Tu
Toubou · numen · Toubou traditional religion; continuing · Recorded classification
Tu is the Tibesti itself, the black volcanic massif at the centre of the range, and the word from which the people take their name, the Tubu or Toubou being understood as the folk of Tu, the people of the rock. More than a geographical term, it names the cherished and formidable homeland that gathers within it the whole sacred geography of the Teda, the healing solfatara, the smoking summits and the dreaded natron crater. In the reckoning that ties a people to their high country, Tu is at once the ground beneath the tents and the enduring rock-land against which Teda identity is measured.
Domains
- ancestral homeland
- sacred geography
Powers
- anchors the people as the rock-land from which they take their name
Epithets
- Tu — the rock; the mountain-landCharles & Marguerite Le Coeur, Grammaire et textes teda-daza (Dakar: IFAN, 1956) (secondary)
Sources
- Tu is the Tedaga name of the Tibesti massif and the root of the ethnonym Tubu / Toubou, understood as 'people of Tu', binding the people to their mountain homeland.: Jean Chapelle, Nomades noirs du Sahara: les Toubous (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1982 [1957]) (secondary); Charles & Marguerite Le Coeur, Grammaire et textes teda-daza (Dakar: IFAN, 1956) (secondary)