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The Arabs of the Sudan. 
A History of the Arabs in the Sudan : and Some Account 
of the People who preceded them and of the Tribes 
inhabiting Darfir. By H. A. MacMichael. Vol. 1. 
Pp. xxii+347. Vol.2. Pp. viiit488. (Cambridge : 
At the University Press, 1922.) 2 vols. gos. net. 
HE two volumes before us present the result of 
Mr. MacMichael’s investigations in the Northern 
Sudan carried on for nearly twenty years, and they may 
be regarded as the logical continuation of his earlier work 
(published in 1912) on the Arabs of Kordofan. The 
present work deals with all those Sudanese tribes in 
which Arab blood preponderates, or at least warrants 
the popular conception of them as Arabs. 
Mr. MacMichael’s area of study—roughly north of 
12° N. and west of 25° E.—is so entirely his own, his 
conclusions so largely the result of original field work, 
that any detailed criticism is impossible. All that the 
reviewer can do is to give some idea of the scope of the 
book, the author’s general conclusions, and where 
possible indicate how far these agree or disagree with 
the results of workers in other parts of the Sudan. 
The plan of the book is unusual ; the second volume 
consists of the translations of thirty-two native manu- 
scripts, for the most part nisba “ pedigrees,’ with 
explanatory notes and genealogical trees. The first 
volume, with the exception of sections dealing with the 
early history of the Nile Valley, and the non-Arab 
races of Darfur, is devoted to a series of disserta- 
tions or essays based on the data contained in the 
manuscripts in volume 2, and the study that the 
author has made of literary sources both Arabic and 
European. 
Wearisome as these misba are to read—and the student 
will be inclined to echo the sixteenth-century writer of 
document BA, “the knowledge of the pedigrees of 
persons who are unrelated to yourself is of no use ”— 
their value is increased by their rarity, for though 
many Sudan Arabs are prepared to produce fragments 
of paper which they regard as of genealogical interest, 
relatively few documents of real historical value have 
survived the ravages of white ants and the accidents 
of the nomad life. Moreover, of those that did exist 
half a century ago, very many were burnt during the 
Dervish rule by the orders of the Mahdi, who feared 
that research might tend to invalidate his pretensions 
to be the Expected One, and by the Khalifa, a Bageara 
from Darfur who was interested in genealogy to the 
extent only of not desiring to appear less nobly born 
than those over whom he ruled. 
Not all the manuscripts are mzsba: there is a “‘ History 
of the Fung Kingdom ” (MS. D7) of far more general 
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[ FEBRUARY 10, 1923 
interest, while somewhere between these and the — 
“pedigrees” come the MSS. numbered DI and D3. | 
The third part of the former, probably dating from the 
eighteenth century, contains much of general ethno- 
logical interest, while the lattef, a series of biographies 
of holy men of the Fung period, written early in the 
nineteenth century, has considerable social and folk- 
lore value. 
The first three chapters, dealing with the pre- 
Muhammadan inhabitants of the Sudan, go far back 
in time. Mr. MacMichael seems concerned to prove 
that there was a considerable inflow of Arabians into 
Egypt and the Sudan so far back as the Old Kingdom, 
but there is really no sufficient evidence for this, nor 
from the point of view of the present volumes is it 
of any importance,.this alleged very early Arabian 
influence being ignored in the remainder of the work. 
The next two chapters deal for the most part with the 
Nubians and Beja and contain much that is interesting 
and suggestive, but the reviewer may be allowed to — 
point out that the author is incorrect in attributing to 
him the view (1, p. 35) that “‘ the Hadendoa are repre- 
sentatives of the Beni Amir stock modified chiefly by — 
miscegenation with the tall negroes of the Nile Valley, 
and also, in all probability, with the . . . round- 
headed Armenoid population. ...” There can be 
little doubt that it is Armenoid blood that is responsible 
for certain of the physical characters of the Hadendoa ; 
negro influence has been but slight. In any case these - 
three chapters are introductory only; they contain ] 
none of the author’s own observations, so that they 
stand apart, and the critical attitude which they pro- 
voke rapidly dies down on reading the rest of the 
book. : 
The remainder of part 1 forms a most valuable 
introduction to the ethnology of the non-Arab races 
of Darfur ; here Mr. MacMichael has done service not 
only by bringing together the scattered notices from 
literature, but also by the account he gives of the 
social organisation and religious rites which he has 
himself observed among the Dagu, the Fur, and the 
dwellers on Jebel Midob. Among these tribes, as well 
as among some of their even less known neighbours, 
rain-making ceremonies are still of importance, the 
rain-maker being a woman and descent being in the 
female line ; moreover, in a general way their religious — 
ideas, so far as it is possible to judge on present informa- 
tion, seem akin to those of the Nuba of Southern — 
Kordofan, as observed by the present writer. This — 
fact has not escaped Mr. MacMichael; it might have 
been added that the work of Tucker and Myers — 
(Journ. Roy. Anthrop. Inst., rgr0o) suggests a definite 
physical relationship. Combining the information he — 
collected from the various tribes of Darfur, Mr. Mac- — 
