Moorish Literature | Page 4

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."[17]

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."[18]
The conclusion of poems of this kind is an appeal to the generosity of
France:
"Since we have so low fallen,[19]
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."

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."[20]
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."[21]
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."[22]
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