Touareg design

The Tuareg people -  also spelled Twareg or Touareg - are a large Berber ethnic group, traditionally nomadic pastoralists, who principally inhabit the Sahara in a vast area stretching from far southwestern Libya to southern Niger, and beyond as far as northern Nigeria.

They are a semi-nomadic people who mostly practice Islam, and are descended from the indigenous Berber communities of Northern Africa, whose ancestry has been described as a mosaic of local Northern African groups/tribes. Some researchers have tied the origin of the Tuareg ethnicity with the fall of the Garsmantes, who inhabited the Fezzan (Libya) from the 1st millennium BC to the 5th century AD.

Tuareg social structure has traditionally included clan membership, social status and caste hierarchies within each political confederation. The Tuareg have controlled several trans-Saharan trade routes and have been an important party to the conflicts in the Saharan region during the colo and post-colonial eras.

In Tuareg society women do not traditionally wear the fsve veil, whereas men do. The most famous Tuareg symbol is the tagrlmust - sometimes referred to as a cheche (pronounced "shesh") - which consists of a combined turban and veil, often indigo-blue colored. The men's facial covering originates from the belief that such action wards off evil spirits. It may have related instrumentally from the need for protection from the harsh desert sands as well. 

It is a firmly established tradition, as is the wearing of amulets containing sacred objects and, recently, verses from the Qur'an, taking on the veil is associated with the rite of passage to manhood. Men begin wearing a veil when they reach maturity, which usually conceals their face, excluding their eyes and the top of the nose.

The above are examples of the Cross of Agadez in 21 modern variations, from Niger. As in other rural Berber traditions, jewellery made of silver, coloured glass or iron us a special artform of the Tuareg people.

These traditional handicrafts are made by the inadan wan-tizol (makers of weapons and jewelry). Among their products are tanaghilt or zakkat; the Tuareg sword (takoba) in gold, silver necklaces called 'takaza', as well as earrings called 'tizabaten'. Pilgrimage boxes with intricate iron and brass decorations are used to carry items and are made of goat skin. Other such artifacts include metalwork for saddle decoration, called trik.

Most forms of the Agadez Cross are worn as pendants with varied shapes that either resemble a cross or have the shape of a plate or shield. Historically, the oldest known specimens were made of stone or copper, but subsequently Tuareg blacksmiths also used iron and silver, in the lost-wax casting technique. According to the article "The cross of Agadez" by Seligman and Loughran (2006), this piece has become a national and African symbol for Tuareg culture and political rights.Today, these pieces of jewellery are often made for tourists or as items of ethnic-style fashion for customers in other countries, with certain modern changes.

In this example, silver sheet and wire is strung on braided leather, possibly goat hide; it is from Agadez, Niger, and the amulet is reputed to be one hundred and fifty years old. The front, three-stepped engraved portion is one piece of sheet forged on the anvil, with a small dome in the center; the back is cold-joined to the front by folding over the edges. It is finely engraved on the front and is 11.0 cm long, not including the wire loops. Such amulet cases are worn as pendants by both Tuareg women and men, depending on their drum group. For adult male Touareg, the, horizontal tcherot can be worn as a wrapped veil of indigo-dyed cloth .

 Like many indigenous peoples, the nomadic Tuareg treat craft as an integral part of their lifestyle. Whether functional or for personal adornment, all their craft, in metal, leather or composite construction (like wood, leather and metal for camel saddles) are made by both men and women, the latter working primarily in leather. While it is not certain that all Tuareg women can work leather, the making of jewelry, weapons, other items like saddles, are done by their male inadan wan-tizol, which include smiths, jewelers, woodworkers, and leather-working castes. But according to Cheminée (2014), who has studied with Tuareg smiths for years in West Africa, the individual enad can also work either wood, leather, soapstone/gypsum, or metal (pers. comm., 2/2019). This is very similar to how many Native Americans can transit easily from one form of art to another. With Native American jewelers, there is another parallel, in that their tools and workshops are also much more simple then contemporary Western jewelers. In the West, craftspeople are known more for concentrating on one medium or having expertise mainly in one craft, like jewelry or weaving.

In this picture, the brass, copper and silver engraved bracelets has black inlays which may be wood, and most likely of hollow construction, 9.0 cm wide, from Mali. The three bracelets of silver and abaka wood (often identified as ebony) are 8.0 - 9.0 cm wide, with the inner side silver-lined, from Boutilimit, Mauritania, for wealthy Tuareg women. Here the silver is inlaid into or on the wood, along with other metal studs. 

Whether working in metal, wood or leather, Tuareg craft shares a similarity of motifs and techniques, imparting an overall harmony of style and cultural identification, yet showing much regional differences among the drum groups and even families of inadan. For example, while Gabus has numerous detailed drawings of engraved decorations on Tuareg charm cases, Creyaufmüller shows a large number of tcherot.

 To an observer of the Tuareg and other Berber peoples like the Mauritanians, it is striking how their craftspeople treat all materials - whether precious or not - with an equal degree of skilled workmanship. However, gold, with its internationally-set high value, is now beginning to be popular, and is generating new types of jewelry but may not be worked with the same degree of detail, complexity and care.

The following pieces were heavily inspired by Touareg design, and were intended to be simultaneously familiar yet new.