Beja People - Names

Names

The term Bejawi comes from Ta-Itjawy "people of Itjawy".

Ta-Seti Neferet, the mother of Egyptian King Amenhemet I's was of a peoples from Upper Egypt known as Ta-Seti. He built a great city state called "Amenemhat-itj-tawy" ("Amenemhat the Seizer of the Two Lands"), more simply called Itjtawy. Populations from the Ta-Seti region came to people Itj-tawy and from this power centre, Amenemhat I's armies extended the Egyptian empire. Egyptologists who believe Amenemhat I may have waited until his twentieth year to make the move to his new city base their evidence on an inscription found on the foundation blocks of the pyramid's mortuary temple. It records Amenemhat's royal jubilee, and also that year one of a new king had elapsed, suggesting that the pyramid was started very late in the king's reign. King Amenemhat I reorganized the administration of the country, keeping the hereditary nomarchs who had supported him, while weakening the regional governors by appointing new officials at Asyut, Cusae and Elephantine. Another move, both to dilute the army's power and to raise personnel for coming conflicts, was his reintroduction of conscription. In order to protect Egypt and fortify captured territory in Nubia, he founded a fortress at Semna in the region of the second Nile Cataract, which would begin a string of future 12th Dynasty fortresses. Along with protecting his newly acquired territory, he also create a stranglehold over economic contacts with Upper Nubia and further south.

Amenemhat's Ta-Seti army and conscripts came to be known Ta-Itj-tawy. In modern languages this is pronounced Bigawy, Bedjawi or Bejawi.

The Beja have been named "Blemmyes" in Roman times, "Buga"s in Aksumite inscriptions in Ge'ez, and "Fuzzy Wuzzy" by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling was specifically referring to the Hadendowa, who fought the British, supporting the "Mahdi," a Sudanese leader of a rebellion against the Turkish rule administered by the British.