The Tuareg People

Berber people from North Africa, who live a traditional nomadic and pastoralist life. They live in the interior of the Saharan desert, constantly moving through different borders in North Africa. Distant relatives from the Egyptians and Moroccans. They traveled through the Saharan desert on camels, when they adopted Camel nomadism from the camel-herding Arabics about two thousand years ago. They operated the trans-Saharan trade, allowing trade between north Africa and southern Africa. Most of the Taureg land was colonized by the French in the 19th century. The Taureg society is hierarchical, with several families in a group, led by their collective chiefs. The nobles of the clans are called ima, who are defenders and warrior-aristocrats, who organize group
defenses, livestock raids, and long distance caravan trade. Their diet mainly consists of foods made from millet, and dairy products made from goats and camels milk.

Religion Traditionally Taureg practiced Animism, but now a lot of North Africa practice Christianity, though paganism still is widely spread throughout North Africa. Once the Taureg had started trade and contact with the Arabics, they adapted Islamic believes to their Animistic religion. Animism is a general name for the practice of believing that there is a spiritual essence and natural phenomena, but differentiates between different tribes and groups of people, though many religions, like Buddhism, Shinto, and Paganism are all said to have some aspects of Animism in them. Each tribe is unique to its myths and rituals, and each tribe will have a different name for their belief, and some no name at all, as it is part of the culture.

The Taureg where always exposed to the clear skies of the Saharan, and could clearly see all the stars. They began studying astronomy, and used their observations to tell what time of the year it is, to help indicate when they should milk their livestock.

Tuareg stars and constellations include: Azzag Willi (Venus), which indicates the time for milking the goats Shet Ahad (Pleiades (star cluster)), the seven sisters of the night Amanar (Orion (constellation)), the warrior of the desert

Talemt (Ursa Major), the she-camel Awara (Ursa Minor), the baby camel

Their architecture mainly consisted of tents as they were constantly on the move. The smiths (inadan) of the Taureg people were the story tellers, they would tell the folklore of their gods and spirits, ancestors. One folklore about Boulkhou, who thought off an air region army alone wearing a Quranic amulet inside a well for 40 days.

The Tuareg men wear indigo turbans, which the dyes sometimes stains their skin, which is why some people call them The blue people of the desert.

Taureg leather bag

http://africa.si.edu/exhibits/tuareg/contact.html Shows the patterns used, leather pigment & silk

Tent poles

RECENT INVENTIONS IN THE 19TH CENTURY (though not by the Tuareg, and left out some thought to be irrelivant) 1800 Count Alessandro Volta invents the battery. 1804 - Freidrich Winzer (Winsor) was the first person to patent gas lighting. 1809 - Humphry Davy invents the first electric light - the first arc lamp. 1814 - George Stephenson designs the first steam locomotive. 1825 - William Sturgeon invented the electromagnet. 1831 - Michael Faraday invents a electric dynamo. 1837 - Samuel Morse invents the telegraph.

1939 - Welshmen, Sir William Robert Grove conceives of the first hydrogen fuel cell. 1859 - George Cayley invents a manned glider. 1885 -Harim Maxim invents the machine gun. Gottlieb Daimler invents the first gas-engined motorcycle. 1887 - German, Heinrich Hertz invents radar.