Berbers

traveler — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 09:43:07 +0000

The name Berbers refers to the descendants of the pre-Arab populations of North Africa from the Egyptian frontier to the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean coast to the Niger. The term comes from the derogatory Greek word for non-Greek and was taken into both Latin and Arabic, yielding the English term barbarian. Berbers are Caucasoid, showing a fairly high incidence of blondness, and speak variations of a single language, Berber, which belongs to the Hamito-Semitic language family. They call themselves by some variant of the word amazigh, which means “free man,” and have no sense of community or ethnic unity beyond their tribal affiliations, which notably include the Kabyle of Algeria, the Riffians and Shluh of Morocco, and the Tuareg of the Sahara.
Although their origins are unknown, Berber-speaking peoples are thought to have moved into North Africa, probably from the Near East, before 2000 BC. From c.600 BC, Berber lands were invaded by various groups, including Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, and Turks. With the Arab conquest of North Africa in the second half of the 7th century, the Berbers converted to Islam. For a while they fought alongside the Arabs and extended the frontiers of Islam into Spain but later began to break away from both orthodox Islam and Arab hegemony. They chose a heresy known as Kharijism, which is still practiced in parts of Tunisia and Algeria. Many features of early pagan religion have also survived in Berber religious customs under the guise of orthodox Islam. Christianity disappeared among them in the 12th century, but Judaism, which made proselytes before Christianity, has survived to the present day.
The Arabs never completely reconquered the Berbers until the invasion by the Hilali tribes in the mid-11th century. Despite the appearance of two significant Berber dynasties, the Almoravids (1063-1147) and the Almohads (1147-1269), the Berber tribes could never unite long enough to rid themselves of the conquerors. As a result, Berber history can only be followed as the history of individual tribes.
The Hilali invasion marked a turning point; from then on, Arab language and culture gradually predominated in the plains and the more accessible parts of North Africa, while Berber language and culture survived primarily in relatively inaccessible districts of the Aures, Rif, and Atlas mountains. Islam was revived and revitalized among the Berbers in the 15th and 16th centuries by wandering pious men (Marabouts), who generally claimed to come from areas in south Morocco. Many whole tribes now claim descent from these men, and few were unaffected.
Berber speakers, who today number over 5 million, are distributed through Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, and the western Sahara. Their density increases generally from east to west, but the Berber language is still retreating in favor of Arabic as the populations of the present nation-states become homogenized. The maintenance of Berber language and identity carries with it a number of social and cultural traits that conspicuously distinguish the Berbers from the surrounding Arabs. Despite great diversity, the Berbers generally are rural, both settled and nomadic, with an economy based on subsistence agriculture and animal husbandry. They are grouped territorially and governed in egalitarian districts run by councils, of which the head of each extended family is a member.