Toubou

The Toubou are the Saharan people of the Tibesti Mountains and surrounding deserts of northern Chad, southern Libya and northeastern Niger; their name means the people of Tibesti, or rock people. The northern Teda and southern Daza speak Tedaga and Dazaga, languages of the Saharan branch of the Nilo-Saharan family.

Their clans held oases, wells and pastures, herding camels and goats or growing dates in Kawar and Djado. Ibn Qutayba mentioned the Toubou in the ninth century. The Kanem empire drew them into its orbit as it expanded to Kawar in the eleventh century.

Djado belonged to the Sayfawa rulers of Kanem-Bornu from the reign of Dunama Dibalemi, returning under Idris Alauma between 1564 and 1596. In the eighteenth century the Toubou governed Kawar's oasis towns, while Tuareg raids pressed Djado's Kanuri inhabitants toward Kawar.