Nubians

Nawal H. Ammar

Egyptian Nubians, Halfans, Lower Nubians, Sudanese Nubians

The Nubians are a predominantly non-Arab Muslim population who lived in the geographical region known as Nubia in southern Egypt and northern Sudan. One hundred and twenty thousand Nubians were relocated beginning in 1964 because their villages were inundated by the Aswan High Dam Lake. Some argue that the name “Nubians” derives from a word in the Nubian language meaning “slaves,” but others say that the ancient Egyptian word nab meant “gold” and that the Ancient Egyptians used that term to refer to the Nubian Valley because of the gold mines that were nearby. Another source mentions that the word nebed appeared in an inscription of Thutmose I (c. 1494 BCE) to designate people with curly hair who were invaded by the Pharaoh. The Nubians lived until 1964 in an unbounded geographical region known as Nubia, in village clusters along the banks of the Nile. The river, south of Aswan, is broken by five stony passages known as “cataracts.” Nubia stretched from Aswan in Upper Egypt in the north, at the Nile's First Cataract, to the Republic of Sudan in the south, for some 300 kilometers, midway between the Third and Fourth cataracts (around latitude 19° N). After 1964, and before the Aswan High Dam Lake inundated a large portion of their land, the Egyptian Nubians were relocated to reclaimed land in Kom Ombo in the governorate of Aswan, 50 kilometers north of the city of Aswan. The Sudanese Nubians were resettled at Khashm el Girba in what was eventually known as the New Halfa Project, 800 kilometers away from their original homeland.

The Nubian community, both in Sudan and Egypt, barely reproduced itself prior to resettlement. At a time when the larger society was experiencing an annual population increase ranging from 2.5 to 3.0 percent, Nubia was experiencing a population decline. Ever-decreasing land availability owing to the construction of the Aswan Dam earlier in the twentieth century led to the emigration of males to cities. An imbalance existed in the sex ratio, especially in the middle-range age group. Such an imbalance further led to natural decrease in the population. Among the Egyptian Nubians this population pattern was maintained after relocation. Among the Sudanese Nubians, population has increased since relocation. Many emigrants returned because the acreage they were granted by the government was generous. By mid-1990s, the Sudanese Nubians had almost doubled their population in certain villages and had even tripled their population in New Halfa.

According to Rouchdy (1991:4) the Nubian languages, excluding Arabic, are classified as Eastern Sudanic languages, a branch of the Nilo-Saharan Group. The Nubians generally can be divided into four groups, each inhabiting a separate part of the Nubian Valley and speaking a different language. The groups, according to Fahim (1983:10-11), are the Kenuz, the Arabs, the Nubians (Fadija), and the Halfans. The Kenuz, who prior to resettlement occupied the territory from Aswan south along the Nile for a distance of 150 kilometers, spoke a dialect called Metouki. The Kenuz still live in the northernmost region in relation to the rest of the Nubians, northeast of Kom Ombo. The Arabs, who lived before resettlement along the next 40 kilometers south of the Kenuz, spoke Arabic. This group has continued to live east of Kom Ombo in Aswan. The Nubians (often referred to as “Fadija,” a derogatory term the northern groups use to connote alien status) who live in the southern extremity of Egypt and north of Sudan speak Mahas. The Nubians currently live southeast of Kom Ombo in Aswan. The Sudanese Nubians, Halfans, who originally resided in Wadi Halfa south of the Egyptian border, have their own dialect known as Sukkot.

Few facts are available regarding Nubian history and culture prior to the sixth century. The primary archaeological survey of Nubia was conducted between 1907 and 1910 (Reisner 1910); it revealed that Nubia has possessed an advanced culture since the Predynastic period. Nubian culture prior to 3200 BCE was exactly the same as that of Egypt. During the period from the fourth to the eighteenth dynasty, tribes from the south and the west of the continent infiltrated the Nubian Valley and sometimes controlled it. This infiltration reduced the ethnic homogeneity between Nubian and Egyptian populations; the Nubian population eventually came to resemble tribes from Central Africa. Skeletal remains from the eighteenth dynasty to the thirtieth suggest a return to Egyptian population characteristics and material culture. Infiltration from Nilotic stock into the Nubian Valley during the Roman era is evidenced by skeletal remains that are taller, with more protruding jaws and flatter noses. After the sixth century CE, Nubia was Christianized and remained Christian until the fourteenth century CE, when the Nubian king converted to Islam. At the time of the Islamic conquest of Nubia in 641 CE, the Nubians opted to pay a poll tax and tribute instead of converting. The Nubian church was a branch of the Coptic Monophysite church centered in Cairo. Nubia was subjugated by the Ottomans, and although troops from all over the empire intermingled with the local population intermarriage remained rare. In 1848 Muhammad Ali declared Egypt and Sudan independent from the Ottoman Empire, and Nubia during that time became a passageway for trade in gold, slaves and ivory between Africa and the Mediterranean. In 1882 the British occupied Egypt, with the principal objective of increasing cotton production. More water was required to meet this goal, so in 1902 the Aswan Dam was built across the Nile, a few kilometers south of the city of Aswan. The dam was heightened in 1912, and again in 1933. Initially, the raising of the dam only affected the northern region of Nubia, but as its height increased most of the Nubian Valley was altered by the rising waters. Many homes were moved to higher ground and cultivable land became scarce. In 1952 and 1956 Egypt and Sudan, respectively, gained their independence from the British. Egypt's Revolutionary Council in 1952 adopted the idea of erecting a high dam in Aswan, as proposed by the Greek-Egyptian agricultural engineer Adrien Daninos. In 1959 Egypt and Sudan signed a water agreement. The inhabitants of the Nubian Valley to be inundated by the greatly expanded lake behind the Aswan High Dam had to be relocated. The Nubians in Egypt were moved to newly reclaimed land in the Kom Ombo area between October 1963 and June 1964. The Nubians in Sudan were relocated to Khashm el Girba (later called the New Halfa Project) between January 1964 and February 1967. A few Nubians who refused to leave moved to higher elevations.

The inhabitants of Old Nubia (prior to the Aswan Dam, particularly before its 1933 raising and the building of the Aswan High Dam some three decades later) formed riverine communities clustered in villages along the banks of the Nile. Prior to relocation, Nubia was located between Aswan in Egypt and 150 kilometers into Sudan. The Kenuz occupied the northern area, the Arabs resided in the middle, and the Nubians were located in the south of Egypt and the north of Sudan. About 50,000 Sudanese Nubians and 70,000 Egyptian Nubians were relocated. There were attempts in the relocation plans to maintain the relative locations of the villages.

The hamlet was further divided into dwelling quarters. In patrilineal hamlets, each family was connected to the dwelling quarter by patrilineal descent. In other types of hamlets, the dwelling quarters reflected patrilineal clan/tribal affiliations. In all types of hamlets, dwelling quarters were separated from each other by natural divisions, including small hills and barren land. Inside the dwelling quarters, closeness of patrilineal relationship determined the spatial location of housing. Each hamlet had a mosque and a modiafah or a mandara, visiting quarters. The relocation of the Nubians presented novel experiences to which they had to adapt. In Egypt, the new villages were given their old names but, rather than being located along the banks of the Nile, were three to ten kilometers away. The palm trees that were characteristic of the Old Nubian (pre-inundation) environment did not exist in the new villages. The rocky hills that separated the villages and hamlets from each other also did not exist. The previous widely-separated hamlets were brought together, thus increasing the density of the settlements. In Old Nubia, a hamlet often represented a clan or kinship unit. In New Nubia, the dwellings were built in four sectors according to the size of the living quarters, and during resettlement houses were allocated on the basis of family size. As a result, the settlement patterns based on kinship disappeared. In Sudan, the Nubian villages were no longer located along the banks of the Nile. Instead they were located by the Atbara River, which is narrower than the Nile. Their agricultural land, unlike that in Old Nubia, was broad, and they had to adapt to rotational crops.

The villages are further divided into hamlets. Prior to being inundated by the waters behind the Aswan Dam, the size of a village, the number of its hamlets, and the density of its population were directly related to the width of the agricultural land. Villages with broader agricultural lands were smaller, had higher population density and contained fewer hamlets. The hamlet is both a regional and kinship unit of settlement. The inhabitants are related to each other by marriage and descent. Three types of hamlet existed in Old Nubia (pre-inundation). In a patrilineal hamlet, all inhabitants were descended from the same patriarch, and the hamlet was named after this common ancestor. A second type of hamlet included members of various patrilineal clans who were related through matrilineal descent and were usually named after the male founder of the settlement. In some hamlets, inhabitants were not related at all.

Agriculture was and still is the basis of the Nubian economy. The scarcity of cultivable land was an outstanding feature of Old Nubia (pre-inundation). As a result, men migrated to cities to find work, and women were left to do the agricultural work. The Nubians in Egypt had two cultivation seasons, winter crops, shitwi, and summer crops, sifi (sayfi). The Nubians in Wadi Halfa had, in addition, the flood cultivation, dameira (dammiyra). The Nubians depended on the rise and fall of the Nile water to irrigate winter crops. In summer cultivation, the Nubians used the shadouf (water wheel) or buckets. Winter-crop season started in mid-October and ended in April. Winter subsistence crops included millet, wheat, and barley. Peas and lentils were cash crops sold by the Sudanese Nubians at the Halfa market. Summer crops were the least important to the Nubian economy. Most crops were used for household consumption, and they included a variety of beans, okra, and some greens. The summer-crop cycle started in July and ended in September. Flood cultivation started in September and ended in December or January. Some of the dameira crops included lupines and tomatoes. In Old Nubia, palm dates were an important subsistence crop. Transplanting palm shoots was governed by the Coptic calendar. There were two seasons for this activity. The first started around March and the second started around July. Dates were harvested from late August to late October, depending on the owner's preference for the texture of the date. The date harvest was a celebrated occasion in Nubia. Dates and palm trees, writes Dafalla (1975), “have affected many sides of the inhabitants' lives, and its traces could be observed everywhere. Its uses were varied and considerable and nothing was ever wasted.”

Egyptian Nubians grow sugarcane as a cash crop sold at a government-regulated price, using chemical fertilizers and modern modes of irrigation (perennial vs. basin). Other crops such as fruits and vegetables are rare, cultivated only by well-to-do landowners. Sudanese Nubians also grow a cash crop, namely cotton. They have to meet the requirements of cultivating extensive fields, something they were not used to in Old Nubia (pre-inundation). Dates are no longer part of the subsistence economy, either among Egyptian or Sudanese Nubians, owing to the different environment of the resettlements. Women and men engage in different crafts. Women used to make utilitarian items—plates, mats, clothes, etc. Nubian women are no longer engaged in craftwork because household necessities are readily available in the market. Nubian men leave blacksmithing, clay making, carpentry, weaving, and hair shaving to non-Nubians. They prefer to engage in crafts that are related directly to agriculture (e.g., making water wheels). After resettlement, many Nubian men worked as grocery-store owners and cab drivers.

Prior to the progressive expansion of the lake behind the Aswan Dam, portions of the Nile in the Nubian Valley were difficult to navigate. After relocation because of rising waters, more accessible roads and integration into the cash economy contributed to an increase in trade activity in Egyptian and Sudanese Nubia.

Prior to relocation, the scarcity of cultivable land forced Nubian men to emigrate to Cairo in search of jobs. Nubian women farmed the land, cared for animals (including poultry), and performed domestic tasks. Since relocation, men have been cultivating the land because it is at quite a distance from the home. In cases where there is no able-bodied male to tend the land, a relative or hired helper from one of the surrounding Saidi villages does the work. Among the Sudanese Nubians, generous tenancies enabled many of the labor migrants to come back home after relocation and tend their land all year long. Labor in the home is still a woman's domain, but Nubian women also work outside the home as schoolteachers, government-center workers, and seamstresses.

Prior to relocation, four types of land tenure existed, each reflecting land use. These types were: individual tenure, land inundated by the first Aswan dam, land on which the home was built, and clan land. Individual tenure included land used for cultivating winter crops and land on which irrigation projects were built; it was acquired by purchase. Land inundated by the building of the initial dam was inherited patrilineally by men only and had symbolic value. The home land was inside the hamlet and was usually located near the home; this type was not very common in Nubia and was inherited patrilineally by men only. Clan land was dispersed around the village and was passed on to leaders of the clan. Only men could inherit this type of land, although there are records of women inheriting prior to 1927. In New Nubia, as part of the relocation plan, Nubian families were allocated land individually in relation to size of family.

Kinship in Nubia is organized around the tribe. Because of isolation and the double-descent rule, however, the village and the hamlet were more important units in Old Nubia (pre-inundation). Both father's and mother's relatives are important in organizing mutual obligations.

Nubians use three terms that classify kinship and descent. These are, from closest to farthest: asi (children), bayt (home), and qubiila (clan). Only the first is an indigenous Nubian term; the rest are borrowed from Arabic. Contemporary Nubian languages are evolving toward Arabic, and some Arabic kinship terms are being used.

Cross-cousin marriage is the preferred type. Intermarriage among the various Nubian groups was and is still rare. Only women are bound by endogamous marriage rules. A dowry is exchanged as a public declaration of marriage. The dowry then becomes the possession of the bride and it may not be returned, even if the marriage is not consummated. The age of marriage among Nubians rose after relocation because of economic conditions and the legal establishment of a minimum marital age. Divorce is frowned upon by tradition, and demographics as well as the marriage rules of (Egyptian) Nubians leaves divorced women scant opportunity for remarriage.

Before relocation, the extended family (bayt), a unit of at least four generations of double descent, constituted the domestic unit in Nubia. Able-bodied men worked in cities and sent remittances. Owing to the pattern of land and dwelling redistribution that occurred with relocation, the domestic unit became smaller, encompassing only two or three generations of relatives.

Nubians in some cases follow the Sunni Islamic rules of inheritance, which grant males double the share of females. This share is passed down both from the father and the mother, if there is a male heir. Land is inherited through the patriline or clan by men only, although exceptions occurred for clan lands prior to 1927.

In Old Nubia (pre-inundation) the family was the primary agent of socialization. The mother and other womenfolk did most of the child rearing. Fathers played a minimal role in socialization, given that they mainly worked in cities. Older men presented the male image in the process of socialization. With increased access to publicly-funded universal education, the introduction of electricity, and the integration of Nubians into their respective states of Egypt and Sudan, school, radio, and television have become additional influences.

Prior to resettlement, Nubia was relatively isolated from the Egyptian and Sudanese governments. In Egypt, Nubia was divided into thirty-nine districts, each headed by a government-appointed headman (omda) who acted as the liaison between the district and the regional government. In Sudan, there were six districts that served the same political function. The districts in Sudan did not exist before Muhamad Ali's conquest of Egypt and Sudan. The omda also appointed the town heads and the police officers, whose responsibilities included aiding citizens to register births and deaths, dealing with the rare instances of crime, and distributing government aid sent to the Nubian Valley. After resettlement, the Nubian groups came under the new political authority of their respective countries, which were in the process of postcolonial nation building.

Traditional mechanisms of social control have continued to be used for resolving some conflicts, but since 1965 conflict resolution has increasingly required more modern mechanisms, such as courts and state-trained police officers.

Disputes and crime were originally handled by the elders of the hamlet, and rarely was a police officer or headman involved. Arab councils—tribunals based on tribal or clan affiliation—intervened to mediate any conflict that escalated (usually conflict over land).

The Nubians are Sunni Muslims who believe in one God and his Prophet Mohammed, in the angels created by God, in the prophets through whom his revelations were brought to humankind, in the Day of Judgment and individual accountability for actions, in God's complete authority over human destiny, and in life after death. They also follow the ibadat, or practicing framework of the Muslim's life: the Five Pillars. In Islam there is no hierarchal authority, no priest or shaman. Islam also permits its intermingling with local tradition. In Nubia this is expressed in the animism that is predominant along the Nile and in the activities of the local shuyukh (sing. shaykh), who regulates daily concerns about health, fertility, and marriage.

Nubian ceremonies can be divided into three kinds: rites of passage, religious ceremonies, and agricultural rituals. The latter have completely disappeared from Nubian culture because the crop that was celebrated, palm dates, is no longer cultivated due to the different environments of the new settlements. Rites of passage include birth, the naming ceremony, circumcision for males and females, marriage, and death. Religious ceremonies include the seven main Islamic celebrations: al-Fitr, the feast that celebrates the end of the fasting month; pre-pilgrimage celebrations; al-Adha, the feast that follows the pilgrimage to Mecca; Lilat al-Qadar, celebrating the night of the first revelations of the first Quranic verse; Isra' Wal Mirag, commemorating the night the Prophet Mohammed flew to Jerusalem, and from there to the seventh sky to establish the Five Pillars of Islam; al Sana al-Higriah, the Islamic New Year; and Mulid al-Nabi, the Prophet's birthday. In all these celebrations, drums are played and religious songs are recited for the duration of the feast, which may extend up to fourteen days. After relocation, ceremonies in general have become limited to the village because homes were built so close to each other. Also, owing to increasing costs, the length of celebrations (but not their conspicuousness) has decreased.

The arts in Old Nubia (pre-inundation) can be divided into three categories: utilitarian, decorative, and symbolic. Women practiced the utilitarian arts, including the making of mats, fans, plates and jars from material available in the environment, such as straw and clay. Bright colors distinguished Nubian plates and jars from other Egyptian or Sudanese ones. After resettlement, utilitarian arts disappeared because such household items became readily available in the market. Decorative arts included mainly bead necklaces and bracelets, used to adorn grooms and brides. Since resettlement, commercial jewelry, including silver and gold, has replaced such locally-produced items. Women traditionally made the bead necklaces, and a commercial version has continued to be sold in the market. The symbolic arts included wall and door decoration. Reliefs were typical of Nubian houses. Icons of animals were made to protect houses from the evil eye. After resettlement, relief decorations were replaced by painting. Most paintings have religious motifs, and some of the decorations indicate that someone in the house recently completed the holy duty of pilgrimage to Mecca.

Prior to resettlement, government medical care was almost nonexistent in Old Nubia (pre-inundation). In post-resettlement Egyptian Nubia, there are small clinics and health units that provide both in- and out-patient services. There is a hospital in Nasr town, in Aswan. In New Halfa, the Sudanese government provides basic services, including sanitation facilities, piped water, and medical care. Health units provide out-patient services, and an in-patient hospital is available in Halfa town. By the late twentieth century infectious disease was on the rise among Sudanese Nubians, largely owing to population increase and lack of maintenance of water filters. On the other hand, change in the water supply in the Nile has decreased the prevalence of schistosomiasis (a debilitating parasitic disease caused by a blood worm that inhabits the water). A more severe strain of schistosomiasis, however, has developed.

Nubian traditions with regard to death follow Islamic teaching. At death, a Muslim's body must be washed, dressed, wrapped in white cloth, and buried appropriately (the face pointing toward Mecca) before the first sunset. For women, the mat on which the deceased was carried to the grave was “shaded with arches of palm branches over which a red silk cloth worn by women at weddings was laid” (Dafalla 1975:54).

The picture of life after death in Islam serves both to comfort the bereaved and to challenge the community to live lives of integrity and responsibility with the sure knowledge that the labor of today will be enjoyed in the hereafter, and that both justice and mercy will prevail in the life to come. Islamic teachings emphasize two levels of judgment. The lower—often referred to as the “tomb judgement” or barzakh—takes place before Judgment Day; it involves the individual soul only. The higher judgment in Islam is reserved for Judgment Day, a day when humanity (Muslims and non-Muslims) will meet their creator.

The culture summary is from the article “Nubians” by Nawal H. Ammar, in the Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Vol. 9, Africa and the Middle East, John Middleton, Amal Rassam, Candice Bradley, and Laurel L. Rose, eds. Boston, Mass.: G. K. Hall & Co. 1995.

Egypt. Maṣlaḥat al-Misāḥah (1908-11). The Archaeological Survey of Nubia. 7 vols. Cairo: National Printing Department.

Fahim, Hussein M. (1981). Dams, People, and Development: The Aswan High Dam Case. New York: Pergamon Press.

Fahim, Hussein M. (1983). Egyptian Nubians: Resettlement and Years of Coping. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Geiser, Peter (1986). The Egyptian Nubian: A Study in Social Symbiosis. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press.

Ammar, Hamed (1966). Growing up in an Egyptian Village: Silwa, the Province of Aswan. New York: Octagon Books.

Hamed, Sayyed (1994). Al-Nuba Al-Gadida: Dirasah Anthropologia fi Al-Mugtama' Al-Misri (The New Nubia: An Anthropological Study of Egyptian Society). Cairo: EIN for Human and Social Studies.

Ammar, Nawal H. (1988). “An Egyptian Village Growing Up: Silwa, the Governorate of Aswan.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida.

Rouchdy, Aleya (1991). Nubians and Nubian Language in Contemporary Egypt: A Case of Cultural and Linguistic Contact. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Dafalla, Hassan (1975). The Nubian Exodus. London: C. Hurst & Co.

Wenzel, Marian (1972). House Decoration in Nubia. London: Duckworth.