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The Humr (also known as Humur, ar, همور, Hūmūr, lit=red) are one of two branches of the Messiria, a subgroup of the
Baggara The Baggāra ( ar, البَقَّارَة "heifer herder") or Chadian Arabs are a nomadic confederation of people of mixed Arab and Arabized indigenous African ancestry, inhabiting a portion of the Sahel mainly between Lake Chad and the Nile ri ...
ethnic group, native to the south-west of province
Kordofan Kordofan ( ar, كردفان ') is a former province of central Sudan. In 1994 it was divided into three new federal states: North Kordofan, South Kordofan and West Kordofan. In August 2005, West Kordofan State was abolished and its territory ...
, Sudan. Speakers of
Chadian Arabic Chadian Arabic ( ar, لهجة تشادية), also known as Shuwa Arabic, Baggara Arabic, Western Sudanic Arabic, or West Sudanic Arabic (WSA), is a variety of Arabic and the first language of 1.6 million people, both town dwellers and nomadic c ...
, the Humr live in the area surrounding the towns of Babanusa,
Muglad Mujlad is a city in West Kurdufan State in the west of Sudan. It is the center town of the Misseriya tribe, sometimes also transliterated as "Messeria" tribe. In the late seventies, early eighties, Muglad was used as a staging area for oilfield ...
and Al Fula ( ar, الفولة). The Humr are divided into two groups - the ''Ajaira'', who live in the area from Muglad to
Abyei The Abyei Area ( ar, منطقة أبيي) is an area of on the border between South Sudan and the Sudan that has been accorded "special administrative status" by the 2004 Protocol on the Resolution of the Abyei Conflict (Abyei Protocol) in ...
and the ''Felaita'', who live in the vicinity of Babanusa, Alfoula and Kajira. There are six clans in the Ajaira and five in the Falita, and thus twelve Humrawi clans in all. Anthropologist Ian Cunnison lists the clans of the two divisions of the Humr as the Ajaira consisting of the Fayyarin, Awlád Kamil, Mezaghna, Fadliya, Menama and Addal clans, and the Felaita consisting of the Metanin, Ziyud, Awlád Serur, Jubarat and Salamat clans. The people who govern each tribe are known as the " Nazir" ( ar, ناظر, lit=leader).


Hunting

The Humur are intrepid
hunters Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
of elephants and the giraffe. Humrawi hunters' main reason for hunting the giraffe is the preparation of the drink ''umm nyolokh''.


''umm nyolokh''

The Humur are most commonly known outside the Sudan as the preparers of a drink made from the
liver The liver is a major organ only found in vertebrates which performs many essential biological functions such as detoxification of the organism, and the synthesis of proteins and biochemicals necessary for digestion and growth. In humans, it ...
and bone marrow of a giraffe, which they call ''umm nyolokh'', and which they claim is intoxicating, causing
dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...
s and
hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
s. If substantiated by a chemical analysis, this claim would make the giraffe the first mammal to be discovered to contain a hallucinogen in its bodily tissues, and the Humrawi the first people to have discovered the existence of such a mammal. Ian Cunnison, who accompanied the Humr on some of their giraffe-hunting expeditions in the late 1950s, noted that:
It is said that a person, once he has drunk umm nyolokh, will return to giraffe again and again. Humr, being Mahdists, are strict abstainers
rom alcohol Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * ...
and a Humrawi is never drunk (sakran) on liquor or beer. But he uses this word to describe the effects which umm nyolokh has upon him.
Cunnison's account of a psychoactive mammal found its way into a mainstream literature through a conversation between Dr. Wendy James of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
and specialist on the use of hallucinogens and intoxicants in society Richard Rudgley, who considered its implications in his popular work ''The Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances''. Rudgley hypothesises that the presence of the hallucinogenic compound DMT might account for the putative intoxicating properties of umm nyolokh.


References

{{authority control Ethnic groups in Sudan