Hadendoa

Hadendoa (or Hadendowa) is the name of a nomadic subdivision of the Beja people, known for their support of the Mahdiyyah rebellion during the 1880s to 1890s.[4] The area historically inhabited by the Hadendoa lies today in parts of Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea.

Hadendoa
Regions with significant populations
 Sudan30,000 (1992)[1]
 Eritrea20,000 (1970)[2]
 EgyptUnknown
Languages
Beja (Bidhaawyeet)
Religion
Islam[3]
Related ethnic groups
Other Beja

Etymology

According to Roper (1930), the name Haɖanɖiwa is made up of haɖa 'lion' and (n)ɖiwa 'clan'. Other variants are Haɖai ɖiwa, Hanɖiwa and Haɖaatʼar (children of lioness).[5]

Language

The language of the Hadendoa is a dialect of Bedawi.[6][3]

History
Hadendowa man, Sudan, 1913 by C. G. Seligman.

The southern Beja were part of the Christian kingdom of Axum during the sixth to fourteenth centuries. In the fifteenth century, Axum fell to the Islamization of the Sudan region, and although the Beja were never entirely subjugated, they were absorbed into Islam via marriages and trade contracts. In the seventeenth century, some of the Beja expanded southward, conquering better pastures. These became the Hadendoa, who by the eighteenth century were the dominant people of eastern Sudan, and always at war with the Bisharin tribe.[6]

Extensive anthropological research was done on Egyptian tribes in the late 1800s and a number of skulls of people of the Hadendoa tribe were taken to the Royal College of Surgeons to be measured and studied.[7][8]

The Hadendoa were traditionally a pastoral people, ruled by a hereditary chief,[9] called a Ma'ahes. One of the best-known chiefs was a Mahdist general named Osman Digna. He led them in the battles, from 1883 to 1898, against the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (the United Kingdom and Egypt were exercising joint sovereignty in Sudan.[10] They fought the British infantry square in many battles, such as in the Battle of Tamai in 1884 and in the Battle of Tofrek in 1885[11] and earned an enviable reputation for their bravery.[12] After the reconquest of the Egyptian Sudan (1896–98), the Hadendoa accepted the new order without demur.[13][9]

Group of Hadendowa, 1893.

In World War II, the Hadendoa allied themselves with the British against the Italians.

  • Their elaborately styled hair gained them the name Fuzzy-Wuzzy among British troops during the Mahdist War, after which Rudyard Kipling wrote the poem by the same name.[14]
  • Corporal Jones, a character in Dad's Army frequently referred to the "Fuzzy-Wuzzies" when discussing his exploits in the army of Lord Kitchener.

See also

References
  1. "Languages of Sudan". Ethnologue. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  2. "Languages of Eritrea". Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  3. Orville Boyd Jenkins, Profile of the Beja people (1996, 2009)
  4. Martin, Hugh (1899) Kassala: An Historical Sketch in The United Service Magazine. London: William Clowes & Son. 1899. pp. 58–.
  5. Roper, E. M. (1928). Tu Bedawie: an elementary handbook for the use of Sudan government officials. Hertford: Stephen Austin and Sons, Ltd. Archived from the original on 12 July 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  6. Burckhardt, John Lewis (1819). Travels in Nubia: by the late John Lewis Burckhardt. Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa. Retrieved 24 November 2016.
  7. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Royal Anthropological Institute. 1877. p. 607.
  8. Foole, Reginald Stuart (1887). "The Egyptian Classification". The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 16: 370–379. Retrieved 10 December 2016.
  9. One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hadendoa". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 798.
  10. "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan". World Digital Library - Library of Congress. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  11. Monick, S. (1985). "The Political Martyr: General Gordon and the Fall of Kartum". Military History Journal. 6 (6).
  12. Allen, W.H. (1887). The Battle of Tofrek (4th ed.). Galloway. Retrieved 25 November 2016.
  13. F.R. Wingate, "The True Story of Osman Dinga", The Graphic, June 16, 1923.
  14. Hitchens, Christopher (June 2002). "A Man of Permanent Contradictions". The Atlantic. Retrieved 5 October 2016.
  • Media related to Hadendoa at Wikimedia Commons
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