Tuareg

By  Susan J. Rasmussen

Kel Tagelmust, Kel Tamacheq, Tamacheq, Targui. There are also numerous names designating the different political confederations and descent groups. These latter are often preceded by “Kel,” which denotes “people of.”

The Tuareg, a seminomadic, Islamic people who speak a Berber language, Tamacheq, live in the contemporary nation-states of Niger, Mali, Algeria, and Libya. They are believed to be descendants of the North African Berbers and to have originated in the Fezzan region of Libya but later to have expanded into areas bordering the Sahara, assimilating into their traditionally stratified society the sedentary farming peoples from regions south of the Sahara. Tuareg traded with these populations and also raided them for slaves. Thus, Tuareg display diverse physical and cultural traits ranging from Arabic influences to influences stemming from south of the Sahara. “Tuareg,” the term by which they are most commonly known, is actually a term of outside, possibly Arabic origin. It was imposed as a gloss, or cover-term, to designate the ethnicity and culture of a people who, although unified by their common language and culture, belong to diverse social strata based on descent, have different geographic origins, and practice varied subsistence patterns of stock-breeding, oasis gardening, caravanning, professional Quranic scholarship, and smithing. There are also names for numerous subdivisions of Tuareg, based upon precolonial descent groups and confederations. Many Tuareg call themselves “Kel Tamacheq” (people of the Tamacheq language), “Kel Tagelmust” (people of the veil, a reference to the distinctive practice of men's face veiling), and other more specific terms. There are names referring to the precolonial social categories based on descent, still ideologically important in rural communities: imajeghen, denoting nobility, refers to those Tuareg of aristocratic origin; imghad refers to those of the tributary social stratum; inaden refers to smith/artisans; and iklan and ighawalen denote, respectively, peoples of various degrees of servile and client status. Currently, there is disagreement regarding which term to use to refer to these peoples as a group. “Tuareg” still predominates in most English-language historical and ethnographic literature. “Touareg” and “Targui” are often found in French-language sources. Many contemporary local intellectuals of Niger and Mali refer to themselves as “Tuareg,” but some have expressed a preference for “Kel Tamacheq.” For purposes of standardization, the term “Tuareg” is used in this article. The Saharan regions where Tuareg originated—southern Algeria, western Libya, eastern Mali, and northern Niger—are still the regions where they predominate in the mid-1990s. During the late twentieth century, many Tuareg have migrated to rural and urban areas farther south—into Sahelian and coastal regions of West Africa—because of drought, famine, and political tensions with the central governments of Mali and Niger. Since the early 1990s, some Tuareg have joined an armed insurrection against those governments (Bourgeot 1990, 129-162). A few Tuareg have emigrated to France. The Saharan and Sahelian regions of Mali and Niger, where most Tuareg still live are the principal biomes to which the culture is adapted (Baier and Lovejoy 1977; Bernus 1981). The topography includes volcanic mountains, flat desert plains, rugged savanna, and desert-edge borderlands where agriculture is possible only with daily irrigation. The major ranges are the Ahaggar Mountains in Algeria and the Aïr Mountains in Niger. Temperatures range from 4° C at night in the brief cold season, from December to March, upward to 54° C during the day in the hot season. There is a short and unreliable rainy season between June and September; annual precipitation often amounts to less than 25 centimeters. Pasturelands have been diminishing, and, consequently, livestock herds are shrinking. Many herds were decimated in the droughts of 1967-1973 and 1984-1985. During the brief cold season, there are high winds and sandstorms.

Tuareg constitute about 8 percent of the population of Niger (U.S. Department of State 1987). The total population of Tamacheq speakers who identify themselves culturally as Tuareg has been estimated at about 1 million (Childs and Chelala 1994, 16).

There are numerous dialects of Tamacheq, a language of the Berber Family. French sources (Fraternité Charles de Foucauld 1968, 1) list the three major dialects as “Tamaheq” (in the Ahaggar Mountains of Algeria and in the Tassili mountain range in the Ajjer region of Mali), “Tamacheq” (in the desert-edge region along the River Niger and in the Adrar des Iforas of Mali), and “Temajeq” (in the Aïr Mountains of Niger). In many other sources (Rodd 1926; Nicolaisen 1963; Bernus 1981), the major language is called “Tamacheq,” without specifying dialectal distinctions, a usage also adopted in this article. Tuareg also use a written script known as Tifinagh. Many contemporary Tamacheq speakers also speak Songhay, Hausa, or French.

After independence and the establishment of nation states in the region in the early 1960s, the Tuareg continued to lose economic strength and political power. They had resisted, first, French, and later, central-state schools and taxes, suspicious of them as strategies to forcibly sedentarize them and gain control over their destiny. As a result, Tuareg tend to be underrepresented in jobs in the new infrastructure of the towns, as well as in central governments in the region. These governments imposed restrictions on trade with neighboring countries, in order to protect national economic interests. Droughts and decreasing value of livestock and salt—the last remaining export commodity of the Tuareg—have weakened a once strong and diverse local economy (Childs and Chelala 1994, 17). Development programs involving the Tuareg from the 1940s to the 1970s failed miserably because they worked against the traditional pastoral production systems. During the 1984-1985 drought, some Tuareg men, calling themselves ishumar (a Tamacheq variant of the French verb chomer, denoting “to be unemployed”), left for Libya, where they received military training and weapons. In the early 1990s they returned to their homes and demanded autonomy. Since that time, there has been continuous guerrilla warfare in some regions of Mali and Niger. Some Tuareg have been forced into refugee camps in neighboring countries (e.g., Mauritania).

Early origins and migrations of the various confederations of Tuareg are related in oral traditions and have been documented by Rodd (1926), Nicolaisen (1963), and Bernus (1981). Early events are also recorded in Tifinagh inscriptions on Saharan rocks and in Arabic manuscripts such as the Agadez Chronicle. Many of these written records were lost when the central Sahara was plundered by French colonial patrols after the unsuccessful 1917 Tuareg revolt against France.

The Tuareg came to prominence as stockbreeders and caravanners in the Saharan and Sahelian regions at the beginning of the fourteenth century, when trade routes to the lucrative salt, gold, ivory, and slave markets in North Africa, Europe, and the Middle East sprang up across Tuareg territory. Nicolaisen (1963, 411) suggests that the first Tuareg to come to the Aïr region were caravan traders who were attracted by the area's excellent grazing grounds. As early as the seventh century A.D., there were extensive migrations of pastoral Berbers, including the two important groups related to contemporary Tuareg: the Lemta and the Zarawa. Invasions of Beni Hilal and Beni Sulaym Arabs into Tuareg Tripolitania and Fezzan pushed Tuareg southward to Aïr (Nicolaisen 1963, 411). Among these was a group of seven clans, allegedly descended from daughters of the same mother, a matrilineal myth widespread among many Tuareg groups, with cultural vestiges in the high social prestige and economic independence of women. These matrilineally based social institutions, manifested in inheritance and descent, mythology and ritual, counterbalance more recent Islamic elements in the culture. In the late nineteenth century European exploration and military expeditions in the Sahara and along the Niger River led to incorporation of the region into French West Africa. By the early twentieth century, the French had brought the Tuareg under their colonial domination. As a result, Tuareg forfeited their rights to tariff collection and protection services for trans-Saharan camel caravans. Ocean routes had diverted most of the trade to the coast of Africa. Laws against raiding and slavery were strictly enforced.

Precolonial Tuareg communities were predominantly rural and nomadic, with a few urban settlers. As of the mid-1990s, most Tuareg were seminomadic and remained in rural areas. Rural communities range from clusters of six to ten nomadic tents, temporarily camped to follow herds in search of pasture, to semisedentarized hamlets with compounds of tents and adobe houses reflecting the mixed subsistence of herding and gardening, to fully sedentarized hamlets, the inhabitants of which engage primarily in irrigated gardening. In all communities, each tent or compound corresponds to the nuclear household. Each compound is named for the married woman, who owns the nomadic tent, made by elderly female relatives and provided as a dowry, from which she may eject her husband upon divorce. Within compounds in more sedentarized areas, residential structures are diverse: there may be several tents, a few conical grass buildings, and sometimes, among the more well-to-do, an adobe house, built and owned by men. There are thus significant changes taking place in the property balance between men and women as a result of sedentarization.

Traditionally, occupations corresponded to social-stratum affiliation, determined by descent. Nobles controlled the caravan trade, owned most camels, and remained more nomadic, coming into oases only to collect a proportion of the harvest from their client and servile peoples. Tributary groups raided and traded for nobles and also herded smaller livestock, such as goats, in usufruct relationships with nobles. Peoples of varying degrees of client and servile status performed domestic and herding labor for nobles. Smiths manufactured jewelry and household tools and performed praise songs for noble patron families, serving as important oral historians and political intermediaries. Owing to natural disasters and political tensions, it is now increasingly difficult to make a living solely from nomadic stockbreeding. Thus, social stratum, occupation, and socioeconomic status tend to be less coincident. Most rural Tuareg combine subsistence methods, practicing herding, oasis gardening, caravan trading, and migrant labor. Nomadic stockbreeding still confers great prestige, however, and gardening remains stigmatized as a servile occupation.

On oases, crops include millet, barley, wheat, maize, onions, tomatoes, and dates.

Other careers being pursued in the late twentieth century include creating art for tourists, at which smiths are particularly active, as artisans in towns, and guarding houses, also in the towns.

The caravan trade, although by mid-the  less important than formerly, persists in the region between the Aïr Mountains and Kano, Nigeria. Men from the Aïr spend five to seven months each year on camel caravans, traveling to Bilma for dates and salt, and then to Kano to trade them for millet and other foodstuffs, household tools, and luxury items such as spices, perfume, and cloth.

Most camel herding is still done by men; although women may inherit and own camels, they tend to own and herd more goats, sheep, and donkeys. Caravan trade is exclusively conducted by men. A woman may, however, indirectly participate in the caravan trade by sending her camels with a male relative, who returns with goods for her. Men plant and irrigate gardens, and women harvest the crops. Whereas women may own gardens and date palms, they leave the work of tending them to male relatives.

In the pre-colonial times, clan members jointly owned designated grazing grounds by virtue of common descent from a founding ancestor who acquired the land through military conquest. Outsiders were excluded from grazing, hunting and collecting without the permission of clan leaders. Land access and use within each clan was greatly related to social status at birth and parental occupation. Clan chiefs and the nobility maintained their prestigious status by living on nomadic pastoralism, while demanding rent and other services from settled client farmers and artisans.

The introduction of Islam in the seventh century A.D. had the long-term effect of superimposing patrilineal institutions upon traditional matriliny. Formerly, each matrilineal clan was linked to a part of an animal, over which that clan had rights (Casajus 1987; Lhote 1953; Nicolaisen 1963; Norris 1975, 30). Matrilineal clans were traditionally important as corporate groups, and they still exert varying degrees of influence among the different Tuareg confederations. Most Tuareg are bilateral in descent and inheritance systems (Murphy 1964; 1967). Descent-group allegiance is through the mother, social-stratum affiliation is through the father, and political office, in most groups, passes from father to son.

Tuareg personal names are used most frequently in addressing all descendants and kin of one's own generation, although cousins frequently address one another by their respective classificatory kinship terms. Kin of the second ascending generation may be addressed using the classificatory terms anna (mother) and abba (father), as may brothers and sisters of parents, although this is variable. Most ascendants, particularly those who are considerably older and on the paternal side, are usually addressed with the respectful term amghar (masc.) or tamghart (fem.). The most frequently heard kinship term is abobaz, denoting “cousin,” used in a classificatory sense. Tuareg enjoy more relaxed, familiar relationships with the maternal side, which is known as tedis, or “stomach” and associated with emotional and affective support, and more reserved, distant relations with the paternal side, which is known as aruru, or “back” and associated with material support and authority over Ego. There are joking relationships with cousins; relationships with affines are characterized by extreme reserve. Youths should not pronounce the names of deceased ancestors.

Cultural ideals are social-stratum endogamy and close-cousin marriage. In the towns, both these patterns are breaking down. In rural areas, class endogamy remains strong, but many individuals marry close relatives only to please their mothers; they subsequently divorce and marry nonrelatives. Some prosperous gardeners, chiefs, and Islamic scholars practice polygyny, contrary to the nomadic Tuareg monogamous tradition and contrary to many women's wishes; intolerant of co-wives, many women initiate divorces.

Tuareg groups vary in postmarital-residence rules. Some groups practice virilocal residence, others uxorilocal residence. The latter is more common among caravanning groups in the Aïr, such as the Kel Ewey, who adhere to uxorilocal residence for the first two to three years of marriage, during which time the husband meets the bride-wealth payments, fulfills obligations of groom-service, and offers gifts to his parents-in-law. Upon fulfillment of these obligations, the couple may choose where to live, and the young married woman may disengage her animals from her herds and build a separate kitchen, apart from her mother's.

Patrilineal inheritance, arising from Islamic influence, prevails, unless the deceased indicated otherwise, before death, in writing, in the presence of a witness: two-thirds of the property goes to the sons, one-third to the daughters. Alternative inheritance forms, stemming from ancient matriliny, include “living milk herds” (animals reserved for sisters, daughters, and nieces) and various preinheritance gifts.

Fathers are considered disciplinarians, yet other men, particularly maternal uncles, often play and joke with small children. Women who lack their own daughters often adopt nieces to assist in housework. Although many men are often absent (while traveling), Tuareg children are nonetheless socialized into distinct, culturally defined masculine and feminine gender roles because male authority figures—chiefs, Islamic scholars, and wealthy gardeners—remain at home rather than departing on caravans or engaging in migrant labor, and these men exert considerable influence on young boys, who attend Quranic schools and assist in male tasks such as gardening and herding. Young girls tend to remain nearer home, assisting their mothers with household chores, although women and girls also herd animals.

Precolonial Tuareg society was characterized by servility in a multiethnic setting (Baier and Lovejoy 1977, 393). This pattern arose partly as an adaptation to cycles of drought in the Sahara. In the core area of Tuareg operations, the desert, outsiders were acquired as domestic servants, herders, and farmers. Formerly, persons could belong to individuals, tribal sections, or to offices. Those persons who were in areas beyond direct control, particularly the herders, were more like clients than slaves. Still further away, in the savanna, some were settled on agricultural estates administered by resident agents and occupied a position somewhat between that of tenant farmers and serfs. The former clients and slaves now simply owe hospitality to their former masters.

Traditionally, Tuareg social stratification guaranteed that power to make economic decisions remained in the hands of a few. Yet political power in the pastoral nomadic society was fragmented. At the lowest level was the camp (eghiwan) of five or six families of four or five members each, with dependents (including slaves). There were half as many dependents as free Tuareg. Two to twenty camps formed a descent-group section (tawsit). The male noble heads of the noble clan of the descent-group section traditionally have chosen chiefs from members of their own clan, but election usually is confirmed by all components of the section. Officeholders keep their positions for life, but traditional powers have been curtailed by colonial and postcolonial governments. Tenure of office has depended on the willingness of all nobles of the section to pay a small tribute to the chief each year (Briggs 1960, 146; Jean 1909, 175-176; Baier and Lovejoy 1977, 397). These traditional chiefs, called chefs de tribus, now serve as government links in collecting taxes and registering children for school. A group of sections recognizing a common leader constitutes the next level, the drum group, or confederation. Together, the noble clans of the confederations elect the amenokal, or sultan. His precolonial function was to conduct peaceful relations with outsiders or to lead expeditions against enemies; in the 1990s he acted as a liaison with the central government.  

In the traditional segmentary system, no leader had power over his followers solely by virtue of a position in a political hierarchy. Wealth was traditionally enough to guarantee influence. Nobles acted as managers of large firms and controlled most resources, although they constituted less than 10 percent of the population. Even traditionally, however, there were no cut-and-dry free or slave statuses. Below the aristocracy were various dependents whose status derived from their position in the larger system (e.g., whether attached to a specific noble or noble section); they had varying degrees of freedom. Tuareg assimilated outsiders, who formed the servile strata, on a model of fictive kinship: a noble owner was expected to be “like a father” to his slave. Vestiges of former tribute and client-patron systems persist in the mid-1990s but also encounter some resistance. On some oases, nobles still theoretically have rights to dates from date palms within gardens of former slaves, but nowadays the former slaves refuse to fetch them, obliging nobles to climb the trees and collect the dates themselves.

In principle, members of the same confederation are not supposed to raid each other's livestock, but such raids do occur (Casajus 1987). In rural areas in the mid-1990s, many local-level disputes are arbitrated by a council of elders and Islamic scholars who apply Quranic law, but individuals have the option of taking cases to secular courts in the towns.

The local belief system, with its own cosmology and ritual, interweaves and overlaps with Islam rather than standing in opposition to it. In Islamic observances, men are more consistent about saying all the prescribed prayers, and they employ more Arabic loanwords, whereas women tend to use Tamacheq terms. There is general agreement that Islam came from the West and spread into Aïr with the migration of Sufi mystics in the seventh century (Norris 1975). Tuareg initially resisted Islam and earned a reputation among North African Arabs for being lax about Islamic practices. For example, local tradition did not require female chastity before marriage. In Tuareg groups more influenced by Quranic scholars, female chastity is becoming more important, but even these groups do not seclude women, and relations between the sexes are characterized by freedom of social interaction.

In official religion, Quranic scholars, popularly called ineslemen, or marabouts, predominate in some clans, but anyone may become one through mastery of the Quran and exemplary practice of Islam. Marabouts are considered “people of God” and have obligations of generosity and hospitality. Marabouts are believed to possess special powers of benediction, al Baraka. Quranic scholars are important in rites of passage and Islamic rituals, but smiths often act in these rituals, in roles complementary to those of the Quranic scholars. For example, at babies' namedays, held one week following a birth, the Quranic scholar pronounces the child's name as he cuts the throat of a ram, but smiths grill its meat, announce the nameday, and organize important evening festivals following it, at which they sing praise songs. With regard to weddings, a marabout marries a couple at the mosque, but smiths negotiate bride-wealth and preside over the evening festivals.

Important rituals among Tuareg are rites of passage—namedays, weddings, and memorial/funeral feasts—as well as Islamic holidays and secular state holidays. In addition, there is male circumcision and the initial men's face-veil wrapping that takes place around the age of 18 years and that is central to the male gender role and the cultural values of reserve and modesty. There are also spirit-possession exorcism rituals (Rasmussen 1995). Many rituals integrate Islamic and pre-Islamic elements in their symbolism, which incorporates references to matrilineal ancestresses, pre-Islamic spirits, the earth, fertility, and menstruation.

In Tuareg culture, there is great appreciation of visual and aural arts. There is a large body of music, poetry, and song that is of central importance during courtship, rites of passage, and secular festivals. Men and women of diverse social origins dance, perform vocal and instrumental music, and are admired for their musical creativity; however, different genres of music and distinct dances and instruments are associated with the various social strata. There is also the sacred liturgical music of Islam, performed on Muslim holidays by marabouts, men, and older women.

Visual arts consist primarily of metalwork (silver jewelry), some woodwork (delicately decorated spoons and ladles and carved camel saddles), and dyed and embroidered leatherwork, all of which are specialties of smiths, who formerly manufactured these products solely for their noble patrons. In rural areas, nobles still commission smiths to make these items, but in urban areas many smiths now sell jewelry and leather to tourists.

Health care among the Tuareg includes traditional herbal, Quranic, and ritual therapies, as well as Western medicine. Traditional medicine is more prevalent in rural communities because of geographic barriers and political tensions. Although local residents desire Western medicines, most Western-trained personnel tend to be non-Tuareg, and many Tuareg are suspicious or shy of outside medical practitioners (Rasmussen 1994). Therefore rural peoples tend to rely most upon traditional practitioners and remedies. For example, Quranic scholars cure predominantly men with verses from the Quran and some psychological counseling techniques. Female herbalists cure predominantly women and children with leaves, roots, barks, and some holisitic techniques such as verbal incantations and laying on of hands. Practitioners called bokawa (a Hausa term; sing. boka) cure with perfumes and other non-Quranic methods. In addition, spirit possession is cured by drummers.

In the Tuareg worldview, the soul (iman) is more personalized than are spirits. It is seen as residing within the living individual, except during sleep, when it may rise and travel about. The souls of the deceased are free to roam, but usually do so in the vicinity of graves. A dead soul sometimes brings news and, in return, demands a temporary wedding with its client. It is believed that the future may be foretold by sleeping on graves. Tuareg offer libations of dates to tombs of important marabouts and saints in order to obtain the al-baraka benediction. Beliefs about the afterlife (e.g., paradise) conform closely to those of official Islam.

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Nicolaisen, Johannes, 1963. Ecology and Culture of the Pastoral Tuareg. Copenhagen: National Museum of Copenhagen.

Baier, Stephen, and Paul Lovejoy, 1977. “The Desert-Side Economy of the Central Sudan.” In The Politics of Natural Disaster: The Case of the Sahel Drought, edited by M. H. Glantz, 144-175. New York: Praeger.

Norris, H. T., 1975. The Tuareg: Their Islamic Legacy and Its Diffusion into the Sahel. Wilts, Eng.: Aris & Phillips.

Bernus, Edmond, 1981. Touaregs nigeriens: Unité culturelle d'un peuple pasteur. Paris: Éditions de l'Office de la Recherche Scientifique et Technique d'Outre-Mer (ORSTOM).

Rasmussen, Susan J., 1994. “Female Sexuality, Sexual Reproduction, and the Politics of Medical Intervention in Niger: Kel Ewey Tuareg Perspectives.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 18:433-464.

Bourgeot, André, 1990. “Identité touraegue: De l'aristocracie à la révolution.” Études Rurales 120:129-162.

Rasmussen, Susan J., 1995. Spirit Possession and Personhood among the Kel Ewey Tuareg. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Briggs, Lloyd Cabot, 1960. Tribes of the Sahara. C ambridge: Harvard University Press.

Rodd, Lord Of Renell, 1926. The People of the Veil. London: Anthropological Publications.

Casajus, Dominique, 1987. La tente dans l'essuf. Paris and London: Cambridge University Press.

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Childs, Larry, and Celina Chelala, 1994. "Drought, Rebellion, and Social Change in Northern Mali: The Challenges Facing Tamacheq Herders.” Cultural Survival Quarterly, Winter, 16-20.

Fraternité Charles de Foucauld, 1968. Initiation a la langue des touaregs de l'Aïr. Niamey and Agadez, Niger: Petites Soeurs de Charles de Foucauld; Service Culturel de l'Ambassade de France.

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Lhote, Henri, 1953. Touareg du Hoggar. Paris: Payot.

Murphy, Robert, 1964. “Social Distance and the Veil.” American Anthropologist 66:1257-1274.

This culture summary is based on the article, "Tuareg" by Susan J. Rasmussen, in the Encyclopedia of World Culture, Vol. 9, Africa and the Middle East, 1995. John Middleton and Amal Rassam, eds. MacMillan Reference, USA.