Moorish Literature | Page 6

having created
Old maids to grind meal for the toilers."[28]
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 Machonacha (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