Shau Dorshid
Shau Dorshid, whose name is glossed 'the master over us', is the tyrant-king who closes the age of the Tunjur and opens that of the Keira. The legend, recorded by Nachtigal and retold by later historians, makes him a ruler of impossible demands: he compels his subjects to sink wells among the high rocks and to level the summit of a mountain so that he may build his residence upon it. Worn down, his own nobility turn to his half-brother Daali and raise him to the kingship, whereupon Shau Dorshid flees into the fastness of Jebel Marra riding a white horse, or in some versions a white antelope, and vanishes, the widespread motif of the king who does not die but disappears into the sacred mountain. The tale encodes the historical passage of power from Tunjur to Fur Keira; sources differ over the peak he is said to have laboured at and over whether the vanishing mount was horse or antelope.
Parentage
- paternal: Ahmad al-Maqur
Domains
- kingship
- sacred landscape
Powers
- rules as a tyrant
- flees on a white horse into the mountain
Relations
- sibling: DaaliHalf-brother displaced by Daali when the nobility turned against him.R. S. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate: A History (London: Hurst, 2008) (secondary)
- rival: DaaliR. S. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate: A History (London: Hurst, 2008) (secondary)
- sibling: Ahmad KunjarR. S. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate: A History (London: Hurst, 2008) (secondary)
- sibling: MusaR. S. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate: A History (London: Hurst, 2008) (secondary)
Sources
- Shau Dorshid, 'the master over us', is remembered as the tyrannical last Tunjur king who forced his people to dig wells in the high rocks and to level a peak for his palace, and who was driven out and fled into Jebel Marra on a white horse or antelope.: Gustav Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan, vol. IV (Wadai and Darfur), trans. A. G. B. Fisher and H. J. Fisher (London: Hurst, 1971) (primary); R. S. O'Fahey, The Darfur Sultanate: A History (London: Hurst, 2008) (secondary)