Page 42 - THE SLOUGHI REVIEW - ISSUE 13

T H E S L O U G H I R E V I E W 4 2

It is often forgotten that a cradle of agriculture was also located in the area of the Nile
and also in Nubia in today's Sudan. Due to the constant presence of water, the Nile
provided a stable basis for fertile agricultural soils, which was not always the case in
Mesopotamia. There were also dry periods in the area of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers,
which led to the migration of people and their households.

The dogs found there were shaped by the special conditions of the landscape and the
climate, as we know with the landraces of dogs and other domestic animals. However, as
we can observe with the Africanis, the uses for the dogs are very diverse and not very
specific to begin with. So whether there has been selective emphasis that has more
strongly emphasised hunting dog types or protection dogs is questionable. Finally, we see
that natural conditions also lead to different types of dogs. Up to Azawakh and Sloughi,

the dispositions are more to be found in breadth than in specialisation.

The people who migrated with their dogs from the Levant to the Nile Delta were
therefore climate refugees. They migrated up the Nile and arrived in southern Sudan, as
Johan Gallant notes around 2000 B.C. Before that, however, around the time between

about 6000 B.C. and 2000 B.C., there was a migration movement from the upper Nile and
today's northern Sudan, i.e. from Nubia, towards the west, into the then fertile Sahara. Via
Chad, Niger and finally in Algeria, dogs reached the areas where Sloughis and Azawakhs
are found today.

Africanis among the Khoisan, pastoralists in Namaqualand,
South Africa and Namibia, already reminiscent of a Sloughi.
Gallant, in The Story of the African Dog p.71 © Edith Gallant