Page 39 - The Sloughi Review - Issue 9

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W
Azawakh as imagined beyond Africa: red sand-coloured, with white boots
and white tail tip, near Gossi, Mali 2003 © G. Hanß
Ursula Arnold, herself an Azawakh breeder
('n shat-ehad) and traveller throughout
Africa in the 1980s, contradicts this view.
Her experience is that the Azawakh is first
and foremost a hunting sighthound and
that this is also the primary goal in
breeding.
The A.B.I.S. expeditions started in March
1992, about a decade later. Until 1996, the
expeditions could only take place to
Burkina Faso, then also to Niger and the
Azawakh Valley in Mali. During this time,
political and social changes were taking
place that altered these traditional forms of
families, inter-dependencies and transport
possibilities and the resulting changes in
daily life, as Dr. Röder also describes.
Ursula Arnold did not see any transitional
types from Azawakh to Sloughi in southern
Algeria and southern Libya in the 1980s,
simply because the spaces were very large
and very few people were there.
3 9
Oliver Becker mentions in his report an
Oullimid Tuareg chief who spoke of the
"right Idi, the Idi Idi".
Apparently, the quality of the Idi decreases
when they are bred by the former vassals,
the Kel Tamaschek ("cultural family of the
Touareg"), the Haussa, the Peulh or the
Bella. Respect for the Idi is also declining.
However, Dr. Gabriele Meißen puts this
statement into perspective; in her statistics
she refers to the "highly typical" and
"typical" Idis that are bred in all four ethnic
groups mentioned. Her statistics of the
highly typical and typical Azawakh do not
take into account the coat colour. She
registers the greater appreciation of the Idi
for the nomadic ethnic groups Tuareg,
Bella and Peulh. For the sedentary Haussa,
for example, a slightly lower passion for the
Idi was recorded.