The Tuareg or Kel Tamasheq: 9781906509309

The Tuareg
or Kel Tamasheq:
The People Who Speak Tamasheq
and a History of the Sahara

• 9781906509309

Romanticised by nineteenth-century explorers as mysterious 'people of the veil', but with a reputation too as fearsome warriors, the nomadic Tuareg have been the guardians of the Sahara for over a thousand years. Surviving in one of the most pitiless and inhospitable terrains on earth, they controlled the lucrative caravan trading routes until nineteenth- and twentieth-century colonisation followed by twenty-first century global politics and the rise of political Islam, jihadism and terrorism fragmented their society and way of life. And yet the unique and distinctive Tuareg culture, with its ancient Tifinagh script and traditions of proverbs, poetry and song and strict behavioural codes, survives despite the pressures on this proud race. With an introduction by Robin Hanbury-Tenison, a preface by Justin Marozzi, and contributions from Ghoubeid Alojaly, Edmond Bernus,Suzanne Bernus, Henrietta Butler, Pierre Boilley, Henri Delord,Jean-Marc Durou, Berny Sebe, Akli Sh'kka and Jeremy Swift. The photographer Henrietta Butler has masterminded and edited this volume and the accompanying Tuareg exhibition in London at The Royal Geographical Society in June 2015