The Toubou or Tubu ("man who lives in Tibesti" in the Kanuri language, or alternatively from Old Tebu, meaning "rock people"MacMichael, Harold: A history of the Arabs in the Sudan and some account of the people who preceded them and of the tribes inhabiting Darfur. 1922. ) are an ethnic group native to the Tibesti Mountains that inhabit the central Sahara in northern Chad, southern Libya, northeastern Niger, and northwestern Sudan. They live either as herders and nomads or as farmers near oases. Their society is clan-based, with each clan having certain oases, pastures and wells.
The Toubou are generally divided into two closely related groups: the Teda and the Daza. They are believed to share a common origin and speak the Tebu languages, which are from the Saharan branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. The Tebu people are also referred to as the Tabu, Tebou, Tibu, 'Tibbu, Toda, Todga, Todaga, Tubu, Tuda, Tudaga, or Gorane people. The Daza are sometimes referred to as Gouran (or Gorane, Goran, Gourane), an Arabian exonym. Tebu is divided further into two closely related languages or dialects, called Tedaga (Téda Toubou) and Dazaga (Daza Toubou). Of the two groups, the Daza, found to the south of the Teda, are more numerous.
Many of Chad's leaders have been Toubou (Gouran), including presidents Goukouni Oueddei and Hissène Habré.
Distribution
The Toubou people have historically lived in northern Chad, northeastern Niger, and southern Libya. They have sometimes been called the "black nomads of the Sahara". They are distributed across a large area in the central Sahara, as well as the north-central Sahel. They are particularly found north of the Tibesti Mountains, which in Old Tebu means "rocky mountains". The first syllable tou refers to the Tibesti Mountains, as known by the natives (touda), and the second syllable bou refers to blood in the Kanembou language; thus, people from the Tibesti region are referred to as Toubou and their name is derived from this.
The Teda are found primarily in the Sahara regions around the borders of southeast Libya, northeast Niger and northern Chad. They consider themselves a warrior people. The Daza live towards the Sahel region and are spread over much of north-central Chad. The Daza consist of numerous clans. Major tribes, clans, or societies of the Daza include the Alala, Altafa, Anakaza, Ankorda, Ayya, Sharara, Sharfada, Shuna, Daza, Djagada, Dogorda, Donza, Gadwa, Gaeda, Howda, Kamaya, Kamsoulla, Kara, Ketcherda, Kokorda, Mageya, Medelea, Mourdiya, Nara, Salma, Tchiroua, Tchoraga, Wandala, Wanja, Warba, Warda, and Yira among others.
The Daza cover the northern regions of Chad such as the Bourkou, the Ennedi Plateau, the northern Kanem, the Bahr el Gazel in the south and also the Tibesti mountains and the neighbouring countries. There is a diaspora community of several thousand Daza living in Omdurman, Sudan and a few thousand working in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
History
The ancient history of the Toubou people is unclear. They may be related to the 'Ethiopians' mentioned by Herodotus in 430 BCE, as a people being hunted by the Garamantes, but Jean Chapelle argues that this connection is speculative. Scholars such as Laurence P. Kirwan stress that the Garamantes and the Toubou seem to occupy the same lands, spanning from the Fezzan (Phazania) as far south as Nubia. Harold MacMichael stated in 1912 that the Bayuda desert was still known at the time as the "desert of Goran", a name connected with the modern Kura'án (Goran), affirming that the contemporary Kura'án people occupied much of the same territory as the Garamantes once did.
In Islamic literature, the earliest known mention of the Toubou people, along with that of the Zaghawa people, is in an 9th-century text by Arabic scholar Ibn Qutaybah. The 9th century scholar al-Khwarizmi also mentioned the Daza people (southern Teda).
During the expansive era of Trans-Saharan trade, the Toubou inhabited lands which were frequently used by merchant caravans, specifically along the Kufra oasis routes. It is unknown if the Toubou engaged with the caravans.
In the 18th century, the local Toubou peoples of Kaouar were an independent city until 1870, when the ruling Kerdusian tribe (Sanhajan from Zawiya) of Fezzan al Hasan al Balaazi ended their rule, according to a manuscript.
Genetics According to a study published in The American Journal of Human Genetics (Haber et al. 2016) that examined Y-DNA haplogroups from samples obtained from 75 Toubou men. The European haplogroup R1b was present at a rate of 34% for R1b (R1b-V88); the Indian haplogroup T1a was present at a rate of 31% for T1a; the Levantine haplogroups E-M78 and E-M81 were respectively present at rates of 28% and 5%; and the Iranian haplogroup J1 was present at a rate of 1%. The study also found that 20–30% of Toubou autosomal DNA was Eurasian in origin, and their African ancestral component was best represented by Laal-speaking populations. The most likely source of this Eurasian DNA, according to the analysis, was central European Neolithic farmers (Linearbandkeramik culture). Other ethnic groups in the Chad, such as the Sara people and the Laal speakers had considerably lower Eurasian admixture, at only 0.3–2% (Sara) and 1.25–4.5% (Laal).
In 2019, B Lorente-Galdos, using whole genome analysis, found that in the two Northeastern Sub-Saharan samples, Western Eurasian ancestry in their Toubou sample was 31.4%, and it was 14.9% for the East African Bantu. The Toubou maintained similar genetic distance to other Sub-Saharan samples, but were also genetically close to North African and non-African samples. The Eurasian component in the North African individuals was present at high rates of 84.9% for the Sahrawi, and 76.0% for the Libyan. North African samples were closer to Eurasian populations than to Sub-Saharan populations, implying that the Sahara Desert might have represented a major barrier within Africa. In contrast, the three Khoisan groups presented significantly small proportions of a Eurasian component (3.83–4.11%).
Society
Livelihood Toubou life centers on raising and herding their livestock, or on farming the scattered oases where they cultivate dates, grain and legumes. Their herds include dromedaries, goats, cattle, donkeys and sheep. Livestock is a major part of their wealth and trade. Livestock is also used as a part of dowry payment during marriage, either where the groom's family agrees to pay to the bride's family in exchange for the bride, or where the livestock is given by the bride's kin to supply the young couple with economic resources in order to start a family.
In a few places, the Toubou also mine salt and natron, a salt-like substance which is essential in nearly all components of Toubou life, including medicine, preservation, tanning, soap production, textiles and livestock. It is also an ingredient in chewing tobacco. Literacy rates among the Toubou are quite low.
Clan Many Toubou people still follow a semi-nomadic pastoralist lifestyle. Those who prefer a settled life typically live in palm-thatched, rectangular or cylindrical mud houses. The Toubou are patrilineal, with an elder male heading the lineage. The second order of Toubou kinship is to the clan.
According to Jean Chapelle, a colonial officer of history specializing in Chadian ethnic groups (although his book in Borkou has caused a significant degree of wrongdoing), the clan system developed out of necessity. Nomadic life means being scattered throughout a region; therefore, belonging to a clan means that the individual is likely to find hospitable clan people in most settlements or camps of any size.
A second factor is the maintenance of ties with the maternal clan. Although the maternal clan does not occupy the central place of the parental clan, it provides ties. The third factor is protective relationships at the primary residence.
Despite a common linguistic heritage, the institution of the clan holds the highest sense of identity among Toubou peoples. Regional divisions do exist, however. In 1936, the Chadian government under French colonization conferred legality and legitimacy on Toubou regional groupings in Chad by dividing the Daza and Teda regions into territorial units called cantons. Al-Haj Kelleï Chahami, from the Kamaya canton in Borkou region's Faya city, was appointed as the cantons' first chief. Even after Chad gained its independence in 1960, the cantons continued to exist.
Toubou legal customs are generally based on Islamic law, which allows restitution and revenge. Murder, for example, is settled directly between the families of the victim and the murderer. Toubou honour requires that someone from the victim's family try to kill the murderer or a relative; such efforts eventually end with negotiations to settle the matter.
Reconciliation follows the payment of the Goroga (Islamic tenet of Diyya), or blood money. Among the Tumagra clan of the Teda people in the Tibesti region, there is a derde (spiritual head) who is recognized as the clan judge, and arbitrates conflict and levies sanctions.
Social stratification
The Toubou people, states Jean Chapelle, were historically socially stratified with an embedded caste system. The three strata of the caste system consisted of freemen with a right to own property, artisanal castes, and slaves.
The endogamous caste of Azza (or Aza) among the Toubou have artisanal occupations, such as metalworking, leatherworking, salt mining, well digging, dates farming, pottery, and tailoring. Its members have traditionally been despised and segregated by other strata of the Toubou, much like the Hadahid caste in southeastern Chad among the Zaghawa people. According to Paul Lovejoy – a professor of African History, 19th-century records show that these segregated Toubou castes followed the same customs and traditions as the rest of the Toubou, but they were independent in their politics and beliefs, much like the artisan castes found in many ethnic groups of western Chad such as the Kanembou, Yedina, Arab, Kouri and Danawa.
Marriage between a member of the Azza and a member from a different strata of the Toubou people has been culturally unacceptable., Quote: ""Like the Tuareg, the Toubous have a distinct hierarchy, with three separate levels: Teda/Daza, Aza artisans and slaves. (...) [There] the blacksmiths were segregated from the larger populace and seen as contemptible. (...) No Teda/Daza would think of marrying a blacksmith. They are a caste apart, marrying only among themselves." The Azza are Dazaga-speaking people who sprang from the Dazagara. The majority of Teda speak and understand Dazaga; however, the Dazagada do not always clearly grasp Tedaga. Dazaga is the most commonly used language in BET by all its inhabitants.
The lowest social strata were the slaves (Agara). Slaves entered the Toubou Teda and Daza societies from raids and warfare on other ethnic groups in lands to their south. All slaves were the property of their masters, their caste was endogamous, and their status was inherited by birth.