Azalai

The caravan trade in the Sahara used for the exchange of goods between regions of the Sahara and the Sahel. There are essentially two still frequented salt caravan routes, one between Timbuktu and Taoudenni in Mali and Niger in the second, between Agadez and the southern Aïr Mountains and the oases of the Ténéré, Fachi and Bilma. The third salt oasis Seguedine, north of the Ténéré is too remote to play a role. In Tamashek is called the salt caravan between Timbuktu and Taoudenni as Azalai, in the Ténéré, however, as Taghlamt (or Tarhalamt ).

• 3.1 Triangular trade between Sahara and Sahel
• 3.2 Importance of caravans for Fachi and Bilma
• 3.3 travel arrangements
• 3.4 caravan cycle
• 3.5 caravan groups
• 3.6 The caravan entrepreneurs

History

Since the Middle Ages occupied is a flourishing trade within the Sahara and its peripheral areas, where salt plays a key role. The historian Abū ʿ Ubayd al - Bakri in the 11th century and the Berber explorer Ibn Battuta, who traveled in the region 1351-1353 while with Taghaza attended one of the metropolises of salt, described the lush handling of goods. The printer and translator Valentim Fernandes Inglês ( a native German from Moravia ) described in Portugal in 1500 the caravan trade with rock salt plates from the situated 300 km north of Chinguetti in Mauritania Idjil, which was then known as Terhazza el Gharbie, "western Taghaza ". Its exceptionally good salt came to the western Trans-Sahara trade route that led from the Moroccan Sijilmasa about Tamdoult and Ouadane after Aoudaghost. In the early to mid 16th century, the Arab geographer Leo Africanus gave extensive impressions of the caravan trade, which he in his, in force for centuries as a standard work petition: relayed Descrittione dell'Africa ("Description of Africa ").

Centers of salt production in the Sahara

Idjil in Mauritania

Capitaine Brosset described in 1933, the salt mine of Idjil which is near the present city of F'dérik. The pastures and wells bidding around Idjil and the fact that the salt layers begin with only a 1 meter thick top layer, the Moorish Azarzir facilitates the salt mining. The 94% NaCl very pure rock salt is struck in the form of trapezoidal, 20 to 40 kg heavier bars and mainly offered in Atar, Chinguetti, Ouadane, Tidjikdja and Ayoûn el- Atroûs. Because of the competition from the salt pans of Kaolack in Senegal inexpensively producing sea salt, the previously coveted Idjil rock salt was increasingly displaced from the market.

Taoudenni in Mali

In the 700 km north of Timbuktu located salt mine Taoudenni mostly working in debt bondage standing workers who hit the open pit with primitive hoes in up to at least 4 m deep pits from the rock salt plates in the size of about 125 cm x 50 cm. A adile called ingot weighs, ready trimmed, about 30 kg. Daily norm is the production of 4 disks per worker. Before the three good-quality rock salt layers - the deepest is the best (from their layer thickness and can be cut every two salt plates of the second best ) - are achieved, but only a good 1.50 m thick deck view of clay and some inferior layers of salt must be removed be. This means that the overburden comprises about forty times the volume of salable salt. Is a pit exploited, is - so that there are now a further dug, thousands - on an open area between the tailings hills. In the winter of 2007/2008 to about 1000 men who worked in teams of three in the pits - almost all of them leave after enduring October to April season Taoudenni degradation in the summer months. A caravan takes twenty days for the route to Timbuktu.

Amadror in Algeria

Also mentioned in the debris level of Amadror, northeast of the Hoggar in Algeria, near the Gara el Djenoun " Ghost Mountain ", is a rock salt deposit, which had formerly central for the Kel Ahaggar Tuareg importance. The old mine in- Taouia offered massive rock salt layers similar Taghaza or Taoudenni; on the used 1900 point Agajer, however, the caravan people could even pay off relatively easily under only a thin layer of sand lying, about 15 cm thick halite layer. In Tamashek the extraction site is also called Tissemt ( "Salt "). After the salt mining in July / August, the caravans traveled in September / October in the Nigerien pastoral areas of Tamesna ( " level " ) northwest of Agadez and later on to the markets of Tahoua or Zinder. In February / March, after returning from the Sahel, they exchanged a portion of the resulting there in the millet - irrigated by Foggaras to nearby In Salah - oases of Tidikelt against dates. When, after the Algerian independence in 1962 increased the regulation of the Tuareg, the Amadror caravans came to an almost complete halt.

Tegguida -n- Tessoum in Niger

The salt production in Tegguida -n- Tessoum (north of Ingal ) requires because of the relatively low salinity of the salt earth enrichment procedure: In a basin of about two meters in diameter, salt and ground salt spring water is mixed by pounding. After settling of the sludge, the brine is drawn into a second, approximately sized pool, and concentrated by evaporation. The concentrate is then dispersed in ten to twenty surrounding pool of about 30 cm in diameter, in which the water evaporates entirely, to a red shift of salt crystals is left behind. The large plates to different shaped salt finds its way among others on the markets of salt Ingal and Agadez.

Fachi and Bilma in Niger

The major Nigerien salt producer but the salt pans of Fachi and Bilma. There occurs saturated brine to days. The cone in the form produced as a cattle salt, gray-yellow and about 25 kg Kantu remember slightly oversized traffic pylons. The figure comes from the fact that hollowed Palmstrünke serve the Saline workers as castings for drying the salt. Another product form of the salt of Fachi and Bilma are the so-called fotschi ( Foschi ) of women formed in enamel bowls salt loaves that are difficult to about 2 kg, and usually consist of beza, crystallized, relatively pure salt, which is used as table salt use. About three-quarters of the salt production is produced as Kantu, a quarter as beza salt.

Salt caravans in the Niger

Triangular trade between the Sahara and Sahel

The salt caravans through the Ténéré are an expression of a centuries-old interethnic economic system, which comprises the Tuareg, Kanuri and Hausa. "Engine" of this system is the need for salt for the animals of the ranchers in the Sahel. Tuareg example from the Aïr after Fachi and Bilma. Besides the most important commodity, millet from the previous caravan tour, bringing the caravans, depending on their origin, even small amounts of other goods in the salt oases. These include meat and sheep, fat, cheese, beverages like tea, sugar and cola nuts, and goods produced industrially. All of which they exchange at the Kanuri against dates and salt. With the goods received (with bags of dates are ideal for cushioning the bulky salt loads) they move on south to the Sahel markets the Hausa, up to Kano in Nigeria, where they are now receiving money and millet against salt and dates. Finally, they return to the Aïr, where the triangular trade can begin again.

Importance of caravans for Fachi and Bilma

The salt caravans are for Fachi and Bilma existential. They bring millet, the staple food of the oasis dwellers who could not survive without this bread grain. In addition, the left behind camel dung is the most important fuel dar. More important are the caravans as a means of transmission and as a travel opportunity.

Travel arrangements

The salt caravans of the Tuareg are extremely lengthy, strenuous and privation commercial enterprises that require tremendous endurance. A Western media variously encountered mystification as fabulously -romantic " trip trip " in the silence of the desert solitude ignores the actual conditions.

The caravan trade requires extensive preparations, such as the compilation of large, existing from dry grass forage supplies for the dromedaries. For its various functions as load and Leitstricke, Pack networks and muzzles ropes of all kinds are fabricated. Furthermore scoop ropes are knotted in order to draw on the scheduled water holes and well water can. Water tubes are filled and performs various sewing on the goat leather bags, load, load bars are manufactured and scheduled.

Caravan cycle

Caravans found mostly in the winter months from October to January. They are, for example, summarized in the nomad camps of the Aïr Mountains. Dromedaries, cargo and crew may be placed under the responsibility of the Madugu. In addition to the experienced caravan goers made ​​little boys collecting as an accompanying " apprentices " first experiences. Women and girls do not participate in these activities.

Caravan groups

A caravan group includes up to 50 beasts of burden. Place about eight animals are cared for by a man. Individual caravan groups combine on the route loosely - in accordance with the orographic specifications and discipline in the respective " association ". Usual caravans consist of 50 to 300 animals. In the past, there were already - to protect against raids - huge caravans, which were attended by up to 25,000 camels.

The caravan entrepreneurs

There are several groups that are active as entrepreneurs caravan. In Fachi a distinction is drawn caravans from the West, which are carried out mainly by Kel Aïr Tuareg from the Aïr Massif ( such as the Kel Ewey from the area around Agadez. Timia and Iferouane ), and " Südkarawanen " the Kel Gress - Tuareg and their former slaves ( Buzu and Musugu ), but come strictly from the Southwest: their home is the Sahel in the south of Niger. The caravans of Daza, Aza Manga make up only a small portion of the salt caravans.

Caravan routes

The formerly extensive networks of trails are used today only in a very restricted. Historically, this " shortening " of the easement goes back to different influences. The French colonial period, tribal feuds and rebellions, droughts in the Sahel and malaria risks (see Djado ) are also included.

Main route to the north- south course is the Bornustraße of Mourzuk in the Libyan Fezzan about Seguedine after Bilma and Lake Chad.

The main route in the east-west route that passes by Agadez on Fachi after Bilma. It forms hubs to northern Nigeria ( where exchanged for salt trade items such as tea and fabrics ) and in the eastern Sahara - there in the remote Tibesti region of Chad and in the southern course of the Sudan.

In Mali, a caravan route linking Timbuktu and Taoudenni.

Descriptions

The ethnologist Hans Ritter describes in his researched in the 1970 book Salt caravans in the Sahara except the salt flats in Fachi and Bilma the other Niger salt source Tegguida -n- Tessoum, the Algerian salt site Amadror, the "Cities of Salt", Taghaza and Taoudeni in Mali, as well as the sebkha of Idjil in Mauritania. The work also contains a detailed map of the trade routes and salt streets of Mauritania to the Tibesti. Hans Ritter an extensive dictionary of the language and culture of the Tuareg has also published, which also includes a focus on salt trade and caravan industry.