Med-jai, blemmyes, Bisharya, and Beja

Dear Mohamed and all group members,

Regarding the tribes of the Eastern Desert, it is true that in a way
their history is poorly documented; this is largely due to the fact
that "history" in this context is basically just stories and lore
that is transmitted from one generation to the next. They have no
written record of their own (as the Siwans do for instance) and the
only accounts we have are those of travelers who have taken interest
in those people and have left us their memoirs and travel logs. Some
have made systematic research but most of what we have is subjective
accounts that reflect either the authors' personal views or the
original storytellers' biased opinions. Moreover, most of the authors
were foreigners and therefore were handicapped right from the start
by culture barriers.

Here are some basic points that seem credible enough to be considered
historical facts. To start with lets go quickly through some
terminologies:
A tribe or "qabila" is a subdivision of a people or a nation, within
a tribe there are clans or families "ayla", and within the clan are
the households or "bayt". In a household the father's lineage is
refered to as "asl" or origin, the mother's lineage is "batn"
or "lahm", the word "ahl" is loosely used to indicate any association
such as neighborhood, friendship, business, etc.

The people inhabiting the southern part of the Eastern Desert of
Egypt belong mainly to the Beja nation (they share territory with the
Rashayed who are Semitic bedouins from Saudi Arabia), The southern
part of the Eastern desert means the area south of the Quosseir-Quift
road; north of this road are Maaza, Howaytat and other Semitic
tribes. The Beja are Hamitic bedouins closely related to the Afar of
Ethiopia. They are divided into many tribes such as the Ababda,
Bisharin, Beni Amer, Amanar, Bongo and Handendowa. In Egypt only the
Ababda and Bisharin are found, they are mainly camel herders although
sometimes also breed goats and sheep.
Even though many civilizations have "occupied" the Eastern Desert
none is known to have settled there, this may be due to the
inhospitable character of the land and the fierce resistance of the
original inhabitants. It is believed that the caravan raiders of
Roman times, the Blemmyes, are the very ancestors of today's Ababda.
No mention is made of the Bisharin in antiquity except some accounts
of "...a savage people who live almost like animals..." as the French
writer Gustave Flaubert has described them, it is however doubtful
that he has even seen any Bisharin since he only made one journey
from the Nile to the port village of Quosseir and back.
Present day Ababda are a peaceful honest people who still breed
camels, sheep and goats while the males sometimes work as guards or
drivers for mining and exploration companies. The touristic boom the
area is going through has laso drawn many of them into this highly
lucrative business. The new generation of Ababda are educated people
who have been to school, can read and write, can speak English and
one of them (the first) from the area of Marsa Alam is now holding a
bachelor's degree from Al Azhar University.

I hope I have shed some light on the subject and thank you for
reading through this long message. Two good references on the subject
are:
- "Sons of Ishmael, a Study of the Egyptian Bedouin" by G.W. Murray
- "Key Environments, the Red Sea" one of a series of studies
published under the auspices of HRH the Prince of Wales.

Cheers to all,
Magdi

Dear Mohamed,

You have 3 questions in your message:
1- How can the Ababda be singled out alone as the Blemmyes?
2- Why do Ababda associate themselves to Arab origins?
3- Where to learn the Beja language?

The answer to Q1 is more a matter of logical reasoning than hard
historical facts; the Beja as a whole claim descent from Cush, Noah
grandson (so do other nations including the Afar of Ethiopia). The
Beja are said to be Northern Cushitic speaking bedouins while the
Afar are Eastern Cushitic. It is to be noted here that the
term "bedouin" indicates more a way of life than a race of people.
Beja occupy the land along the Red Sea coast from Ethiopia to Egypt
and the Ababda bedouins are known since times immemorial to have
occupied the northermost lands of the Beja, ie. present day Egypt
even though in antiquity such boundaries did not exist. It is only
under British occupation that the frontier between Egypt and Sudan
was arbitrarily set at latitude 22, leaving the bulk of Bisharin in
Sudan although a Bishari clan, namely the Hamedorab, live in the area
of Shalatin and further north (interestingly sharing land with the
Rashayed as I said before). Bedouin territories can be rather
flexible; to quote W.J. Bramly: "Disputes of course arise over the
possession of wadis, but I find that a week after a certain wadi has
been alloted to one of two tribes, both tribes are amicably grazing
in it side by side without payment. The ownership of wells is more
strictly defined."
To return to the Ababda/Blemmyes riddle, since the caravan routes
crossing the Eastern Desert between the Red Sea and the Nile lie
mainly in the area between Berenice in the south and Safaga in the
north, and work their way west to end generally in Quift (the spot
where the Nile comes closest to the Red Sea), these routes all fall
into Ababda territory. Now history tells us that these caravans were
often the victims of local bedouin raiders, the Blemmyes, killing
travelers and looting goods and pack animals, hence the setting up of
Hydreumas along the routes (more on this if you wish). It becomes
then a matter of simple reasoning that the Blemmyes were no other
than Ababda bedouins. Further south from Berenice there was not much
traveling inland; most of the traffic was done along the coast and
for reasons unrelated to trade: the majority of coastal towns were
established in the 3rd century BC by Ptolemy II to serve as hunting
stations for elephants to supply his armies with this important war
instrument (!!). Since these towns, or more accurately posts, were on
the coast, there was very little interaction between them and the
bedouins living in the mountains, there was therefore no need to even
give a name to these bedouins.
I hope this answers your first question.

Now for the association of Ababda with Arabs, the Beja were for the
most a Christian people before the advent of Islam, now both Beja and
Afar are Muslim. The name Ababda means descendants of Abbad,
their "eponymous ancestor" who is now buried in Wadi Abad near Edfu.
We know from Al Maqrizi that when the Arab tribes of Rabia and
Juheina invaded the Sudan, they married the daughters of the chiefs
of the Beja clans, and thereby secured to their descendants the
chieftaincies of these clans since descent among the Beja is
matrilineal. This applies to the sons of Abad as well as the sons of
Kahil, the Kawahla. Ababda claim descent (through a very complicated
family tree) from the famous Zubair ibn el Awwam, cousin of the
Prophet who was slain at the "Battle of the Camel" in 656 AD. The
Kawahla now live in Kordofan.

Finally how to learn the Beja language or "Bedewi" as it is sometimes
called, I guess the best way is to spend an extended amount of time
in their land, maybe marrying a Beja woman and setting up a camel
breeding business.

Good luck and don't forget to send me an invitation to the wedding!
Magdi Hanna

--- In SaharaSafaris@yahoogroups.com, Mohamed Mabrouk
wrote:
> Dear Magdi,
>
> You seem to have traced both the tribes of Beja (Bisharin
> and Ababda) back to ancient times. I agree that Beja is an
> ancient group that has continously occupied this area under
> variations of the name of Beja and probably Med-ja (B used
> interchangeable with M), but I still don't see how Ababda
> as a subgroup of Beja could be traced back and singled out
> as the Blemmyes. Is there any evidence of the existence of
> the Ababda subgroup (tribe) dated back in the ancient
> times?
>
> I know for example that the Arabic tribes of Muzeina of
> Northern Arabia (tribes of Zuheir Ibn Salma famous poet of
> mu3allaqat and same tribe that occupies Sinai territory
> from Sharm to Nuweiba) have been there for over 2000 years.
> A tomb of a Muzeina lady had her name and her tribe's name
> (MZNIT-H) written in letters. Is there a similar evidence
> of the name Ababda from ancient times, or has it been
> traced through other evicences?
>
> My knowledge was just that only Beja as a whole could be
> the "Blemmyes" of the Roman/Greek times. A speicific
> subgroup as Ababda cannot.
>
> I remember I read somewhere about Beibars (Memluke ruler of
> the 14th century or was it 13th?) have had wars with them.
> They were mentioned as the name Beja again.
>
> I also heard that the Ababda associates themselves to
> Arabic origins. I wonder if they mean after Islam or is it
> dated to prehistorical immigrations across Red Sea by
> semitic people that influeced greatly ethnology and culture
> and language of the Ethiopian region.
>
> Do you know of any source one can learn a bit of the
> language of Beja too? :) or Am I asking for too much. You
> seem to be very knowledgeable about this region. :)
>
> Salaam,
> Mohamed Mabrouk