lunes, 11 de julio de 2011

Sahara Women Portraits

The main ethnicity living in the Sahara desert are the berber people, sub-saharian black people and arabians. These races are frequently mixed, being an important reason for this the slavery commerce in the past times, which brought many sub-saharian black skinned people to the northern lands, to serve the white skinned berbers and arabs. In the touareg culture, which did use in the past of slaves for their commerce and for their own use, white skinned people ruled over the dark skinned ones. Slaves were sold to magrebi arabs, and enslaved by touareg themselves to do the agricultural tasks, labor that touareg culture despised in favor of commercial tasks. Also it is said that ancestral hostility between touareg and toubou people come from the touareg raids upon toubou women, to sell them to magreb harems.

Berber people is originary from the north western african coast; they were displaced to southern - and desertic - lands when the arabian people invaded northern Africa. Berbers occupy now the western part of the Sahara; they live in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Touareg is one of many berber groups, the most known one. They live mainly in Niger, and also in south Algeria, southwest Lybia, and Mali.

In the eastern Sahara, berbers are replaced by arabian people; bedouins are the most known arab group in the Sahara. They are nomads like the rest of saharian inhabitants, and they expanded from their original lands in Arabia to Africa. In the Sahara they live in Egypt and Sinai, and some probably move in Lybia and Chad.

Toubou people is of unknown origin; Yemen and northern Sudan are hypothetical sources for this people. They live now mainly in northern Chad, and also in easthern Niger - western Niger is touareg territory -. Toubou are mainly a race of black people, but having caucasian traits; some of them are quite white skinned.


Bedouin
Bedouin
Bedouin
Berber from Ghadames (Lybia)
Touareg
Touareg from Niger
Touareg from Tamanrasset (Algeria)
Touareg
Touareg from Agadez (Niger)
Toubou
Toubou from Chirfa (Niger)
Toubou from Bardai (Chad)