Tuareg Quotes

In the tribe of Tuareg, men instead of women cover their faces with a blue veil. The tourists who come there call them the ‘Blue Men of the Sahara’.

الأخلاق مسألة عادات ويجب ألا نحكم أبداً،وحسب معاييرنا،على أفعال أولئك الذين لديهم،حسب عادات أسلافهم،رؤى ومعايير عن الحياة مختلفة.

They were the men and the women of the sand, of the wind, of the light, of the night. They appeared as in a dream, at the crest of a dune, as if they were born of the cloudless sky.

الرأفة : فضيلة الملوك ، و رذيلة الجنود

الطوارق هم الوحيدين بين كل الشعوب الإسلامية الذين مازالوا يتبعون بوفاء تعليمات محمد،معلنين المساواة بين الجنسين،ونساؤهم ليس فقط أنهنّ لا يحجّبن وجوههنّ بالحجاب- خلاف الرجال- إنما يتمتعن أيضا بحرية مطلقة حتى لحظة الزواج،دون تقديم حساب عن أفعالهن،لا لآبائهن ولا لزوجهن المستقبلي،والذي بشكل عام يخترنه هنّ بأنفسهن وحسب عواطفهن..

It should be noted that the Tuareg do not call themselves Tuareg. Nor do they call themselves the blue people. They call themselves Imohag, which means “free men.

They glided out of the heat-haze on their camels like specters. There were twenty of them, and they were Tuareg. Their faces were hidden by black veils that left only slits for the eyes, and they wore purple robes that fluttered in the desert wind. They carried swords, muskets and seven-foot iron spears, and wore stilettos in sheaths on their left forearms. They were an impressive, sinister sight.

Ved cómo el odio y las luchas entre familias a nada conducen, más que al miedo, la locura y la muerte y cierto es que en muchos años que combatí junto a los míos contra nuestros eternos enemigos […], jamás vi nada bueno que lo justificase, porqué las rapiñas de unos con las rapiñas de otros se pagan, y los muertos de cada bando no tienen precio, sino que como una cadena van arrastrando nuevos muertos.

...(T)he last rebels of the Tuareg uprising that had devastated the north for half a decade agreed to lay down their weapons, and the nomadic warriors surrendered thousands of Kalashnikov rifles to the government. The weapons were buried tin the concrete pedestal f a "monument of Peace" that sits on a rise on Timbuktu's outskirts- an assemblage of interlocking archways surrounded by colorful murals of Malian government soldiers and Tuareg rebels shaking hands and burning their weapons.

Ils étaient les hommes et les femmes du sable, du vent, de la lumière, de la nuit. Ils étaient apparus, comme dans un rêve, en haut d’une dune, comme s’ils étaient nés du ciel sans nuages.

إحدى المشاكل الكبيرة لقارتنا-أكد مرة بعد أخرى-هي الواقع الذي لايدحض،إن القسم الأعظم من الشعب الإفريقي هو،في حد ذاته أكثر عنصرية من الكولونياليين أنفسهم.قبائل جيران،أخوة تقريبا،يكنون لبعضهم الضغينة والإحتقار،والآن بقدوم الإستقلال يظهرون بوضوح أن الدهمائي ليس لديه عدو أسوأ من الدهمائي نفسه الذي يتكلم لهجة أخرى .لن نرتكب الخطأ ذاته.أنتم الذين ستحكمون هذه الامة ليكن واضحاً أمامكم،أن البدو والطوارق وقبائل الجبال ليسوا في مستوى أدنى،إنما مختلفون فحسب....مختلفون .

Will not mankind, which was born in the desert, as all the sources attest, have to return there to its cradle? And then to whom will he turn for advice, this sweaty urbanite, with his broken-down Fiat, with his refrigerator and no place to plug it in? Will he not start searching for the Turkman with the gray beard, the Tuareg wrapped in a turban? They know where the wells are, which means that they know the secret of survival and salvation. Their knowledge, devoid of scholasticism and doctrinairism, is great, because it serves life. In Europe they have the habit of writing that people of the desert are backward, even extremely backward. And it doesn’t occur to anyone that this is no way to judge a people who have been able to survive millennia under the most dire conditions, producing a culture that is most valuable because it is practical, a culture that allowed entire nations to exist and develop while during that very same time many sedentary civilizations fell and disappeared forever from the face of the earth.

Slung on a stage over the gunwale of an old felucca, the Peri. A storm had just passed, rushing away toward the land in a great slope of clouds; already turning yellowish from the desert. The sea there is the color of Damascus plums; and how quiet. Sun was going down; not a beautiful sunset, more a gradual darkening of the air and that storm’s mountainside. The Peri had been damaged, we hove to alongside and hailed her master. No reply. Only the sailor—I never saw his face—one of your fellahin who abandon the land like a restless husband and then grumble for the rest of their term afloat. It’s the strongest marriage in the world. This one wore a kind of loincloth and a rag round his head for the sun which was almost gone. After we’d shouted in every dialect we had among us, he replied in Tuareg: ‘The master is gone, the crew is gone, I am here and I am painting the ship.’ It was true: he was painting the ship. She’d been damaged, not a load line in sight, and a bad list. ‘Come aboard,’ we told him, ‘night is nearly on us and you cannot swim to land.’ He never answered, merely continued dipping the brush in his earthen jar and slapping it smoothly on the Peri’s creaking sides. What color? It looked gray but the air was dark. This felucca would never again see the sun. Finally I told the helmsman to swing our ship round and continue on course. I watched the fellah until it was too dark: becoming smaller, inching closer to the sea with every swell but never slackening his pace. A peasant with all his uptorn roots showing, alone on the sea at nightfall, painting the side of a sinking ship.

غابة من الأبنية تستحم ببحر شاسع من الملح،في كثير من زواياها ترتفع نوافير يتدفق منها ماء عذب في يوم واحد اكثر مما يستهلكه بدوي في حياته كلها، وتنتصب فوق ارض حجرية تصلح فقط كجحور لألاف الفئران. وتتحول مدينة كهذه بالطبع، الى المكان الاكثر دهاء وبسالة ونبلاً وذكاء من رجل "أموهاغ" من قبيلة كيل_تالغيموس المباركة، ويشعر بالعجز عن القتال فيها مثل الأكثر وضاعة من عبيد "عملي".

In Sahara, orice om avea timpul, linistea si atmosfera necesara ca sa se regaseasca pe sine, sa priveasca in departare sau in propriul suflet, sa observe Natura care il inconjura si sa mediteze asupra lucrurilor pe care nu le stia mai mult decat prin mijlocirea cartilor sfinte. Dar acolo, in orase, in sate si chiar in minusculele catune berbere, nu aveai pace, nici timp, nici spatiu si erai ametit de zgomote si de problemele celorlalti, de glasurile si certurile celorlalti si aveai impresia ca era mult mai important ceea ce li se intampla altora decat ceea ce ti se putea intampla tie.

-... dime: ¿qué otra cosa podemos hacer? — Abandonar. — ¿Y volver a la ciudad? —inquirió Gacel en tono despectivo —. ¿O volver a vagabundear como leprosos? Nadie nos quiere en ninguna parte, pequeña. Nadie quiere saber nada de la familia Sayah, y no podemos obligar a la gente a que nos acepte. Pero sí podemos obligar al desierto a que nos acepte, aunque sea profundizando en él hasta que lleguemos a su mismísimo corazón. — ¿Pero y si no llegamos nunca? — Llegaremos — replicó su hermano mayor con absoluta firmeza —. Si las palmeras han conseguido llegar, nosotros también. —¿Cómo puedes estar tan seguro? —Porque el día que un imohag no sea capaz de hacer lo que es capaz de hacer una palmera, nuestra raza estará condenada a desaparecer de la faz de la tierra. Y aún no ha llegado ese momento. — Pero una palmera tiene raíces y nosotros no. — Las raíces de nuestro pueblo son más profundas y están más firmemente asentadas en esta tierra que las de la más alta de las palmeras — intervino su madre con voz pausada...

(...) graba nu scurtează drumul, ci îl face doar mai obositor.

Il cielo stellato è piatto, senza vita né profondità. Non è più ordine, vibrazione, la nota unica che sottende il concerto universale. Forse il cielo è morto. Ma se è morto, non l'ha ucciso la guerra. Lo uccide questa società edonistica che - per bruciare la vita nel consumo del presente - occulta i conflitti, li contrabbanda come evento pulito. Un sistema che cancella meticolosamente i segni della morte non può sopportare ciò che dura e rammenta l'eterno, universo incluso. Così, privati dell'orizzonte, ci ritroviamo a cercare le nostre luci primordiali senza più avere l'alfabeto per leggerle, a cercare stelle di plastica e soli da supermercato, frugando alla rinfusa sotto le voci superstizione, creme abbronzanti, oroscopo, estasi mistica, canzonette, esoterismo. A viaggiare nel delirio cosmico, tra svastiche e soli alpini, guru, orge equinoziali e ossessioni suicide di gruppo. La regolarità degli astri, che ha orientato gli uomini per millenni, non mi rassicura più. Il cielo è diventato patrimonio di pochi. Ai berberi e ai tuareg le stelle sono ancora essenziali per navigare nel grande mare di sabbia chiamato Sahara. In un libro sull'Afghanistan di Niccolò Rinaldi, un piccolo profugo di guerra così racconta la fuga della sua gente verso il Pakistan attraverso il Passo Kyber: "Quando la luna e le stelle scomparvero dietro le montagne ci dicemmo: chissà magari non torneranno. Invece la notte successiva rieccole di nuovo sopra la nostra testa; eppure eravamo in un posto diverso e lontano. Allora non abbiamo più avuto paura di scappare.

— ¡Capitán…! ¡Capitán…! ¿Qué broma es ésta? ¿Dónde se han metido? Una sombra oscura nació de entre las sombras de la cocina. Era un targuí alto, muy delgado, con un oscuro "lithan" cubriéndole el rostro, un fusil en una mano y una larga espada en la otra. Se detuvo bajo el porche. — Están muertos -dijo. Le observó incrédulo. — ¿Muertos…? -repitió estúpidamente-. ¿Todos…? — Todos. — ¿Quién los mató? — Yo. Se aproximó sin dar crédito a lo que estaba oyendo. — ¿Tú…? -inquirió agitando la cabeza como para desechar la idea-. ¿Pretendes decirme que tú, sin ayuda de nadie, has matado a doce soldados, un sargento y un oficial…? Asintió con naturalidad: — Dormían. Abdul-el-Kebir, que había visto morir a miles de personas, que había ordenado ejecutar a muchas, y que aborrecía a todos y cada uno de sus carceleros, experimentó sin embargo una insoportable sensación de angustia y vacío en la boca del estómago, y se apoyó levemente en el poste de madera que soportaba el porche para no perder el equilibrio. — ¿Los has asesinado mientras dormían? -inquirió-. ¿Por qué? — Porque ellos asesinaron a mi 1huésped. -Hizo una pausa-. Y porque eran demasiados. Si uno daba la voz de alarma, hubieras muerto de viejo entre estas cuatro paredes… Abdul-el-Kebir le observó en silencio y agitó la cabeza afirmativamente, como si comprendiese algo que se le antojó oscuro en un principio. — Ahora te recuerdo… -admitió-. Eres el targuí que nos dio hospitalidad… Te vi cuando me llevaban. — Sí -asintió. Soy Gacel Sayah, eras mi huésped, y tengo la obligación de llevarte al otro lado de la frontera. — ¿Por qué? Le miró sin comprender. Por último, señaló: — Es la costumbre… Pediste mi protección y debo protegerte. — Matar a catorce hombres por protegerme resulta excesivo, ¿no crees…? El targuí no se dignó responder y echó a andar en dirección a la abierta puerta. — Traeré los camellos… -dijo-. Prepárate para un largo viaje. Le observó mientras se alejaba, perdiéndose de vista

The days when he had taken insults passively had passed, as had the days when he would melt in tears. He had never understood what made the others do it, only that he was somehow apart from them, somehow differ- ent, and that he would never fit in. From the time Serena had first held him after it happened, when he was only five, his mother had counseled patience. "Ignore them," she said. "Deny them the satisfaction of seeing you rise in anger." She too had suffered this way. "Pay no attention to them. They are only jealous of your noble birth." She had tried to soften their in- sults. "When they call you half-breed you must remem- ber what it really means, that you are the best of two worlds, the best of the French and the best of the Tuareg." Her advice felt warm and wise while he was on her lap, but evaporated quickly in the schoolyard. His patience only drove his tormentors to greater creativity in their taunts, and then they accused him of cowardice, of being a sissy. If he cried it drove them to new heights of viciousness. And then one day when Moussa was eight Henri had seen his bruised cheek and asked about it, and Moussa had poured out his sorrow and his dilemma. "Your mother is right in her way," Henri agreed after listening, "but just now I think they need a good thrashing. You need to teach them a lesson. I wish it weren't so, but they respect only strength." After that Moussa tried hard not to forget his mother's advice, but he found that fists often worked better. At first he lost most of the fights, but a bloody nose from fighting back felt better to him than a bloody nose from doing nothing. And with practice, along with the instruction he received from his father and Gascon, he got better. Before long the students learned to taunt him at their own peril, for even if they might finally beat him, they would pay a heavy price.

There are Bedouins in Arabia, Tuareg in North Africa, Somalis and Maasai in East Africa, Sami of northern Scandinavia, Gujjars in India, Yörük in Turkey, Tuvans of Mongolia, Aymara in the Andes. There are herds of sheep, goats, cows, llamas, camels, yaks, horses, or reindeer, with the pastoralists living off their animals’ meat, milk, and blood and trading their wool and hides.

Aman iman, Adaora weakly thought. The phrase meant "water is life" in the Tuareg language of Tamasheck. She'd once worked with a Tuareg man on a diving expedition. "Aman iman," had been his answer when Adaora asked how a man of the Sahara Desert became an expert scuba diver. Despite the pain in her lungs now and the swallowing darkness, she smiled. Aman iman.

Când ai de gând să ataci, trebuie să-l faci pe dușmanul tău să creadă că ai mai puține forțe decât ai în realitate, dar când te aperi trebuie să-l faci să creadă că ai mai multe. Asta e regula, deși uneori succesul vine când încalci regula...

When this space was renovated, the friends of the bookstore put sacred tobacco, sweetgrass, cedar, and sage in the walls. Then they painted the front and back doors blue to keep out malignant energies. All over the world—in Greek villages, in the American Southwest, among the Tuareg—blueness repels evil. Blue glass bottles on windowsills keep devils out, and so on. Thus the front door, painted spirit blue, and the vibrant blue canopies above the windows. Which blue? There are thousands of blues.

tuareg,

there needs to be greater economic and social development in the north. Without positive change and growth, it is likely that another Tuareg rebellion will occur. And next time, the Islamists will likely be more prepared.

Even Juba the Second, the Rome-educated scholar and Berber king of Numidia in present-day Algeria, who gave the river its current name, identified the waterway by its greatness, calling it the ‘Niger,’ derived from the Tuareg expression ‘N’ger-n-n’gero,’ meaning ‘River of Rivers.

Algunas tribus de pastores acostumbraban a matar a la cría, se comían su carne y después rellenaban su piel. Luego se enseñaba la cría disecada a la madre para que su presencia la animara a producir leche. Las gentes de la tribu de los nuer, en Sudán, iban aún más lejos: embadurnaban a los animales disecados con la orina de su madre para dar a los falsos terneros un aroma familiar y vivo. Otra técnica nuer consistía en fijar un anillo de espinas alrededor de la boca del ternero, de manera que pinchasen a la madre y esta se resistiera a amamantar.[8] Los tuareg criadores de camellos en el Sáhara solían pinchar o cortar partes de la nariz y del labio superior de las crías de camello con el fin de hacer que el amamantamiento fuera doloroso, con lo que los desanimaban a consumir demasiada leche.[9]

I saw an even more egregious example of this a few years later. I had moved to Edmonton to finish my undergraduate degree. I took an apartment with my sister, who was studying to be a nurse. She was also an up-and-out-of-there person. (Not too many years later she would plant strawberries in Norway and run safaris through Africa and smuggle trucks across the Tuareg-menaced Sahara Desert, and babysit orphan gorillas in the Congo.) We had a nice place in a new high-rise, overlooking the broad valley of the North Saskatchewan River. We had a view of the city skyline in the background. I bought a beautiful new Yamaha upright piano, in a fit of enthusiasm. The place looked good

I understood, for example, that finding one's way in the desert is much easier by night than by day, that the points of reference are numerous and certain. In the years which I spent in the open desert I never once got lost, thanks to the stars. Many times, when searching for a Tuareg camp or a lost weather station, I lost my way because the sun was too high in the sky. But I waited for night and found the road again, guided by the stars.

Cuenta una vieja tradición que «las palmeras suelen tener la cabeza en el fuego y los pies en el agua»,...