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TUNJUR 797
leaves open the question of the Arab migrants in Kanem. Tunjur may speak
Kanembu or Dazaga as a second language (see Kanembu; Tebu). Such dispersal
of the Tunjur supports the local tradition that the people migrated westward from
Sudan after the fall of their sultanate.
It is not easy to distinguish the Tunjur from the various peoples living in the
same area such as the Fur, Maba, Arabs and Kanembu. This may be accounted
for by the constraints of the natural environment, to which all of them must
submit, and to the unifying factor of Islam. However, close observance reveals
distinctions. One of them is the Tunjur's bitter pride, the pride of a beaten
people, destroyed as a nation, hunted from place to place, surviving only in a
kind of diaspora, having found refuge in secluded areas, a pride which creates
a strong will to survive. Every Tunjur keeps the cherished memory of the glories
of the lost Tunjur kingdom as if every one of them belonged to the royal clan.
They often despise the people around them, especially the Fur, who deprived
them of their dignity. While they claim Arab ancestry, like nearly every people
in the area, and are proud of it, they put even greater pride in being Tunjur and
in the fact that their ancestors were Muslim as far as one can remember. Lacking
such pride, they would not have survived as a people.
Another distinctive feature of the Tunjur is their success in growing date
palms. They are the only ones to do this; their neighbors do not even try to
imitate them.
Dar Furnung is a cold, hilly country with fertile foothills and sandy hollows
where water is never far underneath. Villages and fields of bulrush millet flourish
on the plateaus. In the hollows are groves of palm trees. From the outskirts of
the hills and as far eastwards as Fatta Borno, the wide bed of the Wadi Kutum
opens like a large avenue of date palms.
Kanem is a large sandy area of ancient dunes and hollows, a monotonous
landscape covered with wild grass and few trees. Annual rainfall is not above
14 inches. Water is collected by the sandy hollows, never far from the surface.
There the Tunjur bore permanent wells, and their cattle graze in the hollows.
The Tunjur are grouped in settled villages of houses, usually built on higher
positions such as ridges or hilltops. Their round reed-walled houses with conical
thatched roofs are identical with those of the neighboring peoples but sometimes
look more miserable. Poverty may account for it, but colonial officers usually
considered the material inferiority of the Tunjur to be evidence of lower technological
ability. This opinion does not consider the skill shown in the stone
buildings attributed by tradition to the Tunjur.
In Dar Furnung, the Tunjur grow bulrush millet in fields of various sizes. This
is men's work. Women participate in weeding and harvesting. They take care,
too, of small irrigated gardens, where they grow vegetables and sometimes fruit
(onions, tomatoes, bamya, lemons, watermelons); this practice is not common
among neighboring peoples. Date palms are planted and cared for by the men.
Local blacksmiths (haddad) make the tools needed for cultivation of the date
palms. The surplus of dates is sold in the local markets. Wild grass seeds are