68 THE NON-ARAB RACES OF DARFUR i. 4. vii.
divided as to whether he was a Tungurawi or a Furawi or one of the To Ra, the prehistoric people who, according to tradition, preceded
the Fur both in the mountains of Si and Turra (the northernmost
portion of Marra, immediately south of Si). For this confusion the
local blending by marriage of Fur and Tungur stocks is obviously
responsible, for an exactly similar doubt surrounds the ethnical status
of the people of Dar Furnung themselves at the present day.
The Tungur were not content to remain for long in Darfur. In
less than a century they began to extend their conquests over Wadai and up to the borders of Bakirmi.
In proportion, however, as they moved westwards they weakened
their hold over the most easternly part of their dominions and their
place was taken by the Kayra section of the Fur with whom they had intermarried^.
In the west they were overcome in the first half of the seventeenth century by 'Abd el Kerim, the founder of the Muhammadan empire
of Wadai^. They then moved into Kanem and overcame the Bulala and compelled the Arab tribes to pay tribute. By this time, if not
before, they had been converted to Islam. Subsequently they were subdued by the Bornuans, but in the middle of the nineteenth century
regained the mastery by the aid of the Sultan of Wadai. Shortly
afterwards, however, the Awlad Sulayman invaded their country and made them tributary. Since then they have been of little account^. The tradition given by Slatin^ is to the effect that the Tungur came from the north from Tunis under "Ahmad el Ma'akur" (of
the Beni Hilal, the commonly reputed ancestor of the Kayra Fur), but this story is so obviously intertwined with the fabulous "Abu Zayd" or "Beni Hilal" cycle current in Egypt and the Sudan^, and
there may so easily be a confusion between Tungur and Fur tradi-
tions, due to the extent to which they intermarried in northern Darfur,
^ Note that the mother and not the father of Ddli, who is spoken of as the first Kayra Sultan, belonged to the Kayra family: the father was a Tungurdwi (Carbou,
I, 77). So, too, 'Abd el Kerim (q.v. next paragraph) is said to have married the daughter of the Tungur king (Carbou, I, 78).
^ Barth, loc. cit.\ Nachtigal, Sah. imd Sudan, HI, 449 ff. and Voy. au Oiiaddi, pp. 72, 93; Schurtz, pp. 541-544, and Carbou, i, 73-84, 25, 26. The last two are quoting Nachtigal.
^ Carbou, I, Ch. III.
'' Chap. 11.
* The subject is discussed in my Tribes..., pp. 56, 57. See also Escayrac de Lauture, Le Desert et le Soudan, and Carbou, I, 74, 84, and 11, 17. The last-named
also refers to an article " Schoa und Tundscher" by Hartmann in Der islamische
Orient, i, 29-31, and to C. H. Becker's " Zur Geschichte der ostlichen Sudan"'
(in Der Islam, i^^ ann^e, fasc. 11), pp. i6i, 162. Becker brings the Tungur from the east. Kampflfmeyer (Studien der arahischen Beduinendialecte Inner Afrikas,
p. 166), ap. Carbou, l, 84, brings them from Tunis. ^ For an account of the Beni Hilal see Part II, Chap, i, xiv.