MOORISH LITERATURE

COMPRISING

ROMANTIC BALLADS, TALES OF THE BERBERS, STORIES OF THE KABYLES, FOLK-LORE, AND NATIONAL TRADITIONS

TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH FOR THE FIRST TIME

WITH A SPECIAL INTRODUCTION BY

RENÉ BASSET, PH.D.

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FRANCE, AND DIRECTOR OF THE ACADÉMIE D'ALGER

1901

SPECIAL INTRODUCTION.

The region which extends from the frontiers of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger, was in ancient times inhabited by a people to whom we give the general name of Berbers, but whom the ancients, particularly those of the Eastern portion, knew under the name of Moors. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks," said Strabo, "in the first century A.D., and Mauri by the Romans. They are of Lybian origin, and form a powerful and rich nation."1 This name of Moors is applied not only to the descendants of the ancient Lybians and Numidians, who live in the nomad state or in settled abodes, but also to the descendants of the Arabs who, in the eighth century A.D., brought with them Islamism, imposed by the sabre of Ogbah and his successors. Even further was it carried, into Spain, when Berbers and Arabs, reunited under the standard of Moussa and Tarik, added this country to the empire of the Khalifa. In the fifteenth century the Portuguese, in their turn, took the name to the Orient, and gave the

name of Moors to the Mussulmans whom they found on the Oriental coast of Africa and in India.

The appellation particularizes, as one may see, three peoples entirely different in origin—the Berbers, the Arabs of the west, and the Spanish Mussulmans, widely divided, indeed, by political struggles, but united since the seventh and eighth centuries in their religious law. This distinction must be kept in mind, as it furnishes the necessary divisions for a study of the Moorish literature.

The term Moorish Literature may appear ambitious applied to the monuments of the Berber language which have come down to us, or are gathered daily either from the lips of singers on the mountains of the Jurgura, of the Aures, or of the Atlas of Morocco; under the tents of the Touaregs of the desert or the Moors of Senegal; in the oases of the south of Algeria or in Tunis. But it is useless to search for literary monuments such as have been transmitted to us from Egypt and India, Assyria and Persia, ancient Judea, Greece and Rome; from the Middle Ages; from Celt, Slav, and German; from the Semitic and Ouralo-altaique tongues; the extreme Orient, and the modern literature of the Old and New World.

But the manifestations of thought, in popular form, are no less curious and worthy of study among the Berbers. I do not speak of the treatises on religion which in the Middle Ages and in our day were translated from the Arabic into certain dialects: that borrowed literature, which also exists among the Sonalulis of Eastern Africa and the Haussas and the Peuls of the Soudan, has nothing original. But the popular literature—the stories and songs—has an altogether different importance. It is, above all, the expression of the daily life, whether it relates to fêtes or battles or even simple fights. These songs may be satirical or laudatory, to celebrate the victory of one party or deplore the defeat of the True Believers by the Christians, resounding on the lips of children or women, or shouted in political defiance. They permit us, in spite of a coarse rhythm and language often incorrect, an insight into their manner of life, and to feel as do peoples established for centuries on African soil. Their ancestors, the Machouacha, threatened Egypt in the time of Moses and took possession

of it, and more than twenty centuries later, with the Fatimides, converted Spain to the Mussulman faith. Under Arab chiefs they would have overcome all Eastern Europe, had it not been for the hammer of Charles Martel, which crushed them on the field of Poitiers.

The richest harvest of Berber songs in our possession is, without doubt, that in the dialect of the Zouaous, inhabiting the Jurgura mountains, which rise some miles distant from Algiers, their crests covered with snow part of the year.2 All kinds of songs are represented; the rondeaux of children whose inspiration is alike in all countries:

In the same category one may find the songs which are peculiar to the women, "couplets with which they accompany themselves in their dances; the songs, the complaints which one hears them repeat during whole hours in a rather slow and monotonous rhythm while they are at their household labors, turning the hand-mill, spinning and weaving cloths, and composed by the women, both words and music."6

One of the songs, among others, and the most celebrated in the region of the Oued-Sahal, belonging to a class called Deker, is consecrated to the memory of an assassin, Daman-On-Mesal, executed by a French justice. As in most of these couplets, it is the guilty one who excites the interest:

With the Berbers of lower Morocco the women's songs are called by the Arab name Eghna.

If the woman, as in all Mussulman society, plays an inferior role—inferior to that allowed to her in our modern civilizations—she is not less the object of songs which celebrate the power given her by beauty:

The same sentiment inspires the Touareg songs, among which tribe women enjoy much greater liberty and possess a knowledge of letters greater than that of the men, and know more of that which we should call literature, if that word were not too ambitious:

The poetic talent of the Touareg women, and the use they make of this gift—which they employ to celebrate or to rail at, with the accompaniment of their one-stringed violin, that which excites their admiration or inspires them with disdain—is a stimulant for warriors:

War, and the struggle of faction against faction, of tribe against tribe, of confederation against confederation, it is which, with love, above all, has inspired the Berber men. With the Khabyles a string of love-songs is called "Alamato," because this word occurs in the first couplet, always with a belligerent inspiration:

This couplet is followed by a second, where allusion is made to the snow which interrupts communication:

With the Khabyles of the Jurgura the preceding love-songs are the particular specialty of a whole list of poets who bear the Arab name of T'eballa, or "tambourinists." Ordinarily they are accompanied in their tours by a little troop of musicians who play the tambourine and the haut-boy. Though they are held in small estimation, and are relegated to the same level as the butchers and measurers of grain, they are none the less desired, and their presence is considered indispensable at all ceremonies—wedding fêtes, and on the birth of a son, on the occasion of circumcision, or for simple banquets.

Another class, composed of Ameddah, "panegyrists," or Fecia, "eloquent men," are considered as much higher in rank. They take part in all affairs of the country, and their advice is sought, for they dispense at will praise or blame. It is they who express the national sentiment of each tribe, and in case of war their accents uplift warriors, encourage the brave, and wither the cowardly. They accompany themselves with a Basque drum. Some, however, have with them one or two musicians who, after each couplet, play an air on the flute as a refrain.15

In war-songs it is remarkable to see with what rapidity historical memories are lost. The most ancient lay of this kind does not go beyond the conquest of Algiers by the French. The most recent songs treat of contemporary events. Nothing of the heroic traditions of the Berbers has survived in their memory, and it is the Arab annalists who show us the role they have played in history. If the songs relating to the conquest of Algeria had not been gathered half a century ago, they would doubtless have been lost, or nearly so, to-day. At that time, however, the remembrance was still alive, and the poets quickly crystallized in song the rapidity of the triumph of France, which represents their civilization:

It is, one may believe, in similar terms that these songs, lost to-day, recount the defeat of Jugurtha, or Talfarinas, by the Romans, or that of the Kahina by the Arabs. But that which shows clearly how rapidly these songs, and the remembrance of what had inspired them, have been lost is the fact that in a poem of the same kind on the same subject, composed some fifty years ago by the Chelha of meridional Morocco, it is not a question of France nor the Hussains, but the Christians in general, against whom the poet endeavors to excite his compatriots.

It is so, too, with the declamatory songs of the latest period of the Middle Ages, the dialects more or less precise, where the oldest heroic historical poems, like the Song of Roland, had disappeared to leave the field free for the imagination of the poet who treats the struggles between Christians and Saracens according to his own fantasy.

Thanks to General Hanoteau, the songs relating to the principal events of Khabyle since the French conquest have been saved from oblivion, viz., the expedition of Marêchal Bugeaud in 1867; that of General Pelissier in 1891; the insurrection of Bon Bar'la; those of Ameravun in 1896, and the divers episodes of the campaign of 1897 against the Aith Traten, when the mountains were the last citadel of the Khabyle independence:

The unhappy war of 1870, thanks to the stupidity of the military authorities, revived the hope of a victorious insurrection. Mograne, Bon Mazrag, and the Sheikh Haddad aroused the Khabyles, but the desert tribes did not respond to their appeal. Barbary was again conquered, and the popular songs composed on that occasion reproached them for the folly of their attempt.

Bon Mezrah proclaimed in the mountains and on the plain:

The conclusion of poems of this kind is an appeal to the generosity of France:

With the Touaregs, the civil, or war against the Arabs, replaces the war against the Christians, and has not been less actively celebrated:

One finds in this last verse the same inspiration that is found in the celebrated passage of the Iliad, verses 2 and 5: "Anger which caused ten thousand Achaeans to send to Hades numerous souls of heroes, and to make food of them for the dogs and birds of prey." It is thus that the Arab poet expresses his ante-Islamic "Antarah":

The Scandinavian Skalds have had the same savage accents, and one can remember a strophe from the song of the death of Raynor Lodbrog:

Robbery and pillage under armed bands, the ambuscade even, are celebrated among the Touaregs with as great pleasure as a brilliant engagement:

They also show great scorn for those who lead a life relatively less barbarous, and who adorn themselves as much as the Touaregs can by means of science and commerce:

Another style, no less sought for among the Berbers inhabiting cities, is the "complaint" which flourished in lower Morocco, where it is known under the Arab name of Lqist (history). When the subject is religious, they call it Nadith (tradition). One of the most celebrated is that wherein they tell of the descent into the infernal regions of a young man in search of his father and mother. It will give an idea of this style of composition to recite the beginning:

Other poems—for instance, that of Sidi Hammen and that of Job—are equally celebrated in Morocco. The complaints on religious subjects are accompanied on the violin, while those treating of a historical event or a story with a moral have the accompaniment of a guitar. We may class this kind of poems among those called Tandant, in lower Morocco, which consist in the enumeration of short maxims. The same class exist also in Zouaona and in Touareg.

But the inspiration of the Khabyle poets does not always maintain its exaltation. Their talents become an arm to satirize those who have not given them a sufficiently large recompense, or—worse still, and more unpardonable—who have served to them a meagre repast:

This song, composed by Mohammed Said or Aihel Hadji, is still repeated when one wishes to insult persons from Aith Erbah, who have tried several times to assassinate the poet in revenge.

Sometimes two rival singers find themselves together, and each begins to eulogize himself, which eulogy ends in a satire on the other. But the joust begun by apostrophes and Homeric insults finishes often with a fight, and the natural arm is the Basque drum until others separate, the adversaries.27 We have an example in a dialogue of this kind between Youssuf ou Kassi, of the Aith Djemnad, and Mohand ou Abdaha, of the Aith Kraten. The challenge and the jousts—less the blows—exist among the chellahs of lower Morocco, where they are called Tamawoucht; but between man and woman there is that which indicates the greatest liberty of manners. The verses are improvised, and the authors are paid in small money. Here is a specimen:

Another manifestation, and not less important of the popular Berber literature, consists in the stories. Although no attempt has been made in our days to gather them, many indications permit us to believe that they have been at all times well treasured by these people. In the story of Psyche that Apuleius inserted at the end of the second century A.D., in the romance of Metamorphoses,29 we read that Venus imposed on Psyche, among other trials, that of sorting out and placing in separate jars the grains of wheat, oats, millet and poppy pease, lentils and lima beans which she had mixed together. This task, beyond the power of Psyche, was accomplished by the ants which came to her aid, and thus she conquered the task set by her cruel mother-in-law.

This same trial we find in a Berber story. It is an episode in a Khabyle story of the Mohammed ben Sol'tan, who, to obtain the hand of the daughter of a king, separated wheat, corn, oats, and sorghum, which had been mingled together. This trait is not found in Arab stories which have served as models for the greater part of Khabyle tales. It is scarcely admissible that the Berbers had read the "Golden Ass" of Apuleius, but it is probable that he was born at Madaure, in Algeria, and retained an episode of a popular Berber tale which he had heard in his childhood, and placed in his story.

The tales have also preserved the memory of very ancient customs, and in particular those of adoption. In the tales gathered in Khabyle by General Hanoteau,30 T. Rivière,31 and Moulieras,32 also that in the story of Mizab, the hero took upon himself a supernatural task, and succeeded because he became the adopted son of an ogress, at whose breast he nursed.33 This custom is an ancient one with the Berbers, for on a bas relief at Thebes it shows us a chief of the Machouacha (the Egyptian name of the Berbers) of the XXII Dynasty nursed and adopted by the goddess Hathor. Arab stories of Egypt have also preserved this trait—for instance, "The Bear of the Kitchen,"34 and El Schater Mohammed.35

During the conquest of the Magreb by the Arabs in the seventh century A.D., Kahina, a Berber queen, who at a given moment drove the Mussulman invaders away and personified national defiance, employed the same ceremony to adopt for son the Arab Khaled Ben Yazed, who was to betray her later.

Assisted by these traits of indigenous manners, we can call to mind ogres and pagans who represent an ancient population, or, more exactly, the sectarians of an ancient religion like the Paganism or the Christianity which was maintained on some points of Northern Africa, with the Berbers, until the eleventh century A.D. Fabulous features from the Arabs have slipped into the descriptions of the Djohala, mingled with the confused souvenirs of mythological beings belonging to paganism before the advent of Christianity.

It is difficult to separate the different sources of the Berber stories. Besides those appearing to be of indigenous origin, and which have for scene a grotto or a mountain, one could scarcely deny that the greater part, whether relating to stories of adventure, fairy stories, or comical tales, were borrowed from foreign countries by way of the Arabs. Without doubt they have furnished the larger part, but there are some of which there are no counterparts in European countries. "Half a cock," for instance, has travelled into the various provinces of France, Ireland, Albania, among the Southern Slavs, and to Portugal, from whence it went to Brazil; but the Arabs do not know it, nor do they know Tom Thumb, which with the Khabyles becomes H'ab Sliman. In the actual state of our knowledge, we can only say that there is a striking resemblance between a Berber tale and such or such a version. From thence comes the presumption of borrowed matter. But, for the best results to be gained, one should be in possession of all the versions. When it relates to celebrated personages

among the Mussulmans, like Solomon, or the features of a legend of which no trace remains of the names, one can certainly conclude that it is borrowed from the Arabs. It is the same with the greater number of fairy tales, whose first inventors, the Arabs, commenced with the "Thousand and One Nights," and presented us with "The Languages of the Beasts," and also with funny stories.

The principal personage of these last is Si Djeha, whose name was borrowed from a comic narrative existing as early as the eleventh century A.D. The contents are sometimes coarse and sometimes witty, are nearly all more ancient, and yet belong to the domain of pleasantries from which in Germany sprung the anecdotes of Tyll Eulenspiegel and the Seven Suabians, and in England the Wise Men of Gotham. In Italy, and even in Albania, the name of Djeha is preserved under the form of Guifa and Guicha; and the Turks, who possess the richest literature on this person, have made him a Ghadji Sirii Hissar, under the name of Nasr-eddin Hodja (a form altered from Djoha). The traits attributed to such persons as Bon Idhes, Bon Goudous, Bon Kheenpouch, are equally the same as those bestowed upon Si Djeha.

But if the Berbers have borrowed the majority of their tales, they have given to their characters the manners and appearance and names of their compatriots. The king does not differ from the Amir of a village, or an Amanokul of the Touaregs. The palace is the same as all those of a Haddarth, and Haroun al Raschid himself, when he passes into Berber stories, is plucked of the splendor he possesses in the "Thousand and One Nights," and in Oriental stories. This anachronism renders the heroes of the tales more real, and they are real Berbers, who are alive, and who express themselves like the mountaineers of Jurgura, the Arabs of the Atlas; like the men of Ksour, or the nomads of Sahara. In general there is little art in these stories, and in style they are far below other collections celebrated through the entire world.

An important place is given to the fables or stories of animals, but there is little that is not borrowed from foreign lands, and the animals are only such as the Berbers are familiar with. The adventures of the jackal do not differ from those of the fox in European stories. An African trait may be signalled in the prominence which it offers the hare, as in the stories of Ouslofs and Bantous. Also, the hedgehog, neglected so lamentably in our fables, holds an important place; and if the jackal manages to deceive the lion, he is, in spite of his astute nature, duped by the hedgehog when he tries a fall with him. As to the lion, the serpent, the cock, the frog, the turtle, the hyena, the jackal, the rat, their rôles offer little of the place they play in the Arab tales, or even the Europeans.