Subject: amenoukal noble warrior
Culture: Tuareg
Setting: French wars, western Sahara late 19th-early 20thc
Object: costume
Veil
* Anawalt 2007 p571
"The Tuareg's unique form of dress, refined aesthetic sense, and pride and skill in negotiating the desert landscape have long attracted attention. They call themselves 'men who wear the veil,' referring to their most distinctive garment, the 16 1/2 foot-long (5-meter) tagulmust -- a white or shimmering-blue cloth that serves simultaneously as both turban and veil -- that each male receives at initiation. Scholars have long pondered the origin of the Tuareg male veil because, in Islamic cultures, it is usually women whose faces are hidden. Whatever the tamulgust's source, it serves several functions: the wrapped head-and-face covering helps men keep a social distance from in-laws and strangers[,] it assures that evil spirits cannot enter the body through the mouth[,] and it protects the wearer from the Sahara's heat and duststorms. Although in larger towns, some younger men today wear red, purple or green veils -- or have even given up the veil altogether -- many rural Tuareg continue to dress in long blue or white cotton gowns, together with a white or dark blue tagulmust."
* Krüger ed. 1969 p109 (Peter Fuchs, "The peoples of the Sahara" p88-143)
"The most widely known fact about the Tuareg is that it is their menfolk who wear a veil (Arabic litham). Ethnologists differ as to the exact reason for this idiosyncrasy. Some maintain that its purpose is to prevent the soul being exhaled and evil spirits inhaled, but the Tuareg themselves dismiss any such fanciful notions. Another body of opinion holds that the veil is to prevent its wearer from being identified in cases of robbery and violence, an explanation that only someone who has never been personally acquainted with a Tuareg will swallow. In all the time I have spent in the Hoggar I have never once mistaken a Tuareg's identity; for one thing, every Tuareg has his own highly individual way of moving. A more plausible theory is that the veil protects the respiratory organs from the wind and the dry air; in which case, why is it only the men who go veiled and not the women, too? Both are exposed to exactly the same atmospheric conditions."
* de Prorok 2004 p85 (writing in 1929)
"The Tuareg noble is never without his veil. Night and day, sleeping, eating, traveling or fighting, the veil is never removed. Many theories have been advanced concerning the reason for the wearing of the veil. Some have thought it to be a form of disguise, such as has ever been worn by bandits; others have thought it to be a protection against the sand and wind; still others claim that it has been handed down from the period when the negro empires swept over the Sahara and the Tuareg, being in the minority, put on the black veil in order to pass as negroes and thus escape death. As a matter of fact, the veil must be a part of the Tuareg's religion or cult. He himself knows little or nothing of its origin. For him it is enough to know that it has been handed down from generation to generation.
"The effect of seeing all the tall, veiled, silent men is quite inspiring, even though a bit frightening. The dark blue and black veils lend an air of mystery and I have always felt that they serve to create an atmosphere of strong animosity."
Jewelry
* Krüger ed. 1969 p96 (Peter Fuchs, "The peoples of the Sahara" p88-143)
"The only ornaments the upper-class Tuareg warrior wears are a stone bracelet, or sometimes a plain silver ring, and an elaborate wrought-iron key which is worn for its decorative value as well as for opening the boxes in his saddlebags. His weapons consist of an iron spear, a sword (takouba) which is quite often made of Solingen steel, a dagger along the arm above the elbow, and a large and lavishly decorated shield made of hide."
Robe
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