Toubou people

The Toubou or Tubu (from Old Tebu, meaning "rock people") are an ethnic group native to the Tibesti Mountains that inhabit the central Sahara in northern Chad, southern Libya, northeastern Niger, and northwestern Sudan. They live either as herders and nomads or as farmers near oases. Their society is clan-based, with each clan having certain oases, pastures and wells.

The Toubou are generally divided into two closely related groups: the Teda (or Tuda, Téda, Toda, Tira) and the Daza (or Dazzaga, Dazagara, Dazagada). They are believed to share a common origin and speak the Tebu languages, which are from the Saharan branch of the Nilo-Saharan language family. Tebu is divided further into two closely related languages, called Tedaga (Téda Toubou) and Dazaga (Daza Toubou). Of the two groups, the Daza, found to the south of the Teda, are more numerous.

The Toubou people are also referred to as the Tabu, Tebu, Tebou, Tibu, 'Tibbu, Toda, Todga, Todaga, Tubu, Tuda, Tudaga, or Gorane people. The Daza are sometimes referred to as Gouran (or Gorane, Goran, Gourane), an Arabian exonym. Many of Chad's leaders have been Toubou (Gouran), including presidents Goukouni Oueddei and Hissène Habré.

The Toubou people have historically lived in northern Chad, northeastern Niger, and southern Libya. They have sometimes been called the "black nomads of the Sahara". They are distributed across a large area in the central Sahara, as well as the north-central Sahel. They are particularly found north of the Tibesti Mountains, which in Old Tebu means "rocky mountains". The first syllable tou refers to the Tibesti Mountains, as known by the natives (touda), and the second syllable bou refers to blood in the Kanembou language; thus, people from the Tibesti region are referred to as Toubou. Their name is derived from this.

The Teda are found primarily in the Sahara regions around the borders of southeast Libya, northeast Niger and northern Chad. They consider themselves a warrior people. The Daza live towards the Sahel region and are spread over much of north-central Chad. The Daza consist of numerous clans. Some major tribes, clans, societies of the Daza, or Gouran, include the Alala, Altafa, Anakaza, Ankorda, Ayya, Sharara, Sharfada, Shuna, Daza, Djagada, Dogorda, Donza, Gadwa, Gaeda, Howda, Kamaya, Kamsoulla, Kara, Ketcherda, Kokorda, Maghya, Medelea, Mourdiya, Nara, Salma, Tchiroua, Tchoraga, Wandala, Wandja, Warba, Warda, Yira and many more. The Daza cover the northern regions of Chad such as the Bourkou, the Ennedi Plateau, the northern Kanem, the Bahr el Gazel in the south and also the Tibesti mountains and the neighbouring countries. There is a diaspora community of several thousand Daza living in Omdurman, Sudan and a few thousand working in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.^{[citation needed]}

The ancient history of the Toubou people is unclear. They may be related to the 'Ethiopians' mentioned by Herodotus in 430 BCE, as a people being hunted by the Garamantes, but this is speculative, as Jean Chapelle argues. Furthermore, scholars such as Laurence P. Kirwan stress that the Garamantes and the Toubou seem to occupy the same lands. Which spans from the Fezzan (Phazania) as far south as Nubia. Further evidence is given by Harold MacMichael states that the Bayuda desert was still known as the desert of Goran; a name as MacMichael has shown, connected with the Kura'án of today. This reaffirms that the Kura'án (Goran) of today, occupy much of the same territory as the Garamantes once did.

In Islamic literature, the earliest mention as the Toubou people is perhaps that along with the Zaghawa people in an 8th-century text by Arabic scholar Ibn Qutaybah. The 9th century al-Khwarizmi mentions the Daza people (southern Teda).

During the expansive era of Trans-Saharan trade, the Toubou inhabited lands which were frequently used by merchant caravans, specifically along the Kufra oasis routes. It is unknown if the Toubou engaged with the caravans.