July
1926
The Kabyle mountains are sharply different with respect to all the types of agriculture. The ancient settlements of the Kabyles are concentrated there. The Kabyles are closely related to the Berbers, use a language different from Arabic and have neat houses covered by tiles instead of the flat-roofed houses of the Arabs. [1]
Everything here spoke of a comparatively high state of culture, typical of the montane and highland areas of the Mediterranean. The villages of the Kabyles resemble Greek villages. The arable land is carefully utilized for field crops and vegetables. The study of the assortment of cultivated plants immediately showed a sharp distinction from the strictly Mediterranean areas. The beans, lentils, peas and vetches grown in the Kabyle villages differ by having small and dark seeds, which to a considerable extent were familiar to me and similar to the Asiatic forms distributed in Iran, Inner Asia and Afghanistan. Soft wheat was grown here in large amounts. It might be possible to trace its connection with southwestern Asia to a kind of relic, which indicates a past, distant relationship between the settlers of the montane areas of northern Africa and the agricultural peoples who settled southwestern Asia.
The wild flora of the Kabyle mountains has a multitude of species which are relatives of those cultivated species. Here it is to some extent possible to solve the riddle of the origin of some cultivated plants. It was just here that Trabut found the interesting wild bean mentioned above, Vicia pliniana (Trabut) Muratova, [2] which undoubtedly is genetically especially closely related to the cultivated forms of the small-seeded, black beans of Afghanistan and India. In any case, it is absolutely necessary to appreciate the differentiation of northern Africa into montane, coastal and foothill areas. The mountain area appears more ancient and the coastal one more youthful. However, after thousands of years of cultivation and to a great extent passing through an evolution independent from that of the Asiatic mountain forms, the beans are tied not by a straight but a crooked path to the wideranging evolution of the Mediterranean cultivated vegetation.
- See kabyles.net for current information about these fascinating people. [↩]
- Vavilov gives Moratowa, but modern citations give Muratova. [↩]
Show on map
{ 0 comments… add one now }