Bani Talal: The Moundbuilders
Bani Talal
The exonym
Bani Talal is that which was given by the Moorish settlers to the Adite tribes in the hinterlands of Bayouk and throughout the basin of the Further Nile river valley, so named for their building of mounds,
at-tilal (singular:
at-tilah) in Arabic, and pronounced by the Adite tribes themselves as the Arabic given-name
Talal. The
Balaqman[1] confederation, the ancestors of the modern-day
Nashwaz[2] and
Tayswan[3] tribes, were the first encountered by Moors, have played an important role in the development of Bayouk and Moorish society in the New World. Moors first settled in North America near the modern day city of Mahdia, which the Adites called
Bayouk Shoubik[4] (the old-town of Mahdia is still popularly known as
Shoubiqiyya) in the year 1527, after an expedition ordered by the Moroccan king initially failed to find the settlement of Nasrid loyalists in Atlantis. The Adite settlement at Shoubiqiyya is said to date back to at least 400 A.D.
The Banu Talal were a mound-building Adite civilization that flourished throughout the watershed of the Further Nile for hundreds of years before the Moors arrived. Moorish arrival coincided with the increasing warfare, political turmoil and change in migration patterns of the Bani Talal. The ancient city of
Kahoqiya[5] was found abandoned by the time Moorish settlers reached it toward the end of the 16th century. The Banu Talal were not a cohesive civilizational unit, but rather grouped together due to similar civilizational habits noted by the Moors. Moorish arrival also coincided with a period of great changes in the habits of many Banu Talal tribes, allowing for their assimilation into Moorish New World society. The preservation of traditional habits by the Balaqman, and their alliance with the Moorish settlers would prove to be the basis for the establishment of the Adite elite in Bayouk. Interaction with Moors eventually lead to the gradual adoption of Islam and sedentary lifestyles (sedentarization would be notably absent and fought against by the
Kadwa, northwest of Bayouk, for centuries) by most of the tribes along the lower portions of the Further Nile by the turn of the 18th century A.D.
Cultural similarities between Bani Talal tribes were their construction of large, earthwork pyramid mounds upon which were urban settlements; intensive, large-scale maize-based agriculture which would be quickly adopted by the agricultural Morisco immigrants; shell pottery; and the centralization of one larger mound settlement over other, small ones. Additional factors, noted traditionally by scholars in Barbary and Bayouk, which allowed for the easy Islamization of the Bani Talal were: their pre-existing complex sociopolitical hierarchical societies, and the pre-existing concepts of centralization of the control of religious and political power by chiefly and clerical clans.
While the Bani Talal worked naturally occurring metal deposits, such as hammering copper for decorative and ceremonial uses, they did not smelt iron or practice bronze metallurgy until contact with Moors.
Balaqman
The Balaqman confederation, the ancestors of the modern-day Nashwaz and Tayswan tribes, were the first Adites encountered by Moors in what became Bayouk, and have played an important role in the development of Bayouk and Moorish society in the New World. They are considered to have been the remaining descendants of the ancient civilization at Kahoqiya. For the Morisco and Mudéjar Moors, the abandoned civilization at Kahoqiya and the Balaqman themselves were held in high-esteem for their high status artifacts and elite pottery, which reminisced the Moors of their infamous porcelain in Granada.
Upon the arrival of the Moors, the Balaqman tribe ruled several large mound settlements in Bayouk. The Balaqman consisted of both sedentary mound-dwellers, whose settlements the Moors called a “
Talah;” as well as more nomadic Bedouin members. With the arrival of the Moors, tribal control over both sedentary and Bedouin populations became more centralized, as the Adites assimilated various Arabo-Berber tribal structures. There existed two large, important Balaqman mounds at the time of initial Moorish settlement were:
- Talah Lakhdar[6]: This mound was much further north than the core area of the Balaqman, but its platform mound was the second-largest pre-Moorish earthwork known to have existed after Talah Alqadissiya[7] at Kahoqiya.
- Talah Qariya Anashwazan[8]: From this settlement, the Nashwaz descendants of the Balaqman would develop their own tribal identity a century and a half after the arrival of the Moors.
In addition to its control of various mounds, the Balaqman polity had centralized itself by the end of the 16th century at Medora, largely due to its proximity to Mahdia and the Moorish settlements along the coast and around the mouth of the Further Nile.
Bani Qusoor
North and east of the Balaqman dominions were Bani Talal tribes known for the large mounds and residential complexes that were often surrounded by ditches or palisades. These are the ancestors of the modern
Bani Qusoor[9] tribe (so called for their palatial-like residences compared to other Adites by Moorish settlers), which formed initially as a tribal confederation of various tribes who were facing large deaths due to diseases brought by Moors and later Europeans. Their eventual unification as a single tribe is generally accredited to increasing assimilation of Adite tribes in the region along the lines of Arab and Berber clans and tribes. Important settlements whose inhabitants would eventually forge together as the Bani Qusoor tribe were:
- Talah Almulouk[10]: Initially an independent chiefdom, its members banded together with nearby Islamized tribes as a predecessor to the establishment of the Bani Qusoor.
- Talah Baduqa[11]: A major mound center and important trading post as Bayouk expanded north.
- Talah Talsqalsa[12]: Considered to have rivaled Kahoqiya in the pre-Moorish period as one of the two most important sites at the core of Baqaman culture.
- Talah Qasqiya[13]: The site of the first battle between Muslim Adite tribes and Spanish explorers under Hernando de Soto in 1542, they Spaniards were again defeated as the Qasqiya were aided by the Chaqchaoua[14] tribe, who’s chief valued trade with Moorish traders and recognized the Cross symbol as a bad omen from discussion with Moorish and Muslim Adites.
Kadwa
North of the Balaqman and west of the Bani Qusoor settlements is the historic heartland of the region of
Kadwa, so named for the tribal confederation united by the
Kado tribe[15], which formed for similar reasons to owing to the creation of the Bani Qusoor. Unlike the Balaqman and Bani Qusoor, however, the Kadwanis have been primarily Bedouin. Despite their early acceptance of Islam, Kadwani tribes traditionally fought fiercly against Arabization and muladization from power centers in Bayouk. Archaeological evidence supports tribal oral history that the cultural continuity of the Kado tribe, to assimilation and confederalization of neighboring tribes, to the nation of Kadwa today.
Drier climates in Kadwa hindered maize production, and the lower populations of tribes in the Far West allowed for fewer competitions. Between the Arkawi[16] and Red River[17] valleys, where the largest and most fertile waterways in Kadwa can be found, maize productive was the most productive. The lack of palisade fortifications due to fewer military threats and less complex social hierarchy and lower social stratification was reminiscent to the Moors of the Bedouin tribes of Arabia and the Sahara. The differentiation between
Hadara[18], or sedentary, and Bedouin tribes and populations was brought to the New World by the Moors.
The Kadwani people have maintained a clan structure reminiscent of the previous tribes that were assimilated by the Kadwani as disease and population decline was rampant throughout the New World. While many Kadwan languages are said to have existed pre-contact and in the first two centuries of Moorish settlement, by the 20th century only Kadwani was spoken, although Kadwani scholars of the
Bawani[19] languages, closely related, maintained a proper record of the Kadwani languages’s last cousin.
The Kadwani are historically organized into four sub-confederacies[20]: the
Kadohadachoua, the
Natshitawa, the Kadwani
Ansaris (descendants of nearby tribes assimilated into the Kadwanis) and the
Hasinay who’s descendants, better known by the Islamized name of the
Hassanids– would eventually form the second sovereign Adite dynasty in the New World after the Moqtezumids.
___________
[1] Plaquemines
[2]
Natchez people
[3]
Taensa people
[4]
Bayouk Choupique Native settlement near OTL New Orleans
[5] Cahokia
[6] Emerland Mound
[7] Monks Mound
[8] Grand Village of the Natchez
[9] Middle Mississippians
[10] Angels Mound
[12] Mondville
[13]
Casquìa Province noted by de Soto
[14] Chicasaw
[15] Caddoan
[16] Arkansas River (see n°17)
[17] Placeholder, can't get myself lost in renaming everything
[18]
Hadara (vs. Badawi),
Hadri is Arabic sociological term to distinguish settled tribes from nomadic tribes (badwi (sing.), bado (pl.), Bedouin, etc.)
[19] Pawnee
[20] Clans of OTL Caddoan nation, plus "
Ansar," from Arabic for migrant helpers/newcomers.
