Imraguen people

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The Imraguen, or Imeraguen (Berber: Imragen), are an ethnic group or tribe of Mauritania and Western Sahara. They were estimated at around 5,000 individuals in the 1970s. [1] Most members of the group live in fishing villages in the Banc d'Arguin National Park, located on the Atlantic coast of Mauritania.

Contents

History

The name Imraguen (Berber orthography: imragen) is a Berber word meaning "fishermen", or «people who fish while walking on the sea», [2] or «those who harvest life». [3]

The Imraguen are believed to descend from the Bafour people [ citation needed ]. According to the Documentation of the human population of the territory, the Imraguen people lived on the Banc d'Arguin National Park for thousands of years, and its population had probably been larger. [3]

Militarily powerless, the Imraguen were traditionally reduced to the degrading lower-caste status of Znaga, forcibly ruled and taxed (horma) by more powerful Berber, Hassane and Zawia tribes, such as the Oulad Delim and Ouled Bou Sbaa.

In 2008, the Imraguen people occupied 9 small villages along the coastline. [4] Some Imraguen populate the abandoned La Güera fort, which is also the south point of the Western Sahara zone claimed by Morocco. [5]

Fishing

A few generations ago, the Imraguen people used to whistle the dolphins to bring them near the shore and catch all the mullets that always followed the dolphins. [4]

The Imraguen people are the only ones authorized to fish in the Banc d'Arguin area, as long as they use their traditional fishing techniques. The number of fishes caught for each species is limited and strongly reinforced by the Mauritanian authorities. [4] In 2004, the Imraguen people agreed to preserve the shark and ray species in the Banc d'Arguin National Park (which became a UNESCO world heritage site in 1989) and traded their nets for money. [2]

The Imraguen people blame the new oil and gas explorations around the Banc d'Arguin area, along with a new road adjacent to the area, as the main factors for the reduction of fish reproduction in the area. [4]

At the Arkeiss village, it is possible for tourists to practice "sports fishing" in the Banc d'Arguin and gather up to 5 kilos of fish. [4]

Language

Imeraguen
Imraguen
Native to Mauritania
Region Banc d'Arguin National Park
Native speakers
530 (2006) [6]
Unclassified (Hassaniya Arabic variety with an Azer (Soninke) base per Ethnologue or Berber base per Fortier, Corinne 2004)
Language codes
ISO 639-3 ime (retired)
Glottolog imer1236

The Imraguen speak Hassaniya Arabic with some Berber vocabulary related to fishing; [7] their dialect is referred to as the Imraguen language.

Religion

The Imraguen are Muslims of the Sunni Maliki rite.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

The original inhabitants of Mauritania were the Bafour, presumably a Mande ethnic group, connected to the contemporary Arabized minor social group of Imraguen ("fishermen") on the Atlantic coast.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">La Güera</span> Ghost town in Western Sahara

La Güera is a ghost town on the Atlantic coast at the southern tip of Western Sahara, on the western side of the Ras Nouadhibou peninsula which is split in two by the Mauritania–Western Sahara border, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) west of Nouadhibou. It is also the name of a daira at the Sahrawi refugee camps in south-western Algeria.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dakhla, Western Sahara</span> Place in Western Sahara

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The Atlantic humpback dolphin is a species of humpback dolphin that is found in coastal areas of West Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nouadhibou</span> Commune and town in Dakhlet Nouadhibou Region, Mauritania

Nouadhibou is the second largest city in Mauritania and serves as a major commercial center. The city has about 118,000 inhabitants. It is situated on a 65-kilometre peninsula or headland called Ras Nouadhibou, Cap Blanc, or Cabo Blanco, of which the western side has the city of La Güera. Nouadhibou is consequently located merely a couple of kilometers from the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara. Its current Mayor is Elghassem Ould Bellali, who was installed on 15 October 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hassaniya Arabic</span> Maghrebi Arabic dialect spoken by Mauritanians and Sahrawi

Hassaniya Arabic is a variety of Maghrebi Arabic spoken by Mauritanian Arabs and the Sahrawi people. It was spoken by the Beni Ḥassān Bedouin tribes of Yemeni origin who extended their authority over most of Mauritania and Morocco's southeastern and Western Sahara between the 15th and 17th centuries. Hassaniya Arabic was the language spoken in the pre-modern region around Chinguetti.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sahrawis</span> People living in the western Sahara desert

The Sahrawis, or Sahrawi people, are an ethnic group native to the western part of the Sahara desert, which includes the Western Sahara, southern Morocco, much of Mauritania, and along the southwestern border of Algeria. They are of mixed Hassani Arab and Sanhaji Berber descent, as well as West African and other indigenous populations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Banc d'Arguin National Park</span> Mauritanian National Park

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sanhaja</span> Medieval Berber tribal confederation

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The Bafour or Bafur were a group of people inhabiting Mauritania and Western Sahara. Scholars such as H.T. Norris describe "Bafur (Bafour)" as a loose term encompassing the pre-Sanhaja inhabitants of the region, who were "part Berber, part Negro, and part Semite."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ras Nouadhibou</span> Peninsula

Ras Nouadhibou is a 60-kilometre (37 mi) peninsula or headland divided by the border between Mauritania and Western Sahara on the African coast of the Atlantic Ocean. It is internationally known as Cabo Blanco in Spanish or Cap Blanc in French.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tidra</span> Island in Mauritania

Tidra is an offshore island 29 kilometres long and 8 km (5 mi) wide. It is the largest island off the shore of Banc d' Arguin, Mauritania and is home to a community of Imraguen fishing tribe. The island is part of the Banc d'Arguin National Park.

Nair is a small offshore island off the Banc d'Arguin National Park, Mauritania. It is an important breeding ground for spoonbills and slender-billed gulls. The island is part of the mud flats of the Banc d'Arguin and barely above sea level. As the oceans rise the island is disappearing and has already shrunk considerably from its historic size.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Precolonial Mauritania</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mauritania</span> Country in Northwest Africa

Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to the north and northwest, Algeria to the northeast, Mali to the east and southeast, and Senegal to the southwest. By land area Mauritania is the 11th-largest country in Africa and 28th-largest in the world; 90% of its territory is in the Sahara. Most of its population of some 4.3 million lives in the temperate south of the country, with roughly a third concentrated in the capital and largest city, Nouakchott, on the Atlantic coast.

Nouamghar is a coastal village and rural commune in the Dakhlet Nouadhibou region of western Mauritania. The village is 150 kilometers north north-east of the capital Nouakchott and is located at the entrance to Cape Timiris.

Cintra Bay or the Gulf of Cintra is a large, half-moon shaped bay on the coast of Río de Oro province, Western Sahara. It is located about 120 km (75 mi) south of Dakhla. Its coastline is sparsely populated, and the environment is mostly wild and undeveloped. Originally called "St. Cyprian's Bay", it was renamed after Captain Gonçalo de Sintra, a 15th-century Portuguese explorer who was thought to have met his death in the bay during an unauthorized, unsuccessful slave raid.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Western Saharan cuisine</span> Cuisine of Western Sahara

Western Saharan cuisine comprises the cuisine of Western Sahara, a disputed territory in the Maghreb region of North Africa, bordered by Morocco to the north, Algeria to the extreme northeast, Mauritania to the east and south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. The Western Saharan cuisine has several influences, as the population of that area (Sahrawi), in their most part are of Arabic and Berber origin. The Saharawi cuisine is also influenced by Spanish cuisine owing to Spanish colonisation.

References

  1. Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, The Western Saharans, 1980, ISBN   0-7099-0369-3, page 50
  2. 1 2 Fishermen who "walk on water" burn their nets, Panda.org, 5 May 2004
  3. 1 2 (in Spanish) El pueblo imraguen, protector de la cultura y naturaleza en Mauritana, Webislam.com, 17 June 2006
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 (in French) Jean-Pierre Turquoi, Mauritanie : au pays des Imraguen, Lemonde.fr, 11 April 2008
  5. (in Spanish) Jesús Cabaleiro Larrán, La Güera, ciudad fantasma del Sahara, Periodistas-es.com, 1 August 2016
  6. "Language Representative Counts" . Retrieved 2023-09-01.
  7. Hammarström (2015) Ethnologue 16/17/18th editions: a comprehensive review: online appendices