30/10/2022
Danakil(Qafar) Ummatak Ux Baxaqsa Kee Faransawi Kamolayoh Gubat'ten, Obok(Hayyu), Tagora Kee Gobaqad Deeriifal ten Qafar Kedoodah Migaaqiteh Galab Xagak, 1895'uh A. Rambaud Fiiriseh Cabe.
Brief Descriptions Of The Dankalis, With Some Danakil Tribes Mentioned On Territory Of Obock, Tadjoura and Gobad Of The French Colony(Djibouti), By A. Rambaud, 1895.
TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH TO ENGLISH
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The Donkali come from many tribes called kabils, including the government is both aristocratic and democratic. Authority is indeed exercised by hereditary chiefs, but all their decisions are submitted to the meetings of the nation, say kalam, and where all business is transacted: they can only be executed after having obtained the unanimous votes of the members present. The kalams exercise the rights of reprimand towards the chiefs of the tribes and even punishment. The mores of the Danakil are savage and bloodthirsty. The foreigner, at home, as long as he has not befriended the members of the tribe, can be murdered with impunity. All murderer has the right to decorate himself with a white feather which he wears at the top of the head and which he later replaces with metal rings at the cuffs and huge buttons at the earlobes. Officially the Danakil are Muslims, but they practice neither the prayers nor the other ceremonies of Islam. The Danakil language is called Afar. This idiom can be relate to other Ethiopian idioms. A dictionary of this language was published, in 1840, by the Rev. CW Isen-Berg in London. The Danakil learn fairly easily to do trades worth of maneuvers. We have used some at Obock up to than two hundred in 1882: they had been taught, in a few days, use the wheelbarrow, the pickaxe and the earth shovel stale. The English occupy Aden for the landing-ment of ships, on board which are also embarked a few Danakils as drivers. On this territory of Obock strictly speaking, there are seven tribes, themselves divided into fractions more or less breuses: the Takyil, who dress Obock; the Asmila, on the Atella, the Madelina, the Hassouba, the Aden-Sara, the Ab-Ammila, the Bedouitamila, which include fifteen fractions. On the territory of Tadjoura and Gobad, three tribes:
the Adail, administered by the Sultan of Tadjoura, the Hassouba, by Omar-Bourham, the Debéné, by Sultan Houmed-Loitla. All these tribes form a total of 22,000 heads, being able to arm 6000 warriors. Tadjoura, as well as the other cities or villages of the coast belonging to the Danakil, must have been founded by merchants Arabs, who established plots near the creeks where they found shelter for their boats.
The Arabs who founded Tadjoura, as well as those who founded Reita or Bailloul, being with Danakil girls, have created a population today of donkali blood; but it owes to it's Arab alloy very special manners and aptitudes: religious fantasy, mercantile spirit, ability to travel on land and sea, and a particular social organization, At the head of these cities are three authorities, and they wear, what should be noted, the Arab costume instead of the lies donkali. These authorities have the pompous titles of sultan, vizir, imam-cadi. The latter is at the same time in charge of public education, a function which he performs with commendable zeal, because, unlike the Bedouins who are all illiterate, almost all city dwellers can read, write and count in Arabic language. The offices of sultan and vizier are hereditary, but they go among themselves: the vizier succeeds the deceased sultan, at the heir of this one replaces in his functions the vizier become sultan. These sultans are supposed to exercise a kind of suzerainty on the tribes of the Bedouins: it would be more exact to say that each town on the coast is assigned as a clientele a number of tribes from the interior or the coast. All the Danakil towns on the coast, being more eager to secure for their maritime trade than attached to their independence national pendence, had long since recognized the suzerainty of the Turcs, when they ceded them to the Egypte. The Bedouins, on the contrary, needing no other protection than that of their spear, have always refused to recognize a foreign supremacy.
Posted By: Digital Uguugumo Team
