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THE LIVING RACES OF MANKIND 



Wadai, Baghirmi, and Bornu. The most typical 

 of the Soudanese are the people of Bornu, a 

 Negro nation with a strong Tibbu strain. 



Bornu is ethnographically the most im- 

 portant and interesting of the four states. The 

 ruling people are the Kanuri, who are clearly 

 Negroes somewhat modified by intermingliugs, 

 especially with the Dazas or Southern Tibbus. 

 They were conquered by the Fulah, but re- 

 covered their independence in a holy war 

 stimulated by the preaching of a native 

 Mahdi. 



They have been described as timid and 

 peaceful, "with large unmeaning faces, fat Negro 

 noses, and mouths of great dimensions, with good 

 teeth and high foreheads." The men generally 

 shave their heads, but the women wear their hair 

 formed into three rolls, one on the top of the 

 head, and with two smaller rolls hanging down 

 over the ears. The tribal tattoo-mark is a series 

 of twenty scars running from the corners of the 

 mouth to the angle of the lower jaw and cheek- 

 bone. The national weapons are the spear, shield, 

 and dagger. 



The country houses in Bornu are circular in 

 shape, and made of straw, woven grass mats, or 

 clay walls thatched with straw. But most of the 

 people live in towns, where the houses are larger 

 and better built. The houses of the better class consist of several walled courts, round which 

 are the apartments for the slaves; the wives of the owner live in an inner court, where 

 there is a thatched hut for each of them. From this court a staircase leads " to the 

 apartments of the owner, which consist of two buildings like towers or turrets, with a 

 terrace of communication between them. The walls are made of reddish clay as smooth as 

 stucco, and the roofs most tastefully arched on the inside with branches and thatched on 

 the outside with grass." 



The towns' are surrounded by walls 20 feet thick and from 30 to 40 feet high. The walls 

 are pierced by four entrances, closed at night by massive wooden gates. 



The people have few industries except agriculture. They grow grain crops, especially 

 millet and dhurra, which, boiled into porridge, is the staple food. Beans also are largely 

 grown. Fish is abundant in Lake Chad and the rivers which flow into it. 



Baghirmi, to the south-east of Lake Chad, is the Soudanese state with the most Negro 

 blood in the people; the population consists of Bornuese, Fulah, and Arabs, greatly altered by 

 the large class of Negro slaves. 



In Wadai the Arab type is strongest, and it is mixed with Negroes, Fulah, and some 

 Tibbus. The people of Wadai are more fanatical and warlike than those of the other states 

 of this group. In addition to the usual weapons, the lance or spear, knife, and dagger-shaped 

 sword, the natives use the gun and revolver, and are protected by quilted armour like- that 

 of the Fulah. 



In the hills of Darfur live the Fur Negroes, who have adopted Islam, but retain their 

 old fetishes and Negro superstitions; but unlike the Nilotic Negroes, to whom they are allied, 

 they neither tattoo nor remove the front teeth from the lower jaw. They are a brave race, 

 as the Egyptians learnt by experience. 



Photo by Neurdein Frerts} [Paris. 



AN ULED-NAIL WOMAN, BISKRA. 



