r r L HT E , S T l l F0RNIA SAN DIEGO Il7l ll| || | n |Tll?im9^, i l / 3 1822 02605 9378 {f^.E.LAURlM-co. iMPOKreKSS^KSEtiERS 385 Wash'n St. Boston AMONG THE HILL- FOLK OF ALGERIA ON THE M VKC1I IN TIIK AUUK.S. Frontispiece. AMONG THE HILL- FOLK OF ALGERIA JOURNEYS AMONG THE SHAWIA OF THE AURES MOUNTAINS By M. W. HILTON-SIMPSON B.Sc, F.R.G.S., F.Z.S., F.R.A.L, MEMBRE DE LA SOCIETE DE GFloGRAPHIE D*ALGER. Author of "ALGIERS AND BEYOND," "LAND AND PEOPLES OF THE KASAI" WITH 40 ILLUSTRATIONS AND A MAP NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1921 (All rights reserved) PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 9 CHATTER I. AT THE "MOUTH OP THE DESERT" . 13 II. AMONG THE HILL-FOLK . .35 III. FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE ... 55 IV. AT THE "CAPITAL" OF THE AURES . 74 V. FROM MENAA TO THE HOME OF A SAINT 96 VI. TO THE CENTRAL VALLEYS OF THE MASSIF 116 VII. LIFE IN A CLIFF VILLAGE . .136 VIII. IN THE HEART OF THE AURES . .159 IX. THE HEALING ART IN THE HILLS . 179 X. THE VALLEYS OF THE DJEBEL CHERCHAR 199 APPENDIX I. HINTS TO TRAVELLERS IN THE AURES . .233 II. SPORT . .237 INDEX 243 ILLUSTRATIONS ON THE MARCH IN THE AURES . Frontispiece PACING PAGE "THE MOUTH OF THE DESERT" 26 A FEAST AT THE TOMB OF A SAINT . 26 A PIPER OF THE DESERT 34 ON THE ROOF . 34 A SHAWIA POTTER, BENI FERAH 42 FIRING POTTERY AT BENI FERAH . 42 BRINGING HOME THE BRIDE . 44 A WATER-CLOCK . 44 DANCING AT A WEDDING, BENI FERAH 50 IN THE OASIS OF DJEMORA . 56 " MENAA, "THE CAPITAL OF THE AURES 6G THE ABDI VALLEY FROM MENAA . 6G AN OULED ABDI DANCER AND HER FINERY. 80 ROSEBUD ATTIRED FOR THE FEAST . 80 CAVE DWELLINGS, MAAFA 94 SPRING-TIME, MAAFA . 94 NOUADER AND THE ABDI VALLEY . 100 WEAVING TENT CLOTH IN THE STREET . 100 8 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA FACING PA.dE THE HAMLET OF TIJDAD .... 110 BOUBISH RECEIVING HIS FOLLOWERS . 110 THE "GOUM" AT BRANIS .... 122 COOKING A "MECHWI" ..... 122 THE DEFENSIBLE GRANARY OF BANIANE . 130 OULED MANSOUR AND THE RASSIRA CANON . 136 FORETELLING THE FUTURE .... 150 INTERIOR OF A " GUELAA " ...... 150 THE UPPER RASSIRA BASIN .... 160 THE DEFILE OF TIGHANIMINE .... 172 TAGHOUT ...... 172 SHAWfA SURGICAL INSTRUMENTS . .188 A DEMONSTRATION OF SPLINTING . 188 DRUG SELLER IN A MARKET .... 196 DRESSING A FINGER IN THE STREET . 196 KHANGA SIDI NADJI ..... 208 THE KAID OF KHANGA IN THE CLOISTERS OF HIS MOSQUE ...... 214 GATEWAY OF THE OLD FORT .... 214 OUR HOUSE AT CHEBLA .... 222 KHEIRANE ....... 222 THE CLIFF-TOP VILLAGE OF DJELLAL . 228 SKETCH-MAP OF THE AURES . page 242 INTRODUCTION TO the reader of guide books, of railway time-tables, and of the advertisements of tourist agencies it may appear almost absurd that a traveller should pretend to have anything new to say about a range of wild and barren hills whose western spurs are visible to the naked eye of the visitor to one of the most popular tourist resorts of the whole world ; Biskra, the oasis on the fringe of the Algerian Sahara, whose hotels are thronged each winter by hosts of seekers after sunshine and a dry climate. It may indeed seem incredible to these visitors, as they wander around Biskra's crowded market, or lounge in the beautiful garden of the Chateau Landon, that less than one hundred miles away, amid and beyond the ranges of barren rocks, whose glorious coloration at sunset fills them with wonder and almost with awe as they gaze to the north-east from the oasis, there are to be found to this day many villages in which a European woman has never been seen, and a white race of natives very many of whose arts and crafts, customs and beliefs have never been described in print. Nevertheless it is a fact that during our three winters spent in the fastnesses of the Aures mountains, for such is the name of the hills to which I have referred, my wife has been the first European woman to be seen by the stay-at-home inhabitants of many a remote village, 10 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA natives who do not wander to the great centres of civiliza- tion, and that we have been enabled to elicit a considerable amount of information as to the manners and customs of the fair-haired Berbers of the hills which has hitherto remained unknown to European students of native life. The object of our journeys in the winters 1912-13, 1913-14, and 1919-20 was to collect specimens of Berber handicraft for the Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford, as well as to glean all possible information upon the life of the people and upon the ancient medicine and surgery which, it was suspected, had been secretly practised in the Aures for many generations past, and which it has been our privilege to examine in some detail for the first time. Some of the information we have collected has been laid before various learned societies in England ; it is hoped, in due course, to publish the technical results of our work in full. The present volume, far from attempting to discuss at length the various ethnographical problems presented by the Berbers, constitutes an endeavour to answer some of the innumerable questions as to their life and as to the conditions under which journeys in the hills can be carried out that have been put to us by passing travellers at Biskra, El Kantara, and elsewhere, each time we have come down from the Aures to rest ; questions which show clearly that many a visitor to Algeria would gladly learn more of the life of its natives than a stay in a tourist centre can reveal to him, and that there are many who would undertake expeditions among the hill-folk were they aware of the conditions prevailing in the mountains. Having wandered up and down all the main valleys of the Aures massif, visiting many of its remotest hamlets as well as all its larger villages, I have endeavoured in INTRODUCTION 11 the following pages so to describe the country that any of my readers who care to undergo the discomforts incidental to travel in such districts may follow in our footsteps, and in addition, for it is hoped soon to con- struct motor roads through the heart of the massif, to point the way to many interesting and beautiful localities which will, in the future, be accessible to the tourist who indulges in the luxury of a car. In taking the reader from village to village in the Aures I have attempted to bring to his notice many of the more remarkable of the customs of the Berbers so that, having accompanied us through these pages in our wanderings in the hills, he may obtain a greater knowledge of the life of this ancient people than he could acquire without spending many months in daily contact with it or by the study of existing literature on the subject, for, although during the seventeen years and more which have elapsed since I commenced my travels in Algeria I have read most of the serious works relating to that country, I have found no detailed description of Berber life in the Aures in either the French or English languages. I have omitted in these pages all account of matters of strictly archaeological interest. My work is that of the ethnographer, and I do not pretend to the knowledge which would have enabled me to carry out useful archaeological studies in the field, even had I found the time necessary to devote to them amid my investigations of existing native life. I have confined my attentions to my chosen line of research. It has always been my experience that the natives' natural love of hunting provides an avenue by which his friendship can be most easily approached ; I have, therefore, at various times done a fair amount of shooting in the area dealt with in these pages, as a result of which 12 AMONG THE HILL-FOLK OF ALGERIA I have ventured to offer to my brother sportsmen some notes upon the sport obtainable in the form of an Appendix ; some hints upon outfit, etc., suitable for the hills forming the subject of another Appendix, which, I hope, may prove useful to travellers who follow in our footsteps in the Aures. With the exception of the picture of the drug seller, illustrating Chapter IX, for which I am indebted to a friend, all the photographs in this volume are from our own negatives ; the sketch map which accompanies it is merely intended to enable the reader to follow at a glance our routes upon one of the excellent large-scale maps of Algeria prepared by the French military authorities. If these pages, penned during a pressure of other work, can succeed in increasing the enjoyment of my fellow travellers by inducing them to visit the mountain homes of the Berbers of the Aures ; if the picture, incomplete as it must necessarily be in any but a strictly technical work, which I have endeavoured to draw of native life in the hills, can give my readers a clearer insight into some of the phases of that life than a brief visit to Algeria can afford them ; or, especially, if an acquaintanceship with the natives, formed by a perusal of the pages, may lead some future wanderer to study and describe the many points in their maimers and customs which are still shrouded in mystery before the slow but steady advance of western civilization has hidden them from us for ever, then the labour expended upon the writing of these lines cannot, surely, have been in vain.