Subject: amenoukal noble warrior

Culture: Tuareg

Setting: French wars, western Sahara late 19th-early 20thc

Object: context

Event Photos

* de Prorok 2004 p77-78 (writing in 1929)

"There is no question but what one feels the malignity that envelops the hidden personality of the Tuareg, and at such times it is surprisingly easy to recall the deathdealing spear that traversed Reygasse's tent oen silent night, or the tombs of Palat and Douls and Flatters, far out in the sands, or, what is far more tragic because of its nearness to me, the passing of some of my own brave comrades, killed by Tuareg as I write these lines.

"Duveyrier may call them 'Knights of the Desert,' Mr. F. R. Rodd may speak of them as 'his good friends,' but behind the veil masking their faces is the hate of ages and I confess that I felt it ever when in their presence. Whatever theri outward actions, however gracious their manner (and they can be as courtly as any 'parfit, gentil knight') nevertheless I could not put from my mind the historical fact that the Sahara is spotted by marked and unmarked graves -- mute testimony that the Tuareg holds the desert to be his own and strikes hard and swift when he feels that trespassers are violating his rights."

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Field Notes