1. 4. VII. THE NON-ARAB RACES OF DARFUR 69

that one would hesitate to accept any of its details as historically

correct.

The TuNGUR, however, are generally regarded as having some

intimate connection with the Beni Hilal, and, though this may only

be an echo of the Kayra tradition, the converse may equally be true,

and there also remains the possibility that about the fifteenth or

sixteenth century a.d., or even earlier, some Arabs or Arabo-Nubians

with a Beni Hilal connection, moved westwards from the cataract

region of the Nile to Darfur, mixed with the native races, and came

to be generally known as Tungur^, a theory not unsupported by

local tradition^.

There is also the bare possibility that the Tungur may have been

related to the Berber tribes dispossessed by the Beni Hilal in North

Africa, and perhaps through them to the Beni Hilal themselves. Or they may conceivably present a parallel to the case of the Howara

settled in and near el Fasher : these latter are by origin Berbers from Upper Egypt who in Dongola and Kordofan are represented by the nomad Hawawi'r and the negrified Gellaba Howara respectively^.

The word "Tungur" in Nubian or Barabra means "a bow for

shooting* " ; Nubia was known to the Pharaohs as Ta-sety (Land of

the Bow), and "Les Nubiens, dit Masoudy,...se servent d'arcs

arabes pour lancer des fleches. C'est d'eux que les peuples du

Hedjaz, du Yemen, et les autres Arabes, ont appris a tirer de I'arc^.... Les Arabes les nomment les archers hahiles^." Their traditions con-

nect them with Dongola and the Beni Hilal, they preserve (as may

be seen in Appendix 5) the custom of using the sign of the Cross,

their name survives in a rapid on the Nile, and, all things considered, one may say that such evidence as there is clearly indicates a Nubian

origin for the Tungur.

If this is correct, a parallel is provided by the case of the Birked which will shortly be discussed.

The Tungur have generally been referred to by travellers as

^ This seems to be Carbou's view {q.v. i, 74 note).

- Cp. MS. D I, cxLiii, and cp. Sir H. H. Johnston's views in Journ. Anthr.

Inst. XLiii, 1913, p. 399. He considers that a large proportion of the "HilaUan" invaders found their way from the cataract region of the Nile "across Darfur to Wadai, Bornu and Baghirmi, where they are represented at the present day by

the Shawia. Others again mingled with Hamitic and negro elements and founded the powerful Funj dynasty of Senaar." From the second of these statements I would entirely dissent.

^ See App. to Part II, Chap. i.

* Reinisch, Die Nuba-Sprache, p. 165.

^ Quatremere, n, 28.

® Mas'udi, 11, 383 (and cp. II, 2, xxiii above): the Arabic is w»jjOI^,,»y«j«~~