Nubia

By: Ali Osman Mohammad Salih

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Nubia

What was Nubia? This has always been a controversial question. The controversy stems from the difficulties determining the origin of the name Nubia, when Nubia first appeared in history, and its geographical limits. There is general agreement among most scholars that the name derives from nob, the Nubian word for gold, and is linked to the importance of gold to the Nubians.

However, recent research suggests other possibilities. The modern Nubian word kiji means “fertile land, dark gray mud, silt, or black land” the sound of this word is near to the Egyptian name Kish or Kush, referring to the land south of Egypt. It is believed that the name Kush also meant “the land of dark silt” or “the black land.” This was the Egyptian name for Nubia. But what did the Kushites call their land?

We know from modern and recent analogies that peoples do not always adopt the name attributed to them by others. Therefore it is likely that the Egyptian’s Kushites had their own name for their home, which must have had the same meaning as Kush: the black land. It was Nubia, the black land, the Sudan of today, which is a straightforward Arabic translation: sûd is the plural form of aswad, meaning “black” ān means “of the” thus, Sudan means “of the blacks.” In modern Nubian, nugud means “black.” So do nuger, nugur, and nub. This suggests that Kush, Nubia, and Sudan all mean the same thing, the “black land” and/or the “land of the blacks.”

It is evident, both historically and archaeologically, that Nubia’s boundaries have fluctuated over time. In other words, there were times when Nubian rule and cultural influence were limited to lower and middle Nubia, in the Sudanese-Egyptian borderlands. At other times, Nubia covered all of present-day northern Sudan, while Nubian rule extended to even greater territory.

However, in modern times Nubia typically refers to the region along the Nile between the first cataract (just south of Aswân in Egypt) and present-day Ed Debba in Sudan, where Nubian speakers live today. The region borders the Nubian Desert to the east and Libyan Desert to the west. Land suitable for farming is confined to scattered plots along the riverbanks. Modern Nubians live in the region’s many irki (villages or communities), which are distributed unevenly on both sides of the Nile and on islands within the course of the river wherever there is land suitable for cultivation.

From this description it is obvious that Nubia is not rich in resources. It is surprising then that, as a result of many factors, Nubia was subject to repeated raids and domination by its neighbors, especially Egypt to the north. First, Egypt tried to expand its authority over Nubia to secure its southern frontier. Second, Egyptians greatly desired Nubian natural resources, in the form of gold, copper, diorite stones used to build royal monuments, and African animal products. Third, the Egyptians sought African slaves for many purposes.

The trade in natural resources and slaves between Egypt and the African interior, together with the fertile riverine ecology of the Nile and its banks, encouraged settlement in Nubia from early times. And despite the scarcity of land for cultivation, agricultural activities were and still are the basis of the subsistence economy of most Nubians. To compensate for this limitation, the Nubians adopted intensive rather than extensive cultivation. Moreover, in recent years the Nubian economy has increasingly relied on income from Nubians working outside their country, particularly in the Middle East.

Nubia has never been the exclusive domain of any one group of people. Foreign conquerors, alien merchants and adventurers, and both friendly and hostile nomads have always interacted with and settled among the indigenous peasant population of Nubia and have contributed significantly to its cultural development. Hence the present population is the product of a long and fairly continuous mingling of the ancient inhabitants with newcomers from a variety of places.

In the seventh century, Arabs settled in Nubia and intermarried with the indigenous population. During the sixteenth century the Ottoman Sultan Salim sent garrisons into Nubia, comprised largely of soldiers from Bosnia, Circassia, Hungary, and the Kurdish region. They were stationed at Aswān, Gasr Ibrim, and Sai to protect Egypt’s southern borders. Their descendants (known as al-Kushaf), born of Nubian women and speaking only the Nubian language, regarded themselves as Bosnians or Turks rather than Nubians and claimed special privileges on this basis as late as the nineteenth century. Consequently, one can say that Nubian society now consists of a mixture of indigenous as well as Arab and Turkish elements.

Other groups of non-Nubians inhabit the area. They are small in number and made up of descendants of slaves, nomadic, and semi-nomadic groups. Descendants of slaves who have been living with Nubians for generations and are accustomed to their ways of life can be regarded culturally as Nubians. They work mainly in domestic service and farming. Other non-Nubians in the region include Arab ethnic groups, mainly Bisharia and Gararish, who raise camels. They play an important role in the Nubian economy and society. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Arab camel drivers provided the only means of transporting heavy loads, but during the late twentieth century the Arabs have been obliged to adopt a settled life beside the Nile and have begun to cultivate small plots leased from the Nubians. They have no land rights, and although they use the Nubian language to communicate with Nubians, they are linguistically and culturally distinct from them. This present-day ethnic diversity reflects Nubia’s ancient history as a cultural crossroads.

See also Egypt, Ancient Kingdom of.

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