The Hedareb or T'bdawe''Hedareb'', ''t'badwe'', ''to-bedawye'' and ''bedawi'' may refer to the people or their language. ''Beja'' is an Arabic name for the language; ''Hedareb'' may be a corruption of ''Hadarma'', "people of the

Hadhramaut Hadhramaut ( ar, حَضْرَمَوْتُ \ حَضْرَمُوتُ, Ḥaḍramawt / Ḥaḍramūt; Hadramautic: 𐩢𐩳𐩧𐩣𐩩, ''Ḥḍrmt'') is a region in South Arabia, comprising eastern Yemen, parts of western Oman and southern Saud ...

". See and are an

ethnic group An ethnic group or an ethnicity is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, ...

native to northwestern

Eritrea Eritrea ( ; ti, ኤርትራ, Ertra, ; ar, إرتريا, ʾIritriyā), officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa region of Eastern Africa, with its capital and largest city at Asmara. It is bordered by Ethiopi ...

. They are a subgroup of the Beja. They are more diverse than the other Eritrean ethics; one subgroup speaks the traditional

Beja language Beja ( or ) is an Afroasiatic language of the Cushitic branch spoken on the western coast of the Red Sea by the Beja people. Its speakers number around one to two million individuals, and inhabit parts of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea. Name The nam ...

, which belongs to the

Cushitic The Cushitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They are spoken primarily in the Horn of Africa, with minorities speaking Cushitic languages to the north in Egypt and the Sudan, and to the south in Kenya and Tanzania. As o ...

branch of the

Afro-Asiatic The Afroasiatic languages (or Afro-Asiatic), also known as Hamito-Semitic, or Semito-Hamitic, and sometimes also as Afrasian, Erythraean or Lisramic, are a language family of about 300 languages that are spoken predominantly in the geographic s ...

family, while another is more closely related to Sudanese Hadendoa. They are among the least-researched groups in Eritrea. The Hedareb people live in northwestern

and extend as far as the borders with east

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 ...

. Nomadic or semi-nomadic pastoralists, they typically migrate seasonally with their herds of

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. ...

goat The goat or domestic goat (''Capra hircus'') is a domesticated species of goat-antelope typically kept as livestock. It was domesticated from the wild goat (''C. aegagrus'') of Southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the a ...

s and

sheep Sheep or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are domesticated, ruminant mammals typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to domesticate ...

Language

The Hedareb speak the

Tigre language Tigre ( tig, ትግረ, links=no ''tigre'' or ''tigrē''), better known in Eritrea by its autonym Tigrayit (), is an Ethiopian Semitic language spoken in the Horn of Africa. It belongs to the Semitic branch and is primarily spoken by the Tigre ...

as a mother tongue. In addition to their variety of Beja, known as Hedareb or T’badwe, most Hedareb people also speak at least one other language, typically for a larger group Tigre, and for a small group

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

as well.

Society

Hedareb society is hierarchical, and is traditionally organized into clans and subclans. Hedarebs are a

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

group, and most are

Sunni Muslim 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 disagre ...

s. Marriages are typically

arranged In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchest ...

to maximize alliances between extended families. It is customary for the groom's family to pay a

bride price Bride price, bride-dowry ( Mahr in Islam), bride-wealth, or bride token, is money, property, or other form of wealth paid by a groom or his family to the woman or the family of the woman he will be married to or is just about to marry. Bride dow ...

of five to twelve goats, and a varying amount of money, or as much as 70 camels. Sociologist Abdulkader Saleh Mohammad writes that the Hedareb have been excluded from state conceptions of Eritrean nationhood, and have become a

marginalized Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. It is used across discipline ...

group with many members who do not feel connected to the Eritrean

nation-state A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group. A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may in ...

Laws

As Muslim people, the Hedareb follow

Sharia law Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...

in most matters. In the nineteenth century,

blood feud A feud , referred to in more extreme cases as a blood feud, vendetta, faida, clan war, gang war, or private war, is a long-running argument or fight, often between social groups of people, especially families or clans. Feuds begin because one pa ...

s marked by chains of revenge killings existed among Hedareb groups; unlike those among neighboring groups, they were rarely resolved by the payment of

blood money Blood money may refer to: * Blood money (restitution), money paid to the family of a murder victim Films * Blood Money (1917 film), ''Blood Money'' (1917 film), a film starring Harry Carey * Blood Money (1921 film), ''Blood Money'' (1921 film ...

, possibly because the Hedareb had fewer trading practices. Also distinctively, killing one's wife was traditionally punished by death, while killing one's children went unpunished.

Rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ...

of a noblewoman by a serf was punishable by death, while rape of serfs by nobles was tolerated.

Notes

References

External links

*YouTube videos of traditional Hedareb dance

*Eritrean Ministry of Information: Traditional Wedding Ceremonies of the Hedare
Part I
an
Part II