Mountain life in Algeria

by Edgar Barclay

We stood watching for some time groups of picturesque peasants issuing from the shade, and making their way to the market below; some, bearing goods done up in skins; some, earthenware pots netted together with twisted grass cords; others driving sheep and goats, asses and cattle. There is not much to be gained by entering the villages; they look best from the outside, and Tamjoot was not an exception to the rule. We halted at the Jamâ at the entrance, and a friendly Kabyle brought us clotted sour milk and figs, with which we refreshed ourselves. We returned by another path, overhung the greater part of the way with ash; the land was well cultivated with corn, and bore besides a profusion of fig-trees and evergreen oak. On arrival at the tent, we were glad to find that Dominique had not been inactive, and we did justice to his first ‘déjeuner.’

Each mountain has its tribe—Qabïla is the Arabic word for tribe, Qabaïli, a tribesman—and the villages are all built on the crests. The reason for this is apparent from a mere glance at the country, the slopes are so extremely steep that there is no other place where they could easily be built, and the gorges are occupied only by the stony beds of torrents; the springs also are found generally not far from the summits. Such situations have the advantage of fine healthy air, free from fevers; and in unsettled times, before the French introduced regular government, they no doubt to a great extent afforded the inhabitants immunity from the attacks of their neighbours.

From all accounts, in the good old days, the tribes were constantly quarrelling, and thus found distraction from the monotony of a too uneventful existence.

The area of country enclosed between the sea and the Jurjura, is about 3,850 square miles. The number of armed men at the time of the conquest, has been estimated at 95,000. Reckoning a little less than three times as many women and children, gives a total of 350,000 souls, or the high rate of 90 per square mile.

No village shows any signs of fortifications, or preparations for defence. The deep gulf fixed between the mountains, practically keeps the different groups of villages far more separated from each other than if they were built on islands. Before the French occupation, the people used always to go about armed. C. Devaux, a captain of Zouaves, has thus described a fight in the old times; it is full of picturesque suggestion:—

‘In the case of a village not having a sufficient number of fighting men to hold the field, when about to be attacked by superior forces, the defenders hastened to arrange means of resistance. Trenches were dug and mounds raised, according to the position of the ground to be defended, the outlets of the streets were closed by walls of piled stones, and at the moment of attack, each man occupied the place assigned him.

‘The women, young and old, joined in the fray; in their gala dresses, bedecked with their jewellery, and holding each other’s hands, they chanted a war-song, and from time to time raised thrilling cries to inflame the courage of the defenders. These songs, these war-cries of the women, heard in the midst of the fusillade, produce a most vivid effect. Having many times been called on to conduct Kabyle contingents at the defence of a village menaced by the enemy, I have felt, when I heard the exciting cries of the wives and mothers, how greatly they touch the fighting fibre of the combatants.

‘Things are managed differently when the French attack; then the women are sent into the mountains with the children and the flocks and herds; for in case of the village being taken they would be made prisoners, whilst between Kabyles the women were always released, and in no instance was any insult offered them.’

I am afraid that when the French attacked, the women were not always so comfortably sent out of the way as this officer describes, and that they fared badly. One day an old soldier was abusing the Kabyle women to me. ‘C’est incroyable,’ said he, ‘comment sont méchantes les femmes Kabyles.’ I asked him to be kind enough to descend from generalities to particulars. He thereupon described an attack on a village, at which he had been present, when the women had assisted the men in the defence. He told me how, when the bullets were flying, he and a comrade had rushed at the doorway of one of the houses; his friend, a few paces in advance, killed a Kabyle just as he was levelling his gun to fire; but vengeance was instant, there was the flash of a pistol, his comrade fell dead; rushing on, he made a plunge with his bayonet, and on withdrawing it, behold! he had run it through the body of the Kabyle’s faithful wife. ‘Vous voyez, monsieur,’ he concluded, ‘comment sont méchantes les femmes Kabyles.’

The extreme timidity of the women to this day, running away, as they often do, in the most idiotic manner on the first sight of a European, arises of course from their fears at the time of the war. It seems clear that in former times the fighting that occurred among the Kabyles was, as a rule, of a much milder nature than a war against an invader. They fought about points of honour, or personal dignity. When a tribe thought itself insulted by another and sought vengeance, it would send the young men to attack the flocks and herds, the animals taken in a coup de main were slaughtered and the meat distributed among the tribe.