CHAD, SAINT

died March 2, 672, Lichfield, Mercia, Eng.; feast day, March 2 also called Ceadda monastic founder, abbot, and first bishop of Lichfield, who is credited with the Christianization of the ancient English kingdom of Mercia. With his brother St. Cedd, he was educated at the great abbey of Lindisfarne on Holy Island (off the coast of Northumbria) under its founder, Abbot St. Aidan, and later apparently studied with St. Egbert, a monk at the Irish monastery of Rathmelsigi. Cedd recalled Chad to England to assist in establishing the monastery of Laestingaeu (now Lastingham, North Yorkshire). Upon Cedd's death in 664, Chad succeeded him to become the second abbot of Laestingaeu, and, probably late in the same year, at the request of King Oswiu (Oswy) of Northumbria, he was consecrated bishop of the Northumbrians (with his see at York). An ecclesiastical dispute arose because St. Wilfrid had already been chosen bishop of York and had gone to Gaul for his consecration, a mix-up recorded in Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (considered to be the best source for Chad's life). The issue remains confusing. When in 669 the new archbishop, St. Theodore of Canterbury, arrived in England, he charged Chad with improper ordination. On Wilfrid's return in the same year, Chad resigned York and retired to Laestingaeu. Theodore, however, was so impressed with Chad's humility that when the bishop of Mercia died he asked King Oswiu to appoint Chad as the bishop's successor. The king approved, and Chad, having been reconsecrated by Theodore in 669, chose Lichfield, where he built a church and monastery, as the new seat of his diocese. During the last three years of his life, Chad founded a monastery in Lindsey, on land given him by King Wulfhere of Mercia. In the same area Chad supposedly founded another monastery, at Barrow-upon-Humber. He is noted as having conducted his apostolate zealously, traveling much on foot. He died of plague, and numerous miracles were reported as having taken place at his tomb. His relics, originally in the Cathedral of Lichfield, were saved by Roman Catholics during the Reformation and transferred to St. Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham. The economy Resources Chad's principal mineral resource is natron (a complex sodium carbonate), which is dug up in the Lake Chad and Borkou areas and is used as salt and in the preparation of soap and medicines. Annual production is a few thousand tons. There are indications of deposits of gold in the Ouadda area, uranium in the Ennedi Plateau area, uranium and wolframite in the Aozou Strip in the far north, and bauxite near La. Oil has been found north of Lake Chad. Agriculture and fishing Cotton is Chad's primary product. Although it is basically an export crop, the processing of raw cotton provides employment for a majority of those in industry and accounts for most of Chad's export earnings. Most of the cotton fibre ginned in Chad's processing plants is exported to Europe and the United States. Chad's livestock constitutes its second most important economic resource and is primarily distributed across central Chad. Much of this wealth is not reflected in the national cash economy, however, and livestock products form less than one-tenth of exports. There is a refrigerated meat-processing plant at Sarh, which exports meat to the Congo and Gabon. The government has tried to improve livestock by introducing stronger breeds and production by building new slaughterhouses. Rice is produced in the Chari valley and in southwestern Chad, and wheat is grown along the shores of Lake Chad; little of either crop is processed commercially. About half the fish caught is salted and dried for export. Most fish are caught in the Lake Chad, Chari, and Logone basins. The land The frontiers of Chad, which constitute a heritage from the colonial era, do not coincide with either natural or ethnic boundaries. Relief and drainage In its physical structure Chad consists of a large basin bounded on the north, east, and south by mountains. Lake Chad, which represents all that remains of a much larger lake that covered much of the region in earlier geologic periods, is situated in the centre of the western frontier; it is 922 feet (281 metres) above sea level. The lowest altitude of the basin is the Djourab Depression, which is 573 feet above sea level. In the early Holocene, possibly until as recently as 7,000 years ago, the lake stood at a level of about 1,100 feet above sea level, or some 180 feet higher than today, and was as much as 550 feet deep. At that stage Mega-Chad, as it has been called, occupied an area of some 130,000 square miles and overflowed southward via the present-day Kbi River and then over the Gauthiot Falls westward to the Benue River and the Atlantic Ocean. Older dune systems, flooded by Mega-Chad, form linear islands in the present lake and extend hundreds of miles to the east, the interdunal hollows being occupied by diatomites and other lake sediments. The mountains that rim the basin include the volcanic Tibesti Massif to the north (of which the highest point is Mount Koussi, with an altitude of 11,204 feet [3,415 metres]), the sandstone peaks of the Ennedi Plateau to the northeast, the crystalline rock mountains of the Ouadda (Wadai) region to the east, and the Oubangui Plateau to the south. The semicircle is completed to the southwest by the mountains of Adamawa and Mandara, which lie mostly beyond the frontier in Cameroon and Nigeria. Chad's river network is virtually limited to the Chari and Logone rivers and their tributaries, which flow from the southeast to feed Lake Chad. The remaining Chad waterways are either seasonal or are of insignificant size. The Chari, which arises from headstreams in the Central African Republic to the south, is later joined from the east by the Salamat Wadi and from the west by the Ouham River, its largest tributary. After entering an ill-defined area of swampland between Niellim and Dourbali, it flows through a large delta into Lake Chad. The Chari is about 750 miles in length and has a flow that normally varies between 600 and 12,000 cubic feet (17,000 to 340,000 litres) per second, according to the season. The Logone, which for some of its course runs along the Cameroon frontier, is formed by the junction of the Pend and Mbr rivers; its flow varies between 170 and 3,000 cubic feet per second, and its course is more than 600 miles long before it joins the Chari at N'Djamena. The level of Lake Chad fluctuates according to the flow of these rivers, as well as according to the degree of precipitation, evaporation, and seepage. The droughts of the 1970s and early '80s in the Sahel region of western Africa reduced the lake to record low levels. By 1985 it had been reduced to a pool, immediately to the north of the ChariLogone mouth, occupying about 1,000 square miles. The people The population of Chad presents a tapestry composed of different languages, peoples, and religions that is remarkable even amid the variety of Africa. The degree of variety encountered in Chad underscores the significance of the region as a crossroads of linguistic, social, and cultural interchange. Linguistic groups More than 100 different languages and dialects are spoken in the country. Although many of these languages are imperfectly recorded, they may be divided into the following 12 groupings: (1) the Sara-Bongo-Bagirmi group, representing languages spoken by about one million people in southern and central Chad, (2) the Mundang-Tuburi-Mbum languages, which are spoken by several hundred thousand people in southwestern Chad, (3) the Chado-Hamitic group, which is related to the Hausa spoken in Nigeria, (4) the Kanembu-Zaghawa languages, spoken in the north, mostly by nomads, (5) the Maba group, spoken in the vicinity of Abch and throughout the Ouadda region of eastern Chad, (6) the Tama languages, spoken in the Abch, Adr, Goz Bda, and Am Dam regions, (7) Daju, spoken in the area of Goz Bda and Am Dam, (8) some languages of the Central African groups, particularly Sango (also the lingua franca of the Central African Republic), which are spoken in the south, (9) the Bua group, spoken in southern and central Chad, (10) the Somrai group, spoken in western and central Chad, and (11) Mimi and (12) Fur, both spoken in the extreme east. In addition to this rich assortment, Arabic is also spoken in various forms and is one of the two official languages of the country. The dialects spoken by the nomadic Arabs differ from the tongue spoken by settled Arabs. A simplified Arabic is spoken in towns and markets; its diffusion is linked to that of Islam. French is the other official language, and it is used in communications and in instruction as well, although the national radio network also broadcasts in Arabic, Sara Madjingay, Tuburi, and Mundang. While a regional form of French, showing local linguistic and environmental peculiarities, is spoken widely in the towns, its penetration into the countryside is uneven. Its use is closely linked to the development of education.