tribes, which was

never more than purely artificial and utilitarian, no longer exists, and except for a few individuals, there are no Ahamda now in the

steppes of northern Kordofan.

Others used to be mixed with the Awlad Hamayd and other

1 See BA and A 1 1

.

^ See C i (a) and (b).

' In 1814 there were some "Hamda" in Shendi district whom Burckhardt

(q.v. p. 34s) understood to be "acknowledged as relations by the Arabs of the same name who inhabit the neighbourhood of Luxor and Karnak in Upper Egypt; Luxor has hence received the name of el Hamdye."

* Cp. note on p. 312.