o - Aceh Books website

750 TAMA-SPEAKING PEOPLES
in Sudan is substantially higher than in Dar Tama itself. Veterinary services,
health care and public works are absent in Dar Tama.
The Tama were Islamized in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since
Islam has spread from the center of the state to the periphery, and from the top
of the administrative hierarchy to the lower rungs, the rank and file of the Tama
may not have embraced Islam immediately. Until the Mahdiyya (1881-1898)
and long after, the Tama had the reputation of being xenophobic, wild and
ignorant mountain folk who knew no Arabic and very little about orthodox Islam.
Even today the Tama firmly believe in witchcraft and practice many animist
rites and beliefs. Until recently, no religious brotherhood had gained adherents
from among the Tama, who were largely Ansar. Today the tolerant Tijaniyya
brotherhood appears to be gaining ground, while returned labor migrants often
espouse the more orthodox tenets of Islam in Dar Tama.
Gimr
The Gimr live predominantly on their ancestral land, Dar Gimr, which is
situated on the Sudanese side of the international frontier with Chad. The Gimr
are bounded on the north by the Zaghawa, on the west by the Tama, on the
south by the Erenga and Mileri and on the east by Arab pastoral nomads such
as the Darrok and sections of the Mahamid.
Dar Gimr is hilly and sandy with few natural resources, little underground
water resources and an average annual rainfall which permits only the cultivation
of low-yielding, early maturing varieties of millet and other crops. The area is
thinly populated, and emigration is such an old phenomenon that it can be
considered an institution. Long-established settlements of Gimr who left their
native country as a result of warfare or a natural disaster (drought, locust plague,
epidemics) exist in Sudan's Southern Darfur Province. Many Gimr have settled
on an individual or family basis in the urban centers of Darfur and in the Nile
Valley. They number perhaps 47,000.
In Dar Gimr, the traditional means of subsistence are agriculture (millet,
peanuts, watermelons, okra) and animal husbandry. Modern occupations in which
the Gimr engage are salaried government jobs, such as clerk and teacher; skilled
labor, such as tailor, tanner, driver and car mechanic; and self-employed professions,
such as trader and middleman. Kulbus (population 6,000) is the only
commercial and administrative center in Dar Gimr, catering principally to Chadian
producers and consumers who live across the seasonal river which divides
the town.
Although the Gimr speak only Arabic and claim Arab descent via the Jacaliyyin
of the Nile River, they probably constitute an indigenous ethnic group which
once formed part of the Tama language group.
Gimr historical traditions are more deeply rooted and better attested and remembered
than those of the majority of their neighbors. Before the Gimr were
conquered by the Keira sultanate of Dar Fur in the early years of the eighteenth