Si Mohand

Si Mohand ou-Mhand n At Hmadouch (Icheraiouen, At Yiraten, about 1848 - Lhammam-Michelet 28 December 1905) was a Berber poet from Kabylie in Algeria.

Biography

Born in an important family, educated in traditional religious teaching (hence the title Si "Doctor" which is added to his name), his life was marked by the strong repression which followed the Kabyle revolt in 1871 against the French colonial rule. He lost everything. His father was sentenced to death, his paternal uncle was sent in exile to New Caledonia, and all family possessions were taken over. Unlike his mother and his brothers, who emigrated to Tunis, he preferred to stay and live in Algeria as a dispossessed, working as a daily worker or practicing other less paid jobs. He never settled anywhere, but wandered all lifelong in Algiers or in other Algerian towns and villages inside and around Kabylie. Few deeds of his life are sure. The tradition remembers a visit he paid to the pious Cheikh Mohand ou-Lhocine, with whom he sustained an epic poetic dueling (which is recorded up to now), as well as a journey on foot to Tunis, where he met his brothers but was badly welcomed. He died of tubercholosis at 57 in S.te-Eugénie hospital at Michelet.

Works

In the course of his wandering life he composed a great number of isefra or poems in Berber. Some hundreds survived by oral transmission and have been recorded in books by Boulifa, Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri and Younes Adli.

• Poésies populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura, M. Hanoteau, Paris, 1867
• Recueil de poésies kabyles, Saïd Boulifa, Alger, Jordan, 1904
• La Poésie kabyle de Si Mohand-ou-M’hand et les Isefra, Emile Dermenghem, Documents Alger, Séries-culturelles, n°57, 1951.
• Les Poèmes de Si Mohand, Mouloud Feraoun, Paris, Edition de Minuit, 1960.
• Les Isefra de Si Mohand, Mouloud Mammeri, Maspero, 1982.
• Si Mohand ou Mhand. Errance et révolte, Younes Adli, Paris Mediterranee, ISBN 2-84272-110-1, 2001.

Thikkelt-a ad hedjigh asefru

Wallah ad yelhu

Ad inadi deg lwedyat.

Wi t-islan ard a t-yaru

Ur as-iberru

W' illan d elfahem yezra-t  :

A nhell Rebbi a tent-yehdu

Ghur-es ay nedâu

Ad baâdent adrim nekfa-t.

This time I'll compose a poem;

Please God it be beautiful

And spread everywhere.

Who will hear it will write it,

Will not part with it

And the wise will understand it:

May God inspire pity in them;

Only he can preserve us:

Women should forget us, we have no money left!