Daju people: Difference between revisions

The traditional area identified with the Daju are the Daju Hills in the southern portion of the [[Marrah Mountains]] located in the [[Darfur]] province of [[Sudan]]. As the Marrah Mountains are the only area in Darfur that has a temperate climate and thus could support large populations, a Daju state arose perhaps as early as the 12th century BC. Very little is known of this kingdom except for a list of kings and several mentions in Egyptian texts. The most ancient mention of king's names is king Githar at the time of the Daju prophet Saleh who died and buried at the bank of Wadi Saleh in the southwestern corner of Marrah Mountains [[See Nachtigal, 1971]] . The Daju appear to be the dominant group in Darfur from earliest times vying for control with their northern [[Marrah Mountains|Marrah Mountain]] later rivals, the agricultural [[Fur people]]. The original settlement of the Daju people was in the Yellow Nile River [now called Wadi Howar]. They also left ruins at Jebel Meidob, the Great Oases and Darb el-Arbayyn trade route to Egypt.

The Daju, who known to Henri Barth as "Pharaoh's Folk", had migrated originally from the Nile valley in the aftermath of the invasion of Kingdom of [[Meroe]] by Izana, king of [[Axum]] around the middle of the fourth century A.D. Accounts refer their origins to [[Shendi]], which means in their own language "ewe." First they settled in [[Wadi al-Malik]], [[Wadi Howar]] and [[Jebel Midob]] in B.C. 3000 then migrated, due to climate change, to the Nile valley and Egypt where they ruled under the name of Libyan Pharaohs. An Iraqi King expelled them southwards where they returned to their capital Nepta. Then they have been driven southwards again to Meroe until Izana drove them westwards to Wadi Howar and Kordofan in western Sudan and there they established their capital towns around Jebel Qadir in the Nuba Mountains and many other towns now in Darfur and Chad. After several generations, they annexed the land now called Dar Fur and beyond. Historians attribute this later expansion to the war between the Daju kingdom and the Kingdom of [[Dongola]] in 1100 AD which led King Ahmed al-Daj to relocate his headquarters to Meri in [[Jebel Marra]] massif. Meanwhile, Semia, one of Daju capitals, was completely destroyed by the Amir from Dongola.<ref>Kramer, Robert S., Lobban, Richard A. & Fluehr-Lobban, Carolyn (2013). Historical dictionary of the Sudan. 4th ed., Henri Barth,1857, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa: Being a Journal of an Expedition in the Years 1849-1855. Volume II. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers. P.544</ref>

The Daju empire is said to have spread its control as far east as [[Kurdufan]], west of the Nuba Mountains and as far west as [[Chad]].<ref>{{usurped|[httphttps://wwwweb.archive.org/web/20081204205538/http://ancientsudan.org/articles_ibrahim_musa_westernsudan.html Musa, Abraham; Ancient History of Western Sudan]}} US Military: Defense Language Institute, August 16, 2006</ref><ref name="Jenkins">[http://orvillejenkins.com/profiles/daju.html Jenkins, Orville; The Daju Populations of Sudan and Chad]</ref> The Egyptian historian [[Al-Maqrizi]], writing about 1400, described "Taju" as being a fairly powerful kingdom lying between [[Kanem Empire|Kanem]] and the Nile kingdoms.<ref>al-Maqrizi in Nehemiah Levztion and J. F. P. Hopkins, eds. and trans. ''Corpus of Early Arabic Sources for West African History'' (Cambridge, 1981, reprinted Princeton, NJ, 2000), pp 353-54.</ref> The Daju people are said to have settled in a long belt stretching from [[South Kurdufan]] westward through [[Darfur]] and into [[Chad]].<ref>[http://www.sudantribune.com/The-Nuba-A-People-s-Struggle-for,26576 Sudan Tribune: "The Nuba: A People’s Struggle for Political Niche and Equity in Sudan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609121426/http://www.sudantribune.com/The-Nuba-A-People-s-Struggle-for,26576 |date=2012-06-09 }} April 1, 2008</ref>

According to tradition, the Daju dynasty was conquered by the [[Sokoro language|Sokoro]]-speaking [[Tunjur people]] in the 14th century who moved from the west via the kingdoms of [[Bornu Empire|Bornu]] and [[Ouaddai Empire|Wadai]]. The Daju were scattered with their king escaping westward with some of his people and establishing a small new kingdom in the Dar Sila Area in Chad, becoming the [[Dar Sila Daju]] people.{{Citation needed|date=July 2024}}

Over time, the Tunjur introduced [[Islam]] to the region (which had previously been pagan) and gradually adopted [[Arabic]] as their administrative language. In 1596, control of Darfur passed into the hands of the hybrid [[Keira dynasty]] through intermarriage between the last sultan of the ruling Tunjur dynasty, Ahmad al-Maqur and its more populous vassals the [[Fur people]].<ref>[http://www.ndu.edu/CTNSP/docUploaded//HSCB%20Social%20Sci%20Macro%20-%20Dr%20Richard%20Lobban%20-%20Marrying%20Modeling%20with%20Empiricism%20-%20the%20case%20and%20context%20of%20Sudan.pdf Dr. Richard A Lobban, Professor of Anthropology, Rhode Island College. "Marrying Modeling with Empiricism: the case and context of Sudan"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120331120614/http://www.ndu.edu/CTNSP/docUploaded//HSCB%20Social%20Sci%20Macro%20-%20Dr%20Richard%20Lobban%20-%20Marrying%20Modeling%20with%20Empiricism%20-%20the%20case%20and%20context%20of%20Sudan.pdf |date=2012-03-31 }} Paper presented at the National Defense University, July 2008</ref> The resulting Fur-dominated [[Darfur Sultanate]] continued on until 1898.<ref name="Jenkins"/><ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=M2yHuXD30osC&pg=PA274&lpg=PA274&dq=tunjur+people&sourcepg=bl&ots=DSWLACO09J&sig=1LbjB0XCKNzpHXILcyn4zwFokd8&hl=en&ei=nTXZTdycGaXm0QHMo5H8Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CEwQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=tunjur%20people&f=falsePA274 Nachtigal, Gustav; Sahara and Sudan: Wadai and Darfur] p 273-274</ref><ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4976706.stm BBC News: "making Space for Darfur's Victims] May 06, 2006</ref>

*'''[[Ngulgule|Njalgulgule]]''' numbering 900 (1977) and living in one village in southern[[Western Bahr el Ghazal]], [[South Sudan]] near the confluence of the Sopo River and Boro River. They speak the [[Njalgulgule language]]. They are likely a later out-migration resulting from the collapse of the Daju empire.

There are also two groups located in the [[Nuba Mountains]] and due to their sharp linguistic differential from each other as well as the other Daju languages, it is generally agreed that they come from a very early migration (perhaps 2,000 years ago) out of the Daju [[Urheimat]] in the [[Marrah Mountains]]. There they carved out their own small territory in the midst of the original inhabitants of the eastern Nuba Mountains, the [[Kordofanian]] tribes, as well as amongst later migrating tribal/linguistic groupings: the [[Nyima languages|Nyimang]] tribes, the [[Temein languages|Temein]] tribes, and the [[Kadugli language|Kadugli]] tribes. The migration of the [[Hill Nubian]] tribes in the Nuba Hills is generally seen as coming after the main Daju migration. The Nuba Mountains have generally been an area of "retreat" for persecuted groups seeking security hence the significant linguistic diversity.<ref>[{{Cite web |url=http://www.thenubian.net/settlement.php |title=Thelwall, Robin; The Linguistic Settlement of the Nuba Mountains] |access-date=2011-05-22 |archive-date=2021-04-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210427113923/http://www.thenubian.net/settlement.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>

The Dar Sila Daju in Chad are arranged by male-led clans. Each clan has its own separate role in society. The Sultan is chosen from one of the clans and his advisors are drawn from other clans. The Sultanship primarily serves the role of religious leader but is also a symbol of tribal identity and unity.<ref name="Jenkins"/>

The Dar Daju Daju and the Dar Sila Daju are predominantly [[Muslim]] but they still practice many of their traditional religious customs including the building of straw shrines to their traditional high god Kalge whom they equate with [[God in Islam|Allah of Islam]].<ref name="Jenkins"/> From this name derived ″Par-Kalge,″ the sacred mountain located near Napta. The Dar Fur Daju maintain their old and original religion.<ref name="Jenkins"/> Islam became the religion of most Daju by the 15th century but it's likey that Islam spread significantly before this date.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Weekes |first=Richard V. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQ3FEAAAQBAJ |title=Muslim Peoples [2 Volumes]: A World Ethnographic Survey |date=1984 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-0-313-23392-0 |pages=220 |language=en}}</ref>