The Colorado statesman., 1923-02-24

Sahara, regions strikingly different
from the sand dune sections, that are
the homes of the fierce Tuaregs-the
real people of the desert"-who have
constantly preyed on the camel cara
vans that Arabs and Jews have sent
periodically from the Mediterranean
toward Central Africa.
Tuaregs, Land Buccaneers.
These people, natives and rulers Of
the middle desert, are the allies of no
one, but wage furtive guerrilla war
fare with all who invade their inhos-
pitable domain. They are land buc-
cancers, forever at war with all civil
ization and its restraints. Masked
Tuaregs are Berber nomads, white
desert people, whose country Is prob
ably the most inaccessible on earth.
Even before Egyptian civilization be
gan to leave coherent records of Its
history, the Tuaregs, or Berbers, were
long established along Northern Africa.
The great Arab invasion of the
Eleventh century displaced them from
their possessions upon the seacoast
and drove them into the savage area Of
the interior desert, where, with their
hands raised against all who come into
their pathless country, they have
maintained themselves through the in
tervening centuries, despite paucity of
water, dust storms, and lack of farming
land, requisitioning by force of arms
from the Arabs and Egyptians, to the
north and east, and from the blacks
Of the Soudan, in the south, such. neces-
sites and luXurles as their cheerless
portion of mother earth cannot supply
them.
There are five main tribes in the
Tuareg confederation, and they inhabit
the desert from Tuat to Timbuktu and
from Fezzan to Finder. These fierce
adventures who have forced the great
desolation to yield them a support
number 100000 or more, according to
estimate; and they have made them
selves feared by the natives from the
Mediterranean to the jungles of Cen
trail Africa.
The Tuaregs wear the end of their
turban cloth drawn around the face,
allowing nothing but the eyes to be
seen. 1t is worn for the purpose of
protecting the throat and lungs from
the cutting blasts of fine desert sand,
and also, probably, as an element en-
hancing the mystery of their life, for
they seldom or never remove these
masks, whether rowing over the desert
or visiting in the cities on the coast
Due to these cloths, they are called
Masked Tuaregs, while the Arabs call
them People of the Veil" The masks
are dark blue and white, the former
being worn by Tuareg mobiles and the
latter by the serfs and slaves.
Some centers for trade, Tuareg
towns, are situated in the middle
desert. However, the Tuareg has little
cares for trade and industry. He Is a
fearless, enduring, hard-fighting ad-
venturer along the merchandise trails
that cross the desert. Sometimes. a
single caravan consists of thousands of
camels and merchandise to the value
of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Tuaregs are of the purest Ber-
ber stock, the noble families unmixed
with other blood, and, in their own Ian
guage, they call themselves 1.-The noble
people" Nominally, they are Moham-
medans, and some of their number
compose the most intolerant and war
like sect in Islam, the Senussite sect.
Their hatred for the foreigner is great
er even than that bred by their religion
and so they are more exclusive than
ever were the Chinese or Japanese.
Their social organization divides them
into five classes the mobiles, the priests.
the serfs, the croSS-breeds and the
slaves. All of these classes have this
that is democratic-they form together
the Tuareg family, which holds itself
superior to all the other peoples of the
earth.