Iwellemmedan people
The Iwellemmedan (Iwəlləmədǎn), also spelled Iullemmeden, Aulliminden, Ouilliminden, Lullemmeden, and Iwellemmeden, are one of the seven major Tuareg tribal or clan confederations. Their communities are historically nomadic and intermixed with other ethnic groups. The Iwellemmeden inhabit a wide area ranging from east and north central Mali, through the Azawagh valley, into northwestern Niger and south into northern Nigeria. While once a single confederation of dozens of Tuareg clans, subject peoples, and allied groups, since the 18th century they have been divided into Kel Ataram (west) and Kel Dinnik (east) confederations.
The origins of the division into Kel Ataram ("people of the west") and Kel Dinnik ("people of the east") goes back to at least 1800, and perhaps a century earlier. The confederation remained divided under colonial rule, with the Nigerien arm to the east given its own official "chief", while after 1916, the western arm was re-divided among a number of official French chosen chieftainships. The division of eastern and western Iwellemmedan remains in the post-colonial period. The western arm of the Iwellemmedan is the Kel Ataram centered on the Malian town of Ménaka. Component "free" clans (mostly "maraboutic" or "Imajeghen" tribes which inherit local religious leadership) include the Tahabanaten and Ighatafan. The major eastern arm of the confederation is the Kel Dinnik (var. Kel Dinnig), sometimes named the "Ouilliminden Kel Dinnik", and centered in the Azawagh, near Tchin-Tabaraden and Tahoua. Their major "free"/"Imajeghen" components include the Irreulen, Lisawan, Tiggirmat, Tellemidez, and Ikhekheren. The free/noble Kel Nan clan is the traditional source of the Amenokal, the paramount confederation leader chosen by clan heads.
Tuareg groups moved south into what is now Mali and Niger sometime around the 11th century CE, and the Iwellemmedan were established south and east of the Adrar Ifoghas by the 17th century CE. Contesting oral histories agree that the Iwellemmedan came into conflict with the Kel Taddemekat confederation, but disagree whether the Iwellemmedan were pushed out of the Adrar Ifoghas by their foes or conquered Kel Taddemekat territory south and west of the massif. Regardless, by the mid-15th century CE, the Iwellemmedan controlled an area from Lake Faguibine and north of Timbuktu east through all of what is now the Gao Region of Mali, into the Nigerien Azawagh all the way to the edge of the Aïr Massif. Engaged in long struggle with the inheritors of the 15th century CE Moroccan conquest of the Songhai Empire, the Iwellemmedan Kel Ataram clans eventually imposed indirect rule over Timbuktu, along with all of the Niger River valley from the Niger inland delta to what into the town of Say, Niger. The Kel Ataram were only driven from Timbuktu in 1826 by the rise of the Fula Macina Empire, but retained much of the area to its north.
