Aouderas
Encyclopedia
Oasis
In geography, an oasis or cienega is an isolated area of vegetation in a desert, typically surrounding a spring or similar water source...
village in the Aïr Mountains
Aïr Mountains
The Aïr Mountains is a triangular massif, located in northern Niger, within the Sahara desert...
of northeastern Niger
Niger
Niger , officially named the Republic of Niger, is a landlocked country in Western Africa, named after the Niger River. It borders Nigeria and Benin to the south, Burkina Faso and Mali to the west, Algeria and Libya to the north and Chad to the east...
, about 90km North-Northeast of the Regional
Regions of Niger
||Niger is divided into 7 Regions . Each department's capital is the same as its name.-Current regions:*Agadez Region*Diffa Region*Dosso Region*Maradi Region*Tahoua Region*Tillabéri Region*Zinder Region...
capital of Agadez
Agadez
-Sources:* Aboubacar Adamou. "Agadez et sa région. Contribution à l'étude du Sahel et du Sahara nigériens", Études nigériennes, n°44, , 358 p.* Julien Brachet. Migrations transsahariennes. Vers un désert cosmopolite et morcelé . Paris: Le Croquant, , 324 p. ISBN : 978-2-91496865-2.*. Saudi Aaramco...
. It is also the name of the valley in which the town is located.
Geography
Aouderas village is in the top of the Aouderas valley, at the base of 4619 foot (1408 meter) Mount Todra and is just south of the Todgha range, which runs east to the 6634 foot (2022 meter) Mount Bagzane (the highest point in Niger, part of the high Bagzane Massif), and the Assada plateau further north. Aouderas valley is locally called a KouriKouri
Kouri is a village in the Saponé Department of Bazèga Province in central Burkina Faso. The village has a population of 925.-External links:*...
, a Hausa
Hausa language
Hausa is the Chadic language with the largest number of speakers, spoken as a first language by about 25 million people, and as a second language by about 18 million more, an approximate total of 43 million people...
term for a seasonal wash. The washed soil sprouts grasses in the brief rainy season, some small Dun palms (Hyphaene thebaica), Acacia
Acacia
Acacia is a genus of shrubs and trees belonging to the subfamily Mimosoideae of the family Fabaceae, first described in Africa by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in 1773. Many non-Australian species tend to be thorny, whereas the majority of Australian acacias are not...
and Calotropis procera, while the sandy bottom land to the west of the town can be thick with palms and is suitable for irrigated agriculture. Outside of this, the land is almost completely barren except for seasonal grasses.
Population and History
A Tuareg community, the small sedentary population is today made up of several hundred mostly IkelanIkelan
The Ikelan are a caste within the Tuareg people who were at one time slaves or servile communities...
(or Bouzou in Hausa / Bella in Songhai
Songhay languages
The Songhay, Songhai, or Songai languages are a group of closely related languages/dialects centered on the middle stretches of the Niger River in the west African states of Mali, Niger, Benin, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria. They have been widely used as a lingua franca in that region ever since the...
), former slaves and captives of the Kel Owey
Kel Owey
The Kel Owey are a Tuareg clan confederation which from the 18th century until the advent of French colonial rule at the beginning of the 20th century was a dominant power in the Air region of north central Niger.-History:The Kel Owey have, like many Tuareg confederations been both a sub-group of...
Tuareg from Hausa
Hausa people
The Hausa are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa. They are a Sahelian people chiefly located in northern Nigeria and southeastern Niger, but having significant numbers living in regions of Cameroon, Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Chad and Sudan...
and other southern peoples. These peoples were settled in Aouderas, as in other northern oases, to tend the date palm
Date Palm
The date palm is a palm in the genus Phoenix, cultivated for its edible sweet fruit. Although its place of origin is unknown because of long cultivation, it probably originated from lands around the Persian Gulf. It is a medium-sized plant, 15–25 m tall, growing singly or forming a clump with...
plantations fed by the oasis held by the noble clans. Situated on a plateau surrounded by mountains, Aouderas expanded in the 19th an 20th centuries. In the 1970s, French geographers estimated there were 15000 date palms in Aouderas, more than the other older date plantations in In Gall, but half the number of the newer plantations at Telwa and Timia
Timia
Timia is a small town in northern Niger situated at an oasis in the Aïr Mountains, Agadez Region, Arlit Department. Visitors come to the Tuareg town to see a seasonal waterfall, a former French fort and the nearby ruined town of Assodé....
to the north. As of 1972, the number of farms expanded since Heinrich Barth
Heinrich Barth
Heinrich Barth was a German explorer of Africa and scholar.Barth is one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, not necessarily because of the length of his travels or the time he spent alone without European company in Africa, but because of his singular character.-Biography:Barth...
's visit in 1850, and the number of hectares under cultivation has expanded from 19.5 in 1946 to 59.3. As the area of cultivation expanded, so too has the diversity, as Aouderas's existence as a servile date plantation for Tuareg caravans has declined.
While the early history of the Air Massif is speculative, the area has been populated since at least 10,000 years ago, when the surrounding deserts were lush grasslands. When the Tuareg tribes were pushed south by Arab invaders in the eighth and ninth centuries CE, there were Gobirwa Hausa in the southern Air. Successive Tuareg Tels have controlled the area since at least the twelfth century. Agadez, as well as Ingall to the east, were the farthest outposts of the Songhai Empire
Songhai Empire
The Songhai Empire, also known as the Songhay Empire, was a state located in western Africa. From the early 15th to the late 16th century, Songhai was one of the largest Islamic empires in history. This empire bore the same name as its leading ethnic group, the Songhai. Its capital was the city...
in the early 1st century. In the Sixteenth century the area fell under the newly created Tuareg Sultanate of Air, and remained so until the arrival of the French
French West Africa
French West Africa was a federation of eight French colonial territories in Africa: Mauritania, Senegal, French Sudan , French Guinea , Côte d'Ivoire , Upper Volta , Dahomey and Niger...
at the end of the 19th. Barth passed through the Aouderas valley in 1850, and reported that it was only recently that the Kel Owey had pushed the Kel Geres and Kel Itesen Tuareg south and west out of the valley. Some Itesen landowners, though, remained Aouderas as late as 1970. While the Kel Owey pastoralised in the region, visiting towns and their plantations irregularly, Aouderas developed a small but unusual sedentary population of Tuareg cultivators. Barth also described this valley as the southernmost instance of plow agriculture, though he witnessed the local servile population pulling the plows in place of farm animals. Despite dire social conditions for the sedentary population and frequent raids from rival Tels and Toubu pastoralists, the sendentary Ikelan had built a large fertile island in the Air.
From one of the largest oases in the area, Aouderas was abandoned in 1917-18. A violent 1875 flood destroyed most of the date plantation, and the emergence of the French weakened Kel Owey defences. From the 1880s, Toubu raids increased, and when the Tuareg Kaosen Ag Mohammed rose against the French in 1917, Aouderas was one of the towns he destroyed on his way to the siege of Agadez. When the French retook Agadez, a brutal punitive expedition
Punitive expedition
A punitive expedition is a military journey undertaken to punish a state or any group of persons outside the borders of the punishing state. It is usually undertaken in response to perceived disobedient or morally wrong behavior, but may be also be a covered revenge...
through the Air left Aouderas abandoned.
By 1924, though, Aouderas was resettled, both with the remains of the local Ikelan, but also with refugees from Iferwan, also razed by Kaosen and the French successively. At this time it was the second largest town in the Air, after Agadez. While the Kel Owey continued to dominate the town, the sedentary farmers now held and inherited much of the Aouderas gardens, rare in the region. Most non-resident Tuareg land owners in 1946 were women, holding land under what the Tuaregs call a khabus, matralineal, system. As the gardens prospered, more towns were formed to the west by Aouderas residents, the largest being Tegmak.
The famines of the 1970s and 80s brought an end to this expansion, and as Agadez
Agadez
-Sources:* Aboubacar Adamou. "Agadez et sa région. Contribution à l'étude du Sahel et du Sahara nigériens", Études nigériennes, n°44, , 358 p.* Julien Brachet. Migrations transsahariennes. Vers un désert cosmopolite et morcelé . Paris: Le Croquant, , 324 p. ISBN : 978-2-91496865-2.*. Saudi Aaramco...
and Arlit
Arlit
Arlit is an industrial town and capital of the Arlit Department of the Agadez Region of northern-central Niger, built between the Sahara desert and the eastern edge of the Aïr mountains. It is 200 km south by road from the border with Algeria...
grew, Aouderas shrunk. The Tuareg Rebellion
Tuareg Rebellion
The Tuareg Rebellion was an uprising by various Tuareg groups in Niger and Mali with the aim of achieving autonomy or forming their own nation-state. The insurgency occurred in a period following the regional famine of the 1980s and subsequent refugee crisis, and a time of generalised political...
of the 1990s saw brutal government reprisals which depopulated many villages in the Air. Finally, in 2004, a locust invasion ravaged the Aouderas gardens.
Tourist industry
Today, with caravan trade dwindled, date crops are supplemented with market gardens, citrus, and increasingly the tourist trade centered in Agadez. A rough piste (dirt road) links the town with Agadez, and the larger Tuareg settlement (and tourist destination) in the north of the Air, IferouaneIferouane
Iferouane , also spelled Iferouan, is an oasis town in northern Niger, in Agadez Department. It is located northeast of Arlit in the northern Aïr,in the Ighazar valleynear the Tamgak Range....
, and is on the main route from Agadez to Timia
Timia
Timia is a small town in northern Niger situated at an oasis in the Aïr Mountains, Agadez Region, Arlit Department. Visitors come to the Tuareg town to see a seasonal waterfall, a former French fort and the nearby ruined town of Assodé....
, a larger oasis in the north. Other nearby oasis towns include the more visited Elmeki, 20 km to the west, Tammazaret, 40km to the north, and Dabbaga on the road to Agadez to the south.
Tuareg Rebellion, 2007
On 7 September, 2007, a small Nigerien military garrison at Aouderas was attacked by Tuareg led MNJ rebels, taking six soldiers captive. The 2007 Tuareg insurgency has essentially precluded any 2007 tourist season, while roads have been mined, and locals fear attacks by both the rebels and the army. The entire area saw brutal army reprisals in the early 1990s during the last Tuareg insurgence which ended in 1995.Not Consulted
- Frederick Brusberg. Economy and society of Aouderas, a community of the Saharan Air Massif (Niger), Doctoral thesis, Dept. of Anthropology, McGill University (1988)
External links
- Tourist photo of Aouderas, October, 2005.
- March 2006, pictures from tourist trek, passing through Aouderas.
- Children at play in an Aouderas street scene
- Traditional dancers from Aouderas perform at the festival de l'Aïr in Iferouane, December, 2005.
- Detailed report on literacy training classes in Aouderas from the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee.
- MSN Map