Fezzani

Fezzani, the inhabitants of Fezzan, North Africa, between Tripoli and Lake Chad. They are variously estimated at from 50,000 to 200,000, sedentary in the oases, nomad in the intervening steppes. The latter are mainly Arabs belonging to the three great tribal groups of the Riah in the central districts between Sokna and Hariij; the Hotmetn and the Megelrba in the western district about the Wady esh-Shietti and on the stony Hameidas. West of Murzuk are the Kel-Tinalkum Tuaregs (Berbers) and other Tuareg clans in the south-west, while the northern tribes, such as the.

Guntarar of the Wady Sofejin, the Ulad Bu-Sef, and the Urfilla are also Berbers more or less Arabised. The Ghariein and Nefeisa hills in the extreme north are still almost exclusively peopled by Berbers, though several nearly pure Arab tribes occupy the steppes between the Great Hamada and the Ghariein hills. Of the settled populations of the oases the substratum is certainly Negroid, a mixture of Sudanese negroes (Kanuri, Kanembu, Hausda,' etc.) and Saharan Hamites (Tibbu of Tibesti and Tuaregs). They are of a somewhat -repulsive type, very dark, with high cheek-bones, broad nostrils, small eyes, large mouth, broad, flat features, crisp or kinky hair. The dominant language is Arabic, though Kanuri and Hausda are also widely spoken owing to the constant stream of slaves arriving from Bornu, Sokoto, and other parts of Central Sudan. The independent Hamite tribes all speak either various Berber dialects or Teda, that is, Northern Tibbu as current in the Tibesti uplands. (H. Barth, Travels, 1857; H. Duveyrier, Exploration du Sahara, 1864; Gerhard Rohlfs, Quer durch Afrilta, 1874; Nachtigal, Von Tripolis nach Fezzan, 18780