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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Experience and Speculation: History and Founding Stories in the Kingdom of Taqali, 1780-1935
Author:Ewald, Janet J.
Year:1985
Periodical:International Journal of African Historical Studies
Volume:18
Issue:2
Pages:265-287
Language:English
Geographic term:Sudan
Subjects:history
Taqali polity
epics (form)
History and Exploration
Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/217743
Abstract:This article uses three stories, all claiming to relate the origins of a political regime, to illuminate the history of the Taqali kingdom in the northeastern Nuba hills (Republic of the Sudan). The three founding stories reveal that Taqali people have speculated since the early nineteenth century about their kingdom's origins, the nature of its relations to other parts of the Sudan, and the relationship between religious and political change. All three founding stories emerged from specific political, economic, and ideological surroundings. This article begins with a descriptive outline of the kingdan's history. It then proceeds to compare the three founding stories which Taqali people have related at various times: an official and by new almost exclusive version, told in greatest detail by Taqali's elite but also accepted by ordinary people; a rare contemporary narrative, recorded in 1978 from a man on the elite's fringes; and a third which was told and written down around 1840. Finally, the article goes beyond an analysis of the official version's content to explore in detail the process by wich Taqali people came-to compose it. - Notes.
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