The Maba, Burgu or Bargo people are a minority ethnic group found primarily in the mountainous

Ouaddaï region Ouaddaï ( ar, وداي) is a region of Chad, located in the south-east of the country, with its capital at Abéché. Prior to 2002 it was known as Ouaddaï Prefecture; in 2008 the southern portions of Ouaddaï (the Sila Department and Djourf ...

of eastern

Chad Chad (; ar, تشاد , ; french: Tchad, ), officially the Republic of Chad, '; ) is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic ...

and adjacent areas of Sudan. Their population is estimated to be about 300,000 in Chad. Other estimates place the total number of Burgu people in

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

to be about 700,000. The Burgu today primarily adhere to

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

, following the

Maliki The ( ar, مَالِكِي) school is one of the four major schools of Islamic jurisprudence within Sunni Islam. It was founded by Malik ibn Anas in the 8th century. The Maliki school of jurisprudence relies on the Quran and hadiths as primary ...

Sunni Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word '' Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagr ...

denomination. They supported the Sultans of Abeche and the Sudanic kingdoms, who spoke their language. Little is certain about their history before the 17th century. They are noted as having helped expel the Christian Tunjur dynasty and installed an Islamic dynasty in their region in the early 17th-century. Their homelands lie in the path of caravan routes that connect the

Sahel The Sahel (; ar, ساحل ' , "coast, shore") is a region in North Africa. It is defined as the ecoclimatic and biogeographic realm of transition between the Sahara to the north and the Sudanian savanna to the south. Having a hot semi-arid c ...

and

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...

with the Middle East. The Burgu people are an African people. They are traditionally pastoral and farmers who are clan-oriented. The Bargo people have also been referred to as the Wadai, a derivative of Ouaddaï. They speak

Maba Maba or MABA may refer to: * ''Maba'', a plant genus now included in ''Diospyros'' * Maba, Shaoguan (马坝镇), town in Qujiang District, Shaoguan, Guangdong, China * Maba, Xuyi County (马坝镇), town in Xuyi County, Jiangsu, China * Maba, Ind ...

, a

Nilo-Saharan language The Nilo-Saharan languages are a proposed family of African languages spoken by some 50–60 million people, mainly in the upper parts of the Chari and Nile rivers, including historic Nubia, north of where the two tributaries of the Nile meet. T ...

, of the Maban branch. Locally this language is called ''Bura Mabang''. The first ten numerals in Maba language, states Andrew Dalby, are "tek, bar, kungal, asal, tor, settal, mindri, rya, adoi, atuk", and this is very distant from other Nilo-Saharan languages. Although an ethnic group, their Maba language was the state language of the Islamic state of Wadai, and continued to be an important language when the Islamic

Bornu Empire Bornu may refer to: * Bornu Empire Bornu may refer to: * Bornu Empire, a historical state of West Africa * Borno State Borno State is a state in the North-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria, bordered by Yobe to the west, Gombe to the southwest ...

conquered these lands. Many Burgu people also speak Arabic, as their traditional trade language. The Burgu people rebelled against the tribute demands of the Bornu Empire, and became sovereign people. They then led raids to southern regions for plunder and slaves from non-Muslim African ethnic groups. The African slaves of the Burgu people were absorbed in the Burgu tribal culture, and often they converted to escape slavery. In the 19th century, a powerful Burgu Sultanate on slave trading caravan route emerged under rulers such as Muhammad al-Sharif and Doud Murra. The Burgu Sultanate was abolished by the French in 1912, and the Burgu people's region thereafter annexed into the

Ubangi-Shari Ubangi-Shari (french: Oubangui-Chari) was a French colony in central Africa, a part of French Equatorial Africa. It was named after the Ubangi and Chari rivers along which it was colonised. It was established on 29 December 1903, from the U ...

colony. The Burgus participated in the efforts to end the colonial rule and then in the civil wars in Chad. The Burgu people are subdivided into many sub-clans, each controlling certain grazing lands and sources of water. Among the various sub-clans, the largest are the ''Marfa'', ''Djene'' and ''Mandaba''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burgu People Ethnic groups in Sudan Ethnic groups in Chad

See also

References