SHAGIA (SHAIGIA, SHAIKIYEH)  , a tribe of Africans of Semitic origin living on both banks of the Nile from Korti to the Third Cataract, and in portions of the Bayuda Desert . The Shagia are partly a nomad, partly an agricultural people . They claim descent from one Shayig Ibn Hamaidan of the Beni Abbas, and declare that they came from Arabia at the time of the con-quest of Egypt in the 7th century . They must have dispossessed and largely intermarried with a people of Nuba origin . They appear (from a statement by James Bruce) to have been settled originally south of their present country and to have moved northward since 1772 . Formerly subject to the Funj kings of Sennar, they became independent on the decline of that state in the 18th century . They were overcome c . 1811 at Dongola by the Mamelukes, but continued to dominate a considerable part of Nubia . To the Egyptians in 182o they offered a stout resistance, but finally submitted and served in the Egyptian ranks during the suppression of the Ja'alin revolt (1822) . For their services they obtained lands of these latter between Shendi and Khartum . At that time they were far more civilized than the neighbouring tribes . Freedom-loving, brave, enlightened and hospitable, they had schools in which all Moslem science was taught, and were rich in corn and cattle .

Their fighting men, mounted on horses of the famous Dongola breed, were feared throughout the eastern

Sudan . Their chiefs wore coats of mail and carried shields of hippopotamus or crocodile skin . Their arms were lance, sword or javelin . The Shagia are divided into twelve clans . Their country is the most fertile along the Nile between Egypt and Khartum . Many of their villages are well built; some of the houses are fortified . They speak Arabic and generally preserve the Semitic type, though they are obviously of very mixed blood . The typical Shagia has a sloping forehead, aquiline nose and receding chin . They have adopted the African custom of gashing the chests of their children . In the wars of 1884-85 General Gordon's first fight was to rescue a few Shagia besieged in a fort at Halfaya . In April 1884 Saleh Bey (Saleh Wad el Mek), head of the tribe, and 1400 men surrendered to the mandi's forces . Numbers of Shagia continued in the service of General Gordon and this led to the outlawry of the tribe by the mandi .

When Khartum

fell Saleh's sons were sought out and executed by the dervishes . On the reconquest of the Sudan by the Anglo-Egyptian army (1896-98) it was found that the Shagia were reduced to a few hundred families . See Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905) ; A . H . Keane, Ethnology of the Egyptian Sudan (London, 1884) .