Tegali

The Tegali consider themselves original inhabitants of the Nuba Mountains, having occupied these lands long before the arrival of neighboring empires. Over the centuries, the mountains became a destination for other peoples fleeing war, slavery, and oppression on the surrounding plains, turning the region into a true archipelago of languages and cultures.

This history of refuge shaped the people's character: isolation in the hills provided protection, but it also produced lasting distrust of outsiders. In recent decades, the armed conflict that returned to South Kordofan brought a new wave of displacement, reopening old wounds in a land that has already seen entire generations seek shelter among its own mountains.

Life revolves around the hills of Tegali and Rashad and the small town of Rashad, where subsistence farming and livestock raising sustain families. The mountainous terrain historically favored terrace farming and village life organized by clans, with a strong attachment to ancestral land.

Living alongside dozens of neighboring peoples, each with its own language, has made multilingualism a natural part of life: it is common to grow up hearing Tegali at home and Arabic in market exchanges. This mix of peoples living side by side, each preserving its own customs, is a hallmark of Nuba identity as a whole.

Islam shapes nearly all of Tegali religious and social life, present in the upbringing of children, family norms, and community organization. Islamic schools teach the Quran to boys and girls from an early age, and Islamic law guides everyday decisions, from marriage to resolving disputes between neighbors.

Alongside Islam, older religious practices also persist, tied to the land, to ancestors, and to the agricultural cycle, a trait common among the Nuba peoples who have preserved their own traditions even under strong Islamic influence from outside the mountains. For the Tegali, being Muslim and belonging to their own people go hand in hand, almost as one and the same thing.

There is no Bible translated in the Tegali language, and translation has yet to begin. In a region where nearly a hundred different languages coexist side by side in the Nuba Mountains, translation projects often take years to reach each community, and Tegali remains among the many languages still waiting for the Word of God in their own tongue. In the meantime, what is known of the Scriptures reaches the people almost always through Arabic, the region’s trade language, rather than through the language of the people’s heart.

Centuries of refuge in the mountains left a deep mark: the Tegali, like the other Nuba peoples, tend to distrust strangers, which makes any initial approach slower and more delicate. Islamic identity is intertwined with ethnic identity, so that leaving Islam can feel like abandoning one’s own people. The armed conflict that has once again struck South Kordofan in recent years adds physical isolation to spiritual distance, making it even harder for the gospel message to reach these hills.

The war that returned to the Nuba Mountains brought mass displacement, insecurity, and the destruction of crops in a region that already depends on subsistence farming to survive. Water for drinking and irrigation remains scarce, and simple improvements in access, such as wells and basic irrigation systems, would make a real difference in the lives of Tegali families.

On the spiritual level, the need is just as great: there is no Scripture in their own language, nor any known Christian community among the Tegali able to proclaim and live out the gospel within their own culture.