It has been recently ai'gued that for a development project to be successful it must be implemented at the right time in the right place and for the right people targeted by it. Failure to account for the historical and social context into which the project is introduced can result in considerable difficulties being faced by project planners (Salmen, 1987: 72). In this chapter we cover the oral tradition of the Hamar people, the principal beneficiaries of the project, and the major trends in the establishment of Dar Hamar (lit. the home land of Hamar) in an attempt to show one aspect of the social context germane to the project.
The presently available literature on the Hamar, currently settled in Northern Kordofan province (see maps No.l and No.3, end pocket), presents divergent views about their genealogy. MacMichael has presented a detailed account of Hamar genealogy . In some accounts he classifies the Hamar with the Baggara Arabs. In other places he considers them a mixture of Beni Ommaya, Beni Abbas, Anag, Ashraf and Fur. And in yet another account he traces their ancestry to the Guhayna ethnic group (see MacMichael, 1912). MacMichael offers a short historical review of the Hamar tribe during the nineteenth century and into the early 1900's. But he is unable to trace the Hamar genealogy to the common parent, El Ahmar, from whom they claimed (in his period) to descend. Hereunder we will be dealing with major events in the history of the Hamar which have had profound influence on present-day social life: their migration into the area, the development of their leadership authorities, and the establishment of Dar Hamar. Internal changes in the Hamar tribe due to tribal sub-divisions as well as those caused by contacts with locals are also explained.
The history of the Hamar as a tribe in present-day Dar Hamar (see map No. 3, end pocket) dates back to some two centuries ago with the rise of the founder of Dar Hamar El Hag
Munaym. Unlike MacMichael, my research shows that the Hamar can claim direct decent from one common ancestor, Mohamed El Ahmar, who is genealogically linked to the prophet Mohamed's family through the latter's uncle's son, Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Hence, their name, the Hamar, derives from this 'great grand parent' El Ahmai% Thus the tribe is not aboriginal to its contemporary location: it migrated from the Gezira Arabia (El Yemen) during the rule of Hajaj Ibn Yusuf (in the second half of the seventeenth centuiy) and entered the Sudan through the western route to Dar Fur and settled in Kabkabia. Then the tribe gradually moved eastwards in seach of grazing land and water sources. The migrant tribe was divided into two groups, the Dagageem section of the tribe headed by Abu Tabir, and the A'asakir section, headed by Sheikh Salim Taiishu. A lai’ge proportion of the migrants from the former group perished in their endeavor to reach the Nile borders in the eastern part of Sudan.
The A'asakir migrants, however, settled in Abu Zabad town where Salim left his son, Elhag Munaym, after which he left for another area in northern Kordofan region. Elhag Munaym was later elected by the tribe as a chief, and left for Dar Fur where he met with the Sultan of Dar Fur, from whom he purchased the aiea now called Dar Hamar for 1,000 camels and 1,000 slaves. The whole area was 51,634 square kilometres.
Unlike MacMichael's argumentation (1912:156), that the Hamar vaguely
claim decent from the Arab ancestry of Abdalla el Guhani and Mohamed El Ahmar, my finding has documented the Hamar's claim quite explicitly. My interview, in 1990, with an extremely knowledgeable secondary school teacher, Mustamhil Makin, a Hamar from the Ghai'aysia section, provides a series of (ascending) genealogical links to Mohamed El Ahmar, Abdalla el Guhani,and further to Ali Ibn Abi Talib. Thus Mustamhil (65 years old) traces his genealogy in ascending order as follows: "Mustamhil, Makin, Mufarrih, Hammad, Na'eem, Sallam, Abdel Sal am, Manal, Abu Tanu, Abu Zeid, Gibreil, Raddad, Hasaballa, EL Riheima, Own, Salama, Abu Go am. Mohamed EL Ahmar. Say id Dardig, Say id Mohamed el Hassan, Say id el Ma'arif, Sayid Ahmed, Say id Rafi', Sayid A'amir, Say id Mohamed, Say id el Hussein, Sayid Ismail, Sayid Abdalla El Guhani. Sayid Ibrahim el Imam, Sayid Musa, Sayid
el Karim, Sayid Ga'afar Sayid el Sadig, Sayid Mohamed el Baghir, Sayid Ali Zein el A'abideen, Sayid el Hussein, Sayid el Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib".
The Hamar tribe is today divided into three main sections; the A'asakir, the Dagageem (from whom Mustamhil is a member) and the Gharaysia (who separated from the Dagageem and are still refered to as Dagageem in origin). According to Mustamhil, the basic tribal divisions and sub-divisions stem from the following common ancestry:
a) Bani Badr and Ghishimat who formed the A'asakir section. b) Awlad Salaama who formed the Dagageem section; and c) Awlad Abdel Salam who formed the Gharaysia section.
The Hamar use the term awlad to refer to lineage . Thus the lineage named Awlad Abdel Salam is the one descended from Abdel Salam.
From these major sections of the Hamar tribe other sub-divisions arose, as members of certain clans invoked their 'grandparents' as founders of subsections. The main reason why a clan may invoke its own grandparent as a founder of a subsection is that such a clan desires to reaffirm its identity vis-a-vis the other contemporary subsections. To illustrate this we may consider the following example: Malih and Sa'ad both belong to the Bani Badr subsection (as A'sakir). When the lineages of Malih and Sa'ad (see the table below) are formed they were assumed to identify with Bani Badr. But in fact the descendents from Malih ellected to identify with Malih as a founder, and are therefore referred to by other subsections as Milalha (See the full complement of sub-divisions listed below). The same applied to the descendents from Sa'ad who, in turn are referred to as Sa'adat.