Shaigiya

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The Shaigiya are a tribe of Semitic origin living on both banks of the Nile from Korti to the Third Cataract, and in portions of the Bayuda Desert. The Shagia are partly a nomad, partly an agricultural people. They claim descent from one Shayig Ibn Hamaidan of the Beni Abbas, and declare that they came from Arabia at the time of the conquest of Egypt in the 7th century.

Originally they lived in the north, notably around Kareema and Korti.

They must have dispossessed and largely intermarried with a people of Nuba origin. They appear (from a statement by James Bruce) to have been settled originally south of their present country and to have moved northward since 1772. Formerly subject to the Funj kings of Sennar, they became independent on the decline of that state in the 18th century. They were overcome c. 1811 at Dongola by the Mamelukes, but continued to dominate a considerable part of Nubia. To the Egyptians in 1820 they offered a stout resistance, but finally submitted and served in the Egyptian ranks during the suppression of the Jaalin revolt (1822). For their services they obtained lands of these latter between Shendi and Khartum.

Freedom-loving, brave, enlightened and hospitable, they had schools in which all Moslem science was taught, and were rich in corn and cattle. Their fighting men, mounted on horses of the famous Dongola breed, were feared throughout the eastern Sudan. Their chiefs wore coats of mail and carried shields of hippopotamus or crocodile skin. Their arms were lance, sword or javelin. The Shaigiya are divided into twelve clans. Their country is the most fertile along the Nile between Egypt and Khartoum. Many of their villages are well built; some of the houses are fortified. They speak Arabic and generally preserve the Semitic type, though they are obviously of very mixed blood. The typical Shaigiya has a sloping forehead, aquiline nose and receding chin. They have adopted the African custom of gashing the cheeks of their children that take the form of three horizonitical lines on each cheek. This is done with a heated knife but is now a dying custom.

In the Mahdi uprising of 1884/85, General Gordon's first fight was to rescue a few Shaigiya besieged in a fort at Halfaya. The fortress at El Obeid in 1883, was held by Major Hussein, the direct ancestor of this writer, and despite Hicks Pasha's attempt to relieve him, the fortress fell to the Mahdi. Major Husein later escaped to Egypt in 1891 and came back during to the reconquest in 1898 and the family still resides in Omdurman till this day. His son, my great grandfather and his son, my grandfather were in the 9th Sudanese battalion and the SDF respectively and the latter fought at Keren in 1941 gaining the MC.

In April 1884, Saleh Bey (Saleh Wad el Mek), head of the tribe, and 1400 men surrendered to the Mahdi's forces. Numbers of Shaigiya continued in the service of General Gordon and this led to the proscription of the tribe by the Mahdi. When Khartoum fell, Salehs sons were sought out and executed by the dervishes. On the reconquest of the Sudan by the Anglo-Egyptian army (1896/98) it was found that the Shaigiya were reduced to a few hundred families.

Postscript: The Shaigiya account portrayed above is generally accurate however I would like to add that as a member of the Surarab section of the Shaigiya, the tribe thrived after the Anglo-Egyptian reconquest of the Sudan in 1898 figured prominently in the Egyptian Army and later the Sudan Defence Force. General Abboud, decorated with the MBE for his valour at Keren in 1941, was a Shaigi from the Onia section and later President of the Sudan in 1964. As was President Nimeri who was a Shaigi as well.

[edit] References

• Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905)
• Ethnology of the Egyptian Sudan, A. H. Keane, (London, 1884)

The Shaikiya of the Northern Sudan, Nicholls, 1903, Dublin The Making of the Modern Sudan, KDD Henderson 1953, Faber and Faber

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.