But it is useless to search for literary monuments such as have been
transmitted to us from Egypt and India, Assyria and Persia, ancient Judea,
Greece and Rome; from the Middle Ages; from Celt, Slav, and German; from
the Semitic and Ouralo-altaique tongues; the extreme Orient, and the modern
literature of the Old and New World.
But the manifestations of thought, in popular form, are no less curious and
worthy of study among the Berbers. I do not speak of the treatises on
religion which in the Middle Ages and in our day were translated from the
Arabic into certain dialects: that borrowed literature, which also exists
among the Sonalulis of Eastern Africa and the Haussas and the Peuls of the
Soudan, has nothing original. But the popular literature--the stories and
songs--has an altogether different importance. It is, above all, the
expression of the daily life, whether it relates to fetes or battles or
even simple fights. These songs may be satirical or laudatory, to celebrate
the victory of one party or deplore the defeat of the True Believers by the
Christians, resounding on the lips of children or women, or shouted in
political defiance.
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