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.
[1] Geographica, t. xviii, ch. 3, Section ii.
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:
[2] Hanoteau, Poésies Populaires de la Khabylie du Jurgura, Paris, 1867,
8vo.
"Oh, moonlight clear in the narrow streets,
Tell to our little friends
To come out now with us to play--
To play with us to-night.
If they come not, then we will go
To them with leather shoes. (Kabkab.)[3]
"Rise up, O Sun, and hie thee forth,
On thee we'll put a bonnet old:
We'll plough for thee a little field--
A little field of pebbles full:
Our oxen but a pair of mice."
"Oh, far distant moon:
Could I but see thee, Ali!
Ali, son of Sliman,
The beard[4] of Milan
Has gone to draw water.
Her cruse, it is broken;
But he mends it with thread,
And draws water with her:
He cried to Ayesha:
'Give me my sabre,
That I kill the merle
Perched on the dunghill
Where she dreams;
She has eaten all my olives.'"[5]
[3] A sort of sandal.
[4] Affectionate term for a child.
[5] Hanoteau, v. 441-443.
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:
"The Christian oppresses. He has snatched away
This deserving young man;
He took him away to Bougre,
The Christian women marvelled at him.
Pardieu! O Mussulmans, you
Have repudiated Kabyle honor." [7]
[6] Hanoteau, Preface, p. iii.
[7] Hanoteau, p. 94.
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 rôle--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:
"O bird with azure plumes,
Go, be my messenger--
I ask thee that thy flight be swift;
Take from me now thy recompense.
Rise with the dawn--ah, very soon--
For me neglect a hundred plans;
Direct thy flight toward the fount,
To Tanina and Cherifa.
"Speak to the eyelash-darkened maid,
To the beautiful one of the pure, white throat;
With teeth like milky pearls.
Red as vermillion are her cheeks;
Her graceful charms have stol'n my reason;
Ceaselessly I see her in my dreams."[8]
"A woman with a pretty nose
Is worth a house of solid stone;
I'd give for her a hundred reaux,[9]
E'en if she quitted me as soon.
"Arching eyebrows on a maid,
With love the genii would entice,
I'd buy her for a thousand reaux,
Even if exile were the price.
"A woman neither fat nor lean
Is like a pleasant forest green,
When she unfolds her budding charms,
She gleams and glows with springtime sheen."[10]
[8] Hanoteau, p. 350-357
[9] Reais
[10] Hanoteau, pp. 302, 303
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:
"For God's sake leave those hearts in peace,
'Tis Tosdenni torments them so;
She is more graceful than a troop
Of antelopes separated from gazelles;
More beautiful than snowy flocks,
Which move toward the tents,
And with the evening shades appear
To share the nightly gathering;
More beautiful than the striped silks
Enwrapped so closely under the haiks,
More beautiful than the glossy ebon veil,
Enveloped in its paper white,
With which the young man decks himself,
And which sets off his dusky cheek."[1]
[1] Masqueray, Observations grammaticales sur la grammaire Touareg et
textes de la Tourahog des Tailog, pp. 212, 213. Paris, 1897.
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:
"That which spurs me to battle is a word of scorn,
And the fear of the eternal malediction
Of God, and the circles of the young
Maidens with their violins.
Their disdain is for those men
Who care not for their own good names.[2]
"Noon has come, the meeting's sure.
Hearts of wind love not the battle;
As though they had no fear of the violins,
Which are on the knees of painted women--
Arab women, who were not fed on sheep's milk;
There is but camel's milk in all their land.
More than one other has preceded thee and is widowed,
For that in Amded, long since,
My own heart was burned.
Since you were a young lad I suffered--
Since I wore the veil and wrapped
My head in the folds of the haik."[3]
[2] Masqueray, p. 220.
[3] Masqueray, p. 227.
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:
"He has seized his banner for the fight
In honor of the Bey whose cause he maintains,
He guides the warriors with their gorgeous cloaks,
With their spurs unto their boots well fastened,
All that was hostile they destroyed with violence;
And brought the insurgents to reason."
This couplet is followed by a second, where allusion is made to the snow
which interrupts communication:
"Violently falls the snow,
In the mist that precedes the lightning;
It bends the branches to the earth,
And splits the tallest trees in twain.
Among the shepherds none can pasture his flock;
It closes to traffic all the roads to market.
Lovers then must trust the birds,
With messages to their loves--
Messages to express their passion.
"Gentle tame falcon of mine,
Rise in thy flight, spread out thy wings,
If thou art my friend do me this service;
To-morrow, ere ever the rise of the sun,
Fly toward her house; there alight
On the window of my gracious beauty."[4]
[4] Hanoteau, pp. 348-350.
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.[5]
[5] Hanoteau, Introduction.
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:
"From the day when the Consul left Algiers,
The powerful French have gathered their hosts:
Now the Turks have gone, without hope of return,
Algiers the beautiful is wrested from them.
"Unhappy Isle that they built in the desert,
With vaults of limestone and brick;
The celestial guardian who over them watched has withdrawn.
Who can resist the power of God?
"The forts that surround Algiers like stars,
Are bereft of their masters;
The baptized ones have entered.
The Christian religion now is triumphant,
O my eyes, weep tears of blood, weep evermore!
"They are beasts of burden without cruppers,
Their backs are loaded,
Under a bushel their unkempt heads are hidden,
They speak a _patois_ unintelligible,
You can understand nothing they say.
"The combat with these gloomy invaders
Is like the first ploughing of a virgin soil,
To which the harrowing implements
Are rude and painful;
Their attack is terrible.
"They drag their cannons with them,
And know how to use them, the impious ones;
When they fire, the smoke forms in thick clouds:
They are charged with shrapnel,
Which falls like the hail of approaching spring.
Unfortunate queen of cities--
City of noble ramparts,
Algiers, column of Islam,
Thou art like the habitation of the dead,
The banner of France envelops thee all."[6]
[6] Hanoteau, pp. 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11.
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 tribe was full of refugees,
From all sides they sought refuge
With the Aith Traten, the powerful confederation.
'Let us go,' said they, 'to a sure refuge,'
For the enemy has fallen on our heads,'
But in Arba they established their home."[7]
[7] Hanoteau, p. 124.
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:
"Come on, a Holy War against the Christians,
He followed his brother until his disaster,
His noble wife was lost to him.
As to his flocks and his children,
He left them to wander in Sahara.
Bon Mezrag is not a man,
But the lowest of all beings;
He deceived both Arabs and Khabyles,
Saying, 'I have news of the Christians.'
"I believed Haddad a saint indeed,
With miracles and supernatural gifts;
He has then no scent for game,
And singular to make himself he tries.
"I tell it to you; to all of you here
(How many have fallen in the battles),
That the Sheikh has submitted.
From the mountain he has returned,
Whoever followed him was blind.
He took flight like one bereft of sense.
How many wise men have fallen
On his traces, the traces of an impostor,
From Babors unto Guerrouma!
This joker has ruined the country--
He ravaged the world while he laughed;
By his fault he has made of this land a desert."[8]
[8] R. Basset, L'insurrection Algerienne, de 1871 dans les chansons
populaires Khabyles Lourain, 1892.
The conclusion of poems of this kind is an appeal to the generosity of
France:
"Since we have so low fallen,[9]
You beat on us as on a drum;
You have silenced our voices.
We ask of you a pardon sincere,
O France, nation of valorous men,
And eternal shall be our repentance.
From beginning to the end of the year
We are waiting and hoping always:
My God! Soften the hearts of the authorities."
[9] J.D. Luciani, Chansons Khabyles de Ismail Azekkion. Algiers, 1893.
With the Touaregs, the civil, or war against the Arabs, replaces the war
against the Christians, and has not been less actively celebrated:
"We have saddled the shoulders of the docile camel,
I excite him with my sabre, touching his neck,
I fall on the crowd, give them sabre and lance;
And then there remains but a mound,
And the wild beasts find a brave meal."[10]
[10] Masqueray, pp. 228, 229.
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":
"My pitiless steel pierced all the vestments,
The general has no safety from my blade,
I have left him as food for savage beasts
Which tear him, crunching his bones,
His handsome hands and brave arms."[1]
[1] Mo'allagah, v. 49, 50.
The Scandinavian Skalds have had the same savage accents, and one can
remember a strophe from the song of the death of Raynor Lodbrog:
"I was yet young when in the Orient we gave the wolves a bloody
repast and a pasture to the birds. When our rude swords rang on the
helmet, then they saw the sea rise and the vultures wade in
blood."[2]
[2] Marmier, Lettres sur l'Islemde.
Robbery and pillage under armed bands, the ambuscade even, are celebrated
among the Touaregs with as great pleasure as a brilliant engagement:
"Matella! May thy father die!
Thou art possessed by a demon,
To believe that the Touaregs are not men.
They know how to ride the camel; they
Ride in the morning and they ride at night;
They can travel; they can gallop:
They know how to offer drink to those
Who remain upon their beasts.
They know how to surprise a
Courageous man in the night.
Happy he sleeps, fearless with kneeling camels;
They pierce him with a lance,
Sharp and slender as a thorn,
And leave him to groan until
His soul leaves his body:
The eagle waits to devour his entrails."[3]
[3] Hanoteau, Essaie de grammaire de la langue Tamachek, pp. 210, 211.
Paris, 1860.
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:
"The Tsaggmaren are not men,
Not lance of iron, nor yet of wood,
They are not in harness, not in saddles,
They have no handsome saddle-bags,
They've naught of what makes mankind proud;
They've no fat and healthy camels,
The Tsaggmaren; don't speak of them;
They are people of a mixed race,
There is no condition not found with them.
Some are poor, yet not in need;
Others are abused by the demon,
Others own nothing but their clubs.
There are those who make the pilgrimage, and repeat it,
There are those who can read the Koran and learn by that
They possess in the pasturage camels, and their little ones,
Besides nuggets of gold all safely wrapped."[4]
[4] Hanoteau, p. 213.
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:
"In the name of God, most clement and merciful,
Also benediction and homage to the prophet Mohammed,
In the name of God, listen to the words of the author,
This is what the Talebs tell, according to the august Koran.
Let us begin this beautiful story by
Invoking the name of God.
Listen to this beautiful story, O good man,
We will recite the story of a young man
In Berbere; O God, give to us perfection;
That which we bring to you is found in truthful tradition,
Hard as a rock though thy heart be, it will melt;
The father and mother of Saba died in his childhood
And left him in great poverty;
Our compassionate Lord guided him and showed him the way,
God led him along toward the Prophet,
And gave to him the Koran."[5]
[5] R. Basset, Le Poème de Sabi, p. 15 et suis. Paris, 1879.
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:
"I went to the home of vile animals,
Ait Rebah is their name;
I found them lying under the sun like green figs,
They looked ill and infirm.
They are lizards among adders,
They inspire no fear, for they bite not.
Put a sheepskin before them, they
Will tear your arms and hands;
Their parched lips are all scaly,
Besides being red and spotted.
"As the vultures on their dung heaps,
When they see carrion, fall upon it,
Tearing out its entrails,
That day is for them one of joy.
Judging by their breeches,
And the headdresses of their wives,
I think they are of Jewish origin."[6]
[6] Hanoteau, Poèmes Populaires de la Khabyle, pp. 179-181, Du Jurgura.
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.[7] 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:
_The woman_: "When it thunders and the sky is overcast,
Drive home the sheep, O watchful shepherd."
_The man_: "When it thunders, and the sky is overcast,
We will bring home the sheep."
_The woman_: "I wish I had a bunch of switches to strike you with!
May your father be accursed, Sheepkeeper!"
_The man_: "Oh, God, I thank thee for having created
Old maids to grind meal for the toilers."[8]
[7] Hanoteau, p. 275 et seq.
[8] Stemme, p. 7, 8.
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,[9] 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.
[9] Hanoteau, Essai de Grammaire Khabyle, p. 282 et seq. Alger.
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,[10] T. Rivière,[1] and Moulieras,[2] 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.[3] 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,"[4] and El Schater Mohammed.[5]
[10] Hanoteau, p. 266. Le chasseur.
[1] Contes Populaires de la Khabylie du Jurgura, p. 239. Paris, 1892. Le
chausseur.
[2] Legendes et contes merveilleuses de la grande Khabylie, p. 20. 2 vols.
Tunis, 1893-1898. Le fils du Sultan et le chien des Chrétiens, p. 90.
Histoire de Ali et sa mère.
[3] R Basset, Nouveaux Contes Berbers, p. 18. Paris, 1897. La Pomme de
jeunesse.
[4] Spitta-bey, Contes Arabes modernes, p. 12. Ley de 1883.
[5] Arless Pasha, Contes Populaire de la vallée du Nil. Paris, 1895.
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.
If we pass from Berber we find the Arab tongue as spoken among the Magreb,
and will see that the literature is composed of the same elements,
particularly in the tales and songs. There are few special publications
concerning the first, but there are few travellers who have not gathered
some, and thus rendered their relations with the people more pleasant. In
what concerns the fairy tales it is, above all, the children for whom they
are destined, "when at night, at the end of their wearisome days, the
mothers gather their children around them under the tent, under the shelter
of her Bon Rabah, the little ones demand with tears a story to carry their
imaginations far away." "Kherrfin ya summa" ("Tell us a story"), they say,
and she begins the long series of the exploits of Ah Di Douan.[6] Even the
men do not disdain to listen to the tales, and those that were gathered
from Tunis and Tripoli by Mr. Stemme,[7] and in Morocco by Messrs. Souin
and Stemme,[8] show that the marvellous adventures, wherein intervene the
Djinns, fairies, ogres, and sorcerers, are no less popular among the Arab
people than among the Berbers.
[6] Deeplun, Recueil de textes pour l'étude de l'Arabe parlé, v. 12, p. iv.
Paris, 1891.
[7] Iumsche Märchen und Gedichte. Leipzig, 1898. 2 vols. Märchen und
Gedichte. Aus der Stadt Tripolis in Nord Afrika. Leipzig.
[8] Zum Arabischen Dialekt. Von Markko. Leipzig, 1893. Vers. 8.
We must not forget that these last-named have borrowed much from the first
ones, and it is by them that they have known the celebrated Khalif of
Bagdad, one of the principal heroes of the "Thousand and One Nights,"
Haroun al Raschid, whose presence surprises us not a little when figuring
in adventures incompatible with the dignity of a successor of the Prophet.
As in the Berber tales, one finds parallels to the Arab stories among the
folk-lore of Europe, whether they were borrowed directly or whether they
came from India. One will notice, however, in the Arab tales a superior
editing. The style is more ornate, the incidents better arranged. One feels
that, although it deals with a language disdaining the usage of letters, it
is expressed almost as well as though in a cultivated literary language.
The gathering of the populations must also be taken into consideration; the
citizens of Tunis, of Algiers, and even in the cities of Morocco, have a
more exact idea of civilized life than the Berber of the mountains or the
desert. As to the comic stories, it is still the Si Djeha who is the hero,
and his adventures differ little with those preserved in Berber, and which
are common to several literatures, even when the principal person bears
another name.
The popular poetry consists of two great divisions, quite different as to
subject. The first and best esteemed bears the name of Klam el Djedd, and
treats of that which concerns the Prophet, the saints, and miracles. A
specimen of this class is the complaint relative to the rupture of the Dam
of St. Denis of Sig, of which the following is the commencement:
"A great disaster was fated:[9]
The cavalier gave the alarm, at the moment of the break;
The menace was realized by the Supreme Will,
My God! Thou alone art good.
The dam, perfidious thing,
Precipitated his muddy Legions,
With loud growlings.
No bank so strong as to hold him in check.
"He spurred to the right,
The bridges which could not sustain his shock fell
Under his added weight;
His fury filled the country with fear, and he
Crushed the barrier that would retain him."
[9] Delphin et Genis. Notes sur la Poesie et la musique Arabes dans le
Maghreb Algerien, pp. 14-16. Paris, 1886.
As to the class of declamatory poems, one in particular is popular in
Algiers, for it celebrates the conquest of the Maghreb in the eleventh
century by the divers branches of the Beni-Hilal, from whom descend almost
the whole of the Arabs who now are living in the northwest of Africa. This
veritable poem is old enough, perhaps under its present form, for the
historian, Ten Khaldoun, who wrote at the end of the fourteenth century and
the beginning of the fifteenth, has preserved the resumé of the episode of
Djazza, the heroine who abandoned her children and husband to follow her
brothers to the conquest of Thrgya Hajoute. To him are attributed verses
which do not lack regularity, nor a certain rhythm, and also a facility of
expression, but which abound in interpolations and faults of grammar. The
city people could not bear to hear them nor to read them. In our days, for
their taste has changed--at least in that which touches the masses--the
recital of the deeds of the Helals is much liked in the Arab cafés in
Algeria and also in Tunis. Still more, these recitals have penetrated to
the Berbers, and if they have not preserved the indigenous songs of the
second Arab invasion, they have borrowed the traditions of their
conquerors, as we can see in the episode of Ali el Hilalien and of
Er-Redah.
The names of the invading chiefs have been preserved in the declamatory
songs: Abou Zeid, Hassan ben Serhan, and, above all, Dyab ben Ghanum, in
the mouth of whom the poet puts at the end of the epic the recital of the
exploits of his race:
"Since the day when we quitted the soil and territory of the Medjid, I
have not opened my heart to joy;
We came to the homes of Chokir and Cherif ben Hachem who pours upon thee
(Djazzah) a rain of tears;
We have marched against Ed-Dabis ben Monime and we have overrun his
cities and plains.
We went to Koufat and have bought merchandise from the tradesmen who come
to us by caravan.
We arrived at Ras el Ain in all our brave attire and we mastered all the
villages and their inhabitants.
We came to Haleb, whose territory we had overrun, borne by our swift,
magnificent steeds.
We entered the country of the Khazi Mohammed who wore a coat of mail,
with long, floating ends,
We traversed Syria, going toward Ghaza, and reached Egypt, belonging to
the son of Yakoub, Yousof, and found the Turks with their
swift steeds.
We reached the land of Raqin al Hoonara, and drowned him in a deluge of
blood.
We came to the country of the Mahdi, whom we rolled on the earth and as
to his nobles their blood flowed in streams.
We came to the iron house of Boraih, and found that the Jewish was the
established religion.
We arrived at the home of the warrior, El Hashais:
The night was dark, he fell upon us while we slept without anxiety,
He took from us our delicate and honored young girls, beauties whose eyes
were darkened with kohol.
Abou Zeid marched against him with his sharp sword and left him lying on
the ground.
Abou So'dah Khalifah the Zemati, made an expedition against us, and
pursued us with the sword from all sides.
I killed Abou So'dah Khalifah the Zemati, and I have put you in
possession of all his estates.
They gave me three provinces and So'dah, this is the exact truth that I
am telling here.
Then came an old woman of evil augur and she threw dissension among us,
and the Helals left for a distant land.
Then Abou Ali said to me: 'Dyab, you are but a fool,'
I marched against him under the wing of the night, and flames were
lighted in the sheepfolds.
He sent against me Hassan the Hilali, I went to meet him and said, 'Seize
this wretched dog.' These are the words of the Zoght Dyab
ben Ghanem and the fire of illness was lighted in his
breast."[10]
[10] R. Basset. Un Episode d'une chanson de geste Arabe sur la seconde
conquête de l'Afrique Septentrionale par les Mussulmans. Bulletin de
Correspondence Africaine, p. 147. Alger, 1885, in 8vo. See also Stemme.
Tripolitanisches Bederinenlieder. Leipzig, 1804, in 8vo.
The second style of modern Arabic poetry is the "Kelamel hazel." It
comprises the pieces which treat of wine, women, and pleasures; and, in
general, on all subjects considered light and unworthy of a serious mind.
One may find an example in the piece of "Said and Hyza," and in different
works of Mr. Stemme cited above. It is particularly among the nomad Arabs
that this style is found, even more than the dwellers in cities, on whom
rests the reproach of composing verses where the study and sometimes the
singularity of expression cannot replace the inspiration, the energy, and
even the delicacy of sentiment often found among the nomads:
"The country remains a desert, the days of heat are ended, the trees of
our land have borne the attack of Summer, that is my grief.
After it was so magnificent to behold, its leaves are fallen, one by one,
before my eyes.
But I do not covet the verdure of a cypress; my sorrow has for its cause
a woman, whose heart has captivated mine.
I will describe her clearly; you will know who she is; since she has gone
my heart fails me.
Cheika of the eye constantly veiled, daughter of Mouloud, thy love has
exhausted me.
I have reached a point where I walk dizzily like one who has drunken and
is drunk; still am I fasting; my heart has abandoned me.
Thy thick hair is like the ostrich's plumes, the male ostrich, feeding in
the depressions of the dunes; thy eyebrows are like two
_nouns_ [Arab letters] of a Tlemcen writing.
Thy eyes, my beautiful, are like two gleaming gun barrels, made at
Stamboul, city defiant of Christians.
The cheek of Cherikha is like the rose and the poppy when they open under
the showers.
Thy mouth insults the emerald and the diamond; thy saliva is a remedy
against the malady; without doubt it is that which has
cured me[1]."
[1] Joly, Poesie Arnaduno chez les Nomades Algeriennes. Revue Africaine,
XLV, pp. 217-219. Alger, 1901, 8vo.
To finish with the modern literature of the northwest of Africa, I should
mention a style of writings which played a grand rôle some five centuries
ago, but that sort is too closely connected with those composing the poems
on the Spanish Moors, and of them I shall speak later. It remains now to
but enumerate the enigmas found in all popular literature, and the satiric
sayings attributed to holy persons of the fifteenth century, who, for
having been virtuous and having possessed the gift of miracles, were none
the less men, and as such bore anger and spite. The most celebrated of all
was Sidi Ahmed ben Yousuf, who was buried at Miliana. By reason of the
axiom, "They lend but to the rich," they attributed to him all the
satirical sayings which are heard in the villages and among the tribes of
Algeria, of which, perhaps, he did pronounce some. Praises are rare:
"He whom you see, wild and tall,
Know him for a child of Algiers,"
"Beni Menaur, son of the dispersed,
Has many soldiers,
And a false heart."
"Some are going to call you Blida (little village),
But I have called you Ourida (little rose)."
"Cherchel is but shame,
Avarice, and flight from society,
His face is that of a sheep,
His heart is the heart of a wolf;
Be either sailor or forge worker,
Or else leave the city."[2]
[2] R. Basset. Les dictionnaires satiriques attribues à Sidi ben Yousof.
Paris, 1890, 8vo.
"He who stands there on a low hill
All dressed in a small mantle,
Holding in his hand a small stick
And calling to sorrow, 'Come and find me,'
Know him for a son of Medea."
"Miliana; Error and evil renown,
Of water and of wood,
People are jealous of it,
Women are Viziers there,
And men the captives."
"Ténès; built upon a dunghill,
Its water is blood,
Its air is poison,
By the Eternal! Sidi Ahmed will not pass the night here,
Get out of the house, O cat!"
"People of Bon Speur,
Women and men,
That they throw into the sea."
"From the Orient and Occident,
I gathered the scamps,
I brought them to Sidi Mohammed ben Djellal.
There they escaped me,
One part went to Morocco,
And the rest went down into Eghrès."
"Oran the depraved,
I sold thee at a reasonable price;
The Christians have come there,
Until the day of the resurrection."
"Tlemcen: Glory of the chevaliers;
Her water, her air,
And the way her women veil themselves
Are found in no other land."
"Tunis: Land of hypocrisy and deceit,
In the day there is abundance of vagabonds,
At night their number is multiplied,
God grant that I be not buried in its soil."
Another no less celebrated in Morocco, Sidi Abdan Rahman el Medjidont, is,
they say, the author of sentences in four verses, in which he curses the
vices of his time and satirizes the tribes, and attacks the women with a
bitterness worthy of Juvenal:
"Morocco is the land of treason;
Accursed be its habitants;
They make guests sleep outside,
And steal their provisions."[3]
[3] H.J. Castries. Les Gnomes de Sidi Abdir Rahman El Medjedoub. Paris,
1896.
"Deceptive women are deceivers ever,
I hastened to escape them.
They girdle themselves with vipers,
And fasten their gowns with scorpions."
"Let not thyself fall victim to a widow,
Even if her cheeks are bouquets,
For though you are the best of husbands,
She will repeat ceaselessly, 'God, be merciful to the dead.'"
"No river on the mountains,
No warm nights in the winter,
No women doing kind actions,
No generous-hearted enemies."
The battle of the Guadalete, where sank the Visigoth empire, delivered
Spain almost defenceless to the Arab and Berber conquest. There developed
then a civilization and an intellectual culture far superior to those of
the barbarous Christian refugees in the Asturias, where they led a rude and
coarse life which but seasoned them for future struggles. Of their literary
monuments, there remain to us but mediocre Latin chronicles. The court of
the Omayades at Cordova saw a literature blossom which did not disappear
even after the fall of the Khalifate. On the contrary, it seemed to regain
a new vigor in the small states which surged up about the Iberian
Peninsula. The Christians, under the domination of the Mussulmans, allowed
themselves to be seduced by the Arabian literature. "They loved to read
their poems and romances. They went to great expense and built immense
libraries. They scarcely knew how to express themselves in Latin, but when
it was necessary to write in Arabic, they found crowds of people who
understood that language, wrote it with the greatest elegance, and composed
poems even preferable in point of view to the art of the Arab poets
themselves."[4]
[4] Dozy. Histoire des Mussulmans de l'Espagne, pp. 103-166. Leyden, 1861,
in 12mo, 4to.
In spite of the complaints of fanatics like Euloge and Alvaro, the literary
history of that time was filled with Christian names, either those of
Spanish who had remained faithful to the ancient faith, or renegades, or
children of renegades. By the side of the Arab names, like that of the
Bishop Arib ben Said of Cordova, are found those of Ibn Guzman (Son of
Guzman), Ibn el Goutya (son of Gothe), Ibn Loyon (son of Leon), Ibn er
Roumaye (son of the Greek), Ibn Konbaret (son of Comparatus), Ibn
Baschkoual (son of Paschal), and all have left a name among letters.
One magnificent period in literature unfolded itself in the eleventh
century A.D., in the little courts of Seville, of Murcie, of Malaga,
Valence, Toledo, and Badajos. The kings, like El Nis Sasim, El Mo'hadhid,
El Mishamed, Hbn Razin, rank among the best poets, and even the women
answered with talent to the verses which they inspired. They have preserved
the names and the pieces of some of them: Aicha, Rhadia, Fatima, Maryam,
Touna, and the Princess Ouallada. Greek antiquity has not left us more
elegant verses, nor elegies more passionate, than these, of which but a
small portion has been saved from forgetfulness in the anthologies of Hbn
Khayan, Hbn el Abbar, Hbn Bassam de Turad-eddin, and Ibn el Khatib el
Maggari. They needed the arrival of the Berbers to turn them into Almoran.
Those Berbers hastened there from the middle of Sahara and the borders of
Senegal to help the cause of Islamism against Spanish rule, as it was
menaced through the victories of Alfonso of Castile. The result would have
been to stifle those free manifestations of the literary art under a
rigorous piety which was almost always but the thin varnish of hypocrisy.
To the Almoravides succeeded the Almohades coming from the Atlas of
Morocco. To the Almohades, the Merias coming from Sahara in Algeria, but in
dying out each of these dynasties left each time a little more ground under
the hands of the Christians, who, since the time in Telage, when they were
tracked into the caverns of Covadonga, had not ceased, in spite of ill
fortune of all sorts, to follow the work of deliverance. It would have been
accomplished centuries before if the internal struggle in Christian Spain
in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries had not accorded some years of
respite to the kingdom which was being founded at Granada, and revived,
although with less brilliancy, the splendor of the times before the twelfth
century.
In the course of the long struggle the independent Christians had not been
able to avoid feeling in a certain measure something of the influence of
their neighbors, now their most civilized subjects. They translated into
prose imitations of the tales such as those of the book of Patronis,
borrowing from the general chronicles or in translations like the "Kalila
and traditions, legendary or historic, as they found them in the Dimna," or
the book of "The Ruses of Women," in verse.
In their oldest romances--for instance, that of the "Children of Sara,"[5]
and in those to which they have given the name of _romances
fronterizos_, or romances of the frontier--they give the facts of the
war between the Mussulmans and the Christians.
[5 ] T. Ramon Manendez Pidal. La legende de les Infantes de Sara. Madrid,
1896. 8vo.
But they gave the name of Mauresques to another and different class of
romances, of which the heroes are chevaliers, who have nothing of the
Mussulman but the name. The talent of certain _littérateurs_ of the
sixteenth century exercised itself in that class where the persons are all
conventional, or the descriptions are all imaginative, and made a portrait
of the Mussulman society so exact that the romances of Esplandian, Amadis
de Gaul, and others, which evoked the delicious knight-errantry of Don
Quixote, can present a picture of the veritable chivalry of the Middle
Ages. We possess but few verses of the Mussulmans of Granada. Argot de Moll
preserved them in Arabic, transcribed in Latin characters, one piece being
attributed to Mouley Abou Abdallah:
"The charming Alhambra and its palaces weep
Over their loss, Muley Boabdil (Bon Abdallah),
Bring me my horse and my white buckler,
That I may fight to retake the Alhambra;
Bring me my horse and my buckler blue,
That I may go to fight to retake my children.
"My children are at Guadia, my wife at Jolfata;
Thou hast caused my ruin, O Setti Omm el Fata.
My children are at Guadia, my wife at Jolfata,
Thou hast caused my ruin, O Setti Omm el Fata!"[6]
[6] A. de Circourt. Histoire des Moors mudijares et des Moresques. Paris,
1846.
As may be seen, these verses have no resemblance to those called Moorish.
These are of a purely Spanish diction.[7]
[7] T.A. de Circourt. I. iii., p. 327-332.
Some romances, but not of these last-named, have kept traces of the real
legends of the Arabs. There is among them one which treats of the
adventures of Don Rodrigues, the last king of the Visigoths--"The Closed
House of Toledo."[8] "The Seduction of la Cava," "The Vengeance of Count
Julien," "The Battle of Guadalete," are brought back in the same fashion by
the historians and writers of Mussulman romances.
[8] R. Basset. Legendes Arabes d'Espagne. La Maison fermée de Tolède. Oran,
1898, in 8vo.
The romance on the construction of the Alhambra has preserved the character
of an Arabic legend which dates from before the prophet.[9] There is also a
romance on the conquest of Spain, attributed to an Arab writer, the same
man whom Cervantes somewhat later feigned to present as the author of Don
Quixote, the Moor, Cid Hamet ben Engels.[10]
[9] R. Basset. D'Alhambra et le Chateau de Khanumag: Revue des traditions
populaires. Fairier, 1871, p. 459-465.
[10] Histoire des Conquêtes d'Espagne par les Mores. Par Ali Aven Sufran.
Paris, 1720.
It is another style of writing, less seductive, perhaps, than that of the
Moorish romances, in spite of their lack of vivacity and their bad taste.
But why mark this as the expression of the Mussulman sentiment under
Christian domination? Conquered by the Castilians, the Aragons, and the
Portuguese, the Moors had lost the use of Arabic, but they had preserved
the exterior sign-writing, just as their new converts retained their usages
and their national costumes. We possess a complete literature composed in
Spanish, but written in Arabic characters. They called it by the name of
_Aljaniado_. Its chief characteristic is that it treats of the
principal legends of the Mussulmans; those of Solomon and Moses, of Jesus;
the birth, childhood, and the marriage of Mohammed; Temins ed Daria, the
war of the king El Mohallal, the miracle of the moon, the ascension of
Mohammed to heaven, the conversion of Omar, the battle of Yarmouk, the
golden castle, the marvels that God showed to Abraham, Ali and the forty
young girls, the anti-Christ and the day of judgment[1] etc.; the legend of
Joseph, son of Jacob; that of Alexander the Great,[2] to which could be
added the story of the princess Zoraida,[3] without speaking of the pious
exhortations, magic formulas, conjurations, and charms.[4]
[1] Guillon Robles. Legendas Moriscas. Madrid, 1885-86. 36 petit in 8vo.
[2] Guillon Robles. La Legenda de Jose, hijo de Jacob, ye do Alexandro
Magna. Zaragoza, 1888, en 8vo.
[3] L de Eguilas el Hditz, de La Princess Zoraida. Granada, 1892, 16mo.
[4] P. Gil y Ribera et Mar Sanches. Colleccion el textos Aljamiados.
Zaragoza, 1888, 8vo.
The Moors held to these documents all the more that they were written in
Arabic, and that the fury of the Inquisition was let loose upon them. To
save them from the flames, their owners hid them with the greatest care,
and but recently, at El Monacid, they found a whole library in Arabic and
Aljamiado, hidden more than two centuries between the double walls of an
old house.[5] The Mussulman proprietor of these books and his descendants
were dead, or had emigrated to Africa, abandoning the treasure which was to
see the light in a more tolerant epoch.
[5] Pamo. Las coplas del Peregrino de Puey Monçon. Zaragoza, 1897. Pet. en
8vo.
Political relations also existed between those of the Moors who remained in
Spain as converts and such as had fled from persecution and carried to the
populations of the north of Africa the hatred of the Spanish Christians.
Thus we find among the popular literature of the Magreb the same legends,
but edited in Arabic. Only a small number has been published.[6] Whether in
one language or the other, editing does not offer anything remarkable. The
stories have been developed, after the traditions of the Mussulmans, by the
_demi-littérateurs,_ and by that means they have become easier and
more accessible to the multitude.
[6] R. Basset. Les Aventures Merveilleuses de Tunis et Dais. Rome, 1891, en
8vo. L'expédition du Chateau d'or, et la combat d'Ali et du dragon. Rome,
1893, en 8vo. M'lle Florence Groff. Les sept dormants, La ville de Tram, et
l'excursion contre la Makke, Alger, 1891, en 8vo.
It is thus that a literature in Spain sadly ends which, during seven
centuries, had counted historians and poets, philologists, philosophers and
savants, and which the Christian literature replacing it can possibly equal
in some points, but never surpass.[7]
[Illustration (Signature Facsimile): Rene Basset]
[7] M. Basset's "Special Introduction" was written in French; the English
translation was made by Robert Arnot.