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| February 5, 2009 |
While we were meeting with the elderly people, an intense young man suddenly appeared. He gave his name and said he is Fur and he has just arrived-two weeks ago, from Darfur. We explained the focus of our project and the fact that we were talking today withelderly people from the Dadjo and Signer tribes but the young man was fiercely determined to talk to us. When we tried tell him to come back another day he broke down and wept. Clearly he is traumatized. We will meet with him on Saturday.
At the camp today elderly women and men from the Dadjo and the Signar tribes told us their stories. .
The Dadjo tribe is the oldest of all the tribes to establish themselves in Darfur. They originally came from Yemen. The Dadjo Oumda told us the who history of the tribe-going back hundreds of years. It is so important because because, again, the history of Darfur’s people is transmitted orally. Now we have documented it.
And there were stories too; an elderly man told us; “they came and they saw a place with 99 mountains and no people, so they chose to stay. But they had a Sultan who was drunk with power; he told the people to move a mountain from here to there. So the people got the Sultan’s mother to put him on a horse. They tied him with cow hide and off he went, until he fell apart, piece by piece. Wherever the pieces of the Sultan fell, there came a mountain.”
A very old Signar woman named Hawa:
We worked in the fields growing sorghum, peanuts, ochre and millet. When someone was sick we had a very big tree (Tandi tree) and we would place the person under the tree. We bathed them with water and then they would recover. There was nothing special with the water. But it is God who decides whether to help you.
When someone broke a leg or arm we didn’t bring him to the tree but we placed pieces of wood on the limb and wrapped it with cloth.
When someone had a cut, we boiled the bark of the boro tree and pressed it into the wound.
When someone dies we wrap him in 3 ancient Takakai cloths.
The family has a role, also the community. If the person has money we use it to make food for 7 days. After that 7 day period, called Mahatam) end, the relations gather for a ‘marabou, and they divide the money-but not equally. The girls get half of what the boys receive. This is because the boy is going to make children for his family. The girl is going to make children for another family.