Tuareg, Tahaggart

The Tahaggart Tuareg are northern Tuareg who speak Tamahaq, the language of the Ahaggar and the Tassili n'Ajjer, and call themselves Imuhagh ('free people'). Where they live as a settled people, in south-eastern Algeria and south-western Libya, they are the Kel Ajjer (also Azjar or Azger), the confederation of the Tassili n'Ajjer plateau and the oases of Djanet, Illizi and Ghat. The Kel Ajjer were ruled from the mid-17th century by the noble Uraghen, whose chieftaincy descends from Makhammed ag Ti n Akerbas, with the Imenan as an older ruling lineage; the Kel Djanet of the ksour, the Kel Imirhou, and religious lineages such as the Ifoghas of Temassinine (Bordj Omar Driss) belong to the confederation. They fought the rival Kel Ahaggar in 1874-1878. France took Djanet between 1911 and 1920 against resistance led by Sultan Amoud ag El Mokhtar of the Imenan, who was backed by the Ottomans and the Sanusiyya and died in Libya in 1927; the chieftaincy split into an Algerian branch and a Libyan one (Ghat, Ubari, Targa), and the border still divides families. The Kel Ahaggar of the Hoggar, who also speak Tamahaq, are the group 'Tuareg, Algerian' in Algeria. Society keeps the Tuareg strata: nobles, vassal tribes, religious lineages (Ineslemen), artisans (Inaden), and the formerly enslaved Iklan and freed Izeggaghen, many of them the oasis gardeners of Djanet. Tuareg is an Arabic exonym; the people prefer Imuhagh or Kel Tamahaq. JP's Tahaggart record also counts Tamahaq speakers in Libya (the Kel Ajjer of Ghat) and in northern Niger.

• Matriliny: women own the tent (ehan) and its furnishings, lineage and chiefship pass through the mother, and women are the main keepers of poetry.
• The veil: men wear the indigo tagelmust; women go unveiled.
• Sebiba: at Ashura the ksour of Djanet, Zelouaz (Azelouaz) and El Mihan, meet in a dance contest of men with swords and women singing and drumming, judged by the people of Adjahil, to renew an ancient peace; UNESCO listed it in 2014, and thousands attend.
• Music: women play the imzad (UNESCO 2013) and the tende drum; Othmane Bali of Djanet brought Tuareg songs to national fame.
• Crafts: Inaden silversmiths and leatherworkers make crosses, swords and camel saddles, sold to Tassili visitors.
• Food: dates from the Djanet palm groves, taguella bread baked in sand, goat and camel milk and meat, and three glasses of tea.
• Tifinagh: Tamahaq is written in the Tifinagh alphabet, also carved on the rocks of the Tassili beside its prehistoric paintings.

The Kel Ajjer are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school. The Sanusiyya order, which backed their resistance and had a lodge in Djanet before the French fort replaced it, shaped their Islam more than that of the Kel Ahaggar; religious lineages such as the Ifoghas provide marabouts and Qur'an teachers. Older beliefs remain: spirits (Kel Esuf, jinn) of the wild and the night, amulets with Qur'anic verses, and rites at saints' tombs. Ashura is the year's great feast in Djanet through the Sebiba, which mixes the Islamic day with a pre-Islamic peace rite. Women take part openly in religious and cultural life. Younger people in the towns follow a more standard Islam taught at school and on television.

Scripture portions in Tahaggart Tamahaq ('Awal n Messineɣ s Tamahaq', Wycliffe 2020) are available online in Latin letters; there is no full New Testament, Jesus Film or audio Bible in Tamahaq, though GRN has recordings (including 'Tamastairt'), and audio New Testaments exist in the related Tamasheq and Tawallammat. No Kel Ajjer church or believers are known in Algeria or Libya, and no mission works openly among them.