People or land · The Tubu of the Tibesti and Borkou · as at first light, 1 January 1200

Daza of the Borkou

The Daza are the more numerous southern branch of the Tubu, herding camels and cattle from the Borkou palm groves south along the dry Bahr el Ghazal toward Kanem.

They are the Tubu the court of Kanem knew best; the mais' Tubu wives most likely came from among them. Nothing is recorded for 1200.

Who holds it

Title
clan elders
Confidence
low

Overlord

None recorded; clans nearer Kanem tied to the royal house by marriage

How things stand that morning

Self-governing clans on Kanem's northern border.

Customs

Clan ownership of wells and pastures; elders; Aza craftsmen.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Later ethnography; the Diwan's notes on royal mothers.

On the map: Rough outline.

Primary sources for Tubu

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

  • The Diwan of the Sultans of Bornu (the Sayfawa king list) (kept and extended to the nineteenth century; Lange argues its core was first written down in the thirteenth century). A list of the Sayfawa mais with reign lengths, parentage, mothers' names and burial places, and the odd event.
  • The Book of Geography, Ibn Said al-Maghribi (Ali ibn Musa ibn Said) (about 1250 to 1275). Written two generations after 1200 but drawing on the travels of Ibn Fatima, a merchant who had been in the Sudan, Ibn Said gives the first clear picture of Kanem as an empire: the mai Dunama Dibalemi (reigned about 1210 to 1248), his capital Njimi, his Muslim subjects and his reach to the Fezzan, Tajuwa and the Zaghawa, with the Sao and other peoples on his borders. Read online

Sources and studies

  1. Wikipedia: Toubou people (Teda and Daza, clans with their own oases, pastures and wells, the derde of the Tumagra, the Aza craft caste, earliest mentions by Ibn Qutayba and al-Khwarizmi)
  2. UNESCO General History of Africa III, ch. 15 (Lange and Barkindo), pp. 315, 460, 471: al-Idrisi's Zaghawa camel nomads reaching the Fezzan and Kawar; 'Tubu' as the Kanembu term for the Teda-Daza; royal marriages with the Tomaghra and Tubu
  3. Wikipedia: Selema II (mother Huwa of the Dibbiri, of Tubu origin)

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.