TheHumr (also known asHumur,Arabic:همور,romanized: Hūmūr,lit. 'red') are one of two branches of theMessiria, a subgroup of theBaggara ethnic group, native to the south-west province ofKordofan,Sudan. Speakers ofChadian Arabic, the Humr live in the area surrounding the towns ofBabanusa,Muglad and Al Fula (Arabic:الفولة).
The Humr are divided into two groups - theAjaira, who live in the area from Muglad toAbyei and theFelaita, who live in the vicinity of Babanusa, Alfoula and Kajira.[1] There are six clans in the Ajaira and five in the Falita, and thus twelve Humrawi clans in all.[citation needed]Anthropologist Ian Cunnison lists the clans of the two divisions of the Humr as the Ajaira consisting of the Fayyarin, Awlád Kamil, Mezaghna, Fadliya, Menama and Addal clans, and the Felaita consisting of the Metanin, Ziyud, Awlád Serur, Jubarat and Salamat clans.[2]
The people who govern each tribe are known as the "Nazir" (Arabic:ناظر,lit. 'leader').[3]
The Humur are intrepidhunters ofelephants and thegiraffe. Humrawi hunters' main reason for hunting the giraffe is the preparation of the drinkumm nyolokh.[4]
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The Humur are most commonly known outside the Sudan as the preparers of a drink made from theliver andbone marrow of a giraffe, which they callumm nyolokh, and which they claim is intoxicating, causingdreams andhallucinations. If substantiated by a chemical analysis, this claim would make the giraffe the first mammal to be discovered to contain a hallucinogen in its bodily tissues, and the Humrawi the first people to have discovered the existence of such a mammal.[5] Ian Cunnison, who accompanied the Humr on some of their giraffe-hunting expeditions in the late 1950s, noted that:
It is said that a person, once he has drunk umm nyolokh, will return to giraffe again and again. Humr, beingMahdists, are strictabstainers [from alcohol] and a Humrawi is never drunk (sakran) onliquor or beer. But he uses this word to describe the effects which umm nyolokh has upon him.[4]
Cunnison's account of a psychoactive mammal found its way into a mainstream literature through a conversation betweenDr. Wendy James of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at theUniversity of Oxford and specialist on the use of hallucinogens and intoxicants in societyRichard Rudgley, who considered its implications in his popular workThe Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances. Rudgley hypothesises that the presence of the hallucinogenic compoundDMT might account for the putative intoxicating properties of umm nyolokh.[5]