73 2 



The National Geographic Magazine 



A WOMAN OF TIMBUCTU 



chants from Tripoli, many from Ghada- 

 menon, Tenduf, Tadjakant and Touat, 

 who came every year. 



In Timbnctu we find ovens in the 

 streets. They are constructed of mud, 

 and are of a conical shape somewhat 

 rounded at the top and lined inside with 

 baked bottoms of broken earthen vases. 

 In these ovens the natives bake their 

 small round loaves, quite good, were it 

 not for the quantity of sand which gets 

 mixed with the flour of the inferior kind 

 of wheat locally grown. The wheat is 

 ground between two stones, the lower one 

 larger than the upper. 



These stones are imported at great ex- 

 pense from the mountains of Sahel in 

 Morocco. After the flour has been 

 coarsely ground it is passed through a 

 thin material, and then rolled between 

 the hands until it becomes fairly fine. 



Both in the big and the small 

 market-places one sees dozens of 

 women selling bread. 



I do not think that I have ever 

 visited a town where the varie- 

 ties of headdress were so numer- 

 ous and remarkable as in Tim- 

 buctu. When women were 

 young, until the age of thirteen 

 or fourteen, they fastened their 

 hair into a plait which, with some 

 additional black silk and with 

 plenty of jewels and ornaments 

 attached to it, stuck out behind 

 and was called the yellofoh or 

 "one tress only." From four- 

 teen to fifteen they wore two or 

 three queues, one behind and one 

 in front, adding to them the fibre 

 of the kondji, the plait behind 

 being rolled up at the extremity 

 and slightly lowered. This coif- 

 fure, which is called the djnne- 

 djnne or "in front-in front," is 

 also much decorated with beads 

 and silver triangles. 



Unmarried women never 



showed balls of hair at the side 



of the head, but wore them on 



the top of the skull. Slaves, 



not married, had only one of 



these balls, a kind of pompom, 



on the right side. Most married women 



wore two of these pompoms, one over 



each ear. The two-ball arrangement for 



married women was a special coiffure 



fashionable in Djenne, the sister city of 



Timbuctu. When not in holiday dress, 



the girls also adorned themselves with 



these hair-balls, with an extra one behind 



the head. 



Perhaps the most puzzling headdress 

 to a male observer was the Korbo-tchirey, 

 which, translated literally, mean "all sorts 

 of rings, red," words which require ex- 

 planation. They mean that the top plait, 

 stiffened, described curves in all direc- 

 tions, ending in a sort of spiral at the 

 back of the head. A triangular orna- 

 ment of red imitation coral, or stone, 

 was placed at the end of the bigger loop 

 upon the top of the head. In other in- 

 stances, two plaits were substituted for 



