Nile tribes both fought and venerated the Egyptian expedition, confusing its commander.

Evidence

The violent encounters continued between the Kik and the expedition. Despite the volume of gifts being exchanged, the fear would not evaporate. And Selim Qapudan was still trying to determine his response to the alternating attacks and worship by the Kik. His narrative suggests that different Kik villages responded differently to the expedition, which only further complicated Selim Qapudan’s sense of how the expedition was being interpreted. … One tribe approached the expedition, but Selim Qapudan noticed that there were no children among them. He asked about this, and they responded that they had hidden the children out of fear; yet they said they considered the soldiers to be sent from God. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 204

Categorization

• XREF: The combination of reverence and armed fear from Kik villages shows a mode of first-contact ambiguity central to comparing Egyptian vs European colonial encounters in Africa.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what accounts for the tribes framing the soldiers as divinely sent while still hiding their children — missionary expectation, genuine cosmology, or diplomacy?