The Beja people are an ethnic group dwelling parts of North-Eastern and Eastern Africa including the area of the Horn of Africa. Nations of the Horn of Africa. ...

Geography

The Baje are found mostly in Sudan, but also in parts of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Egypt. They formerly were classified as belonging to the Hamitic stock. Most of them live in the Sudanese states of Red Sea around Port Sudan, River Nile, Al Qadarif and Kassala. Some Beja groups are nomadic. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Red Sea Red Sea (Arabic: البحر الأحمر; transliterated: al-Bahr al-Ahmar) is one of the 26 wilayat or states of Sudan. ... Location of Port Sudan Port Sudan (Arabic: ‎) is the capital of the state of Red Sea in Sudan and has nearly 475,000 residents. ... River Nile River Nile (ولاية نهر النيل Nahr an Nil) is one of the 26 wilayat or states of Sudan. ... Al-Qadarif Al Qadarif (Arabic: القضارف, Gadaref, Gadarif or Qadārif) is one of the 26 wilayat or states of Sudan. ... Kassala is one of the 26 wilayat or states of Sudan. ... Communities of nomadic people move from place to place, rather than settling down in one location. ...

Names

The Beja have also been named "Blemmyes" in Roman times, "Bugas" in Axumite inscriptions in Ethiopia, "Fuzzy Wuzzy" by Rudyard Kipling. One of the Blemmyes, from a 1544 woodcut illustrating the Cosmographia by Sebastian Münster. ... The Kingdom of Aksum (or Axum), was an important trading nation in northeastern Africa, growing from ca. ... Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was a British author and poet, born in India, and best known today for his childrens books, including The Jungle Book (1894), The Second Jungle Book (1895), Just So Stories (1902), and Puck of Pooks Hill (1906); his novel...

Language

The Beja speak Beja or To Bedawie, an Afro-Asiatic language (usually classified as Cushitic, but sometimes seen as an independent branch), but a significant number also speak Tigre, a Semitic language. Beja (also called Bedawi, Bedauye, To Bedawie) is an Afro-Asiatic language of the southern coast of the Red Sea, spoken by about two million nomads in parts of Egypt, Sudan, and Eritrea. ... The Afro-Asiatic languages constitute a language family with about 375 languages (SIL estimate) and more than 300 million speakers spread throughout North Africa, East Africa, the Sahel, and Southwest Asia (including some 200 million speakers of Arabic). ... The Cushitic languages are a subgroup of the Afro-Asiatic languages phylum, named after the Biblical figure Cush by analogy with Semitic. ... Tigre is a Semitic language descended from Geez and is closely related to Tigrinya and Amharic. ... 14th century BC diplomatic letter in Akkadian, found in Tell Amarna. ...

Subdivisions

The Bejas contain smaller tribes, such as the Ababde or Ababda, Hedareb, Hadendowa or Hadendoa, the Amar'ar or Beni-Amer (who can still be found across the Red Sea over in Yemen too), Shukuria, Hallenga, Hamran and Bisharyyin, some of them partly mixed with Bedouins. The European colonial masters and the explorers became fascinated with the Bejas which they often described in elogious terms, of which characteristic is the example below: The Ababda (or Ababde) (the Gebadei of Pliny, possibly the Troglodytes of classical writers), are a nomad tribe of African Bedouins, a subgroup of the Beja people; some still speak the Cushitic Beja language, while others speak Arabic. ... The Ababda (or Ababde) (the Gebadei of Pliny, possibly the Troglodytes of classical writers), are a nomad tribe of African Bedouins, a subgroup of the Beja people; some still speak the Cushitic Beja language, while others speak Arabic. ... Hadendoa (from Beja Hada, chief, and endowa, people) is the name of an East African nomadic tribe of Hamitic origin. ... Hadendoa (from Beja Hada, chief, and endowa, people) is the name of an East African nomadic tribe of Hamitic origin. ... Location of the Red Sea The Red Sea is an inlet of the Indian Ocean between Africa and Asia. ... A Bedouin man resting on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic ( ‎), a generic name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic pastoralist groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via...

The Bejas (similarly to the Rastas) attach a high importance to their hair. Their prominent crown of fuzzy hair (called tiffa in their language) has characterized the Beja for centuries. Haile Selassie I Rasta, or the Rastafari movement, is a religious movement that accepts Haile Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia, as King of Kings, Lord of Lords and the Lion of Judah as Jah (the Rastafari name for God, from a shortened form of Jehovah found in Psalm...

Religion

The Beja converted to Christianity in the 6th century under the influence of the three Nubian Christian Kingdoms that flourished along the Nile for 600 years: Nobatia, Makuria, and Alodia. In the 13th century the Beja accepted Islam as the Bedouin tribes spread into Sudan and swamped the Nubian kingdoms. Islam (Arabic:  ) is a monotheistic religion based upon the teachings of Muhammad, a 7th century Arab religious and political figure. ... A Bedouin man resting on a hillside at Mount Sinai Bedouin, derived from the Arabic ( ‎), a generic name for a desert-dweller, is a term generally applied to Arab nomadic pastoralist groups, who are found throughout most of the desert belt extending from the Atlantic coast of the Sahara via...

External links

The Beja Congress (including an image of a "Fuzzy-Wuzzy")

The Beja of the deserts of Eastern Sudan

Fighting errupts in Eastern Sudan