TIN HINAN, Chapter 5, Part 2

From a tour in Algerian mountains

Our travel across the mountain became a constant journey, for we were trying to avoid the start of the snow season.  Already the nights were freezing, and frost made the ground stiff and brittle at dawn.  We slept only a few hours and rose before the sun and still we climbed upward.  We reached the top, walked across a plateau and started to descend, the snow already falling. Immel Uzmir pushed the men and beasts as much as he could.  To be stranded in a blizzard, even an early one, could mean death. We did not stop to cook or make fires, and ate what could be eaten raw, mostly dried dates with camel’s milk.   It was during the rise of the moon when we came in sight of a valley, and on the other side of that was the settlement where Immel Urzim and his men lived.  It was half way up another mountain, but one he said was a small mountain.

I was glad to leave the mountain, and so was Niefa.  She had a hard time with her feet on the slopes,  for camels get sore pads with the rocks and stones.  She was born in the desert and the soft sands were hot but did not cut her pads like the mountain terrain.  On the descent, she talked and bellowed, and I realized even at this distance, she could smell other camels  far in the valley below us.  She was young, and coming into heat.  A camel in estrus has her mind on only one thing.  She was becoming a handful, and her gait suffered from the descent.  Immel Uzmir saw that she was giving me trouble, and tied her behind another bigger camel to make her slow down.  He placed me behind him on his large horse, and I was forced to hold on to him as we hit rock slides and uneven terrain.

We are a clean people, and ablutions are important to our culture, but the smell of a man so close was new to me.  Given the fact he had not bathed in the mountains, the smell of male sweat and robes that had not seen a good washing was a bit ripe to my nose.  Perhaps I smelled the same to him, but men seem to tolerate these things better than women.

We came out of the forest that stretched up the mountain and into a large valley.  His settlement was across the wide valley and clinging to that other ‘small’ mountain range. We would make camp in the valley to give the pack animals, horses and camels a good feeding on the grasses.  That evening, before the sun dipped completely under the horizon, I looked over to the next mountain where he pointed out his tribe’s distant ksar.  I had never seen one before and was curious. My tribe was always from the desert. We lived in large tents, woven from the hair of camels and goats.  The trees, oaks, twisted olives and walnut groves obscured the actual buildings, but the purple cast of the mountains before us, far in the distance, and long shadows thrown upon the valley was beautiful to eyes that had only seen sand and hot sun all their life. The stars were the same though, rotating across the sky from one side of the upended bowl of the universe to the other.  The heavens could always be counted upon to be constant.

That night, Takama and I walked down from the men to a stream where we tried to bathe ourselves, but of course we did not strip off our clothing.  The water was cold, and at least we were refreshed, exchanging our robes for the last of clean clothes.  I was nervous what the next day would bring, for we would cross the wide valley and appear in the mountain village hopefully before sundown. I had no idea of our reception, but we both knew our lives now were no longer our own.  We were at the mercy of a mountain tribe, and though we spoke the same tongue, we were strangers in a very strange land.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2007, 2009

“TIN HINAN”, Chapter 1

It’s summer here, the dreaded month of August.  I am rewriting another novel, a just finished one, and trying to keep my nose to the grindstone. I would rather be doing other things, like blue-ing the white parts of the cats and dental-flossing between cabinets, but I’m stuck in a commitment to rewrite “Devil’s Revenge”.  A couple of people are holding sticks and look like they aren’t afraid to use them.  So….I am offering “Tin Hinan” as entertainment and there are lots of issues with this novel.  One, I haven’t looked at it in two years, and two, all of us are different people after a course of time.  And this is especially true about writers.  So I warn any reader, this work has much to reconsider, but I just don’t have the time right now for this.

Lady Nyo

(I started this story two years ago this summer. It grew legs and ran away with me. When I was dancing (I am a bellydancer, but NOT in the summer….) I had a number of Berber friends where I danced, and they patiently told me about their culture and customs.  I was fascinated by their stories, and from these came this novella, “Tin Hinan”.

Tin Hinan was an actual historical figure in the 6th century in Algeria.  She gathered the tribes from Morocco and Algeria into a nation.  There is not much known about her so this is a work of pure fiction.  I did try to stick to the ‘facts’ in her journey across the desert with her slave. That was known about Tin Hinan.

Considering the tribal traditions of any century, what Tin Hinan did in just this venture, leaving her tribe and setting out across these mighty deserts is amazing. Considering the odds of her survival, it is especially wonderous.

The Berbers opened the trade routes across northern Africa, and defended those routes from the Arabs.  Interestingly enough, Berbers were originally Christian, and resisted Islamic influence into the early 20th century. (Though Islam made great inroads from the 7th century onward.)  Between Christianity and Islamic religion, they were closer to the Egyptians in their worship of Ammon and Isis.

The story seemed to weave itself like a rug, knot by knot and color by color.  It’s 14 or so chapters and I plan next year to  finish it.

One important fact of Berber culture:  The Soul resides in the Liver. )

TIN HINAN

CHAPTER 1

I am called Tin Hinan. I had the destiny of a woman ‘rooted in flight’.  Even my name means “Nomadic Woman”.  Sometimes I forget my birth name before I became Queen. It is now lost in the sands of the Great Desert.

I founded a nation from the stirrings of my womb.  This is my story.

I was born in an oasis near what is now called Morocco.  My people were nomadic, but if our tribe had a name, we would be Tagelmust, meaning “People of the Veil”. The Arabs, our enemy, rudely called us Twareg, “Abandoned by God”. We now are known as Tuareg, or Berber by the white Europeans. But since I am speaking from my short time of fifty years on this earth and now only spirit,  you should know my story and life harkens back to the sixth century.  Life was very different then. But men and woman were not so different from now. Hearts are the same.

Our tribe is matriarchal.  All things, possessions, are passed down through the women.  The men still make the laws, but we women have great power.  Nothing is decided until the council of elder women and men meet.

We basically had  two classes of Tagelmust people, Imajeren, the nobles, and Iklan, the slaves.  There are subgroups in all that, but that’s not important. My family were Imajeren, my father a tribal elder and leader.  My mother had great status as the first of his four wives.

I was born in the spring, during lambing time.  I was exceptionally tall for my sex, and poems were written by my mother and other women about my hurry to reach up to the stars.  That is the reason they gave for my height.  I had long, thick black hair and hazel eyes, which was not rare. As I grew to marriageable age, more songs were sung openly around the fires as to my beauty.

Perhaps you wonder when you think of Arabic women with the chador and burkah covering their features, how would you sing to a black sheath of cloth with two dark eyes staring back at you?  We, the Berber, are blessed by Ammon and Isis, for The Veiled People only applies to the men!  They wear the veil, an indigo dyed cloth that wraps around their heads and covers their faces, with only the eyes and the bridge of their noses exposed.  We, the women, carry our faces proudly to the sun, to the wind, and when it comes, the blessed rain.  The men are mostly stained a dark blue, like a devil or zar because their sweat makes the dye run from the indigo and stains their faces.  They look funny for it does not wash off, but seeps into the skin.  So when you marry, you beget children from a  Zar-looking creature.  Perhaps that is why children are such little devils.

“Aicha, Aicha!” The aunties were calling me in from where I was loafing.  I liked to stand at the edge of the oasis, and look at the sea of sand before me.  I would think of great spans of water, for some travelers once told me about the great ocean to the north.

I turned and ran towards my mother’s tent. To ignore the aunties would be rude, and besides, they had many surprises and secrets in the folds of their robes.

“You, Aicha!  Your mother wants you to come to her, hurry!  Here, be a good girl and take this basket.”

I slipped the large basket over my arm and went into the tent side of my mother.

She was sitting on the floor of the tent, shelling dried beans. There were other women, most of them my aunts, her sisters, also working on the floor.  Our clan was a large one, one of the largest that made up this particular desert tribe. Growing up, there were women enough to pull my ears when I was bad and to soothe me when I was mournful.

My mother looked up, noticed me standing there and motioned for me to sit down.

“Aicha, you are of the age when you should be married, or at least engaged.  Your father and I think it time that we look around for a husband for you.”

I knew it!  I saw the sly glances of the aunties, and heard the laughter when I passed a group of women. At the river, when I carried down the washing, I got looks and giggles even from those women and girls I didn’t know well. Something was brewing and this time I was the last to know.

“Come, you graceless girl.” My mother’s oldest sister, Aunt Aya called out to me.  She reached behind her broad hips and pulled out a packet wrapped in wool.  Slowly opening it, she revealed a heavy silver and amber necklace made up of many silver rounds and large amber beads.

It was fun for them, to dress me in the women jewelry like I was a child’s doll.   But they were serious in their business.

“Hold still, you silly girl. This kohl will poke out your eye if you don’t”.

My face and hair were fiddled with, and I suffered the blackening of my eyes and their hands twisting my hair into designs.  It hurt.

That day they had their fun, and I emerged from the tent at evening to be walked around the fire to the vocalizing  and comments of the collected tribe.  My hair was braided in intricate styles and small silver discs peppered my head like tiny,  beaten full moons.   Heavy silver and wood earrings weighted down my earlobes.  I was of course, without a veil, and two women held my hands, leading me around the tribe’s main fire to the sound of drums and the ney flute.

Although I could not to marry within my tribe, I was being presented for our tribe’s delight.  Grooming for marriage was a ritual and my blushes showed appropriate modesty.

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There was a young man who was part of a neighboring tribe a day away.  During marriages, celebrations and festivals, I would see him and he would look for me.  We are modest women, but we do stare in the eyes of a man we are interested in marrying. We even wink at them.  Are you shocked?  Well, we did.   We had many customs, but  Berber women, before the hated Arabs, had much freedom.

Hasim was his name, and he was a tall man, taller than I was.  I thought only proper I be married to a tall man. What woman wants to look down on her husband?  It sets a bad example for a woman.  She starts looking down on him in other things.  Hasim was a few years older and at one marriage celebration, I danced a line dance with other maidens and gave him one of my bracelets.  This was an accepted way of flirting. When the musicians took a rest, I went to get my silver bracelet back, and he slipped it down the front of his robe. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled boldly. I should have known then Hasim was trouble, but my foolish heart flip-flopped.  Ah! Girls can be so silly.

Hasim was handsome, already a man though only about twenty-two years of age.  He had golden skin where the sun had not burned him dark and black eyes like deep shaded pools of water in the oasis.  His nose was long and slightly bent, like the hunting hawk, and his mouth was full and red, like a split pomegranate.  His teeth were white like bleached bones in the desert.

How do I know this, if our men are veiled?  My Hasim, for I already claimed him mine with the certainty that he would be…. had unwrapped his indigo blue veil from his face. And yes, his cheeks were stained a light blue where his beard would be.  I should have known that the Zar blood was deep in him, not just on the surface, but Isis! How was I to know then?

“Come, little sister, fish deep in my waters and you will find your bangle.  You want your precious silver back, do you not?”

Ah! My father would kill him if he heard his words!  But Hasim just grinned, playing a man’s game and my head whirled inside.  Other parts of me were disturbed, but I only knew of this by our women’s bridal parties before the weddings.  My heart flipped and my stomach turned over, too.

I am not known for being shy, perhaps it is because I am so tall, but shy I was before Hasim.

He reached out his hand and traced my cheek to my chin, gently pushing the back of his thumb over my lips.  My eyes were locked to his and I could not pull away. I must have looked like a little fool, for my mouth opened a bit with the firm  pressure of his finger.

Hasim dipped into his chest and reluctantly pulled out my bracelet.  “Little sister, be careful in what hands you place your silver. .  You might come across one who will take more than your jewelry.”

I heard his voice off in the distance.  He closed his eyes slightly, his long, black lashes brushing downwards, and the spell was broken.  I staggered a bit, and he threw out a hand to steady me, an enigmatic smile on his face.

I saw Hasim a few times after this first occasion and each time grew dizzy by the sight him.  During the last harvest festival, Hasim was mounted on a large, white camel as he raced across the desert with the other riders.  The groans and bellows of the beasts, the yelling of the men placing their wagers and the dust churned up from many feet made it hard for me to concentrate.  I could only follow the white of his camel for he was surrounded by mounted men.

That autumn, my mother and father called me before them, and announced that it was time I marry.  I of course had no choice, I was of age, but I noticed an exchange of smiles between my parents.  Unknown to me, my father had consulted with the marriage broker and a visit had been made to Hasim’s parents.  He was considered a good prospect, and with the status of our tribe and that of my father, I was considered a likely bride for Hasim.

My heart was light and leaping about in my chest.  I walked now with confidence, my breasts pushed out and a smile upon my face.  I would have the status of a wife, not just a common, unmarried girl.  There were many things to settle, preparations to make and issues far beyond my concern.  These were the matters of the elders and my mother’s family. But I was to be a bride!  Finally, I would take my place in the tribe with all the authority of a wedded woman.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
2007, 2009
Copyrighted by the author.