Early Contact, Early Collecting | Art of Being Tuareg: Sahara Nomads in a Modern World

The Tuareg have been a subject of other peoples' imaginings and cultural invention for centuries. Medieval Arabic writings describe veiled Tuareg as fierce warriors dominating the central Sahara. Early European explorers perpetuated and romanticized this image by describing the nomadic Tuareg
as a noble and proud people who shrouded themselves in indigo-dyed turbans, veils and robes. The regal image of the aristocratic Tuareg, mounted on his large white camel and carrying his ever-present sword proved irresistible to the European imagination. The Tuareg reputation as passionate defenders of their region was further enhanced in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when they defeated the advancing French colonial army on several occasions. To retain their control of caravans crossing well-established trade routes, the Tuareg thwarted European attempts to penetrate the Sahara in the nineteenth century. The French spent years in the early twentieth century trying to enter Tuareg territory. Not until 1920 did they finally manage to disrupt Tuareg trade and colonize the region. During the colonial period (19201960), the French, the Danes and the Swiss conducted systematic
research and collecting expeditions in Tuareg lands. As a result, the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, and the Musée d'ethnographie, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, today hold the most significant European collections of Tuareg art.

Amulet	Bag
Shield	Koranic board