Location: Sahara
Description: Tuareg is an African culture that lives mainly in two groups, the southern and northern groups which are independent of each other. Although the two different groups do not always compliment one another, they do share common views and value systems. A member of the tribe is identified in a class by matrilineal descent (through their mother's ancestry).
Both groups speak the native language Tamashek, and write in Tifinagh, which is related to ancient Libyan. The economy of both groups have always been based on agriculture, trading, and livestock. The southern groups live in savanna, and often breed camels and other livestock. The northern groups generally live in desert area and often buy zebu from the southern groups. The Tuareg are a feudal culture characterized by the social organization of class. The nobility consist of nobles and landowners, the upper classes consists of the clergy and artisans while the lower class includes primarily laborers. In fact, the Tuareg have Bella who are black slaves.
In the past, the Tuareg of the north would live in tents made of camel hair woven together by the women of the tribe. The skin would be pulled tightly across a rectangle of poles, with four poles to support curved ridges to reduce damage, which today maybe replaced with plastic. The housing of the southern Tuareg looked the same although they used goat skin rather than camel hair. The southern tent can take up to forty skins to complete.
The women of the village were responsible for weaving and leather working while the men would forge metal. Men called forgerons would go out looking for metal and convert it into weapons. Some of the early weapons of the Tuareg were swords, dagger, iron lances and leather shields.
The Tuareg Today: During the seventies and eighties a severe drought caused the Tuareg to live mostly in one area and not move around. In the twentieth century there were reported to be 900,000 Tuareg living throughout Africa. Today there is roughly 1.3 million Tuareg. Most Tuareg children go to neighboring countries to learn skills to bring back home. Most of these children will join the Malinese army in order to acquire skills and do apprentice work.
Though this page has been carefully researched, the author does not claim expertise on the Tuareg. Please send questions, comments, and corrections to emuseum@mnsu.edu and include the URL. If you are Tuareg, your feedback is much appreciated.
Literature
Foek, Anton "Unified and Stratified (Africa's Tuareg population)." World 1 Feb. 1999, v.14, 2, 212(1)
"Tuareg." Britannica http://www.britannica.com/seo/t/tureg 27 Feb. 2001
"Niger History." Merriam-Webster http://www.merriamwebster.com/bcom/eb/article/index/2/0,8377,75582,00.html
Written by: Krista N. Martin
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