BAQQARAH

also spelled Baggara (Arabic: Cattlemen), nomad Arabs who have been forced by circumstance to live in a part of Africa that will support the cow but not the camelsouth of latitude 13 and north of latitude 10 from Lake Chad eastward to the Nile River. Probably they are the descendants of Arabs who migrated west out of Egypt in the European Middle Ages, turned south from Tunisia to Chad, and finally moved back eastward in the 18th or 19th century to settle below the now Islamized sultanates of Kordofan, Darfur, and Wadai. Herding cattle is the Baqqarah livelihood, requiring them to migrate south to the river lands in the dry season and north to the grasslands during the rains. During these seasonal treks, crops such as sorghum and millet as well as indigenous Sudanic crops are grown. Association with local peoples such as the Fulani have given the Baqqarah a distinct dialect of Arabic.