Origins and Divisions
The origin of the Baggara is undetermined. According to a 1994 research paper, the group arose in Chad from 1635 onwards through the fusion of an Arabic speaking population with a Fulani population. DNA tests indicate they have a common lineage with Chadic and Fulani speakers. Like other Arabic speaking tribes in the Sahara and the Sahel, Baggara tribes have origin myths claiming ancestry from specific Arab tribes who migrated directly from the Arabian peninsula or from other parts of north Africa.
Baggara tribes in Sudan include the Rizeigat, Ta’isha, Beni Halba, and Habbaniya in Darfur, and the Messiria Zurug, Messiria Humur, Hawazma, and Awlad Himayd in Kordofan, and the Beni Selam on the White Nile. For complete and accurate account about Baggara tribes, see: Baggara of Sudan: Culture and Environment. The Misseiria of Jebel Mun speak the Nilo-Saharan language of their traditional neighbors, Tama (Tama as spoken by this tribe is also called Miisiirii).
The small community of "Baggara Arabs" in the southeastern corner of Niger is known as Diffa Arabs for the Diffa Region. They occupy the shore of Lake Chad and migrated from Nigeria since World War II. Most of the Diffa Arabs claim descent from the Mahamid clan of Sudan and Chad.
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“Lucretius
Sings his great theory of natural origins and of wise conduct; Plato
smiling carves dreams, bright cells
Of incorruptible wax to hive the Greek honey.”
—Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962)
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