Food preservation method.
Food preservation method.
Sudan has various climates and different landscapes. However the largest areas of the country are with dry and semi dry regions, making preserving food especially seasonal crops a must that characterizes to a large degree the Sudanese food cooking style even in his book The Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African Food and Nutrition Hamid A. Dirar describes Sudan as the world’s capital of fermented food.
The most known forms of preservation are: fermenting, salting, and drying.
In Sudan fermentation is used to explain a variety of cooking techniques other than adding yeast or waiting for food to go sour, culturing is used for milk products to make cheese, and curing or pickling is preparing food with brine, that is, salty water.
Cover picture © Aya Sinada, Gezira
Design Zainab Gaafar
Sudan has various climates and different landscapes. However the largest areas of the country are with dry and semi dry regions, making preserving food especially seasonal crops a must that characterizes to a large degree the Sudanese food cooking style even in his book The Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African Food and Nutrition Hamid A. Dirar describes Sudan as the world’s capital of fermented food.
The most known forms of preservation are: fermenting, salting, and drying.
In Sudan fermentation is used to explain a variety of cooking techniques other than adding yeast or waiting for food to go sour, culturing is used for milk products to make cheese, and curing or pickling is preparing food with brine, that is, salty water.
Cover picture © Aya Sinada, Gezira
Design Zainab Gaafar
Sudan has various climates and different landscapes. However the largest areas of the country are with dry and semi dry regions, making preserving food especially seasonal crops a must that characterizes to a large degree the Sudanese food cooking style even in his book The Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African Food and Nutrition Hamid A. Dirar describes Sudan as the world’s capital of fermented food.
The most known forms of preservation are: fermenting, salting, and drying.
In Sudan fermentation is used to explain a variety of cooking techniques other than adding yeast or waiting for food to go sour, culturing is used for milk products to make cheese, and curing or pickling is preparing food with brine, that is, salty water.
Cover picture © Aya Sinada, Gezira
Design Zainab Gaafar
El Obaid Crops Market
El Obaid Crops Market
The Crops Market or Stock Exchange in El-Obaid, is one of the city's main economic landmarks, and is the world's largest stock exchange for exporting gum arabic, from the Hashab tree. The market was established in 1907 after gum arabic became a sought-after commodity in various industries. In its beginnings, the market was an open area surrounded by a small fence. It is currently near the railway, but originally was located where it is now occupied by Kordofan Cinema, Bank of Khartoum, and some other markets.
As for Sudan, the Crops Market in Kordofan is one of the largest crop markets in the western region of the country where various agricultural, forestry, and horticultural crops, which are brought from different climatic regions, are sold.
This archival footage, produced in the 1960s, shows the journey of the hibiscus plant from the ground until it reaches the crop market and auction. This video was shown on the Golden Memory program, which was broadcast on Sudan TV.
Other than hibiscus and gum arabic, other agricultural crops sold in the market are peanuts, white and red sesame, watermelon seeds or tasali, millet, cowpeas, okra and fish. Forest products include tamarind, laloub (fruit of the soapberry tree), dom (fruit of the doum palm), nabag (lotus jujube), gongolez (baobab), and gudem (grewia tenax). Horticultural crops include fruits such as mangoes and guavas, and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows, which are grown in nearby areas such as Al-Banjdid and Al-Rahad around Al-Rahad Lake. Some canned foods such as oils, tomato puree, peanut butter and tahini are also sold in the market.
The Crops Market or Stock Exchange in El-Obaid, is one of the city's main economic landmarks, and is the world's largest stock exchange for exporting gum arabic, from the Hashab tree. The market was established in 1907 after gum arabic became a sought-after commodity in various industries. In its beginnings, the market was an open area surrounded by a small fence. It is currently near the railway, but originally was located where it is now occupied by Kordofan Cinema, Bank of Khartoum, and some other markets.
As for Sudan, the Crops Market in Kordofan is one of the largest crop markets in the western region of the country where various agricultural, forestry, and horticultural crops, which are brought from different climatic regions, are sold.
This archival footage, produced in the 1960s, shows the journey of the hibiscus plant from the ground until it reaches the crop market and auction. This video was shown on the Golden Memory program, which was broadcast on Sudan TV.
Other than hibiscus and gum arabic, other agricultural crops sold in the market are peanuts, white and red sesame, watermelon seeds or tasali, millet, cowpeas, okra and fish. Forest products include tamarind, laloub (fruit of the soapberry tree), dom (fruit of the doum palm), nabag (lotus jujube), gongolez (baobab), and gudem (grewia tenax). Horticultural crops include fruits such as mangoes and guavas, and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows, which are grown in nearby areas such as Al-Banjdid and Al-Rahad around Al-Rahad Lake. Some canned foods such as oils, tomato puree, peanut butter and tahini are also sold in the market.
The Crops Market or Stock Exchange in El-Obaid, is one of the city's main economic landmarks, and is the world's largest stock exchange for exporting gum arabic, from the Hashab tree. The market was established in 1907 after gum arabic became a sought-after commodity in various industries. In its beginnings, the market was an open area surrounded by a small fence. It is currently near the railway, but originally was located where it is now occupied by Kordofan Cinema, Bank of Khartoum, and some other markets.
As for Sudan, the Crops Market in Kordofan is one of the largest crop markets in the western region of the country where various agricultural, forestry, and horticultural crops, which are brought from different climatic regions, are sold.
This archival footage, produced in the 1960s, shows the journey of the hibiscus plant from the ground until it reaches the crop market and auction. This video was shown on the Golden Memory program, which was broadcast on Sudan TV.
Other than hibiscus and gum arabic, other agricultural crops sold in the market are peanuts, white and red sesame, watermelon seeds or tasali, millet, cowpeas, okra and fish. Forest products include tamarind, laloub (fruit of the soapberry tree), dom (fruit of the doum palm), nabag (lotus jujube), gongolez (baobab), and gudem (grewia tenax). Horticultural crops include fruits such as mangoes and guavas, and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows, which are grown in nearby areas such as Al-Banjdid and Al-Rahad around Al-Rahad Lake. Some canned foods such as oils, tomato puree, peanut butter and tahini are also sold in the market.
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Super food
Super food
The relationship between superfoods and medicinal plants is characterized by their shared focus on health and well-being. While superfoods are primarily recognized for their nutritional benefits, as part of a daily diet, medicinal plants are valued for their specific therapeutic effects. However, the distinction is often less defined, as many plants and foods serve both nutritional and medicinal purposes, contributing to overall health and the prevention and treatment of diseases.
The concept of superfood is new and the term itself is more of a marketing ploy than a scientific classification. No single food can provide all the nutrients needed for good health, and a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, is essential. However, it is interesting to note that when we look at some of the main staples of Sudanese food, we can see how they are being recognised in the West as ‘superfoods’ or foods which are believed to boost the immune system. Examples are hibiscus tea which is known for its potential to lower blood pressure, sorghum a staple food all over sudan which is believed to be beneficial for digestion, okra which is said to help control blood sugar levels, fenugreek which is added to dairy products and is believed to aid in digestion and dates, which provide energy, and are known to be good for the heart. Moreover, a good portion of the Sudanese diet is made up of fermented ingredients, a type of food that is currently being promoted as essential for healthy gut biomes because of the wealth of probiotics they contain.
Most of these foods are also used in Sudan for medicinal purposes and one in particular, a type of plant, garad, or Acacia Nilotica is very popular. During the Covid pandemic there was much debate over the efficacy of inhaling the smoke of burning garad as a preventive treatment against the disease, a method many people swore by but which was widely discouraged by health professionals who pointed to the harm to vulnerable individuals caused by inhaling smoke. Nevertheless, belief in the medicinal qualities of garad have ancient precedents; it is mentioned in ancient Greek scripts on medicine and has also been used for centuries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The plant has been used for its purported wealth in nutrients and for containing therapeutic values which are capable of prevention, mitigation, and treatment of various infectious diseases and deleterious conditions.Regionally, the plant was used by traditional healers in Sudan and the Nile Valley as well as in Ancient Egypt to treat wounds and as an antiseptic, it was also used as an anti-inflammatory and for pain relief.
To this day, the Acacia Nilotica is used extensively in Sudan including the tree’s leaves and bark because of its versatility for use in various ways and because of its therapeutic benefits. Its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, and antidiabetic properties make it a valuable component of traditional medicine for treating various ailments particularly infections, gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. However, while these traditional uses are supported by some scientific research, more studies are needed to fully validate and understand the efficacy and safety of the Acacia Nilotica in modern medicine.
Cover picture © Sari Omer، Wad Hajjam, south of South Darfur
The relationship between superfoods and medicinal plants is characterized by their shared focus on health and well-being. While superfoods are primarily recognized for their nutritional benefits, as part of a daily diet, medicinal plants are valued for their specific therapeutic effects. However, the distinction is often less defined, as many plants and foods serve both nutritional and medicinal purposes, contributing to overall health and the prevention and treatment of diseases.
The concept of superfood is new and the term itself is more of a marketing ploy than a scientific classification. No single food can provide all the nutrients needed for good health, and a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, is essential. However, it is interesting to note that when we look at some of the main staples of Sudanese food, we can see how they are being recognised in the West as ‘superfoods’ or foods which are believed to boost the immune system. Examples are hibiscus tea which is known for its potential to lower blood pressure, sorghum a staple food all over sudan which is believed to be beneficial for digestion, okra which is said to help control blood sugar levels, fenugreek which is added to dairy products and is believed to aid in digestion and dates, which provide energy, and are known to be good for the heart. Moreover, a good portion of the Sudanese diet is made up of fermented ingredients, a type of food that is currently being promoted as essential for healthy gut biomes because of the wealth of probiotics they contain.
Most of these foods are also used in Sudan for medicinal purposes and one in particular, a type of plant, garad, or Acacia Nilotica is very popular. During the Covid pandemic there was much debate over the efficacy of inhaling the smoke of burning garad as a preventive treatment against the disease, a method many people swore by but which was widely discouraged by health professionals who pointed to the harm to vulnerable individuals caused by inhaling smoke. Nevertheless, belief in the medicinal qualities of garad have ancient precedents; it is mentioned in ancient Greek scripts on medicine and has also been used for centuries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The plant has been used for its purported wealth in nutrients and for containing therapeutic values which are capable of prevention, mitigation, and treatment of various infectious diseases and deleterious conditions.Regionally, the plant was used by traditional healers in Sudan and the Nile Valley as well as in Ancient Egypt to treat wounds and as an antiseptic, it was also used as an anti-inflammatory and for pain relief.
To this day, the Acacia Nilotica is used extensively in Sudan including the tree’s leaves and bark because of its versatility for use in various ways and because of its therapeutic benefits. Its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, and antidiabetic properties make it a valuable component of traditional medicine for treating various ailments particularly infections, gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. However, while these traditional uses are supported by some scientific research, more studies are needed to fully validate and understand the efficacy and safety of the Acacia Nilotica in modern medicine.
Cover picture © Sari Omer، Wad Hajjam, south of South Darfur
The relationship between superfoods and medicinal plants is characterized by their shared focus on health and well-being. While superfoods are primarily recognized for their nutritional benefits, as part of a daily diet, medicinal plants are valued for their specific therapeutic effects. However, the distinction is often less defined, as many plants and foods serve both nutritional and medicinal purposes, contributing to overall health and the prevention and treatment of diseases.
The concept of superfood is new and the term itself is more of a marketing ploy than a scientific classification. No single food can provide all the nutrients needed for good health, and a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, is essential. However, it is interesting to note that when we look at some of the main staples of Sudanese food, we can see how they are being recognised in the West as ‘superfoods’ or foods which are believed to boost the immune system. Examples are hibiscus tea which is known for its potential to lower blood pressure, sorghum a staple food all over sudan which is believed to be beneficial for digestion, okra which is said to help control blood sugar levels, fenugreek which is added to dairy products and is believed to aid in digestion and dates, which provide energy, and are known to be good for the heart. Moreover, a good portion of the Sudanese diet is made up of fermented ingredients, a type of food that is currently being promoted as essential for healthy gut biomes because of the wealth of probiotics they contain.
Most of these foods are also used in Sudan for medicinal purposes and one in particular, a type of plant, garad, or Acacia Nilotica is very popular. During the Covid pandemic there was much debate over the efficacy of inhaling the smoke of burning garad as a preventive treatment against the disease, a method many people swore by but which was widely discouraged by health professionals who pointed to the harm to vulnerable individuals caused by inhaling smoke. Nevertheless, belief in the medicinal qualities of garad have ancient precedents; it is mentioned in ancient Greek scripts on medicine and has also been used for centuries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The plant has been used for its purported wealth in nutrients and for containing therapeutic values which are capable of prevention, mitigation, and treatment of various infectious diseases and deleterious conditions.Regionally, the plant was used by traditional healers in Sudan and the Nile Valley as well as in Ancient Egypt to treat wounds and as an antiseptic, it was also used as an anti-inflammatory and for pain relief.
To this day, the Acacia Nilotica is used extensively in Sudan including the tree’s leaves and bark because of its versatility for use in various ways and because of its therapeutic benefits. Its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, and antidiabetic properties make it a valuable component of traditional medicine for treating various ailments particularly infections, gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. However, while these traditional uses are supported by some scientific research, more studies are needed to fully validate and understand the efficacy and safety of the Acacia Nilotica in modern medicine.
Cover picture © Sari Omer، Wad Hajjam, south of South Darfur
About El-Hakim
About El-Hakim
Presentation of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's book: El-Hakim (The Doctor), for doctors with a deeper understanding of their profession, their community’s cultures, and greater awareness of their environment and the conditions of their people. By: Professor Fadwa Abd-El Rahman Ali Taha
The book "El-Hakim" was published in 2013 by Sudan Currency Printing Company Limited, in 594 pages. The book, which took more than four decades to complete, takes you on an exciting historical journey as the author exhibits patience and diligence in his writing; the qualities essential for serious academic researchers. The book is introduced by Professor Abd-Allah Ali Ibrahim with a preface titled “Illness as Treatment and Culture.”
The book includes a preface, an introduction, and nine chapters:
- The Health of Sudan through the Centuries
- The convention Between the Doctor, the Patient, and the Community
- Concepts of Health and Illness
- Causes of Illness and Injury
- Means of Diagnosing Illness and Injury
- Healers, Treatment, Methods, and Prevention
- Remedies and Traditional (Folk) Practices
- The Harvest of Years
- Harmful Medical Actions and Responsible Medicine
The book summary includes a description of its contents and appendices listing the names of Sudanese months/calendar, Sudanese medical informal terms (colloquialisms) and their English equivalents, a glossary of important plants used in traditional medicine, modern drugs with plant origins, foreign doctors who served in Sudan, and the most important health laws in Sudan.
The author begins the book with an engaging discussion about himself, including experiences with customs, traditions, and traditional medicine during his childhood and youth. In the introduction, he discusses types and models of medicine, including biomedical, holistic, and traditional medicine. This first chapter is dedicated to the health of Sudan through the centuries, highlighting what was found in the writings of early travelers, geographers, and explorers, as well as in biographies and writings of some religious leaders, historians, doctors, and members of the Turkish, Egyptian, and English colonial armies, and anthropologists, along with local traditional medicine texts and manuscripts. He presents examples from the writings of travelers and scholars regarding medicine and health, such as John Lewis Burckhard, who described the health and diseases of Sudan, and George Hoskins, the English archaeologist who visited Sudan in 1833.
The author includes extracts from historical books, such as Naoum Shogair's "Geography and History of Sudan," which the author describes as an indispensable source for researchers in the field of Sudanese health in the 19th century..
Chapter two is dedicated to the understanding between the doctor, the patient, and the community, where the author discusses the ethics of the profession, stating that medical ethics is a practical science and a branch of moral philosophy, a branch of medical science, and an essential part of good medical practice. The medical profession is the only profession that has had, since the dawn of history and the beginning of human civilization, a code of ethics for practice which practitioners are committed to before they are allowed to approach patients. This is known as the Hippocratic Oath and emphasizes the necessity of the physician's humanity and the avoidance of the desire for fame.
Chapter three discusses concepts of health and illness, addressing medicine in the minds of the public through language and the concept of illness through popular thought, ritual, and symbols that the physician must be familiar with, as well as how rituals occupy an important space in the constitution of any society.
Chapter four outlines the causes of illness and injury and their connection to environmental factors and people's habits. It discusses the significance of solar eclipses among people, as well as supernatural forces, jinn, demons, zar, its origins, magic, and the evil eye.
Chapter five is dedicated to methods of diagnosing illness and injury, clarifying the difference between modern medical diagnoses which rely on evidence- based methods, and that of the general public who often depend on invoking supernatural forces for assistance in diagnosis. The author included examples of the reading of coffee cups, sand lines, dreams revelations(Ruaya), prayer for guidance, dream interpretation, and astrology.
Chapter Six: Healers, Treatment Methods, and Prevention, emphasizes the list of healers involved with people's health as extensive, highlighting that each ethnic group in Sudan has its own doctor or wise person. Sudanese people have recognized a large number of skilled traditional healers whose help they have sought, such as the fogara, the fakis, the sheikhs (religious leaders), and (the saints). This chapter includes examples of various forms of treatment, such as ruqyah (religious spiritual healing), incense, and herbal remedies. The author also underlined the role of the housewife as a health and social assistant who efficiently manages most family affairs as well as the further roles women played within the family.
Chapter Seven: Traditional Treatments and Practices discusses folk surgery and its risks. This includes exampled of female circumcision in its various forms, cupping, tattooing, bloodletting, and traditional prosthetics. The chapter also references Ali Wad Giyama, a traditional human and veterinary doctor and a fortune teller who practiced wound treatment, anesthesia, pregnancy and delivery. Chapter seven also includes traditional medicine, and folk pharmacy that comprised of various recipes used by people to treat illnesses. It also addresses food and misconceptions that impacted people's health, especially children.
In chapter eight, titled “Harvest of Years,” the author discusses the journey of Sudanese people in caring for their health during the second half of the twentieth century, pointing to Sudan’s failure since independence to implement a comprehensive and sustainable development plan that meets human needs to improve the people’s health.
This chapter shows that despite the increase in doctors and medical staff, the number of medical practitioners has not been very beneficial because of high rates of their emigration abroad, and those who remained in the country preferred the private sector. The chapter criticizes the government's spending policy on health, which places health at the bottom of its priorities, which the author contends, arguing the necessity of raising it to the top of the priorities because humans are the real asset.
Chapter eight also discusses the scarcity of medical literature that researchers can refer to regarding the history of medicine and the heritage of Sudan, noting that Sudanese scholars, and doctors in particular, are reluctant to document and record their work and the history of medicine in Sudan which results in a lack of historical, social medical studies. He also notes that teaching in most medical colleges remains disconnected from the practice of medicine in the long history of Sudan and its medical heritage. One reason for this weakness is the scarcity of documented material that assists both teachers and students. The author warns of the prevailing lack of documentation in Sudan and the neglect of documentation resources, taking as example the deterioration of the National Health Laboratory library and the scattering of its books and journals which began to be collected in 1902, as well as the demolition of the photographic museum in 1963-1964, which was opened in 1944. The author emphasizes the necessity of preserving professional records and documenting its heritage.
Chapter nine discusses harmful medical actions in comparison to wise medical practice. The author explains the types of harmful medical actions; what constitutes a harmful medical action, and the likelihood of such actions occurring. Harmful medical actions are seen as the causes of signs and symptoms of the health system's deterioration, indicating defects and gaps in the entire health system. The author suggests that reforming the health system requires an integrated and interconnected effort, qualified leadership at all levels, and advanced awareness of culture. As the author states, Sudan will not be able to diminish the occurrence of harmful medical actions without adopting and following the approach of wise medical practice.
The book emphasizes the connection between the humanities and applied sciences, making it relevant for all medical service providers and students of the humanities, particularly sociology and folklore. It refers to what the scholar Tijani Al-Mahi highlighted regarding the importance of studying the history of medicine, affirming that the humanities play a significant role in understanding health and disease. The knowledge provided by the humanities connects the doctor to the patient and links medical practice to Sudan's social history spanning centuries, forefronting its medical and health heritage. It also connects biological medicine and its sciences to their historical roots and streams. The author does not want medical education in colleges to remain disconnected from the historical context of Sudan or its medical and health heritage, nor from the historical and social roots of its sciences.
The author’s contribution is not limited to this book, he initiated and participated in studies on traditional medicine. In 1982, the Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine at the National Research Council was established through his initiative, aiming to study medical heritage with a scientifically oriented methodology. In recognition and appreciation of this effort, the World Health Organization designated it as a collaborating center in 1984 under the name WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Traditional Medicine. In 2004, he also founded the
Sudanese Foundation for Medical Heritage as a civil organization concerned
with research on medical systems, the history of medicine, preserving health heritage, and monitoring the development of medical services in Sudan. His interest stems from a fact he highlighted in his book: that traditional medicine is widely prevalent in developing countries, including Sudan, due to the high costs of treatment in hospitals and that there is a need to organize the work of traditional practitioners. Ahmed's concern and interest continued as he proposed a documentation project in 2005 called "The Health Trio in Sudan," which includes three parts: the history of medicine and the biographies of pioneers in Sudan, an encyclopedia of Sudanese doctors, and a bibliography of Sudanese medical studies in the twentieth century.
What stands out in this book is the wealth of material upon which it is based. Over the past four decades during which the book was written, Ahmed visited most of the traditional healing centers in Sudan and reviewed all available literature, whether auditory, written, or visual. A total of 35 pages have been dedicated to the sources and references used in the book. The author has precisely documented every piece of information included.
The title of the book, "The Wise Man," was chosen with great care. The term, which the author suggests likely originated from the Egyptians during the era of Turko-Egyptian rule, holds a particular significance. The term was not only applied to graduated physicians, but also to most who engage in healing. This name evokes childhood memories for me, reminding me of "Hassan the Wise," as the medical assistant Hassan was known, who came to treat people from the far north in Nawa to Arbaij in El-Jazeera region. I recall childhood songs: “I am a wise man healing people from fever and headaches”. The book resonates deeply with concepts of health, emphasizing that “whoever swears by health lacks nothing,” and due to its importance, people have tried everything possible for healing, which is explained upon in the book.
The book “El-Hakim” which the author humbly describes as an introduction to the social history of medicine and health in Sudan is encyclopedic and comprehensive in its approach. It represents the culmination of immense and elaborated effort. Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed El-Safi on this immense achievement that has enriched the Sudanese library with a much needed academic reference.
Cover picture: Cover of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's digital books © Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi, books can be purchased on Amazon
Presentation of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's book: El-Hakim (The Doctor), for doctors with a deeper understanding of their profession, their community’s cultures, and greater awareness of their environment and the conditions of their people. By: Professor Fadwa Abd-El Rahman Ali Taha
The book "El-Hakim" was published in 2013 by Sudan Currency Printing Company Limited, in 594 pages. The book, which took more than four decades to complete, takes you on an exciting historical journey as the author exhibits patience and diligence in his writing; the qualities essential for serious academic researchers. The book is introduced by Professor Abd-Allah Ali Ibrahim with a preface titled “Illness as Treatment and Culture.”
The book includes a preface, an introduction, and nine chapters:
- The Health of Sudan through the Centuries
- The convention Between the Doctor, the Patient, and the Community
- Concepts of Health and Illness
- Causes of Illness and Injury
- Means of Diagnosing Illness and Injury
- Healers, Treatment, Methods, and Prevention
- Remedies and Traditional (Folk) Practices
- The Harvest of Years
- Harmful Medical Actions and Responsible Medicine
The book summary includes a description of its contents and appendices listing the names of Sudanese months/calendar, Sudanese medical informal terms (colloquialisms) and their English equivalents, a glossary of important plants used in traditional medicine, modern drugs with plant origins, foreign doctors who served in Sudan, and the most important health laws in Sudan.
The author begins the book with an engaging discussion about himself, including experiences with customs, traditions, and traditional medicine during his childhood and youth. In the introduction, he discusses types and models of medicine, including biomedical, holistic, and traditional medicine. This first chapter is dedicated to the health of Sudan through the centuries, highlighting what was found in the writings of early travelers, geographers, and explorers, as well as in biographies and writings of some religious leaders, historians, doctors, and members of the Turkish, Egyptian, and English colonial armies, and anthropologists, along with local traditional medicine texts and manuscripts. He presents examples from the writings of travelers and scholars regarding medicine and health, such as John Lewis Burckhard, who described the health and diseases of Sudan, and George Hoskins, the English archaeologist who visited Sudan in 1833.
The author includes extracts from historical books, such as Naoum Shogair's "Geography and History of Sudan," which the author describes as an indispensable source for researchers in the field of Sudanese health in the 19th century..
Chapter two is dedicated to the understanding between the doctor, the patient, and the community, where the author discusses the ethics of the profession, stating that medical ethics is a practical science and a branch of moral philosophy, a branch of medical science, and an essential part of good medical practice. The medical profession is the only profession that has had, since the dawn of history and the beginning of human civilization, a code of ethics for practice which practitioners are committed to before they are allowed to approach patients. This is known as the Hippocratic Oath and emphasizes the necessity of the physician's humanity and the avoidance of the desire for fame.
Chapter three discusses concepts of health and illness, addressing medicine in the minds of the public through language and the concept of illness through popular thought, ritual, and symbols that the physician must be familiar with, as well as how rituals occupy an important space in the constitution of any society.
Chapter four outlines the causes of illness and injury and their connection to environmental factors and people's habits. It discusses the significance of solar eclipses among people, as well as supernatural forces, jinn, demons, zar, its origins, magic, and the evil eye.
Chapter five is dedicated to methods of diagnosing illness and injury, clarifying the difference between modern medical diagnoses which rely on evidence- based methods, and that of the general public who often depend on invoking supernatural forces for assistance in diagnosis. The author included examples of the reading of coffee cups, sand lines, dreams revelations(Ruaya), prayer for guidance, dream interpretation, and astrology.
Chapter Six: Healers, Treatment Methods, and Prevention, emphasizes the list of healers involved with people's health as extensive, highlighting that each ethnic group in Sudan has its own doctor or wise person. Sudanese people have recognized a large number of skilled traditional healers whose help they have sought, such as the fogara, the fakis, the sheikhs (religious leaders), and (the saints). This chapter includes examples of various forms of treatment, such as ruqyah (religious spiritual healing), incense, and herbal remedies. The author also underlined the role of the housewife as a health and social assistant who efficiently manages most family affairs as well as the further roles women played within the family.
Chapter Seven: Traditional Treatments and Practices discusses folk surgery and its risks. This includes exampled of female circumcision in its various forms, cupping, tattooing, bloodletting, and traditional prosthetics. The chapter also references Ali Wad Giyama, a traditional human and veterinary doctor and a fortune teller who practiced wound treatment, anesthesia, pregnancy and delivery. Chapter seven also includes traditional medicine, and folk pharmacy that comprised of various recipes used by people to treat illnesses. It also addresses food and misconceptions that impacted people's health, especially children.
In chapter eight, titled “Harvest of Years,” the author discusses the journey of Sudanese people in caring for their health during the second half of the twentieth century, pointing to Sudan’s failure since independence to implement a comprehensive and sustainable development plan that meets human needs to improve the people’s health.
This chapter shows that despite the increase in doctors and medical staff, the number of medical practitioners has not been very beneficial because of high rates of their emigration abroad, and those who remained in the country preferred the private sector. The chapter criticizes the government's spending policy on health, which places health at the bottom of its priorities, which the author contends, arguing the necessity of raising it to the top of the priorities because humans are the real asset.
Chapter eight also discusses the scarcity of medical literature that researchers can refer to regarding the history of medicine and the heritage of Sudan, noting that Sudanese scholars, and doctors in particular, are reluctant to document and record their work and the history of medicine in Sudan which results in a lack of historical, social medical studies. He also notes that teaching in most medical colleges remains disconnected from the practice of medicine in the long history of Sudan and its medical heritage. One reason for this weakness is the scarcity of documented material that assists both teachers and students. The author warns of the prevailing lack of documentation in Sudan and the neglect of documentation resources, taking as example the deterioration of the National Health Laboratory library and the scattering of its books and journals which began to be collected in 1902, as well as the demolition of the photographic museum in 1963-1964, which was opened in 1944. The author emphasizes the necessity of preserving professional records and documenting its heritage.
Chapter nine discusses harmful medical actions in comparison to wise medical practice. The author explains the types of harmful medical actions; what constitutes a harmful medical action, and the likelihood of such actions occurring. Harmful medical actions are seen as the causes of signs and symptoms of the health system's deterioration, indicating defects and gaps in the entire health system. The author suggests that reforming the health system requires an integrated and interconnected effort, qualified leadership at all levels, and advanced awareness of culture. As the author states, Sudan will not be able to diminish the occurrence of harmful medical actions without adopting and following the approach of wise medical practice.
The book emphasizes the connection between the humanities and applied sciences, making it relevant for all medical service providers and students of the humanities, particularly sociology and folklore. It refers to what the scholar Tijani Al-Mahi highlighted regarding the importance of studying the history of medicine, affirming that the humanities play a significant role in understanding health and disease. The knowledge provided by the humanities connects the doctor to the patient and links medical practice to Sudan's social history spanning centuries, forefronting its medical and health heritage. It also connects biological medicine and its sciences to their historical roots and streams. The author does not want medical education in colleges to remain disconnected from the historical context of Sudan or its medical and health heritage, nor from the historical and social roots of its sciences.
The author’s contribution is not limited to this book, he initiated and participated in studies on traditional medicine. In 1982, the Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine at the National Research Council was established through his initiative, aiming to study medical heritage with a scientifically oriented methodology. In recognition and appreciation of this effort, the World Health Organization designated it as a collaborating center in 1984 under the name WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Traditional Medicine. In 2004, he also founded the
Sudanese Foundation for Medical Heritage as a civil organization concerned
with research on medical systems, the history of medicine, preserving health heritage, and monitoring the development of medical services in Sudan. His interest stems from a fact he highlighted in his book: that traditional medicine is widely prevalent in developing countries, including Sudan, due to the high costs of treatment in hospitals and that there is a need to organize the work of traditional practitioners. Ahmed's concern and interest continued as he proposed a documentation project in 2005 called "The Health Trio in Sudan," which includes three parts: the history of medicine and the biographies of pioneers in Sudan, an encyclopedia of Sudanese doctors, and a bibliography of Sudanese medical studies in the twentieth century.
What stands out in this book is the wealth of material upon which it is based. Over the past four decades during which the book was written, Ahmed visited most of the traditional healing centers in Sudan and reviewed all available literature, whether auditory, written, or visual. A total of 35 pages have been dedicated to the sources and references used in the book. The author has precisely documented every piece of information included.
The title of the book, "The Wise Man," was chosen with great care. The term, which the author suggests likely originated from the Egyptians during the era of Turko-Egyptian rule, holds a particular significance. The term was not only applied to graduated physicians, but also to most who engage in healing. This name evokes childhood memories for me, reminding me of "Hassan the Wise," as the medical assistant Hassan was known, who came to treat people from the far north in Nawa to Arbaij in El-Jazeera region. I recall childhood songs: “I am a wise man healing people from fever and headaches”. The book resonates deeply with concepts of health, emphasizing that “whoever swears by health lacks nothing,” and due to its importance, people have tried everything possible for healing, which is explained upon in the book.
The book “El-Hakim” which the author humbly describes as an introduction to the social history of medicine and health in Sudan is encyclopedic and comprehensive in its approach. It represents the culmination of immense and elaborated effort. Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed El-Safi on this immense achievement that has enriched the Sudanese library with a much needed academic reference.
Cover picture: Cover of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's digital books © Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi, books can be purchased on Amazon
Presentation of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's book: El-Hakim (The Doctor), for doctors with a deeper understanding of their profession, their community’s cultures, and greater awareness of their environment and the conditions of their people. By: Professor Fadwa Abd-El Rahman Ali Taha
The book "El-Hakim" was published in 2013 by Sudan Currency Printing Company Limited, in 594 pages. The book, which took more than four decades to complete, takes you on an exciting historical journey as the author exhibits patience and diligence in his writing; the qualities essential for serious academic researchers. The book is introduced by Professor Abd-Allah Ali Ibrahim with a preface titled “Illness as Treatment and Culture.”
The book includes a preface, an introduction, and nine chapters:
- The Health of Sudan through the Centuries
- The convention Between the Doctor, the Patient, and the Community
- Concepts of Health and Illness
- Causes of Illness and Injury
- Means of Diagnosing Illness and Injury
- Healers, Treatment, Methods, and Prevention
- Remedies and Traditional (Folk) Practices
- The Harvest of Years
- Harmful Medical Actions and Responsible Medicine
The book summary includes a description of its contents and appendices listing the names of Sudanese months/calendar, Sudanese medical informal terms (colloquialisms) and their English equivalents, a glossary of important plants used in traditional medicine, modern drugs with plant origins, foreign doctors who served in Sudan, and the most important health laws in Sudan.
The author begins the book with an engaging discussion about himself, including experiences with customs, traditions, and traditional medicine during his childhood and youth. In the introduction, he discusses types and models of medicine, including biomedical, holistic, and traditional medicine. This first chapter is dedicated to the health of Sudan through the centuries, highlighting what was found in the writings of early travelers, geographers, and explorers, as well as in biographies and writings of some religious leaders, historians, doctors, and members of the Turkish, Egyptian, and English colonial armies, and anthropologists, along with local traditional medicine texts and manuscripts. He presents examples from the writings of travelers and scholars regarding medicine and health, such as John Lewis Burckhard, who described the health and diseases of Sudan, and George Hoskins, the English archaeologist who visited Sudan in 1833.
The author includes extracts from historical books, such as Naoum Shogair's "Geography and History of Sudan," which the author describes as an indispensable source for researchers in the field of Sudanese health in the 19th century..
Chapter two is dedicated to the understanding between the doctor, the patient, and the community, where the author discusses the ethics of the profession, stating that medical ethics is a practical science and a branch of moral philosophy, a branch of medical science, and an essential part of good medical practice. The medical profession is the only profession that has had, since the dawn of history and the beginning of human civilization, a code of ethics for practice which practitioners are committed to before they are allowed to approach patients. This is known as the Hippocratic Oath and emphasizes the necessity of the physician's humanity and the avoidance of the desire for fame.
Chapter three discusses concepts of health and illness, addressing medicine in the minds of the public through language and the concept of illness through popular thought, ritual, and symbols that the physician must be familiar with, as well as how rituals occupy an important space in the constitution of any society.
Chapter four outlines the causes of illness and injury and their connection to environmental factors and people's habits. It discusses the significance of solar eclipses among people, as well as supernatural forces, jinn, demons, zar, its origins, magic, and the evil eye.
Chapter five is dedicated to methods of diagnosing illness and injury, clarifying the difference between modern medical diagnoses which rely on evidence- based methods, and that of the general public who often depend on invoking supernatural forces for assistance in diagnosis. The author included examples of the reading of coffee cups, sand lines, dreams revelations(Ruaya), prayer for guidance, dream interpretation, and astrology.
Chapter Six: Healers, Treatment Methods, and Prevention, emphasizes the list of healers involved with people's health as extensive, highlighting that each ethnic group in Sudan has its own doctor or wise person. Sudanese people have recognized a large number of skilled traditional healers whose help they have sought, such as the fogara, the fakis, the sheikhs (religious leaders), and (the saints). This chapter includes examples of various forms of treatment, such as ruqyah (religious spiritual healing), incense, and herbal remedies. The author also underlined the role of the housewife as a health and social assistant who efficiently manages most family affairs as well as the further roles women played within the family.
Chapter Seven: Traditional Treatments and Practices discusses folk surgery and its risks. This includes exampled of female circumcision in its various forms, cupping, tattooing, bloodletting, and traditional prosthetics. The chapter also references Ali Wad Giyama, a traditional human and veterinary doctor and a fortune teller who practiced wound treatment, anesthesia, pregnancy and delivery. Chapter seven also includes traditional medicine, and folk pharmacy that comprised of various recipes used by people to treat illnesses. It also addresses food and misconceptions that impacted people's health, especially children.
In chapter eight, titled “Harvest of Years,” the author discusses the journey of Sudanese people in caring for their health during the second half of the twentieth century, pointing to Sudan’s failure since independence to implement a comprehensive and sustainable development plan that meets human needs to improve the people’s health.
This chapter shows that despite the increase in doctors and medical staff, the number of medical practitioners has not been very beneficial because of high rates of their emigration abroad, and those who remained in the country preferred the private sector. The chapter criticizes the government's spending policy on health, which places health at the bottom of its priorities, which the author contends, arguing the necessity of raising it to the top of the priorities because humans are the real asset.
Chapter eight also discusses the scarcity of medical literature that researchers can refer to regarding the history of medicine and the heritage of Sudan, noting that Sudanese scholars, and doctors in particular, are reluctant to document and record their work and the history of medicine in Sudan which results in a lack of historical, social medical studies. He also notes that teaching in most medical colleges remains disconnected from the practice of medicine in the long history of Sudan and its medical heritage. One reason for this weakness is the scarcity of documented material that assists both teachers and students. The author warns of the prevailing lack of documentation in Sudan and the neglect of documentation resources, taking as example the deterioration of the National Health Laboratory library and the scattering of its books and journals which began to be collected in 1902, as well as the demolition of the photographic museum in 1963-1964, which was opened in 1944. The author emphasizes the necessity of preserving professional records and documenting its heritage.
Chapter nine discusses harmful medical actions in comparison to wise medical practice. The author explains the types of harmful medical actions; what constitutes a harmful medical action, and the likelihood of such actions occurring. Harmful medical actions are seen as the causes of signs and symptoms of the health system's deterioration, indicating defects and gaps in the entire health system. The author suggests that reforming the health system requires an integrated and interconnected effort, qualified leadership at all levels, and advanced awareness of culture. As the author states, Sudan will not be able to diminish the occurrence of harmful medical actions without adopting and following the approach of wise medical practice.
The book emphasizes the connection between the humanities and applied sciences, making it relevant for all medical service providers and students of the humanities, particularly sociology and folklore. It refers to what the scholar Tijani Al-Mahi highlighted regarding the importance of studying the history of medicine, affirming that the humanities play a significant role in understanding health and disease. The knowledge provided by the humanities connects the doctor to the patient and links medical practice to Sudan's social history spanning centuries, forefronting its medical and health heritage. It also connects biological medicine and its sciences to their historical roots and streams. The author does not want medical education in colleges to remain disconnected from the historical context of Sudan or its medical and health heritage, nor from the historical and social roots of its sciences.
The author’s contribution is not limited to this book, he initiated and participated in studies on traditional medicine. In 1982, the Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine at the National Research Council was established through his initiative, aiming to study medical heritage with a scientifically oriented methodology. In recognition and appreciation of this effort, the World Health Organization designated it as a collaborating center in 1984 under the name WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Traditional Medicine. In 2004, he also founded the
Sudanese Foundation for Medical Heritage as a civil organization concerned
with research on medical systems, the history of medicine, preserving health heritage, and monitoring the development of medical services in Sudan. His interest stems from a fact he highlighted in his book: that traditional medicine is widely prevalent in developing countries, including Sudan, due to the high costs of treatment in hospitals and that there is a need to organize the work of traditional practitioners. Ahmed's concern and interest continued as he proposed a documentation project in 2005 called "The Health Trio in Sudan," which includes three parts: the history of medicine and the biographies of pioneers in Sudan, an encyclopedia of Sudanese doctors, and a bibliography of Sudanese medical studies in the twentieth century.
What stands out in this book is the wealth of material upon which it is based. Over the past four decades during which the book was written, Ahmed visited most of the traditional healing centers in Sudan and reviewed all available literature, whether auditory, written, or visual. A total of 35 pages have been dedicated to the sources and references used in the book. The author has precisely documented every piece of information included.
The title of the book, "The Wise Man," was chosen with great care. The term, which the author suggests likely originated from the Egyptians during the era of Turko-Egyptian rule, holds a particular significance. The term was not only applied to graduated physicians, but also to most who engage in healing. This name evokes childhood memories for me, reminding me of "Hassan the Wise," as the medical assistant Hassan was known, who came to treat people from the far north in Nawa to Arbaij in El-Jazeera region. I recall childhood songs: “I am a wise man healing people from fever and headaches”. The book resonates deeply with concepts of health, emphasizing that “whoever swears by health lacks nothing,” and due to its importance, people have tried everything possible for healing, which is explained upon in the book.
The book “El-Hakim” which the author humbly describes as an introduction to the social history of medicine and health in Sudan is encyclopedic and comprehensive in its approach. It represents the culmination of immense and elaborated effort. Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed El-Safi on this immense achievement that has enriched the Sudanese library with a much needed academic reference.
Cover picture: Cover of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's digital books © Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi, books can be purchased on Amazon
Food and drink of the Nubian people
Food and drink of the Nubian people
Food and drink of the people of Batn al-Hajar
Food
People in this area eat wheat and corn but mostly the latter, grown along a narrow strip near the River Nile. Previously, British colonial authorities allowed local people to grow a tobacco called gamsha, which they sold to the north and south making it part of their economy. In addition dates, the people of Batn al-Hajar’s food includes the following:
• Kabid is a famous gorasa, type of Sudanese flatbread, made out of corn dough baked on a traditional hotplate stove. A kabid loaf is flipped constantaly until both sides are equally cooked and then a cross is marked onto its surface as a form of blessing. It is flavoured with idam, or sauce, made of ittir, the two types of cowpea plant leaves, or fish broth, or milk or ghee with sugar, or purslane or any other stew.
•Shiddi is the equivalent of Sudanese kisra (flatbread sheets) and is only made out of corn and eaten with whatever idam is available.
• Sallabiyya is made of wheat which is spread out very thinly on the traditional hotplate stove and is often eaten with milk or any other sauce.
• Turmus or lupin is washed and placed in a sack that is left in the Nile for three days to remove its bitter taste. It is an allround favourite and is considered good for the bones.
• Dates. Each family has its own palm tree grove. The female palm is pollinated by male ambi. Dates are stored in a gussi, a large clay barrel, of which the family may have more than one. It is sealed at the top to prevent any air entering with a hole at the bottom, covered with a cloth, through which the dates can be extracted. Dates stored this way do not get pest infestations.1
• Fish is caught by net or hook whenever required. Fish meat and idam sauce are very good because they are Nile fish.
• Fenti shorba is a date porridge usually made for pregnant women.
In terms of meat, the people of Batn al-Hajar have their distinctive Nubian sheep and Nubian camels.
People here use their camels to travel to the north and south to sell their gamsha tobacco. Everyone has their own camels, sheep and goats which they slaughter occasionaly. Nubian camels have a high tolerance threshold for hunger and thirst, and have good quality meat, and even though they are smaller than other camels, they are able to carry heavier laods and walk faster. When a camel is old, it is killed and its meat is shared out. Camel milk is left for it to feed its young while the people drink sheep and goat milk.
Food for people in this area includes Nile fish, crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles and they hunt rabbits using their own secret methods. The job of youngsters is to catch birds like doves and migrating birds that arrive in the winter.
• Turkin, known by most Sudanese as maloha (or cured fish), is when small fish are layered across the bottom of a large dish and covered with a layer of salt. This is repeated until the dish is filled with layers of fish and salt. The dish is then placed on a fire until the fish disintegrates including any breeding worms that may have been in the fisth, but this is okay. After it is boiled, the fish mixture is constantly stirred over about three days. When preparing an idam sauce, some of the fish is cooked with oil, onions and spices. It is a favourite food eaten with wheat gorasa.2
Beverages
• Dakkai is an alchohol they make and can be used as a marker of a woman’s status for example a young man may refuse to marry a young woman who is not good at making it. To make dakkai, dates are placed in a large clay pot and left to ferment. After about three days, the beverage reaches perfection and a man might ask his friends to come and share it and it is even better if this drinking session coincides with a feast when an animal has been slaughtered!
• Nebit is derived from carefully selected dates that are placed in a large clay pot which is cooked over a very hot fire and then buried in the ground for at least nine days. Nebit is made and consumed during the very cold desert winters and men drink it in the morning to be able to enter the water by the waterwheel as the drink gives off plenty of heat to warm up the body. A man may also invite his friends to come and merrily consume it with him.
Other fermented drinks include aragi (the most common Sudanese alchoholic drink). This is imported from eastern Dongola, where it is professionally made by women in the that region.
Food and drink of the people of Al-Sakkot
Foods
• Turkin, which we saw ealier, is a type of maloha eaten with wheat gorasa flatbreads.
• Koddad is what most Sudanese people know as mulah al-warag made from the leaves of safflower, watercress or the different types of cowpea leaves. One variety of these leaves are placed cooked for a long time over a coal fire with spices, onions and garlic, and it is eaten with kisra.
• Koshen kulub is made from safflower beans which are roasted, ground, sieved, and then cooked over a fire.
• Futti is millet. The grains are ground and used as idam stew, after being cooked over a fire.
• Corn gorasa with fermented milk.
• Belilah is made of wheat, corn, or cowpeas and is cooked with salt and eaten by hand.
• A mixture of seseme and wheat gorasa eaten with any stew.
• Gurub is made of dates with wheat or corn. Date kernels are removed and the dates are cut up into small pieces and added to a mixture of corn or wheat dough and spread on a hotplate to cook. It is eaten by itself.
• Boje is made when a pumpkin is peeled and its soft, sweetish pulp, the boje, is removed. It is then boiled over a fire and eaten with kisra, or gurasa flatbreads made of wheat or corn.
• Green Egyptian favabean balila which is boiled over a fire with salt and eaten by hand.
• Lupine flour gorasa is boiled with with salt and spices, and eaten with molokhia.
• Date syrup is made out of good quality dates such as the gondela and barakawi varieties. These are placed in a large container and boiled for a long period of time. Once cooled, the pulp is strained and boiled for a second time and then strained again to remove any residue from the first straining. It can be eaten with gorasa or any other flatbread.
• Madida is a porridge made of millet or dates and is given to sick people or pregnant women.
• Dates are readily available similarly like they are for the people of Batn al-Hajar, Al-Mahas and Dongola and are eaten whenever they feel like having some.
Beverages
People here make alcohol out of their local crops which they drink when they are not working, especially at night. Different types of alcohol are made each season; nabit in winter, and dakkai in the summer. Both have been described in the beverages of Batn al-Hajar.
Young men sometimes make the alcohol aragi on the banks of the Nile taking advantage of the cool climate along the waterfront. The dates, which will have been fermenting for about three days, are put in a container with a draining tube and placed over a fire. When the mixture reaches boiling point, heat is reduced to bring it down. A special pipe is wrapped around container’s draining tube. Ice or cold water is passed through the pipe to control the density and flow of the liquid which is drained into waiting bottles. Young men get their aragi making equipment made at local ironmongers.
Cover picture: Grinding stone © Darfur museum, Niyala
Food and drink of the people of Batn al-Hajar
Food
People in this area eat wheat and corn but mostly the latter, grown along a narrow strip near the River Nile. Previously, British colonial authorities allowed local people to grow a tobacco called gamsha, which they sold to the north and south making it part of their economy. In addition dates, the people of Batn al-Hajar’s food includes the following:
• Kabid is a famous gorasa, type of Sudanese flatbread, made out of corn dough baked on a traditional hotplate stove. A kabid loaf is flipped constantaly until both sides are equally cooked and then a cross is marked onto its surface as a form of blessing. It is flavoured with idam, or sauce, made of ittir, the two types of cowpea plant leaves, or fish broth, or milk or ghee with sugar, or purslane or any other stew.
•Shiddi is the equivalent of Sudanese kisra (flatbread sheets) and is only made out of corn and eaten with whatever idam is available.
• Sallabiyya is made of wheat which is spread out very thinly on the traditional hotplate stove and is often eaten with milk or any other sauce.
• Turmus or lupin is washed and placed in a sack that is left in the Nile for three days to remove its bitter taste. It is an allround favourite and is considered good for the bones.
• Dates. Each family has its own palm tree grove. The female palm is pollinated by male ambi. Dates are stored in a gussi, a large clay barrel, of which the family may have more than one. It is sealed at the top to prevent any air entering with a hole at the bottom, covered with a cloth, through which the dates can be extracted. Dates stored this way do not get pest infestations.1
• Fish is caught by net or hook whenever required. Fish meat and idam sauce are very good because they are Nile fish.
• Fenti shorba is a date porridge usually made for pregnant women.
In terms of meat, the people of Batn al-Hajar have their distinctive Nubian sheep and Nubian camels.
People here use their camels to travel to the north and south to sell their gamsha tobacco. Everyone has their own camels, sheep and goats which they slaughter occasionaly. Nubian camels have a high tolerance threshold for hunger and thirst, and have good quality meat, and even though they are smaller than other camels, they are able to carry heavier laods and walk faster. When a camel is old, it is killed and its meat is shared out. Camel milk is left for it to feed its young while the people drink sheep and goat milk.
Food for people in this area includes Nile fish, crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles and they hunt rabbits using their own secret methods. The job of youngsters is to catch birds like doves and migrating birds that arrive in the winter.
• Turkin, known by most Sudanese as maloha (or cured fish), is when small fish are layered across the bottom of a large dish and covered with a layer of salt. This is repeated until the dish is filled with layers of fish and salt. The dish is then placed on a fire until the fish disintegrates including any breeding worms that may have been in the fisth, but this is okay. After it is boiled, the fish mixture is constantly stirred over about three days. When preparing an idam sauce, some of the fish is cooked with oil, onions and spices. It is a favourite food eaten with wheat gorasa.2
Beverages
• Dakkai is an alchohol they make and can be used as a marker of a woman’s status for example a young man may refuse to marry a young woman who is not good at making it. To make dakkai, dates are placed in a large clay pot and left to ferment. After about three days, the beverage reaches perfection and a man might ask his friends to come and share it and it is even better if this drinking session coincides with a feast when an animal has been slaughtered!
• Nebit is derived from carefully selected dates that are placed in a large clay pot which is cooked over a very hot fire and then buried in the ground for at least nine days. Nebit is made and consumed during the very cold desert winters and men drink it in the morning to be able to enter the water by the waterwheel as the drink gives off plenty of heat to warm up the body. A man may also invite his friends to come and merrily consume it with him.
Other fermented drinks include aragi (the most common Sudanese alchoholic drink). This is imported from eastern Dongola, where it is professionally made by women in the that region.
Food and drink of the people of Al-Sakkot
Foods
• Turkin, which we saw ealier, is a type of maloha eaten with wheat gorasa flatbreads.
• Koddad is what most Sudanese people know as mulah al-warag made from the leaves of safflower, watercress or the different types of cowpea leaves. One variety of these leaves are placed cooked for a long time over a coal fire with spices, onions and garlic, and it is eaten with kisra.
• Koshen kulub is made from safflower beans which are roasted, ground, sieved, and then cooked over a fire.
• Futti is millet. The grains are ground and used as idam stew, after being cooked over a fire.
• Corn gorasa with fermented milk.
• Belilah is made of wheat, corn, or cowpeas and is cooked with salt and eaten by hand.
• A mixture of seseme and wheat gorasa eaten with any stew.
• Gurub is made of dates with wheat or corn. Date kernels are removed and the dates are cut up into small pieces and added to a mixture of corn or wheat dough and spread on a hotplate to cook. It is eaten by itself.
• Boje is made when a pumpkin is peeled and its soft, sweetish pulp, the boje, is removed. It is then boiled over a fire and eaten with kisra, or gurasa flatbreads made of wheat or corn.
• Green Egyptian favabean balila which is boiled over a fire with salt and eaten by hand.
• Lupine flour gorasa is boiled with with salt and spices, and eaten with molokhia.
• Date syrup is made out of good quality dates such as the gondela and barakawi varieties. These are placed in a large container and boiled for a long period of time. Once cooled, the pulp is strained and boiled for a second time and then strained again to remove any residue from the first straining. It can be eaten with gorasa or any other flatbread.
• Madida is a porridge made of millet or dates and is given to sick people or pregnant women.
• Dates are readily available similarly like they are for the people of Batn al-Hajar, Al-Mahas and Dongola and are eaten whenever they feel like having some.
Beverages
People here make alcohol out of their local crops which they drink when they are not working, especially at night. Different types of alcohol are made each season; nabit in winter, and dakkai in the summer. Both have been described in the beverages of Batn al-Hajar.
Young men sometimes make the alcohol aragi on the banks of the Nile taking advantage of the cool climate along the waterfront. The dates, which will have been fermenting for about three days, are put in a container with a draining tube and placed over a fire. When the mixture reaches boiling point, heat is reduced to bring it down. A special pipe is wrapped around container’s draining tube. Ice or cold water is passed through the pipe to control the density and flow of the liquid which is drained into waiting bottles. Young men get their aragi making equipment made at local ironmongers.
Cover picture: Grinding stone © Darfur museum, Niyala
Food and drink of the people of Batn al-Hajar
Food
People in this area eat wheat and corn but mostly the latter, grown along a narrow strip near the River Nile. Previously, British colonial authorities allowed local people to grow a tobacco called gamsha, which they sold to the north and south making it part of their economy. In addition dates, the people of Batn al-Hajar’s food includes the following:
• Kabid is a famous gorasa, type of Sudanese flatbread, made out of corn dough baked on a traditional hotplate stove. A kabid loaf is flipped constantaly until both sides are equally cooked and then a cross is marked onto its surface as a form of blessing. It is flavoured with idam, or sauce, made of ittir, the two types of cowpea plant leaves, or fish broth, or milk or ghee with sugar, or purslane or any other stew.
•Shiddi is the equivalent of Sudanese kisra (flatbread sheets) and is only made out of corn and eaten with whatever idam is available.
• Sallabiyya is made of wheat which is spread out very thinly on the traditional hotplate stove and is often eaten with milk or any other sauce.
• Turmus or lupin is washed and placed in a sack that is left in the Nile for three days to remove its bitter taste. It is an allround favourite and is considered good for the bones.
• Dates. Each family has its own palm tree grove. The female palm is pollinated by male ambi. Dates are stored in a gussi, a large clay barrel, of which the family may have more than one. It is sealed at the top to prevent any air entering with a hole at the bottom, covered with a cloth, through which the dates can be extracted. Dates stored this way do not get pest infestations.1
• Fish is caught by net or hook whenever required. Fish meat and idam sauce are very good because they are Nile fish.
• Fenti shorba is a date porridge usually made for pregnant women.
In terms of meat, the people of Batn al-Hajar have their distinctive Nubian sheep and Nubian camels.
People here use their camels to travel to the north and south to sell their gamsha tobacco. Everyone has their own camels, sheep and goats which they slaughter occasionaly. Nubian camels have a high tolerance threshold for hunger and thirst, and have good quality meat, and even though they are smaller than other camels, they are able to carry heavier laods and walk faster. When a camel is old, it is killed and its meat is shared out. Camel milk is left for it to feed its young while the people drink sheep and goat milk.
Food for people in this area includes Nile fish, crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles and they hunt rabbits using their own secret methods. The job of youngsters is to catch birds like doves and migrating birds that arrive in the winter.
• Turkin, known by most Sudanese as maloha (or cured fish), is when small fish are layered across the bottom of a large dish and covered with a layer of salt. This is repeated until the dish is filled with layers of fish and salt. The dish is then placed on a fire until the fish disintegrates including any breeding worms that may have been in the fisth, but this is okay. After it is boiled, the fish mixture is constantly stirred over about three days. When preparing an idam sauce, some of the fish is cooked with oil, onions and spices. It is a favourite food eaten with wheat gorasa.2
Beverages
• Dakkai is an alchohol they make and can be used as a marker of a woman’s status for example a young man may refuse to marry a young woman who is not good at making it. To make dakkai, dates are placed in a large clay pot and left to ferment. After about three days, the beverage reaches perfection and a man might ask his friends to come and share it and it is even better if this drinking session coincides with a feast when an animal has been slaughtered!
• Nebit is derived from carefully selected dates that are placed in a large clay pot which is cooked over a very hot fire and then buried in the ground for at least nine days. Nebit is made and consumed during the very cold desert winters and men drink it in the morning to be able to enter the water by the waterwheel as the drink gives off plenty of heat to warm up the body. A man may also invite his friends to come and merrily consume it with him.
Other fermented drinks include aragi (the most common Sudanese alchoholic drink). This is imported from eastern Dongola, where it is professionally made by women in the that region.
Food and drink of the people of Al-Sakkot
Foods
• Turkin, which we saw ealier, is a type of maloha eaten with wheat gorasa flatbreads.
• Koddad is what most Sudanese people know as mulah al-warag made from the leaves of safflower, watercress or the different types of cowpea leaves. One variety of these leaves are placed cooked for a long time over a coal fire with spices, onions and garlic, and it is eaten with kisra.
• Koshen kulub is made from safflower beans which are roasted, ground, sieved, and then cooked over a fire.
• Futti is millet. The grains are ground and used as idam stew, after being cooked over a fire.
• Corn gorasa with fermented milk.
• Belilah is made of wheat, corn, or cowpeas and is cooked with salt and eaten by hand.
• A mixture of seseme and wheat gorasa eaten with any stew.
• Gurub is made of dates with wheat or corn. Date kernels are removed and the dates are cut up into small pieces and added to a mixture of corn or wheat dough and spread on a hotplate to cook. It is eaten by itself.
• Boje is made when a pumpkin is peeled and its soft, sweetish pulp, the boje, is removed. It is then boiled over a fire and eaten with kisra, or gurasa flatbreads made of wheat or corn.
• Green Egyptian favabean balila which is boiled over a fire with salt and eaten by hand.
• Lupine flour gorasa is boiled with with salt and spices, and eaten with molokhia.
• Date syrup is made out of good quality dates such as the gondela and barakawi varieties. These are placed in a large container and boiled for a long period of time. Once cooled, the pulp is strained and boiled for a second time and then strained again to remove any residue from the first straining. It can be eaten with gorasa or any other flatbread.
• Madida is a porridge made of millet or dates and is given to sick people or pregnant women.
• Dates are readily available similarly like they are for the people of Batn al-Hajar, Al-Mahas and Dongola and are eaten whenever they feel like having some.
Beverages
People here make alcohol out of their local crops which they drink when they are not working, especially at night. Different types of alcohol are made each season; nabit in winter, and dakkai in the summer. Both have been described in the beverages of Batn al-Hajar.
Young men sometimes make the alcohol aragi on the banks of the Nile taking advantage of the cool climate along the waterfront. The dates, which will have been fermenting for about three days, are put in a container with a draining tube and placed over a fire. When the mixture reaches boiling point, heat is reduced to bring it down. A special pipe is wrapped around container’s draining tube. Ice or cold water is passed through the pipe to control the density and flow of the liquid which is drained into waiting bottles. Young men get their aragi making equipment made at local ironmongers.
Cover picture: Grinding stone © Darfur museum, Niyala
Food and drink of the Fur
Food and drink of the Fur
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
On the Wheat Trap
On the Wheat Trap
The documentary film, Wheat Trap, directed by Mohamed Fawi and produced by Al Araby TV, follows the lives of several farmers and their families in Al-Komor Al-Jaaliyin village, part of the Gezira agricultural scheme in central Sudan. The film was shot against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions compounded by fuel and bread shortages and political instability. Also depicted in the film are the anti-government protests culminating in the 2019 revolution that deposed Omar al-Bashir, sparked by a protest in Atbara over increasing bread prices.
Wheat Trap’s central theme is to question how and why the Sudanese have turned away from traditional foods such as kisra and asida made from sorghum and millet, to bread loaves made of wheat. References are often made to the importance of traditional foods in the past. It is peppered with anecdotes such as how young women in the past were only deemed eligible for marriage when they were able to make a large stack of good quality kisra and today, only the older women of the village continue the custom. ‘I wake up early in the morning, even if it is at 6 am to make kisra and I tell him if you don’t eat, I won’t let you go out’ says one woman about her husband as she sits near a the hot saj plate pouring a ladle of kisra batter over it.
Over lunch and a freshly made stack of kisra and steaming stew, the men discuss the reasons why they think people have increasingly turned away from the ‘simple’ life of the past in favour of wheat and bread. One farmer says free grants of wheat and other basic commodities by the US AID department in the late 1950s, sent ‘as a token of friendship’, meant the appetite for bread loaves made of wheat spread to rural areas. This social transformation of society’s preference towards wheat, is a tool of ‘modern colonisation’ the farmer affirms. The trap in the film’s title describes the habit of consumption that developed as a result of the free wheat and the loss of appetite for traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
Another farmer explains how changing lifestyles, with girls and women choosing to continue their education and have careers, means they no longer have the time to prepare and make kisra and asida for every meal. Instead, it is much easier to buy ready-made bread from bakeries while new products such as pizzas and pastries, made of wheat, are also very popular. Farmers themselves it is explained, turned to cash-crops with the example of the yield for two acres of onions being more lucrative than planting the unpopular sorghum.
Since the free imports of the past, commercial imports of wheat have been constantly rising particularly as Sudan’s climate is less suitable to wheat growing as it is for sorghum. Sudanese governments have therefore always found themselves in a position of trying to maintain affordable prices through ever-increasing subsidies. In the film, farmers on the Gezira project are gradually turning to growing wheat as a more lucrative product but Sudan still imports around sixty percent of its wheat needs.
Threads running through the film are concluded in the final scenes. While the wheat harvest has been generous and has allowed one farmer to finally marry his fiancé, protesters at the sit-in site at the army HQ during the revolution refuse to accept donations offered by foreign countries to support the encampment. A closing shot states that the first form of aid supplied by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the military council, which took over after Al-Bashir was deposed, consisted of wheat.
The gallery show's stills from the film Wheat Trap, all rights reserved for Mohamed Fawi
The documentary film, Wheat Trap, directed by Mohamed Fawi and produced by Al Araby TV, follows the lives of several farmers and their families in Al-Komor Al-Jaaliyin village, part of the Gezira agricultural scheme in central Sudan. The film was shot against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions compounded by fuel and bread shortages and political instability. Also depicted in the film are the anti-government protests culminating in the 2019 revolution that deposed Omar al-Bashir, sparked by a protest in Atbara over increasing bread prices.
Wheat Trap’s central theme is to question how and why the Sudanese have turned away from traditional foods such as kisra and asida made from sorghum and millet, to bread loaves made of wheat. References are often made to the importance of traditional foods in the past. It is peppered with anecdotes such as how young women in the past were only deemed eligible for marriage when they were able to make a large stack of good quality kisra and today, only the older women of the village continue the custom. ‘I wake up early in the morning, even if it is at 6 am to make kisra and I tell him if you don’t eat, I won’t let you go out’ says one woman about her husband as she sits near a the hot saj plate pouring a ladle of kisra batter over it.
Over lunch and a freshly made stack of kisra and steaming stew, the men discuss the reasons why they think people have increasingly turned away from the ‘simple’ life of the past in favour of wheat and bread. One farmer says free grants of wheat and other basic commodities by the US AID department in the late 1950s, sent ‘as a token of friendship’, meant the appetite for bread loaves made of wheat spread to rural areas. This social transformation of society’s preference towards wheat, is a tool of ‘modern colonisation’ the farmer affirms. The trap in the film’s title describes the habit of consumption that developed as a result of the free wheat and the loss of appetite for traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
Another farmer explains how changing lifestyles, with girls and women choosing to continue their education and have careers, means they no longer have the time to prepare and make kisra and asida for every meal. Instead, it is much easier to buy ready-made bread from bakeries while new products such as pizzas and pastries, made of wheat, are also very popular. Farmers themselves it is explained, turned to cash-crops with the example of the yield for two acres of onions being more lucrative than planting the unpopular sorghum.
Since the free imports of the past, commercial imports of wheat have been constantly rising particularly as Sudan’s climate is less suitable to wheat growing as it is for sorghum. Sudanese governments have therefore always found themselves in a position of trying to maintain affordable prices through ever-increasing subsidies. In the film, farmers on the Gezira project are gradually turning to growing wheat as a more lucrative product but Sudan still imports around sixty percent of its wheat needs.
Threads running through the film are concluded in the final scenes. While the wheat harvest has been generous and has allowed one farmer to finally marry his fiancé, protesters at the sit-in site at the army HQ during the revolution refuse to accept donations offered by foreign countries to support the encampment. A closing shot states that the first form of aid supplied by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the military council, which took over after Al-Bashir was deposed, consisted of wheat.
The gallery show's stills from the film Wheat Trap, all rights reserved for Mohamed Fawi
The documentary film, Wheat Trap, directed by Mohamed Fawi and produced by Al Araby TV, follows the lives of several farmers and their families in Al-Komor Al-Jaaliyin village, part of the Gezira agricultural scheme in central Sudan. The film was shot against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions compounded by fuel and bread shortages and political instability. Also depicted in the film are the anti-government protests culminating in the 2019 revolution that deposed Omar al-Bashir, sparked by a protest in Atbara over increasing bread prices.
Wheat Trap’s central theme is to question how and why the Sudanese have turned away from traditional foods such as kisra and asida made from sorghum and millet, to bread loaves made of wheat. References are often made to the importance of traditional foods in the past. It is peppered with anecdotes such as how young women in the past were only deemed eligible for marriage when they were able to make a large stack of good quality kisra and today, only the older women of the village continue the custom. ‘I wake up early in the morning, even if it is at 6 am to make kisra and I tell him if you don’t eat, I won’t let you go out’ says one woman about her husband as she sits near a the hot saj plate pouring a ladle of kisra batter over it.
Over lunch and a freshly made stack of kisra and steaming stew, the men discuss the reasons why they think people have increasingly turned away from the ‘simple’ life of the past in favour of wheat and bread. One farmer says free grants of wheat and other basic commodities by the US AID department in the late 1950s, sent ‘as a token of friendship’, meant the appetite for bread loaves made of wheat spread to rural areas. This social transformation of society’s preference towards wheat, is a tool of ‘modern colonisation’ the farmer affirms. The trap in the film’s title describes the habit of consumption that developed as a result of the free wheat and the loss of appetite for traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
Another farmer explains how changing lifestyles, with girls and women choosing to continue their education and have careers, means they no longer have the time to prepare and make kisra and asida for every meal. Instead, it is much easier to buy ready-made bread from bakeries while new products such as pizzas and pastries, made of wheat, are also very popular. Farmers themselves it is explained, turned to cash-crops with the example of the yield for two acres of onions being more lucrative than planting the unpopular sorghum.
Since the free imports of the past, commercial imports of wheat have been constantly rising particularly as Sudan’s climate is less suitable to wheat growing as it is for sorghum. Sudanese governments have therefore always found themselves in a position of trying to maintain affordable prices through ever-increasing subsidies. In the film, farmers on the Gezira project are gradually turning to growing wheat as a more lucrative product but Sudan still imports around sixty percent of its wheat needs.
Threads running through the film are concluded in the final scenes. While the wheat harvest has been generous and has allowed one farmer to finally marry his fiancé, protesters at the sit-in site at the army HQ during the revolution refuse to accept donations offered by foreign countries to support the encampment. A closing shot states that the first form of aid supplied by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the military council, which took over after Al-Bashir was deposed, consisted of wheat.
The gallery show's stills from the film Wheat Trap, all rights reserved for Mohamed Fawi
Food preservation method.
Food preservation method.
Sudan has various climates and different landscapes. However the largest areas of the country are with dry and semi dry regions, making preserving food especially seasonal crops a must that characterizes to a large degree the Sudanese food cooking style even in his book The Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African Food and Nutrition Hamid A. Dirar describes Sudan as the world’s capital of fermented food.
The most known forms of preservation are: fermenting, salting, and drying.
In Sudan fermentation is used to explain a variety of cooking techniques other than adding yeast or waiting for food to go sour, culturing is used for milk products to make cheese, and curing or pickling is preparing food with brine, that is, salty water.
Cover picture © Aya Sinada, Gezira
Design Zainab Gaafar
Sudan has various climates and different landscapes. However the largest areas of the country are with dry and semi dry regions, making preserving food especially seasonal crops a must that characterizes to a large degree the Sudanese food cooking style even in his book The Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African Food and Nutrition Hamid A. Dirar describes Sudan as the world’s capital of fermented food.
The most known forms of preservation are: fermenting, salting, and drying.
In Sudan fermentation is used to explain a variety of cooking techniques other than adding yeast or waiting for food to go sour, culturing is used for milk products to make cheese, and curing or pickling is preparing food with brine, that is, salty water.
Cover picture © Aya Sinada, Gezira
Design Zainab Gaafar
Sudan has various climates and different landscapes. However the largest areas of the country are with dry and semi dry regions, making preserving food especially seasonal crops a must that characterizes to a large degree the Sudanese food cooking style even in his book The Indigenous Fermented Foods of the Sudan: A Study in African Food and Nutrition Hamid A. Dirar describes Sudan as the world’s capital of fermented food.
The most known forms of preservation are: fermenting, salting, and drying.
In Sudan fermentation is used to explain a variety of cooking techniques other than adding yeast or waiting for food to go sour, culturing is used for milk products to make cheese, and curing or pickling is preparing food with brine, that is, salty water.
Cover picture © Aya Sinada, Gezira
Design Zainab Gaafar
El Obaid Crops Market
El Obaid Crops Market
The Crops Market or Stock Exchange in El-Obaid, is one of the city's main economic landmarks, and is the world's largest stock exchange for exporting gum arabic, from the Hashab tree. The market was established in 1907 after gum arabic became a sought-after commodity in various industries. In its beginnings, the market was an open area surrounded by a small fence. It is currently near the railway, but originally was located where it is now occupied by Kordofan Cinema, Bank of Khartoum, and some other markets.
As for Sudan, the Crops Market in Kordofan is one of the largest crop markets in the western region of the country where various agricultural, forestry, and horticultural crops, which are brought from different climatic regions, are sold.
This archival footage, produced in the 1960s, shows the journey of the hibiscus plant from the ground until it reaches the crop market and auction. This video was shown on the Golden Memory program, which was broadcast on Sudan TV.
Other than hibiscus and gum arabic, other agricultural crops sold in the market are peanuts, white and red sesame, watermelon seeds or tasali, millet, cowpeas, okra and fish. Forest products include tamarind, laloub (fruit of the soapberry tree), dom (fruit of the doum palm), nabag (lotus jujube), gongolez (baobab), and gudem (grewia tenax). Horticultural crops include fruits such as mangoes and guavas, and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows, which are grown in nearby areas such as Al-Banjdid and Al-Rahad around Al-Rahad Lake. Some canned foods such as oils, tomato puree, peanut butter and tahini are also sold in the market.
The Crops Market or Stock Exchange in El-Obaid, is one of the city's main economic landmarks, and is the world's largest stock exchange for exporting gum arabic, from the Hashab tree. The market was established in 1907 after gum arabic became a sought-after commodity in various industries. In its beginnings, the market was an open area surrounded by a small fence. It is currently near the railway, but originally was located where it is now occupied by Kordofan Cinema, Bank of Khartoum, and some other markets.
As for Sudan, the Crops Market in Kordofan is one of the largest crop markets in the western region of the country where various agricultural, forestry, and horticultural crops, which are brought from different climatic regions, are sold.
This archival footage, produced in the 1960s, shows the journey of the hibiscus plant from the ground until it reaches the crop market and auction. This video was shown on the Golden Memory program, which was broadcast on Sudan TV.
Other than hibiscus and gum arabic, other agricultural crops sold in the market are peanuts, white and red sesame, watermelon seeds or tasali, millet, cowpeas, okra and fish. Forest products include tamarind, laloub (fruit of the soapberry tree), dom (fruit of the doum palm), nabag (lotus jujube), gongolez (baobab), and gudem (grewia tenax). Horticultural crops include fruits such as mangoes and guavas, and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows, which are grown in nearby areas such as Al-Banjdid and Al-Rahad around Al-Rahad Lake. Some canned foods such as oils, tomato puree, peanut butter and tahini are also sold in the market.
The Crops Market or Stock Exchange in El-Obaid, is one of the city's main economic landmarks, and is the world's largest stock exchange for exporting gum arabic, from the Hashab tree. The market was established in 1907 after gum arabic became a sought-after commodity in various industries. In its beginnings, the market was an open area surrounded by a small fence. It is currently near the railway, but originally was located where it is now occupied by Kordofan Cinema, Bank of Khartoum, and some other markets.
As for Sudan, the Crops Market in Kordofan is one of the largest crop markets in the western region of the country where various agricultural, forestry, and horticultural crops, which are brought from different climatic regions, are sold.
This archival footage, produced in the 1960s, shows the journey of the hibiscus plant from the ground until it reaches the crop market and auction. This video was shown on the Golden Memory program, which was broadcast on Sudan TV.
Other than hibiscus and gum arabic, other agricultural crops sold in the market are peanuts, white and red sesame, watermelon seeds or tasali, millet, cowpeas, okra and fish. Forest products include tamarind, laloub (fruit of the soapberry tree), dom (fruit of the doum palm), nabag (lotus jujube), gongolez (baobab), and gudem (grewia tenax). Horticultural crops include fruits such as mangoes and guavas, and a variety of vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers and marrows, which are grown in nearby areas such as Al-Banjdid and Al-Rahad around Al-Rahad Lake. Some canned foods such as oils, tomato puree, peanut butter and tahini are also sold in the market.
Super food
Super food
The relationship between superfoods and medicinal plants is characterized by their shared focus on health and well-being. While superfoods are primarily recognized for their nutritional benefits, as part of a daily diet, medicinal plants are valued for their specific therapeutic effects. However, the distinction is often less defined, as many plants and foods serve both nutritional and medicinal purposes, contributing to overall health and the prevention and treatment of diseases.
The concept of superfood is new and the term itself is more of a marketing ploy than a scientific classification. No single food can provide all the nutrients needed for good health, and a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, is essential. However, it is interesting to note that when we look at some of the main staples of Sudanese food, we can see how they are being recognised in the West as ‘superfoods’ or foods which are believed to boost the immune system. Examples are hibiscus tea which is known for its potential to lower blood pressure, sorghum a staple food all over sudan which is believed to be beneficial for digestion, okra which is said to help control blood sugar levels, fenugreek which is added to dairy products and is believed to aid in digestion and dates, which provide energy, and are known to be good for the heart. Moreover, a good portion of the Sudanese diet is made up of fermented ingredients, a type of food that is currently being promoted as essential for healthy gut biomes because of the wealth of probiotics they contain.
Most of these foods are also used in Sudan for medicinal purposes and one in particular, a type of plant, garad, or Acacia Nilotica is very popular. During the Covid pandemic there was much debate over the efficacy of inhaling the smoke of burning garad as a preventive treatment against the disease, a method many people swore by but which was widely discouraged by health professionals who pointed to the harm to vulnerable individuals caused by inhaling smoke. Nevertheless, belief in the medicinal qualities of garad have ancient precedents; it is mentioned in ancient Greek scripts on medicine and has also been used for centuries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The plant has been used for its purported wealth in nutrients and for containing therapeutic values which are capable of prevention, mitigation, and treatment of various infectious diseases and deleterious conditions.Regionally, the plant was used by traditional healers in Sudan and the Nile Valley as well as in Ancient Egypt to treat wounds and as an antiseptic, it was also used as an anti-inflammatory and for pain relief.
To this day, the Acacia Nilotica is used extensively in Sudan including the tree’s leaves and bark because of its versatility for use in various ways and because of its therapeutic benefits. Its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, and antidiabetic properties make it a valuable component of traditional medicine for treating various ailments particularly infections, gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. However, while these traditional uses are supported by some scientific research, more studies are needed to fully validate and understand the efficacy and safety of the Acacia Nilotica in modern medicine.
Cover picture © Sari Omer، Wad Hajjam, south of South Darfur
The relationship between superfoods and medicinal plants is characterized by their shared focus on health and well-being. While superfoods are primarily recognized for their nutritional benefits, as part of a daily diet, medicinal plants are valued for their specific therapeutic effects. However, the distinction is often less defined, as many plants and foods serve both nutritional and medicinal purposes, contributing to overall health and the prevention and treatment of diseases.
The concept of superfood is new and the term itself is more of a marketing ploy than a scientific classification. No single food can provide all the nutrients needed for good health, and a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, is essential. However, it is interesting to note that when we look at some of the main staples of Sudanese food, we can see how they are being recognised in the West as ‘superfoods’ or foods which are believed to boost the immune system. Examples are hibiscus tea which is known for its potential to lower blood pressure, sorghum a staple food all over sudan which is believed to be beneficial for digestion, okra which is said to help control blood sugar levels, fenugreek which is added to dairy products and is believed to aid in digestion and dates, which provide energy, and are known to be good for the heart. Moreover, a good portion of the Sudanese diet is made up of fermented ingredients, a type of food that is currently being promoted as essential for healthy gut biomes because of the wealth of probiotics they contain.
Most of these foods are also used in Sudan for medicinal purposes and one in particular, a type of plant, garad, or Acacia Nilotica is very popular. During the Covid pandemic there was much debate over the efficacy of inhaling the smoke of burning garad as a preventive treatment against the disease, a method many people swore by but which was widely discouraged by health professionals who pointed to the harm to vulnerable individuals caused by inhaling smoke. Nevertheless, belief in the medicinal qualities of garad have ancient precedents; it is mentioned in ancient Greek scripts on medicine and has also been used for centuries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The plant has been used for its purported wealth in nutrients and for containing therapeutic values which are capable of prevention, mitigation, and treatment of various infectious diseases and deleterious conditions.Regionally, the plant was used by traditional healers in Sudan and the Nile Valley as well as in Ancient Egypt to treat wounds and as an antiseptic, it was also used as an anti-inflammatory and for pain relief.
To this day, the Acacia Nilotica is used extensively in Sudan including the tree’s leaves and bark because of its versatility for use in various ways and because of its therapeutic benefits. Its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, and antidiabetic properties make it a valuable component of traditional medicine for treating various ailments particularly infections, gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. However, while these traditional uses are supported by some scientific research, more studies are needed to fully validate and understand the efficacy and safety of the Acacia Nilotica in modern medicine.
Cover picture © Sari Omer، Wad Hajjam, south of South Darfur
The relationship between superfoods and medicinal plants is characterized by their shared focus on health and well-being. While superfoods are primarily recognized for their nutritional benefits, as part of a daily diet, medicinal plants are valued for their specific therapeutic effects. However, the distinction is often less defined, as many plants and foods serve both nutritional and medicinal purposes, contributing to overall health and the prevention and treatment of diseases.
The concept of superfood is new and the term itself is more of a marketing ploy than a scientific classification. No single food can provide all the nutrients needed for good health, and a balanced diet that includes a variety of foods, is essential. However, it is interesting to note that when we look at some of the main staples of Sudanese food, we can see how they are being recognised in the West as ‘superfoods’ or foods which are believed to boost the immune system. Examples are hibiscus tea which is known for its potential to lower blood pressure, sorghum a staple food all over sudan which is believed to be beneficial for digestion, okra which is said to help control blood sugar levels, fenugreek which is added to dairy products and is believed to aid in digestion and dates, which provide energy, and are known to be good for the heart. Moreover, a good portion of the Sudanese diet is made up of fermented ingredients, a type of food that is currently being promoted as essential for healthy gut biomes because of the wealth of probiotics they contain.
Most of these foods are also used in Sudan for medicinal purposes and one in particular, a type of plant, garad, or Acacia Nilotica is very popular. During the Covid pandemic there was much debate over the efficacy of inhaling the smoke of burning garad as a preventive treatment against the disease, a method many people swore by but which was widely discouraged by health professionals who pointed to the harm to vulnerable individuals caused by inhaling smoke. Nevertheless, belief in the medicinal qualities of garad have ancient precedents; it is mentioned in ancient Greek scripts on medicine and has also been used for centuries in Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. The plant has been used for its purported wealth in nutrients and for containing therapeutic values which are capable of prevention, mitigation, and treatment of various infectious diseases and deleterious conditions.Regionally, the plant was used by traditional healers in Sudan and the Nile Valley as well as in Ancient Egypt to treat wounds and as an antiseptic, it was also used as an anti-inflammatory and for pain relief.
To this day, the Acacia Nilotica is used extensively in Sudan including the tree’s leaves and bark because of its versatility for use in various ways and because of its therapeutic benefits. Its antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, astringent, and antidiabetic properties make it a valuable component of traditional medicine for treating various ailments particularly infections, gastrointestinal problems and inflammatory conditions. However, while these traditional uses are supported by some scientific research, more studies are needed to fully validate and understand the efficacy and safety of the Acacia Nilotica in modern medicine.
Cover picture © Sari Omer، Wad Hajjam, south of South Darfur
About El-Hakim
About El-Hakim
Presentation of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's book: El-Hakim (The Doctor), for doctors with a deeper understanding of their profession, their community’s cultures, and greater awareness of their environment and the conditions of their people. By: Professor Fadwa Abd-El Rahman Ali Taha
The book "El-Hakim" was published in 2013 by Sudan Currency Printing Company Limited, in 594 pages. The book, which took more than four decades to complete, takes you on an exciting historical journey as the author exhibits patience and diligence in his writing; the qualities essential for serious academic researchers. The book is introduced by Professor Abd-Allah Ali Ibrahim with a preface titled “Illness as Treatment and Culture.”
The book includes a preface, an introduction, and nine chapters:
- The Health of Sudan through the Centuries
- The convention Between the Doctor, the Patient, and the Community
- Concepts of Health and Illness
- Causes of Illness and Injury
- Means of Diagnosing Illness and Injury
- Healers, Treatment, Methods, and Prevention
- Remedies and Traditional (Folk) Practices
- The Harvest of Years
- Harmful Medical Actions and Responsible Medicine
The book summary includes a description of its contents and appendices listing the names of Sudanese months/calendar, Sudanese medical informal terms (colloquialisms) and their English equivalents, a glossary of important plants used in traditional medicine, modern drugs with plant origins, foreign doctors who served in Sudan, and the most important health laws in Sudan.
The author begins the book with an engaging discussion about himself, including experiences with customs, traditions, and traditional medicine during his childhood and youth. In the introduction, he discusses types and models of medicine, including biomedical, holistic, and traditional medicine. This first chapter is dedicated to the health of Sudan through the centuries, highlighting what was found in the writings of early travelers, geographers, and explorers, as well as in biographies and writings of some religious leaders, historians, doctors, and members of the Turkish, Egyptian, and English colonial armies, and anthropologists, along with local traditional medicine texts and manuscripts. He presents examples from the writings of travelers and scholars regarding medicine and health, such as John Lewis Burckhard, who described the health and diseases of Sudan, and George Hoskins, the English archaeologist who visited Sudan in 1833.
The author includes extracts from historical books, such as Naoum Shogair's "Geography and History of Sudan," which the author describes as an indispensable source for researchers in the field of Sudanese health in the 19th century..
Chapter two is dedicated to the understanding between the doctor, the patient, and the community, where the author discusses the ethics of the profession, stating that medical ethics is a practical science and a branch of moral philosophy, a branch of medical science, and an essential part of good medical practice. The medical profession is the only profession that has had, since the dawn of history and the beginning of human civilization, a code of ethics for practice which practitioners are committed to before they are allowed to approach patients. This is known as the Hippocratic Oath and emphasizes the necessity of the physician's humanity and the avoidance of the desire for fame.
Chapter three discusses concepts of health and illness, addressing medicine in the minds of the public through language and the concept of illness through popular thought, ritual, and symbols that the physician must be familiar with, as well as how rituals occupy an important space in the constitution of any society.
Chapter four outlines the causes of illness and injury and their connection to environmental factors and people's habits. It discusses the significance of solar eclipses among people, as well as supernatural forces, jinn, demons, zar, its origins, magic, and the evil eye.
Chapter five is dedicated to methods of diagnosing illness and injury, clarifying the difference between modern medical diagnoses which rely on evidence- based methods, and that of the general public who often depend on invoking supernatural forces for assistance in diagnosis. The author included examples of the reading of coffee cups, sand lines, dreams revelations(Ruaya), prayer for guidance, dream interpretation, and astrology.
Chapter Six: Healers, Treatment Methods, and Prevention, emphasizes the list of healers involved with people's health as extensive, highlighting that each ethnic group in Sudan has its own doctor or wise person. Sudanese people have recognized a large number of skilled traditional healers whose help they have sought, such as the fogara, the fakis, the sheikhs (religious leaders), and (the saints). This chapter includes examples of various forms of treatment, such as ruqyah (religious spiritual healing), incense, and herbal remedies. The author also underlined the role of the housewife as a health and social assistant who efficiently manages most family affairs as well as the further roles women played within the family.
Chapter Seven: Traditional Treatments and Practices discusses folk surgery and its risks. This includes exampled of female circumcision in its various forms, cupping, tattooing, bloodletting, and traditional prosthetics. The chapter also references Ali Wad Giyama, a traditional human and veterinary doctor and a fortune teller who practiced wound treatment, anesthesia, pregnancy and delivery. Chapter seven also includes traditional medicine, and folk pharmacy that comprised of various recipes used by people to treat illnesses. It also addresses food and misconceptions that impacted people's health, especially children.
In chapter eight, titled “Harvest of Years,” the author discusses the journey of Sudanese people in caring for their health during the second half of the twentieth century, pointing to Sudan’s failure since independence to implement a comprehensive and sustainable development plan that meets human needs to improve the people’s health.
This chapter shows that despite the increase in doctors and medical staff, the number of medical practitioners has not been very beneficial because of high rates of their emigration abroad, and those who remained in the country preferred the private sector. The chapter criticizes the government's spending policy on health, which places health at the bottom of its priorities, which the author contends, arguing the necessity of raising it to the top of the priorities because humans are the real asset.
Chapter eight also discusses the scarcity of medical literature that researchers can refer to regarding the history of medicine and the heritage of Sudan, noting that Sudanese scholars, and doctors in particular, are reluctant to document and record their work and the history of medicine in Sudan which results in a lack of historical, social medical studies. He also notes that teaching in most medical colleges remains disconnected from the practice of medicine in the long history of Sudan and its medical heritage. One reason for this weakness is the scarcity of documented material that assists both teachers and students. The author warns of the prevailing lack of documentation in Sudan and the neglect of documentation resources, taking as example the deterioration of the National Health Laboratory library and the scattering of its books and journals which began to be collected in 1902, as well as the demolition of the photographic museum in 1963-1964, which was opened in 1944. The author emphasizes the necessity of preserving professional records and documenting its heritage.
Chapter nine discusses harmful medical actions in comparison to wise medical practice. The author explains the types of harmful medical actions; what constitutes a harmful medical action, and the likelihood of such actions occurring. Harmful medical actions are seen as the causes of signs and symptoms of the health system's deterioration, indicating defects and gaps in the entire health system. The author suggests that reforming the health system requires an integrated and interconnected effort, qualified leadership at all levels, and advanced awareness of culture. As the author states, Sudan will not be able to diminish the occurrence of harmful medical actions without adopting and following the approach of wise medical practice.
The book emphasizes the connection between the humanities and applied sciences, making it relevant for all medical service providers and students of the humanities, particularly sociology and folklore. It refers to what the scholar Tijani Al-Mahi highlighted regarding the importance of studying the history of medicine, affirming that the humanities play a significant role in understanding health and disease. The knowledge provided by the humanities connects the doctor to the patient and links medical practice to Sudan's social history spanning centuries, forefronting its medical and health heritage. It also connects biological medicine and its sciences to their historical roots and streams. The author does not want medical education in colleges to remain disconnected from the historical context of Sudan or its medical and health heritage, nor from the historical and social roots of its sciences.
The author’s contribution is not limited to this book, he initiated and participated in studies on traditional medicine. In 1982, the Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine at the National Research Council was established through his initiative, aiming to study medical heritage with a scientifically oriented methodology. In recognition and appreciation of this effort, the World Health Organization designated it as a collaborating center in 1984 under the name WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Traditional Medicine. In 2004, he also founded the
Sudanese Foundation for Medical Heritage as a civil organization concerned
with research on medical systems, the history of medicine, preserving health heritage, and monitoring the development of medical services in Sudan. His interest stems from a fact he highlighted in his book: that traditional medicine is widely prevalent in developing countries, including Sudan, due to the high costs of treatment in hospitals and that there is a need to organize the work of traditional practitioners. Ahmed's concern and interest continued as he proposed a documentation project in 2005 called "The Health Trio in Sudan," which includes three parts: the history of medicine and the biographies of pioneers in Sudan, an encyclopedia of Sudanese doctors, and a bibliography of Sudanese medical studies in the twentieth century.
What stands out in this book is the wealth of material upon which it is based. Over the past four decades during which the book was written, Ahmed visited most of the traditional healing centers in Sudan and reviewed all available literature, whether auditory, written, or visual. A total of 35 pages have been dedicated to the sources and references used in the book. The author has precisely documented every piece of information included.
The title of the book, "The Wise Man," was chosen with great care. The term, which the author suggests likely originated from the Egyptians during the era of Turko-Egyptian rule, holds a particular significance. The term was not only applied to graduated physicians, but also to most who engage in healing. This name evokes childhood memories for me, reminding me of "Hassan the Wise," as the medical assistant Hassan was known, who came to treat people from the far north in Nawa to Arbaij in El-Jazeera region. I recall childhood songs: “I am a wise man healing people from fever and headaches”. The book resonates deeply with concepts of health, emphasizing that “whoever swears by health lacks nothing,” and due to its importance, people have tried everything possible for healing, which is explained upon in the book.
The book “El-Hakim” which the author humbly describes as an introduction to the social history of medicine and health in Sudan is encyclopedic and comprehensive in its approach. It represents the culmination of immense and elaborated effort. Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed El-Safi on this immense achievement that has enriched the Sudanese library with a much needed academic reference.
Cover picture: Cover of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's digital books © Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi, books can be purchased on Amazon
Presentation of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's book: El-Hakim (The Doctor), for doctors with a deeper understanding of their profession, their community’s cultures, and greater awareness of their environment and the conditions of their people. By: Professor Fadwa Abd-El Rahman Ali Taha
The book "El-Hakim" was published in 2013 by Sudan Currency Printing Company Limited, in 594 pages. The book, which took more than four decades to complete, takes you on an exciting historical journey as the author exhibits patience and diligence in his writing; the qualities essential for serious academic researchers. The book is introduced by Professor Abd-Allah Ali Ibrahim with a preface titled “Illness as Treatment and Culture.”
The book includes a preface, an introduction, and nine chapters:
- The Health of Sudan through the Centuries
- The convention Between the Doctor, the Patient, and the Community
- Concepts of Health and Illness
- Causes of Illness and Injury
- Means of Diagnosing Illness and Injury
- Healers, Treatment, Methods, and Prevention
- Remedies and Traditional (Folk) Practices
- The Harvest of Years
- Harmful Medical Actions and Responsible Medicine
The book summary includes a description of its contents and appendices listing the names of Sudanese months/calendar, Sudanese medical informal terms (colloquialisms) and their English equivalents, a glossary of important plants used in traditional medicine, modern drugs with plant origins, foreign doctors who served in Sudan, and the most important health laws in Sudan.
The author begins the book with an engaging discussion about himself, including experiences with customs, traditions, and traditional medicine during his childhood and youth. In the introduction, he discusses types and models of medicine, including biomedical, holistic, and traditional medicine. This first chapter is dedicated to the health of Sudan through the centuries, highlighting what was found in the writings of early travelers, geographers, and explorers, as well as in biographies and writings of some religious leaders, historians, doctors, and members of the Turkish, Egyptian, and English colonial armies, and anthropologists, along with local traditional medicine texts and manuscripts. He presents examples from the writings of travelers and scholars regarding medicine and health, such as John Lewis Burckhard, who described the health and diseases of Sudan, and George Hoskins, the English archaeologist who visited Sudan in 1833.
The author includes extracts from historical books, such as Naoum Shogair's "Geography and History of Sudan," which the author describes as an indispensable source for researchers in the field of Sudanese health in the 19th century..
Chapter two is dedicated to the understanding between the doctor, the patient, and the community, where the author discusses the ethics of the profession, stating that medical ethics is a practical science and a branch of moral philosophy, a branch of medical science, and an essential part of good medical practice. The medical profession is the only profession that has had, since the dawn of history and the beginning of human civilization, a code of ethics for practice which practitioners are committed to before they are allowed to approach patients. This is known as the Hippocratic Oath and emphasizes the necessity of the physician's humanity and the avoidance of the desire for fame.
Chapter three discusses concepts of health and illness, addressing medicine in the minds of the public through language and the concept of illness through popular thought, ritual, and symbols that the physician must be familiar with, as well as how rituals occupy an important space in the constitution of any society.
Chapter four outlines the causes of illness and injury and their connection to environmental factors and people's habits. It discusses the significance of solar eclipses among people, as well as supernatural forces, jinn, demons, zar, its origins, magic, and the evil eye.
Chapter five is dedicated to methods of diagnosing illness and injury, clarifying the difference between modern medical diagnoses which rely on evidence- based methods, and that of the general public who often depend on invoking supernatural forces for assistance in diagnosis. The author included examples of the reading of coffee cups, sand lines, dreams revelations(Ruaya), prayer for guidance, dream interpretation, and astrology.
Chapter Six: Healers, Treatment Methods, and Prevention, emphasizes the list of healers involved with people's health as extensive, highlighting that each ethnic group in Sudan has its own doctor or wise person. Sudanese people have recognized a large number of skilled traditional healers whose help they have sought, such as the fogara, the fakis, the sheikhs (religious leaders), and (the saints). This chapter includes examples of various forms of treatment, such as ruqyah (religious spiritual healing), incense, and herbal remedies. The author also underlined the role of the housewife as a health and social assistant who efficiently manages most family affairs as well as the further roles women played within the family.
Chapter Seven: Traditional Treatments and Practices discusses folk surgery and its risks. This includes exampled of female circumcision in its various forms, cupping, tattooing, bloodletting, and traditional prosthetics. The chapter also references Ali Wad Giyama, a traditional human and veterinary doctor and a fortune teller who practiced wound treatment, anesthesia, pregnancy and delivery. Chapter seven also includes traditional medicine, and folk pharmacy that comprised of various recipes used by people to treat illnesses. It also addresses food and misconceptions that impacted people's health, especially children.
In chapter eight, titled “Harvest of Years,” the author discusses the journey of Sudanese people in caring for their health during the second half of the twentieth century, pointing to Sudan’s failure since independence to implement a comprehensive and sustainable development plan that meets human needs to improve the people’s health.
This chapter shows that despite the increase in doctors and medical staff, the number of medical practitioners has not been very beneficial because of high rates of their emigration abroad, and those who remained in the country preferred the private sector. The chapter criticizes the government's spending policy on health, which places health at the bottom of its priorities, which the author contends, arguing the necessity of raising it to the top of the priorities because humans are the real asset.
Chapter eight also discusses the scarcity of medical literature that researchers can refer to regarding the history of medicine and the heritage of Sudan, noting that Sudanese scholars, and doctors in particular, are reluctant to document and record their work and the history of medicine in Sudan which results in a lack of historical, social medical studies. He also notes that teaching in most medical colleges remains disconnected from the practice of medicine in the long history of Sudan and its medical heritage. One reason for this weakness is the scarcity of documented material that assists both teachers and students. The author warns of the prevailing lack of documentation in Sudan and the neglect of documentation resources, taking as example the deterioration of the National Health Laboratory library and the scattering of its books and journals which began to be collected in 1902, as well as the demolition of the photographic museum in 1963-1964, which was opened in 1944. The author emphasizes the necessity of preserving professional records and documenting its heritage.
Chapter nine discusses harmful medical actions in comparison to wise medical practice. The author explains the types of harmful medical actions; what constitutes a harmful medical action, and the likelihood of such actions occurring. Harmful medical actions are seen as the causes of signs and symptoms of the health system's deterioration, indicating defects and gaps in the entire health system. The author suggests that reforming the health system requires an integrated and interconnected effort, qualified leadership at all levels, and advanced awareness of culture. As the author states, Sudan will not be able to diminish the occurrence of harmful medical actions without adopting and following the approach of wise medical practice.
The book emphasizes the connection between the humanities and applied sciences, making it relevant for all medical service providers and students of the humanities, particularly sociology and folklore. It refers to what the scholar Tijani Al-Mahi highlighted regarding the importance of studying the history of medicine, affirming that the humanities play a significant role in understanding health and disease. The knowledge provided by the humanities connects the doctor to the patient and links medical practice to Sudan's social history spanning centuries, forefronting its medical and health heritage. It also connects biological medicine and its sciences to their historical roots and streams. The author does not want medical education in colleges to remain disconnected from the historical context of Sudan or its medical and health heritage, nor from the historical and social roots of its sciences.
The author’s contribution is not limited to this book, he initiated and participated in studies on traditional medicine. In 1982, the Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine at the National Research Council was established through his initiative, aiming to study medical heritage with a scientifically oriented methodology. In recognition and appreciation of this effort, the World Health Organization designated it as a collaborating center in 1984 under the name WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Traditional Medicine. In 2004, he also founded the
Sudanese Foundation for Medical Heritage as a civil organization concerned
with research on medical systems, the history of medicine, preserving health heritage, and monitoring the development of medical services in Sudan. His interest stems from a fact he highlighted in his book: that traditional medicine is widely prevalent in developing countries, including Sudan, due to the high costs of treatment in hospitals and that there is a need to organize the work of traditional practitioners. Ahmed's concern and interest continued as he proposed a documentation project in 2005 called "The Health Trio in Sudan," which includes three parts: the history of medicine and the biographies of pioneers in Sudan, an encyclopedia of Sudanese doctors, and a bibliography of Sudanese medical studies in the twentieth century.
What stands out in this book is the wealth of material upon which it is based. Over the past four decades during which the book was written, Ahmed visited most of the traditional healing centers in Sudan and reviewed all available literature, whether auditory, written, or visual. A total of 35 pages have been dedicated to the sources and references used in the book. The author has precisely documented every piece of information included.
The title of the book, "The Wise Man," was chosen with great care. The term, which the author suggests likely originated from the Egyptians during the era of Turko-Egyptian rule, holds a particular significance. The term was not only applied to graduated physicians, but also to most who engage in healing. This name evokes childhood memories for me, reminding me of "Hassan the Wise," as the medical assistant Hassan was known, who came to treat people from the far north in Nawa to Arbaij in El-Jazeera region. I recall childhood songs: “I am a wise man healing people from fever and headaches”. The book resonates deeply with concepts of health, emphasizing that “whoever swears by health lacks nothing,” and due to its importance, people have tried everything possible for healing, which is explained upon in the book.
The book “El-Hakim” which the author humbly describes as an introduction to the social history of medicine and health in Sudan is encyclopedic and comprehensive in its approach. It represents the culmination of immense and elaborated effort. Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed El-Safi on this immense achievement that has enriched the Sudanese library with a much needed academic reference.
Cover picture: Cover of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's digital books © Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi, books can be purchased on Amazon
Presentation of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's book: El-Hakim (The Doctor), for doctors with a deeper understanding of their profession, their community’s cultures, and greater awareness of their environment and the conditions of their people. By: Professor Fadwa Abd-El Rahman Ali Taha
The book "El-Hakim" was published in 2013 by Sudan Currency Printing Company Limited, in 594 pages. The book, which took more than four decades to complete, takes you on an exciting historical journey as the author exhibits patience and diligence in his writing; the qualities essential for serious academic researchers. The book is introduced by Professor Abd-Allah Ali Ibrahim with a preface titled “Illness as Treatment and Culture.”
The book includes a preface, an introduction, and nine chapters:
- The Health of Sudan through the Centuries
- The convention Between the Doctor, the Patient, and the Community
- Concepts of Health and Illness
- Causes of Illness and Injury
- Means of Diagnosing Illness and Injury
- Healers, Treatment, Methods, and Prevention
- Remedies and Traditional (Folk) Practices
- The Harvest of Years
- Harmful Medical Actions and Responsible Medicine
The book summary includes a description of its contents and appendices listing the names of Sudanese months/calendar, Sudanese medical informal terms (colloquialisms) and their English equivalents, a glossary of important plants used in traditional medicine, modern drugs with plant origins, foreign doctors who served in Sudan, and the most important health laws in Sudan.
The author begins the book with an engaging discussion about himself, including experiences with customs, traditions, and traditional medicine during his childhood and youth. In the introduction, he discusses types and models of medicine, including biomedical, holistic, and traditional medicine. This first chapter is dedicated to the health of Sudan through the centuries, highlighting what was found in the writings of early travelers, geographers, and explorers, as well as in biographies and writings of some religious leaders, historians, doctors, and members of the Turkish, Egyptian, and English colonial armies, and anthropologists, along with local traditional medicine texts and manuscripts. He presents examples from the writings of travelers and scholars regarding medicine and health, such as John Lewis Burckhard, who described the health and diseases of Sudan, and George Hoskins, the English archaeologist who visited Sudan in 1833.
The author includes extracts from historical books, such as Naoum Shogair's "Geography and History of Sudan," which the author describes as an indispensable source for researchers in the field of Sudanese health in the 19th century..
Chapter two is dedicated to the understanding between the doctor, the patient, and the community, where the author discusses the ethics of the profession, stating that medical ethics is a practical science and a branch of moral philosophy, a branch of medical science, and an essential part of good medical practice. The medical profession is the only profession that has had, since the dawn of history and the beginning of human civilization, a code of ethics for practice which practitioners are committed to before they are allowed to approach patients. This is known as the Hippocratic Oath and emphasizes the necessity of the physician's humanity and the avoidance of the desire for fame.
Chapter three discusses concepts of health and illness, addressing medicine in the minds of the public through language and the concept of illness through popular thought, ritual, and symbols that the physician must be familiar with, as well as how rituals occupy an important space in the constitution of any society.
Chapter four outlines the causes of illness and injury and their connection to environmental factors and people's habits. It discusses the significance of solar eclipses among people, as well as supernatural forces, jinn, demons, zar, its origins, magic, and the evil eye.
Chapter five is dedicated to methods of diagnosing illness and injury, clarifying the difference between modern medical diagnoses which rely on evidence- based methods, and that of the general public who often depend on invoking supernatural forces for assistance in diagnosis. The author included examples of the reading of coffee cups, sand lines, dreams revelations(Ruaya), prayer for guidance, dream interpretation, and astrology.
Chapter Six: Healers, Treatment Methods, and Prevention, emphasizes the list of healers involved with people's health as extensive, highlighting that each ethnic group in Sudan has its own doctor or wise person. Sudanese people have recognized a large number of skilled traditional healers whose help they have sought, such as the fogara, the fakis, the sheikhs (religious leaders), and (the saints). This chapter includes examples of various forms of treatment, such as ruqyah (religious spiritual healing), incense, and herbal remedies. The author also underlined the role of the housewife as a health and social assistant who efficiently manages most family affairs as well as the further roles women played within the family.
Chapter Seven: Traditional Treatments and Practices discusses folk surgery and its risks. This includes exampled of female circumcision in its various forms, cupping, tattooing, bloodletting, and traditional prosthetics. The chapter also references Ali Wad Giyama, a traditional human and veterinary doctor and a fortune teller who practiced wound treatment, anesthesia, pregnancy and delivery. Chapter seven also includes traditional medicine, and folk pharmacy that comprised of various recipes used by people to treat illnesses. It also addresses food and misconceptions that impacted people's health, especially children.
In chapter eight, titled “Harvest of Years,” the author discusses the journey of Sudanese people in caring for their health during the second half of the twentieth century, pointing to Sudan’s failure since independence to implement a comprehensive and sustainable development plan that meets human needs to improve the people’s health.
This chapter shows that despite the increase in doctors and medical staff, the number of medical practitioners has not been very beneficial because of high rates of their emigration abroad, and those who remained in the country preferred the private sector. The chapter criticizes the government's spending policy on health, which places health at the bottom of its priorities, which the author contends, arguing the necessity of raising it to the top of the priorities because humans are the real asset.
Chapter eight also discusses the scarcity of medical literature that researchers can refer to regarding the history of medicine and the heritage of Sudan, noting that Sudanese scholars, and doctors in particular, are reluctant to document and record their work and the history of medicine in Sudan which results in a lack of historical, social medical studies. He also notes that teaching in most medical colleges remains disconnected from the practice of medicine in the long history of Sudan and its medical heritage. One reason for this weakness is the scarcity of documented material that assists both teachers and students. The author warns of the prevailing lack of documentation in Sudan and the neglect of documentation resources, taking as example the deterioration of the National Health Laboratory library and the scattering of its books and journals which began to be collected in 1902, as well as the demolition of the photographic museum in 1963-1964, which was opened in 1944. The author emphasizes the necessity of preserving professional records and documenting its heritage.
Chapter nine discusses harmful medical actions in comparison to wise medical practice. The author explains the types of harmful medical actions; what constitutes a harmful medical action, and the likelihood of such actions occurring. Harmful medical actions are seen as the causes of signs and symptoms of the health system's deterioration, indicating defects and gaps in the entire health system. The author suggests that reforming the health system requires an integrated and interconnected effort, qualified leadership at all levels, and advanced awareness of culture. As the author states, Sudan will not be able to diminish the occurrence of harmful medical actions without adopting and following the approach of wise medical practice.
The book emphasizes the connection between the humanities and applied sciences, making it relevant for all medical service providers and students of the humanities, particularly sociology and folklore. It refers to what the scholar Tijani Al-Mahi highlighted regarding the importance of studying the history of medicine, affirming that the humanities play a significant role in understanding health and disease. The knowledge provided by the humanities connects the doctor to the patient and links medical practice to Sudan's social history spanning centuries, forefronting its medical and health heritage. It also connects biological medicine and its sciences to their historical roots and streams. The author does not want medical education in colleges to remain disconnected from the historical context of Sudan or its medical and health heritage, nor from the historical and social roots of its sciences.
The author’s contribution is not limited to this book, he initiated and participated in studies on traditional medicine. In 1982, the Institute for Research in Traditional Medicine at the National Research Council was established through his initiative, aiming to study medical heritage with a scientifically oriented methodology. In recognition and appreciation of this effort, the World Health Organization designated it as a collaborating center in 1984 under the name WHO Collaborating Center for Research in Traditional Medicine. In 2004, he also founded the
Sudanese Foundation for Medical Heritage as a civil organization concerned
with research on medical systems, the history of medicine, preserving health heritage, and monitoring the development of medical services in Sudan. His interest stems from a fact he highlighted in his book: that traditional medicine is widely prevalent in developing countries, including Sudan, due to the high costs of treatment in hospitals and that there is a need to organize the work of traditional practitioners. Ahmed's concern and interest continued as he proposed a documentation project in 2005 called "The Health Trio in Sudan," which includes three parts: the history of medicine and the biographies of pioneers in Sudan, an encyclopedia of Sudanese doctors, and a bibliography of Sudanese medical studies in the twentieth century.
What stands out in this book is the wealth of material upon which it is based. Over the past four decades during which the book was written, Ahmed visited most of the traditional healing centers in Sudan and reviewed all available literature, whether auditory, written, or visual. A total of 35 pages have been dedicated to the sources and references used in the book. The author has precisely documented every piece of information included.
The title of the book, "The Wise Man," was chosen with great care. The term, which the author suggests likely originated from the Egyptians during the era of Turko-Egyptian rule, holds a particular significance. The term was not only applied to graduated physicians, but also to most who engage in healing. This name evokes childhood memories for me, reminding me of "Hassan the Wise," as the medical assistant Hassan was known, who came to treat people from the far north in Nawa to Arbaij in El-Jazeera region. I recall childhood songs: “I am a wise man healing people from fever and headaches”. The book resonates deeply with concepts of health, emphasizing that “whoever swears by health lacks nothing,” and due to its importance, people have tried everything possible for healing, which is explained upon in the book.
The book “El-Hakim” which the author humbly describes as an introduction to the social history of medicine and health in Sudan is encyclopedic and comprehensive in its approach. It represents the culmination of immense and elaborated effort. Congratulations to Dr. Ahmed El-Safi on this immense achievement that has enriched the Sudanese library with a much needed academic reference.
Cover picture: Cover of Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi's digital books © Dr. Ahmed Al-Safi, books can be purchased on Amazon
Food and drink of the Nubian people
Food and drink of the Nubian people
Food and drink of the people of Batn al-Hajar
Food
People in this area eat wheat and corn but mostly the latter, grown along a narrow strip near the River Nile. Previously, British colonial authorities allowed local people to grow a tobacco called gamsha, which they sold to the north and south making it part of their economy. In addition dates, the people of Batn al-Hajar’s food includes the following:
• Kabid is a famous gorasa, type of Sudanese flatbread, made out of corn dough baked on a traditional hotplate stove. A kabid loaf is flipped constantaly until both sides are equally cooked and then a cross is marked onto its surface as a form of blessing. It is flavoured with idam, or sauce, made of ittir, the two types of cowpea plant leaves, or fish broth, or milk or ghee with sugar, or purslane or any other stew.
•Shiddi is the equivalent of Sudanese kisra (flatbread sheets) and is only made out of corn and eaten with whatever idam is available.
• Sallabiyya is made of wheat which is spread out very thinly on the traditional hotplate stove and is often eaten with milk or any other sauce.
• Turmus or lupin is washed and placed in a sack that is left in the Nile for three days to remove its bitter taste. It is an allround favourite and is considered good for the bones.
• Dates. Each family has its own palm tree grove. The female palm is pollinated by male ambi. Dates are stored in a gussi, a large clay barrel, of which the family may have more than one. It is sealed at the top to prevent any air entering with a hole at the bottom, covered with a cloth, through which the dates can be extracted. Dates stored this way do not get pest infestations.1
• Fish is caught by net or hook whenever required. Fish meat and idam sauce are very good because they are Nile fish.
• Fenti shorba is a date porridge usually made for pregnant women.
In terms of meat, the people of Batn al-Hajar have their distinctive Nubian sheep and Nubian camels.
People here use their camels to travel to the north and south to sell their gamsha tobacco. Everyone has their own camels, sheep and goats which they slaughter occasionaly. Nubian camels have a high tolerance threshold for hunger and thirst, and have good quality meat, and even though they are smaller than other camels, they are able to carry heavier laods and walk faster. When a camel is old, it is killed and its meat is shared out. Camel milk is left for it to feed its young while the people drink sheep and goat milk.
Food for people in this area includes Nile fish, crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles and they hunt rabbits using their own secret methods. The job of youngsters is to catch birds like doves and migrating birds that arrive in the winter.
• Turkin, known by most Sudanese as maloha (or cured fish), is when small fish are layered across the bottom of a large dish and covered with a layer of salt. This is repeated until the dish is filled with layers of fish and salt. The dish is then placed on a fire until the fish disintegrates including any breeding worms that may have been in the fisth, but this is okay. After it is boiled, the fish mixture is constantly stirred over about three days. When preparing an idam sauce, some of the fish is cooked with oil, onions and spices. It is a favourite food eaten with wheat gorasa.2
Beverages
• Dakkai is an alchohol they make and can be used as a marker of a woman’s status for example a young man may refuse to marry a young woman who is not good at making it. To make dakkai, dates are placed in a large clay pot and left to ferment. After about three days, the beverage reaches perfection and a man might ask his friends to come and share it and it is even better if this drinking session coincides with a feast when an animal has been slaughtered!
• Nebit is derived from carefully selected dates that are placed in a large clay pot which is cooked over a very hot fire and then buried in the ground for at least nine days. Nebit is made and consumed during the very cold desert winters and men drink it in the morning to be able to enter the water by the waterwheel as the drink gives off plenty of heat to warm up the body. A man may also invite his friends to come and merrily consume it with him.
Other fermented drinks include aragi (the most common Sudanese alchoholic drink). This is imported from eastern Dongola, where it is professionally made by women in the that region.
Food and drink of the people of Al-Sakkot
Foods
• Turkin, which we saw ealier, is a type of maloha eaten with wheat gorasa flatbreads.
• Koddad is what most Sudanese people know as mulah al-warag made from the leaves of safflower, watercress or the different types of cowpea leaves. One variety of these leaves are placed cooked for a long time over a coal fire with spices, onions and garlic, and it is eaten with kisra.
• Koshen kulub is made from safflower beans which are roasted, ground, sieved, and then cooked over a fire.
• Futti is millet. The grains are ground and used as idam stew, after being cooked over a fire.
• Corn gorasa with fermented milk.
• Belilah is made of wheat, corn, or cowpeas and is cooked with salt and eaten by hand.
• A mixture of seseme and wheat gorasa eaten with any stew.
• Gurub is made of dates with wheat or corn. Date kernels are removed and the dates are cut up into small pieces and added to a mixture of corn or wheat dough and spread on a hotplate to cook. It is eaten by itself.
• Boje is made when a pumpkin is peeled and its soft, sweetish pulp, the boje, is removed. It is then boiled over a fire and eaten with kisra, or gurasa flatbreads made of wheat or corn.
• Green Egyptian favabean balila which is boiled over a fire with salt and eaten by hand.
• Lupine flour gorasa is boiled with with salt and spices, and eaten with molokhia.
• Date syrup is made out of good quality dates such as the gondela and barakawi varieties. These are placed in a large container and boiled for a long period of time. Once cooled, the pulp is strained and boiled for a second time and then strained again to remove any residue from the first straining. It can be eaten with gorasa or any other flatbread.
• Madida is a porridge made of millet or dates and is given to sick people or pregnant women.
• Dates are readily available similarly like they are for the people of Batn al-Hajar, Al-Mahas and Dongola and are eaten whenever they feel like having some.
Beverages
People here make alcohol out of their local crops which they drink when they are not working, especially at night. Different types of alcohol are made each season; nabit in winter, and dakkai in the summer. Both have been described in the beverages of Batn al-Hajar.
Young men sometimes make the alcohol aragi on the banks of the Nile taking advantage of the cool climate along the waterfront. The dates, which will have been fermenting for about three days, are put in a container with a draining tube and placed over a fire. When the mixture reaches boiling point, heat is reduced to bring it down. A special pipe is wrapped around container’s draining tube. Ice or cold water is passed through the pipe to control the density and flow of the liquid which is drained into waiting bottles. Young men get their aragi making equipment made at local ironmongers.
Cover picture: Grinding stone © Darfur museum, Niyala
Food and drink of the people of Batn al-Hajar
Food
People in this area eat wheat and corn but mostly the latter, grown along a narrow strip near the River Nile. Previously, British colonial authorities allowed local people to grow a tobacco called gamsha, which they sold to the north and south making it part of their economy. In addition dates, the people of Batn al-Hajar’s food includes the following:
• Kabid is a famous gorasa, type of Sudanese flatbread, made out of corn dough baked on a traditional hotplate stove. A kabid loaf is flipped constantaly until both sides are equally cooked and then a cross is marked onto its surface as a form of blessing. It is flavoured with idam, or sauce, made of ittir, the two types of cowpea plant leaves, or fish broth, or milk or ghee with sugar, or purslane or any other stew.
•Shiddi is the equivalent of Sudanese kisra (flatbread sheets) and is only made out of corn and eaten with whatever idam is available.
• Sallabiyya is made of wheat which is spread out very thinly on the traditional hotplate stove and is often eaten with milk or any other sauce.
• Turmus or lupin is washed and placed in a sack that is left in the Nile for three days to remove its bitter taste. It is an allround favourite and is considered good for the bones.
• Dates. Each family has its own palm tree grove. The female palm is pollinated by male ambi. Dates are stored in a gussi, a large clay barrel, of which the family may have more than one. It is sealed at the top to prevent any air entering with a hole at the bottom, covered with a cloth, through which the dates can be extracted. Dates stored this way do not get pest infestations.1
• Fish is caught by net or hook whenever required. Fish meat and idam sauce are very good because they are Nile fish.
• Fenti shorba is a date porridge usually made for pregnant women.
In terms of meat, the people of Batn al-Hajar have their distinctive Nubian sheep and Nubian camels.
People here use their camels to travel to the north and south to sell their gamsha tobacco. Everyone has their own camels, sheep and goats which they slaughter occasionaly. Nubian camels have a high tolerance threshold for hunger and thirst, and have good quality meat, and even though they are smaller than other camels, they are able to carry heavier laods and walk faster. When a camel is old, it is killed and its meat is shared out. Camel milk is left for it to feed its young while the people drink sheep and goat milk.
Food for people in this area includes Nile fish, crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles and they hunt rabbits using their own secret methods. The job of youngsters is to catch birds like doves and migrating birds that arrive in the winter.
• Turkin, known by most Sudanese as maloha (or cured fish), is when small fish are layered across the bottom of a large dish and covered with a layer of salt. This is repeated until the dish is filled with layers of fish and salt. The dish is then placed on a fire until the fish disintegrates including any breeding worms that may have been in the fisth, but this is okay. After it is boiled, the fish mixture is constantly stirred over about three days. When preparing an idam sauce, some of the fish is cooked with oil, onions and spices. It is a favourite food eaten with wheat gorasa.2
Beverages
• Dakkai is an alchohol they make and can be used as a marker of a woman’s status for example a young man may refuse to marry a young woman who is not good at making it. To make dakkai, dates are placed in a large clay pot and left to ferment. After about three days, the beverage reaches perfection and a man might ask his friends to come and share it and it is even better if this drinking session coincides with a feast when an animal has been slaughtered!
• Nebit is derived from carefully selected dates that are placed in a large clay pot which is cooked over a very hot fire and then buried in the ground for at least nine days. Nebit is made and consumed during the very cold desert winters and men drink it in the morning to be able to enter the water by the waterwheel as the drink gives off plenty of heat to warm up the body. A man may also invite his friends to come and merrily consume it with him.
Other fermented drinks include aragi (the most common Sudanese alchoholic drink). This is imported from eastern Dongola, where it is professionally made by women in the that region.
Food and drink of the people of Al-Sakkot
Foods
• Turkin, which we saw ealier, is a type of maloha eaten with wheat gorasa flatbreads.
• Koddad is what most Sudanese people know as mulah al-warag made from the leaves of safflower, watercress or the different types of cowpea leaves. One variety of these leaves are placed cooked for a long time over a coal fire with spices, onions and garlic, and it is eaten with kisra.
• Koshen kulub is made from safflower beans which are roasted, ground, sieved, and then cooked over a fire.
• Futti is millet. The grains are ground and used as idam stew, after being cooked over a fire.
• Corn gorasa with fermented milk.
• Belilah is made of wheat, corn, or cowpeas and is cooked with salt and eaten by hand.
• A mixture of seseme and wheat gorasa eaten with any stew.
• Gurub is made of dates with wheat or corn. Date kernels are removed and the dates are cut up into small pieces and added to a mixture of corn or wheat dough and spread on a hotplate to cook. It is eaten by itself.
• Boje is made when a pumpkin is peeled and its soft, sweetish pulp, the boje, is removed. It is then boiled over a fire and eaten with kisra, or gurasa flatbreads made of wheat or corn.
• Green Egyptian favabean balila which is boiled over a fire with salt and eaten by hand.
• Lupine flour gorasa is boiled with with salt and spices, and eaten with molokhia.
• Date syrup is made out of good quality dates such as the gondela and barakawi varieties. These are placed in a large container and boiled for a long period of time. Once cooled, the pulp is strained and boiled for a second time and then strained again to remove any residue from the first straining. It can be eaten with gorasa or any other flatbread.
• Madida is a porridge made of millet or dates and is given to sick people or pregnant women.
• Dates are readily available similarly like they are for the people of Batn al-Hajar, Al-Mahas and Dongola and are eaten whenever they feel like having some.
Beverages
People here make alcohol out of their local crops which they drink when they are not working, especially at night. Different types of alcohol are made each season; nabit in winter, and dakkai in the summer. Both have been described in the beverages of Batn al-Hajar.
Young men sometimes make the alcohol aragi on the banks of the Nile taking advantage of the cool climate along the waterfront. The dates, which will have been fermenting for about three days, are put in a container with a draining tube and placed over a fire. When the mixture reaches boiling point, heat is reduced to bring it down. A special pipe is wrapped around container’s draining tube. Ice or cold water is passed through the pipe to control the density and flow of the liquid which is drained into waiting bottles. Young men get their aragi making equipment made at local ironmongers.
Cover picture: Grinding stone © Darfur museum, Niyala
Food and drink of the people of Batn al-Hajar
Food
People in this area eat wheat and corn but mostly the latter, grown along a narrow strip near the River Nile. Previously, British colonial authorities allowed local people to grow a tobacco called gamsha, which they sold to the north and south making it part of their economy. In addition dates, the people of Batn al-Hajar’s food includes the following:
• Kabid is a famous gorasa, type of Sudanese flatbread, made out of corn dough baked on a traditional hotplate stove. A kabid loaf is flipped constantaly until both sides are equally cooked and then a cross is marked onto its surface as a form of blessing. It is flavoured with idam, or sauce, made of ittir, the two types of cowpea plant leaves, or fish broth, or milk or ghee with sugar, or purslane or any other stew.
•Shiddi is the equivalent of Sudanese kisra (flatbread sheets) and is only made out of corn and eaten with whatever idam is available.
• Sallabiyya is made of wheat which is spread out very thinly on the traditional hotplate stove and is often eaten with milk or any other sauce.
• Turmus or lupin is washed and placed in a sack that is left in the Nile for three days to remove its bitter taste. It is an allround favourite and is considered good for the bones.
• Dates. Each family has its own palm tree grove. The female palm is pollinated by male ambi. Dates are stored in a gussi, a large clay barrel, of which the family may have more than one. It is sealed at the top to prevent any air entering with a hole at the bottom, covered with a cloth, through which the dates can be extracted. Dates stored this way do not get pest infestations.1
• Fish is caught by net or hook whenever required. Fish meat and idam sauce are very good because they are Nile fish.
• Fenti shorba is a date porridge usually made for pregnant women.
In terms of meat, the people of Batn al-Hajar have their distinctive Nubian sheep and Nubian camels.
People here use their camels to travel to the north and south to sell their gamsha tobacco. Everyone has their own camels, sheep and goats which they slaughter occasionaly. Nubian camels have a high tolerance threshold for hunger and thirst, and have good quality meat, and even though they are smaller than other camels, they are able to carry heavier laods and walk faster. When a camel is old, it is killed and its meat is shared out. Camel milk is left for it to feed its young while the people drink sheep and goat milk.
Food for people in this area includes Nile fish, crocodiles, turtles and other reptiles and they hunt rabbits using their own secret methods. The job of youngsters is to catch birds like doves and migrating birds that arrive in the winter.
• Turkin, known by most Sudanese as maloha (or cured fish), is when small fish are layered across the bottom of a large dish and covered with a layer of salt. This is repeated until the dish is filled with layers of fish and salt. The dish is then placed on a fire until the fish disintegrates including any breeding worms that may have been in the fisth, but this is okay. After it is boiled, the fish mixture is constantly stirred over about three days. When preparing an idam sauce, some of the fish is cooked with oil, onions and spices. It is a favourite food eaten with wheat gorasa.2
Beverages
• Dakkai is an alchohol they make and can be used as a marker of a woman’s status for example a young man may refuse to marry a young woman who is not good at making it. To make dakkai, dates are placed in a large clay pot and left to ferment. After about three days, the beverage reaches perfection and a man might ask his friends to come and share it and it is even better if this drinking session coincides with a feast when an animal has been slaughtered!
• Nebit is derived from carefully selected dates that are placed in a large clay pot which is cooked over a very hot fire and then buried in the ground for at least nine days. Nebit is made and consumed during the very cold desert winters and men drink it in the morning to be able to enter the water by the waterwheel as the drink gives off plenty of heat to warm up the body. A man may also invite his friends to come and merrily consume it with him.
Other fermented drinks include aragi (the most common Sudanese alchoholic drink). This is imported from eastern Dongola, where it is professionally made by women in the that region.
Food and drink of the people of Al-Sakkot
Foods
• Turkin, which we saw ealier, is a type of maloha eaten with wheat gorasa flatbreads.
• Koddad is what most Sudanese people know as mulah al-warag made from the leaves of safflower, watercress or the different types of cowpea leaves. One variety of these leaves are placed cooked for a long time over a coal fire with spices, onions and garlic, and it is eaten with kisra.
• Koshen kulub is made from safflower beans which are roasted, ground, sieved, and then cooked over a fire.
• Futti is millet. The grains are ground and used as idam stew, after being cooked over a fire.
• Corn gorasa with fermented milk.
• Belilah is made of wheat, corn, or cowpeas and is cooked with salt and eaten by hand.
• A mixture of seseme and wheat gorasa eaten with any stew.
• Gurub is made of dates with wheat or corn. Date kernels are removed and the dates are cut up into small pieces and added to a mixture of corn or wheat dough and spread on a hotplate to cook. It is eaten by itself.
• Boje is made when a pumpkin is peeled and its soft, sweetish pulp, the boje, is removed. It is then boiled over a fire and eaten with kisra, or gurasa flatbreads made of wheat or corn.
• Green Egyptian favabean balila which is boiled over a fire with salt and eaten by hand.
• Lupine flour gorasa is boiled with with salt and spices, and eaten with molokhia.
• Date syrup is made out of good quality dates such as the gondela and barakawi varieties. These are placed in a large container and boiled for a long period of time. Once cooled, the pulp is strained and boiled for a second time and then strained again to remove any residue from the first straining. It can be eaten with gorasa or any other flatbread.
• Madida is a porridge made of millet or dates and is given to sick people or pregnant women.
• Dates are readily available similarly like they are for the people of Batn al-Hajar, Al-Mahas and Dongola and are eaten whenever they feel like having some.
Beverages
People here make alcohol out of their local crops which they drink when they are not working, especially at night. Different types of alcohol are made each season; nabit in winter, and dakkai in the summer. Both have been described in the beverages of Batn al-Hajar.
Young men sometimes make the alcohol aragi on the banks of the Nile taking advantage of the cool climate along the waterfront. The dates, which will have been fermenting for about three days, are put in a container with a draining tube and placed over a fire. When the mixture reaches boiling point, heat is reduced to bring it down. A special pipe is wrapped around container’s draining tube. Ice or cold water is passed through the pipe to control the density and flow of the liquid which is drained into waiting bottles. Young men get their aragi making equipment made at local ironmongers.
Cover picture: Grinding stone © Darfur museum, Niyala
Food and drink of the Fur
Food and drink of the Fur
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
In this study, I make a distinction between the ‘tribes’ and ‘peoples’ of Sudan. Historically, the word ‘tribe’ applied only to Arabs with the word ‘peoples’ being applied to non-Arabs as different ways of describing the duality of Sudan’s African, Arab identity. Consequently, the Fur are one of the peoples of Sudan originating in the south-west of the country.
I learned about the Fur people after the migration of the Nubians to the Butana plain. The New Halfa Agricultural Project was established around 1963 and many people, including the Fur, migrated from western Sudan to work and live on the project first as labourers, then as renters of agricultural plots known as hawashat.1 A hawasha is a plot of land measuring 3 fedans allocated to one farmer for consecutive agricultural seasons over one year. The Fur came to our homes and we went to theirs and we got to know each other well, sharing company, food and drink.
Using a variety of methods, the Fur would catch the large rats which found themselves good homes in the cracks in the earth of the hawashat. There were so many rats, everyone would catch a considerable number of them every day. Once caught the rat would be skinned and then suspended by its ears from a rope tied to their roof of their rakoba,2 hut like shelter, to dry. Once they were dry, the rats were ground in a pestle and a stored as a useful source of nutrition.
The Fur’s preferred grain is corn from which they make the porridge-like bread asida. To make , asida, corn flour is kneaded and put in a pot over a fire. The woman stirs it until it thickens, then adds powdered rat meat and bones or ‘pigeons of the cracks’ as they call the rats, with a bit of salt to make food like no other, anywhere.
Molasses are considered by the Fur to be both a food and a beverage. When a man goes out to work on the hawasha, his wife provides him with a large bowl of corn molasses. The researcher Zaki Abdul Hamid Ahmad talks about making molasses but mistakenly describes the process of making the alcoholic drink marisa3 instead. Zaki said either dates or flour are soaked in water and stirred until the solid matter is dissolved and then it is strained. However, this is the way they make molasses not marisa which I’ll describe later on.
All the Fur went out to work on the hawasha, men, women, boys and girls just as is their custom when tending to the plots of land in their hometowns known as jubrakat4 or vegetable allotments. Molasses here are all the food and drink they consume throughout their working day. The Nubians and Arabs in New Halfa claim that rarely do they receive Fur patients at their hospital, because, according to them, their diet is made up of corn, millet and asida with the delicious powdered ‘pigeon of the cracks’.
The previous account was only about the Fur on the Halfa al-Jadida project where I lived.
Another account about the food of the Fur is by the early 19th century historian and traveller Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi detailed in his biography titled Travels of an Arab Merchant in Soudan. In his book, Al-Tunisi approached the topic in such a way as to make me hesitate for he describes their livelihood as being of an extremely low standard to the extent that ‘if anyone from our country,’ meaning Tunisia, were to try some of the Fur’s foods they would instantly feel fatigued and lose their vitality. He said this was because most of the Fur’s food was either bitter or rotten, even though they thought it was the most desirable cuisine.5
Al-Tunisi was close to the Sultan of Darfur, but he disliked what the people of Darfur ate, especially the weka (dried okra). He was like the wise, pious Arab stranger who is honoured by the people of the country he is visiting, however, for him to vocalize his dislike of their food is not religious in any way. In fact, his hosts were offering him foods that they themselves hardly ate.6 Thus, Al-Tunisi talks of weka, which is dried okra that is pound in a pestle and sieved and later added as a sauce to go with asida. In his book, Al-Tunisi mentions other types of weka including the Heglig weka and the Dodari weka. The first is made from the soft, fresh leaves or fruit of the Heglig (Balanites aegyptiaca) tree. The leaf is pound down and placed in a pot over a fire and stirred constantly until it combines with the water and fat it is cooking in. If the weka is made of the Heglig fruit, these are soaked in water and then strained into a pot and meat is added. It is made into a sauce for asida.
Meanwhile, the Dodari weka is made out of the bones of sheep, cows and other animals, especially the knee and chest bones. Meat is stripped off the bones which are placed into a jar and sealed for a period of time before they are removed, ground and added to meat. The mixture is made into orange-sized balls which they eat. Sometimes these balls of meat are cooked by soaking them in water to make them soft and then drained and cooked over a fire with onions, ghee, salt and pepper. This type of meal is considered very good food and is eaten by the affluent.
Most Fur food is made from plants that grow in the region. They grow millet, which is the basis of their porridge-like asida. They also grow maize. In their stronghold of Jebel Marra, famous for such a wide variety of fruit, they grow wheat, which they do not eat but export to other markets. Fruit trees in Jebel Marra regenerate with the availability and flow of water. The Fur have names for some of their food ingredients, such as niyalmo, which is the soft leaf of the Heglig tree. Angalo is the green fruit of the Heglig tree. Kawal is a pile of rotten plants, which is buried in the ground for a period of time until it is black and its powder is sprinkled over food as a condiment. Kanbo is an ash that is used in food instead of salt due to its scarcity.
In terms of hunting and fishing, providing meat for themselves and others, the Fur are divided into two categories; regular hunters and professional hunters. Regular hunters are those who go out individually to hunt, relying on their own abilities, courage and knowledge of animals through experience, whether they are wild or not. Meanwhile, professional hunters are those who go out in a group and who are invited to go out every Saturday by the Warnanih, the leader who beats a special drum to gather them.
Muhammad bin Omar al-Tunisi explains how some of the hunters hunt four-legged animals, such as gazelles, zebras, buffaloes, elephants, hyenas, rhinos, rabbits, and abu al-husen (foxes).7 Gazelles and rabbits are hunted with hunting dogs and some people hunt them with the safarug, wooden boomerang.8
In the rich plains of the savannah people hunt these animals in different ways. The elephant is always hunted when it is in herd heading to a watering place. A wide and deep hole is dug out in the elephant’s path and covered with grass and a scattering of earth. At the bottom of the pit, they fix into the ground, a sharpened stick pointing upwards. When the elephant falls into the pit, the people who made the pit come and kill the animal with spears, and then lift it out with ropes, to free it from the sharp stick stuck into its flesh. This is the same way they hunt other beasts like zebras, buffaloes, and rhinos. The flesh of these beasts is cut into narrow strips of sharmoot9 and eaten raw or left to dry and is sold to anyone who wants to buy it.
The Fur also hunt birds most notably the African houbara which some of them are specialised in hunting using worm or insect bait. One of their native birds is the Abu Manzara, which is larger than the houbara. To catch it, they tie a worm or insect into a knot in a length of string or rope. When the bird sees this, it swoops down to catch the bait but also swallows the knotted rope and are thus caught. This bird is one of the Fur’s favourite meats.10
Small birds are caught in nets with sticks pushed up into the corners, making them square or rectangular in shape. The net is raised up and supported by a stick with a rope attached to the top. Grain is then scattered in the shade of the net with the end of the rope held by the hunter at a distance. When the birds gather in the shade of the net to eat the grain, the hunter pulls the rope and the net falls onto the birds catching them. The hunters remove their feathers, then roast them over a fire and eat the delicious, tender meat.
For information about the Fur consuming the meat of elephants, hyenas, lions, rhinos and other wild animals, I asked Mohammed Adam Salih Mohammed, a 57-year old Fur tribesman who had sought refuge from the war in Wadi Halfa and whom I interviewed in late June 2024. I wanted to know whether Al-Tunisi was right in saying that they ate the meat of these animals. His response was that some Fur might eat this type of meat, like the Daramda, giraffe hunters, or the poor. Others he said, use the skins of these animals to make leather whips, shoes or shields which they sell to soldiers or for duwas11, fighting. Al-Fashir, the capital of [north] Darfur, is famous for its markoob shoes made of tiger skins among others.12
For the Fur, marisa is both a food and drink. It is consumed as a beverage in order to get drunk, or when in the company of friends, and as a food for the energy it provides, and is made from corn. The corn seeds are covered with a wet sack and within three days the seeds begin to sprout and are called zirria. The zirria is then dried, ground and placed with some water in large clean container until foam rises as it ferments and is suitable for drinking. An individual will consume one abbar of marisa but for those who want to get drunk, two or more abbar are drunk. For those looking to generate some energy, one abbar is downed quickly leaving the person with a spring in his step. Although it is intoxicating, it is not haram in their view.
Cover picture: Cooking tools © Women museum, Niyala
On the Wheat Trap
On the Wheat Trap
The documentary film, Wheat Trap, directed by Mohamed Fawi and produced by Al Araby TV, follows the lives of several farmers and their families in Al-Komor Al-Jaaliyin village, part of the Gezira agricultural scheme in central Sudan. The film was shot against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions compounded by fuel and bread shortages and political instability. Also depicted in the film are the anti-government protests culminating in the 2019 revolution that deposed Omar al-Bashir, sparked by a protest in Atbara over increasing bread prices.
Wheat Trap’s central theme is to question how and why the Sudanese have turned away from traditional foods such as kisra and asida made from sorghum and millet, to bread loaves made of wheat. References are often made to the importance of traditional foods in the past. It is peppered with anecdotes such as how young women in the past were only deemed eligible for marriage when they were able to make a large stack of good quality kisra and today, only the older women of the village continue the custom. ‘I wake up early in the morning, even if it is at 6 am to make kisra and I tell him if you don’t eat, I won’t let you go out’ says one woman about her husband as she sits near a the hot saj plate pouring a ladle of kisra batter over it.
Over lunch and a freshly made stack of kisra and steaming stew, the men discuss the reasons why they think people have increasingly turned away from the ‘simple’ life of the past in favour of wheat and bread. One farmer says free grants of wheat and other basic commodities by the US AID department in the late 1950s, sent ‘as a token of friendship’, meant the appetite for bread loaves made of wheat spread to rural areas. This social transformation of society’s preference towards wheat, is a tool of ‘modern colonisation’ the farmer affirms. The trap in the film’s title describes the habit of consumption that developed as a result of the free wheat and the loss of appetite for traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
Another farmer explains how changing lifestyles, with girls and women choosing to continue their education and have careers, means they no longer have the time to prepare and make kisra and asida for every meal. Instead, it is much easier to buy ready-made bread from bakeries while new products such as pizzas and pastries, made of wheat, are also very popular. Farmers themselves it is explained, turned to cash-crops with the example of the yield for two acres of onions being more lucrative than planting the unpopular sorghum.
Since the free imports of the past, commercial imports of wheat have been constantly rising particularly as Sudan’s climate is less suitable to wheat growing as it is for sorghum. Sudanese governments have therefore always found themselves in a position of trying to maintain affordable prices through ever-increasing subsidies. In the film, farmers on the Gezira project are gradually turning to growing wheat as a more lucrative product but Sudan still imports around sixty percent of its wheat needs.
Threads running through the film are concluded in the final scenes. While the wheat harvest has been generous and has allowed one farmer to finally marry his fiancé, protesters at the sit-in site at the army HQ during the revolution refuse to accept donations offered by foreign countries to support the encampment. A closing shot states that the first form of aid supplied by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the military council, which took over after Al-Bashir was deposed, consisted of wheat.
The gallery show's stills from the film Wheat Trap, all rights reserved for Mohamed Fawi
The documentary film, Wheat Trap, directed by Mohamed Fawi and produced by Al Araby TV, follows the lives of several farmers and their families in Al-Komor Al-Jaaliyin village, part of the Gezira agricultural scheme in central Sudan. The film was shot against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions compounded by fuel and bread shortages and political instability. Also depicted in the film are the anti-government protests culminating in the 2019 revolution that deposed Omar al-Bashir, sparked by a protest in Atbara over increasing bread prices.
Wheat Trap’s central theme is to question how and why the Sudanese have turned away from traditional foods such as kisra and asida made from sorghum and millet, to bread loaves made of wheat. References are often made to the importance of traditional foods in the past. It is peppered with anecdotes such as how young women in the past were only deemed eligible for marriage when they were able to make a large stack of good quality kisra and today, only the older women of the village continue the custom. ‘I wake up early in the morning, even if it is at 6 am to make kisra and I tell him if you don’t eat, I won’t let you go out’ says one woman about her husband as she sits near a the hot saj plate pouring a ladle of kisra batter over it.
Over lunch and a freshly made stack of kisra and steaming stew, the men discuss the reasons why they think people have increasingly turned away from the ‘simple’ life of the past in favour of wheat and bread. One farmer says free grants of wheat and other basic commodities by the US AID department in the late 1950s, sent ‘as a token of friendship’, meant the appetite for bread loaves made of wheat spread to rural areas. This social transformation of society’s preference towards wheat, is a tool of ‘modern colonisation’ the farmer affirms. The trap in the film’s title describes the habit of consumption that developed as a result of the free wheat and the loss of appetite for traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
Another farmer explains how changing lifestyles, with girls and women choosing to continue their education and have careers, means they no longer have the time to prepare and make kisra and asida for every meal. Instead, it is much easier to buy ready-made bread from bakeries while new products such as pizzas and pastries, made of wheat, are also very popular. Farmers themselves it is explained, turned to cash-crops with the example of the yield for two acres of onions being more lucrative than planting the unpopular sorghum.
Since the free imports of the past, commercial imports of wheat have been constantly rising particularly as Sudan’s climate is less suitable to wheat growing as it is for sorghum. Sudanese governments have therefore always found themselves in a position of trying to maintain affordable prices through ever-increasing subsidies. In the film, farmers on the Gezira project are gradually turning to growing wheat as a more lucrative product but Sudan still imports around sixty percent of its wheat needs.
Threads running through the film are concluded in the final scenes. While the wheat harvest has been generous and has allowed one farmer to finally marry his fiancé, protesters at the sit-in site at the army HQ during the revolution refuse to accept donations offered by foreign countries to support the encampment. A closing shot states that the first form of aid supplied by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the military council, which took over after Al-Bashir was deposed, consisted of wheat.
The gallery show's stills from the film Wheat Trap, all rights reserved for Mohamed Fawi
The documentary film, Wheat Trap, directed by Mohamed Fawi and produced by Al Araby TV, follows the lives of several farmers and their families in Al-Komor Al-Jaaliyin village, part of the Gezira agricultural scheme in central Sudan. The film was shot against the backdrop of worsening economic conditions compounded by fuel and bread shortages and political instability. Also depicted in the film are the anti-government protests culminating in the 2019 revolution that deposed Omar al-Bashir, sparked by a protest in Atbara over increasing bread prices.
Wheat Trap’s central theme is to question how and why the Sudanese have turned away from traditional foods such as kisra and asida made from sorghum and millet, to bread loaves made of wheat. References are often made to the importance of traditional foods in the past. It is peppered with anecdotes such as how young women in the past were only deemed eligible for marriage when they were able to make a large stack of good quality kisra and today, only the older women of the village continue the custom. ‘I wake up early in the morning, even if it is at 6 am to make kisra and I tell him if you don’t eat, I won’t let you go out’ says one woman about her husband as she sits near a the hot saj plate pouring a ladle of kisra batter over it.
Over lunch and a freshly made stack of kisra and steaming stew, the men discuss the reasons why they think people have increasingly turned away from the ‘simple’ life of the past in favour of wheat and bread. One farmer says free grants of wheat and other basic commodities by the US AID department in the late 1950s, sent ‘as a token of friendship’, meant the appetite for bread loaves made of wheat spread to rural areas. This social transformation of society’s preference towards wheat, is a tool of ‘modern colonisation’ the farmer affirms. The trap in the film’s title describes the habit of consumption that developed as a result of the free wheat and the loss of appetite for traditional grains such as sorghum and millet.
Another farmer explains how changing lifestyles, with girls and women choosing to continue their education and have careers, means they no longer have the time to prepare and make kisra and asida for every meal. Instead, it is much easier to buy ready-made bread from bakeries while new products such as pizzas and pastries, made of wheat, are also very popular. Farmers themselves it is explained, turned to cash-crops with the example of the yield for two acres of onions being more lucrative than planting the unpopular sorghum.
Since the free imports of the past, commercial imports of wheat have been constantly rising particularly as Sudan’s climate is less suitable to wheat growing as it is for sorghum. Sudanese governments have therefore always found themselves in a position of trying to maintain affordable prices through ever-increasing subsidies. In the film, farmers on the Gezira project are gradually turning to growing wheat as a more lucrative product but Sudan still imports around sixty percent of its wheat needs.
Threads running through the film are concluded in the final scenes. While the wheat harvest has been generous and has allowed one farmer to finally marry his fiancé, protesters at the sit-in site at the army HQ during the revolution refuse to accept donations offered by foreign countries to support the encampment. A closing shot states that the first form of aid supplied by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to the military council, which took over after Al-Bashir was deposed, consisted of wheat.
The gallery show's stills from the film Wheat Trap, all rights reserved for Mohamed Fawi