Tuareg - History and Cultural Relations

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 Air 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 today 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.

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 today 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).