Toubou warrior, after a photograph by Maximilien Bruggmann, northeastern Niger, 1968.

Toubou warrior, after a photograph by Maximilien Bruggmann, northeastern Niger, 1968.

Digital Art Quickies by The African History Channel.

The Toubou are a semi-nomadic central Saharan population inhabiting northern Chad, northeastern Republic of the Niger and southern Libya. They speak the Tebu languages, two dialects spoken by the two groups of Toubou people, the Daza or Dazagara (the southern group) and Teda (the northern group). Tebu languages are related to Kanuri, spoken further to the south. Traditionally they rear camels, goats, cattle, donkeys and sheep, and also practice oasis agriculture, cultivating dates, grains and legumes.

Toubou men wear the litham, which has the appearance of a turban with a face veil. This practice is common among a number of other Saharan and Sahelian populations as well, such as the Tuareg, Sanhaja, Zaghawa, Fulbe, Hausa and Kanuri, but is often misidentified with Arabs.  

Toubou people have historically been a highly decentralized people, resistant to all authority above the family and clan levels. They have chiefs, but their chiefs are usually not authority figures who enforce law, but rather elders, advisers or wise men who recite custom and function as mediators and spokespersons.  

“Occasionally, a temporary chief will arise in the event of natural disaster or war, but his power lasts only as long as the conditions that necessitate it. 

The chief does not occupy a hereditary position. By custom, an assembly of notables from another clan chooses each new chief from among the members of two or three prominent families. Such is the case, for instance, with the Derde of Tibesti, the chief of the Teda clans. The Derde, chosen by a council of notables of the Tozoba clan from among the three most important families in the Tomagra clan, is actually simply the chief of the Tomagra clan. Because the other Teda clans recognize the Tomagra as the noblest and purest clan, they accept the Derde as spiritual head as well. Although the Gounda and Arna, two other noble Toubou clans, select their own chiefs, these chiefs recognize some duty to the Derde.

The power of any particular Derde will depend heavily upon his own personal influence. The Derde at the time of Nachtigal's visit in the late nineteenth century, Tafertemi, had "negligible influence." In contrast, Chai Bogarmi, the Derde at the time of the French colonization of Chad, extended his power to the "maximum development" of the chieftainship. He collected tribute from cultivators, owners of date palms, and passing caravans, and he claimed a share of any booty from raids." Chai built his power through a combination of good fortune and astute relations with outside powers. During a severe drought around 1890 the last of a series of old, weak, and ineffectual Derdes resigned. Chai, thirty years old, was named to succeed him. He immediately traveled to Bilma to consult a famous marabout (revered holy man and teacher), returned to Tibesti, and performed the sacrifices that had been recommended to him. That year it rained in Tibesti as never before.

This success brought Chai enormous prestige and respect, and he proceeded to strengthen his position. He made overtures to the Sanusiya, the Muslim religious brotherhood that had been spreading through the eastern Sahara. Although Chai did not permit the Sanusi to infringe on his power, he did use the Sanusi influence to claim powers to enforce Muslim peace and Muslim law in Tibesti. Chai tracked down, tried, and punished fugitive killers hiding in the mountains. Under his leadership, Teda forces destroyed an invading force of Fazzanese in the early years of the twentieth century. At the moment when his personal prestige was greatest, he cemented his position by submitting to the Turks. The Ottomans appointed Chai kaymakam (head of an administrative subunit of a sancak, or province) of Tibesti and granted him a monthly stipend. " However, even as strong a Derde as Chai was unable to compel behavior among the clans; when French forces arrived in Tibesti in 1914, Chai resisted while the Gounda clan submitted, and the Arna continued to resist after Chai later submitted.”

-“Title to the Aouzou Strip: A Legal and Historical Analysis”, by Matthew M. Ricciardi