Tracing golden past

This book deals with two puzzles: Who has lived on the mountain Shaybun, which has been a famous gold market in the Nuba Mountains (Sudan) until the 19th century, and why has it been deserted? The answering begins with a present ethnic group, the Shawabna, who are of unclear origin and have a contested position between the lines of being Arab or being Black African. The book does not attempt to solve the historiographical and the ethnographical puzzles, but it presents different narratives surrounding these questions, in order to keep the diversity of perspectives and to relate the historical narratives to its conditions of creation. Simultaneously the text discusses the political and scientific treatment of yet uncertain, therefore imagined resources, which is inseparable from the narrative representation of Shaybun’s history.



This book deals with two puzzles: Who has lived on the mountain Shaybun, which has been a famous gold market in the Nuba Mountains (Sudan) until the 19th century, and why has it been deserted? The answering begins with a present ethnic group, the Shawabna, who are of unclear origin and have a contested position between the lines of being Arab ...



Contents

Acknowledgements III

Preface V

Chapter 1: Shaybūn as place of the present 1

Conditions 3

Descriptions 13

Encounters 16

Chapter 2: Shaybūn as place of the past 36

Chapter 3: Shaybūn as place of the future 53

19th century: Joseph Russegger 55

20th century: S. C. Dunn 64

21th century: Manṣūr Muḥammad Aḥmad 68

Chapter 4: Shawābna as Nuba and Arabs 72

Nuba and Arabs 73

Present lineages as past tribes 77

Ḍubāb 89

cAbdallāb 97

Musallamiyya 102

Chapter 5: Shawābna as Muslims 105

A tribal history – Shawābna and Shaybūn 105

Alliances – Shawābna, Nuba, and Ḥawāzma 114

Representations – Shawābna and Tagali 119

cAbd al-cAzīz Khālid (2002) 121

cAbd al-Qādir Muḥammad Dawrah (2003) 135

Ḥāmid al-Fakī cAbd al-Raḥmān cAbd Allāh (2004) 147

Chapter 6: Shawābna in (Tira) Mandi 173

The cumda 178

Institutionalized fractions and cooperation 194

Being Arab 200

Languages and names 203

Lineages, clans, and tribes 205

Historical narratives and political claims 222

Origins and migrations 226

Arrival and changes 230

Original passages 235

References 249