Protegez l'Idi du Sahel!
ABIS
The Association Burkinabé Idi du Sahel (A.B.I.S.) is a non-profit organisation with legal seat in Burkina Faso. Supported by a group of sighthound friends in Europe and America, A.B.I.S. tries to help the Azawakhs to survive in their countries of origin. Our magazin Nouvelles (No 1, 1995), and Hunde-Revue, Unsere Windhunde, Der Windhundfreund et Partner Hund, reported about the activities of A.B.I.S. Recently, an A.B.I.S. expedition was able to visit regions in the Azawakh Valley which had been unaccessible since the beginning of the Touareg rebellions in 1992. Here is a first account.On February 14th, 1996 the eight members of the 6th Azawakh-Expedition returned from Niger, Mali and Burkina-Faso, très fatigués but safe and sound despite quite a number of adventures, and with an ample cynological yeld. On January 27th, the second day of the journey, the expedition barely made it out of Niamey amongst the sound of gun fire initiating the coup d'état in Niger, via Ouallam, Bani Bongou and Zama it reached the town of Filingué in the Dollol Boboy, an extension of the Azawakh Valley. But only in Abala, the last military outpost in Niger, and then on the hard trip to the village of Andéramboukane at the border of Mali, the expedition met occasional groups of nomads with their dogs - Touareg families who survived the civil war in the region or had returned from refugee camps.
North of Andéramboukane, in Mali, the living conditions of the nomads seemed to improve. The expedition was able to explore this region thanks to a Touareg guide with obvious connections to the Liberation Front. The aims of A.B.I.S. produced hospitable reception in the faraway nomad camps. Here and during the whole journey, the members of the expedition had excellent opportunities to learn about the country, its people and cultures in a way which is normally not open to foreign travellers in Africa.The Oullimiden-Touareg have kept faith to their dogs in these difficult times and proudly showed their Idi-Idi in their opinion the best sighthounds south of the Sahara. These mainly sand coloured and brindled Azawakhs were remarkably homogeneous, vigorous and of a good height, reminding of the type represented in the "Yugoslav line". Two young brindled males of about ten and twelve weeks, Anamar and Djambé (now in Frankfurt and Switzerland), and Cram-Cram, a sand coloured female of hardly three weeks of age (now in Munich) joined the expedition.
The journey continued to Ménaka - nowadays a ghost town surrounded by dreary clay buildings of army outposts - and to Asongo at the Niger river, which used to be a lively place on the Transsahara road until it was closed down in 1992. After a rather adventurous crossing of the Niger the expedition took an abandoned route via Tessit to the border of Burkina Faso and finally reached familiar territory east of Tin Akouf.The appearance of the A.B.I.S. expedition was good news for the people along the road : their first encounter with visitors from Europe after four years, and therefore a signal of hope that the peace talks between the Sahel governments and the "Liberation Front of the Azawakh" might finally lead to an end of the conflict which had set visible marks along the way of the expedition. In the course of field research in the Beli region the expedition experienced that the activities of A.B.I.S. during the past years had not be futile.
This was brought to the point by the Chief Administrator (Préfet) of Tin Akouf : since the start of A.B.I.S. activities four years ago a new awareness of the sighthounds can be observed among the people of the northern Oudalan province, and there is a growing knowledge that these dogs are part of their own traditions worth while to preserve.Part of this year's program was the continous encouragement of positive breeding by means of information, advice and material assistance. New and successful efforts were made, among others, by establishing a method for the transport of refrigerated vaccines and the immunization of a selected stock of Azawakhs against the most common epidemies. A.B.IS. secured the daily meal for the school children of Tin Akouf with funds for the cook's salary and the transport of victuals from the distribution center in Ouagadougou way up into the savannah during the next six months. Various utensils were donated to the school. The students want to respond with essays and drawing about Azawakhs. A.B.I.S. hopes to arrange classroom partnerships with German schools.
In the course of the expedition, 212 Azawakhs were registered under the condition of a close-up inspection (123 specimens in northern Niger and Mali, 89 in the Beli region).

The records of these observations will be published in the next issue of Nouvelles.The expedition ended on February 12th with a press reception in Ougadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
 

Protect the Sahel Idi
 

The idea to extablish an organisation to protect the Azawakhs in their African homelands was born in the course of the "1st International International Azawakh Expedition" which led in a group of sighthound friends from Germany, Austria, the United States and Mexico to visit Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso in March 1992. By decree of the Ministry for Internal Administration, A.B.I.S. was incorporated in December 1993 as an association of public interest with headquarters in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). Its statutory aims are the preservation and advancement of the pure-bred sighthounds of the nomads in the Sahel region - de préserver et de promouvoir l'espèce des lévriers pur-sang Idi. A.B.I.S. operates in a country of the so-called Fourth World and depends upon the commitment and assistance of sponsors in Europe and overseas. To understand the activities of A.B.IS., some background information, based on local experience and learning processes, is necessary. For thousands of years, cattle breeding tribes of non-negroids descent live in the semi-arid regions between the Sudan and the Atlantic coast and from the Mediterranean to the southern shores (Arabic : "Sahel") of today's Sahara desert ; ever since this time, their canine companions have been sighthounds of oriental origin. Natural barriers and socio-ethnic segregation prevented a mixing of these hounds with the bushdogs of Black Africa. The sighthound of the Sahel appears in a number of pure-bred varations. They have developed over long periods in the seperate areas of migration and settlement (isolates). The Azawakh as described by F.C.I. Standard n° 307, differs in certain details from other isolate breeds, e.g. the Touareg sighthounds of the Ajjer and Ahaggar mountains in Algeria or the sighthounds of the Aoukar nomads in Mauretania.The native region fo the Azawakh is correctly defined in the most recent edition of the F.C.I. Standard as the central basin of the Niger river including the Azawakh Valley, an ancient stream-bed formed by northeastern tributaries of the Niger. This area with the approximate size of France is situated on the territories of three post-colonial states : Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. It includes the homelands of several nomadic ethnicities of presumable Berber ("white") descent, among them the Touareg and Peul or Fulbe, and of their former vasalls of Black African origin.
They all can be owners or breeders of Azawakhs ; other dogs breed do not exist in this region. In the past, these ethnic groups have adopted ways and customs of the dominating Touareg people and learned to communicate in their language, the Tamachek. Therefore, they felt part of the "Kel Tamachek", the cultural community of the Touareg. Insofar, Azawakhs are "Touareg sighthounds", and it was indeed the upper cast of the Oullimiden-Touareg which prided itself in breeding the most perfect dogs, the Oskas or Idi-Idi. The living space of the Oullimiden, with the settlements of Gao and Ménaka as political and economic centers, extended from the Wadi Assouad into the indentical landscape of neighbouring Niger in the south as well as into the Gourma savannah west of the Niger river and the north-east of Burkina Faso. Nowadays, the largest part of the Azawakh homeland belongs to the state of Mali ; insofar, the description Native region : Mali of the F.C.I. Standard is not incorrect, but highly unsatisfactory from the point of ethno-cynological view.

The purpose of dogs within cattle breeding societies is the protection of stock, herdsmen and camps against beasts of prey and other threats from outside. The respective qualities in the character of the Azawakh have been shaped by natural and breeding selection. The Azawakh must guard his territory by baying, menacing and eventual by attacking as soon as an intruder should approach beyond a certain distance. On the other hand, and of equal importance, he must respond depandably to his master's demands, be friendly with life-stock and family members and nonagressive to persons who are welcomed to the camp ; the same neutral behaviour is expected outside the guarded territory, e.g. in market places and around community wells.
His close alliance to his master possibly added to the romantic picture of the Azawakh in connection with the "Blue Knight of the Desert". Part of this european image is the emphasis on the use of Azawakhs as hunting dogs, assisting their veiled masters on noble Arab horses in the chase of gazelles and lions. In fact, however, hunting has always been rather insignificant for the majority of the nomads, whose main basis subsistance is cattle breeding and the collecting of natural products. Only the former nobles in the Touareg hierarchy possessed the means and leisure provided by a system of bondsmenship to practise - much like falconry in the oil-emirates of today - the chase with sighthounds as a status symbol. These were the thoroughbred types of the Azawakh - "un animal d'apparat" - which early European importers of the dogs had met in the French colonies of West Africa.

Their favoured features in respect to colour and markings have been included in the F.C.I. Standard under patronage of the French Kennel Club. This type of Oskas can still be found as more or less perfect specimens in the present Azawakh population, even though the times of the Touareg nobles and their breeding ideals have long passed due to socio-economic changes in the Sahel. But as a whole, the Azawakhs of today - just like the vast majority of the dogs in earlier times - constitute a pure-blood "rural-stock". The only criteria for selective breeding, if practised at all, are the positive qualities of a working dog for the every-day needs of the nomad families. These dogs carry the original and unmixed genetic potential which has been the source of the foreign Azawakh breeding based on a dozen of imports during the Sixties and Seventies.The present rural stock of nomad sighthounds in Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali is mainly a result of selection by the survival of the fittest during periods of catastrophic droughts, civil war and privation . Its genetic polymorphy contains the desirable charateristics of the Standard as well as those features which are less esteemed by European breeders.
The existence of a genetic reservoir of this kind is a unique chance for further breeding strategies - especially in the light of European in-breeding deficiencies - and it should be used with expertise and patience.Let us return at this point to the Association Burkinabé Idi du Sahel : until now, its activities concentrate on the Sahel territory of Burkina Faso, the only region of the Azawakh homelands which has remained accessible since the Touareg uprising of 1992. The problems of survival of the fortunately still rather numerous Azawakh population in northeastern Burkina Faso are of threefold nature.
- Owing to the progreding impoverishment of the nomads, the keeping of an Azawakh is a heavy economic burden as soon as millet - the main nourishment of men and dogs alike - becomes scarce, e.g. as a result of unsufficient rainy seasons. At the same time, the possibilities for self-subsistance of the dogs diminish by the lack of huntable prey in the savannahs. So, the willingness to keep and breed Azawakhs is reduced in correspondence with a shorter life expectation of the existing dog population.
- The rearing of litters demands exceptionally high expenses for feeding. In addition, female whelps are brought up only if new litters are in demand in the coming years. Otherwise, just one or two males will survive the traditional selection among the new-borns. So, the share of female Azawakhs tends to drop below the number necessary for the optimal reproduction of the population.- Finally, the traditional values of the people are changing under the impact of economic and social modernization trends. Today, the esteem of the Idis and the wisdom as to their qualities, breeding and keeping are already limited to the older generation. Muslim influences might, in the long run, alter the nomads' idea of partnership with their animals. A.B.I.S. tries to facilitate the keeping of Azawakhs by economic assistance to nomad families, by donations for the rearing of promising litters, by establishing longterm sponsorships for individual dogs and by local vaccination programs. As men and dogs alike depend on the same basic food, the delivery of millet, for instance, will help the people and their Azawakhs.
Gifts for practical personal use, medical supplies or small sums of money will serve the same purpose if accompanied by the donor's request to take care of a certain dog. All this is done with encouraging success as far as the still very moderate funds of the Association will allow. A.B.I.S. hopes that the recent commissioning of probate Azawakh breeders among the nomads as local "representatives" might produce further results. They are expected to pay protective attention to exceptional dogs in the region, to influence the selection and rearing of whelps, to place young dogs with trustworthy families and to encourage promising reproduction. This requires patient efforts on the side of A.B.I.S. to explain the desirable phenotypical qualities and the basic genetic rules of positive breeding. Furthermore, A.B.I.S. tries to transmit the idea that the Idi as part of the cultural heritage of the nomad people are worth while preserving. This is also done by numerous contacts with administrators, police and military authorities, school teachers and local notables in the Azawakh region, by means of printed and illustrated information, stickers and T-Shirts with the Association's logo and, on a "political" level, by PR-activities with the press and government officials in Ouagadougou. Contacts with reputed artisans have resulted in the re-introduction of the Azawakh motif in traditional bronze casting and textile painting.
Most impressive for the people in the Sahel and the decisive factor for further success, however, is the persistent and reliable engagement of sighthound friends from far-away countries. Since 1992, a small but growing number of A.B.I.S. sponsors in Europe and overseas have upheld personal contacts with their nomad friends. In the course of six A.B.I.S. expeditions nearly twenty Azawakh puppies were chosen for "emigration" to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Mexico and the United States. The adoption of these dogs, especially if in very young age, is always a matter of chance in respect to their further phenotypical developement. Notwithstanding the fact, that all of them are of pure Azawakh blood and of high value for the genetic pool outside Africa, some of them will not live up in detail to the connotations of our high-breed Standard.Others however, and among them a good number of exhibition champions, have made their way already in spite of various and often ill-informed sceptics in the European
Azawakh scene.

A.B.I.S. has compiled a unique documentation of native Azawakh habitats through its annual field research in West Africa, and offers to share this material with all interested sighthound friends.


ABIS Website

All pictures are © ABIS


Last updated 20-01-2004
© Copyright 1998-2004 texts and photos WWA