INTRODUCTION

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The Berber Tale

 

Several arguments plead in favour of the very great seniority of these tales: - Animals, even sometimes plants: often spoke, which returns to a very old culture, probably Neolithic, where any being was regarded as having a spirit, and thus being able for this reason to express itself by the verb. Certain topics are found besides in the European tales. One finds there sometimes animals which do not exist for a long time any more in North Africa. Thus, if the lion disappeared relatively recently, one finds sometimes mention of the tiger, which disappeared to north africa since antiquity. When are put in scene the human, the authority of the chief is generally called into question. The woman is often developed for her intelligence, and is able to solve situations that the men cannot overcome. This returns to the old amazigh culture, where the woman is regarded as the equal of the man, and where a chief can be called into question if he is not qualified. Often the children find themselves confronted with situations which an adult could not solve, but they draw some successfully. It is often a father, makes indignant or influenced by a bad woman who will cause this situation. Then the young boy must be worthy to be a man in frightening tests which would frighten any adult.

- In the same way, generally captive, the girl “is often symbolically released there” thus becoming woman, ready to find a husband. One can think that the origin of the tales goes up with prehistory. It is undoubtedly about a symbolic system translation of ritual of passages of the child to the adult, which are very old. The tales of Imazighen however were subject to various influences. As always, the culture amazighe knew to integrate various loans.

- One finds some tales which put in scene Noah or Solomon, and which indicates an influence of the Jewish religion. Other tales make fun openly of the Jews, which are qualified the cheating ones, and robbers. However, it is advisable to relativize: it is known that in North Africa, the Jews used of the same tales to make fun….of Imazighen, by changing the characters. They thus are not anti-semitism, but competitions rather goguenardes between communities…

- Certain tales calls some with the Prophet, Taleb (Wise or studying in religion, in Islam) and with the Djinn, which means that they were adapted with Islamization (the israelites influences, pre-Islamic).

- It is rather easy besides to show that the Arab tales largely borrowed from the tales imazighen. Thus, when Ali Baba discovers a treasure and requests from his rich brother a measurement to measure the gold coins, his beautiful sister makes coat the pitch container and recovers a gold coin. One finds exactly the same scene in a tale kabyle and a Moroccan tale amazigh. The only difference, they is that the opponents are not robbers but ogres, supernatural beings very present in the tales of Imazighen… One could multiply the examples of these loans which show that makes the Arabs of them largely took as a starting point the Imazighen.

- Certain mockeries with regard to the Pasha point out how Imazighen held heads with the Turkish empire.

- Lastly, the setting in scene, rather rare, by the cock, emblem of France presented like stupid, where the ridiculous one of the schoolmaster are unambiguous ironic answers of popular wisdom to colonization, even if they are undoubtedly inspired by older tales. Between very great seniority and memory of the recent history, the tales thus form part of the memory of Imazighen.