Hadendoa (or Hadendowa) is the name of a nomadic subdivision of the Beja people, known for their support of the Mahdiyyah rebellion during the 1880s to 1890s.

[4] The area historically inhabited by the Hadendoa lies today in parts of Sudan, Egypt and Eritrea.

[6][3] The southern Beja were part of the Christian kingdom of Axum during the sixth to fourteenth centuries.

These became the Hadendoa, who by the eighteenth century were the dominant people of eastern Sudan, and always at war with the Bisharin tribe.

[7][8] The Hadendoa were traditionally a pastoral people, ruled by a hereditary chief,[9] called a Ma'ahes.