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Les Cahiers de l’AARS
No. 19
2016-2017
Table des matières
Mohamed Benhamdoune & Jean-Louis Bernezat
L’abri de l’ăġelmam de Wa-n-Telōkat, Immīdir (Parc National et Culturel de l’Ăhaggar)………………………… 7
Friedrich Berger
Zu r L age vo n Ja m………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 13
Jean-Louis Bernezat
L’abri K hamdi Sidha, Ăhélakan occident al (Parc national culturel du Tassili) …………………………………… 21
Christian Dupuy
Chars sahariens préhistoriques et araires africains actuels. I. L’alimentation des animaux de trait …………… 29
Mohssine El Graoui & Susan Searight-Martinet
Contribution à la connaissance de la céramique néolithique du sud-marocain : le site de l’Adrar n’Metgourine … 45
Yves & Christine Gauthier, Francis & Françoise Auvray
Nouvel abr i or né au Borkou (Tchad septentrional) …………………………………………………………………… 49
Yves & Christine Gauthier
Éole, le mauvais élève de la classe ? Remarques sur les peintures dites « archaïques » en Ennedi …………… 69
Du nouveau en Ennedi (Tchad) : remarques sur la chronologie des personnages du type «Niola Doha » … 105
Yves Gauthier & Jérôme Gayet
Une pip e gravée en Ennedi ( Tchad) …………………………………………………………………………………… 119
Pascale Hégy
L e sit e à pe in tu re s r up es tr es de Ké lé o I (E nn ed i, Tch ad ) ……………………………………………………………… 121
Benoît Hoarau, Abdelhadi Ewague & Laurent Auclair
Telouet: un jalon dans la chronologie des images rupestres du Haut-Atlas Marocain …………………………… 139
Nicole Honoré
Un aspect de la vie pastorale au Sahara néolithique : les signes du corps ………………………………………… 151
Julien d’Huy
Matriarchy and preh istory : a statistica l method for test ing an old theory………………………………………… 159
Gérard Lachaud
Eth nog ra ph ie du Sa ha ra : le s a rm es tr aditio nn elles d es pe upl es nom ad es …………………………………………… 171
Suzanne & Gérard Lachaud
À propos de quelques représentations rupestres situées au Grande Riparo (région d’Archei, Ennedi, Tchad) … 193
Fabio Maestrucci & Gianna Giannelli
Mo ntagne e spi rit i d el S ah ar a. Da ll’I di nen ai Ke l Essuf ……………………………………………………………… 211
Mahmoud Marai & Hardy Böckly
Rock-Art sites and dry monuments in the Erdi. A journey through Northeastern Chad. ……………………… 221
6
Alain Rodrigue
No uvel les gr avures r upest re s da ns la rég ion de Fo um Zguit (Maroc) ……………………………………………… 23 7
Ursula Steiner & Friedrich Berger
Rings of stone circles in the Western Desert of Egypt. Addendum ……………………………………………… 241
Ursula Steiner & András Zboray
N ew r o ck a r t s it es in th e Wa di Wa ssa (S ou th er n G il f Keb ī r) ………………………………………………………… 2 43
Claude-Noëlle Vaison
G r av ur es r up es tr e s d u p la te au de s Eg la b ( No rd - Ou es t d u S ah a ra a lgé r ie n) ………………………………………… 24 7
Robert Vernet, Boutar ould el-Arby, Wim Van Neer, Veerle Linseele, Jean-François Saliège & Annabelle Gallin
Économie et milieu dans les plaines intérieures de Mauritanie occidentale à l’Holocène moyen
( N o ua d h fa t, Ao u k er o cc i de nt a l ) ……………………………………………………………………………………… 2 53
András Zboray
Four elephant hunt scenes among the Iheren style paintings of Taġelahin,
Ăha rhar Tasset and Tam rit (Tasīli-n-Ăjjer) . ………………………………………………………………………… 275
Notes de lecture ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 2 83
Carnets …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 299
159
Cahiers de l’AARS — n° 19 (2016-2017), p. 159-170.
*Courr iel : dhuy.julien@yahoo.fr
Abstract : Various statistical methods are applied
to mythological motifs to reconstruct the phylogeny of
tales that describe primitive matriarchies. The results
show a correlation between spread of myths and
spread of genes, and allow to identify the form of this
mythology before the out-of-Africa migration. This
makes it possible to reject some assumptions about
interpretation of rock art.
Résumé : Diverses méthodes statistiques sont appli-
quées à des motifs mythologiques an de reconstruire la
phylogénie des récits évoquant un matriarcat primitif.
Les résultats montrent une corrélation entre diffusion
des mythes et diffusion des gènes, et permettent d’identi-
er la forme adoptée par cette mythologie avant la sortie
d’Afrique de l’homme moderne. Ils permettent également
de rejeter certaines hypothèses interprétatives portant
sur l’art rupestre.
Julien d'Huy *
Introduction
In a recent book on eroticism and sexuality
in the prehistoric rock art of the Sahara, François
Soleilhavoup and Jean-Pierre Duhard (2013 : 223)
write that representations of women sometimes
appear to be objects of matriarcal cultic worship.
We nd here a carefully considered resurrection of
a regular refrain in rock art and mythology stud-
ies: the hypothesis of a primitive matriarchy. This
hypothesis, in view of its inuence, deserves to be
questioned.
The rst matriarchal interpretation involving
rock art, if I am not mistaken, goes back to 1931,
when Piotr P. Emenko viewed the feminine repre-
sentations of the Upper Palaeolithic as a reection
of the social and economic role of the women at this
time, as well as their spiritual role within a social
organisation of a matriarchal type, dominated by
the mothers.
But François Soleilhavoup and Jean-Pierre
Duhard (2013 : 223) are they right in their interpre-
tation? But in the Saharan rock art, was it necessa
rily a matriarchal society that created these images
of gloried women ? Or, conversely, was a patriar-
chal society necessarily responsible for the images
of men and phallus, which are more frequent ?
The hypothesis of the matriarchy as a social
model, based on the maternal rights and hegemony
of women, nds its origin in the work of Johann
Jakob Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht (1861). His work is
chiey based on the Greek myths, and the historical
data left by earlier authors such as Herodotus, and
follows the earlier Mœurs des sauvages Américains
comparées aux mœurs des premiers hommes of
Joseph François Latau (1724) which compares the
supposed gynecocracy of the Hurons and Iroquois
with that of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians.
Johann Jakob Bachofen defends the existence of a
matriarchal society in Ancient Greece: he evokes
a primitive domination of the feminine principle
in the religion and insists on the importance of the
matrilineal liation, in which the heredity of power
is only transmitted from mother to daughter. This
matriarchal state would have preceded the patrilin-
eal liation, and would have followed a generalised
stage of reproduction governed by the ius naturale
of pleasure, where only maternity could be proved.
And, in reaction to the abuses of men, the resent-
ment of women would have led to a gynecocracy
and sometimes even to a community of Amazons.
The men would then have turned to hegemonic
power, changing the cult of the Earth-mother to a
cult of the celestial gods. Bachofen's work has inu-
enced in a signicant way many authors like John
Lubbock (1867 :67-70 ), Lewis H. Morgan (1877),
Friedrich Engels (1900) and Sigmund Freud (1922).
Many other authors, such as Jean Przyluski (La
Grande déesse : Introduction à l’étude compara-
tive des religions, 1950) and Wilhelm Schmidt (Das
Mutterrecht, 1955), have contrib uted to popularis-
ing this matriarchal view.
And yet, outside these myths, matriarchy may
never have existed. No example of gynecocracy
has ever been observed in the world. Matriarchy or
gynecocracy, where power is exercised exclusively
or mainly by women, is a situation for which no
clear examples have ever been found1 (Barry et al.
2000 : 728 ; see also Le Quellec 2009 : 247-250). As
Françoise Héritier (2011) has said: « societies where
the power would be in the hands of the women who
dominated men do not exist and never have existed.
(…) There are no matriarchal societies, because the
Matriarchy and prehistory :
a statistical method for testing an old theory
160
Julien d'Huy
archaic model dominating all the planet has always
been present from the beginning2. » If the narrative
of a primitive matriarchy that spreads throughout
the planet is true, then it may have become wide-
spread at the same time as the rst human migra-
tions. The exiqting matriarchal myths probably
reect not a previous state of human civilisation,
but only a prehistoric mythology.
Following this trail, Eugène Beauvois (1904 :
324-326) incorrectly proposed that the Amazon
story must have reached America across the Atlantic
Ocean through some Pre-Columbian immigration
of Celtic missionaries and Gudmund Hatt (1949 :
72) noted that if one would seek a foreign origin for
the American Amazon stories, it should be in Asia
and Oceania. According to Yuri Berezkin (2013 :
142) « there are similar rituals/myths in Africa,
Australia, Melanesia and South America that are
associated with the institutionalised opposition of
the sexes, and typically include stories about the
past domination of women, not only in the social
sphere (the story of "a woman's realm" sometime
in the past, or in a distant land, is a motif known
all over the world), but also in cult and ritual3. »
Yuri Berezkin further states that « this worldwide
correspondence between narratives and rites,
except in Eurasia, implies that we can assume that
the male rituals associated with institutionalised
opposition originated in Africa and were brought
to Australia and New Guinea by the rst sapiens.
From East Asia, this mythological complex entered
the New World along the coast with the rst wave
of migrants. [...] Then these myths and rituals were
gradually supplanted, entirely in Asia and mainly in
North America, by new incomers from the Eurasian
cultural household4 » (Berezkin 2013 : 147-148). He
notes that this hypothesis would be conrmed by
the diffusion of the motif F8 (according to his clas-
sication, i.e. : initially women and men live apart
from each other. Later they meet each other and
come to live together), F38 (Women were posses-
sors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual
objects which are now taboo for them or they made
attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects)
and F40B (A man gets into the village of women.
Usually he has to satisfy every woman against his
will or every woman claims him for herself), which
would be explained by an Out-of-Africa diffusion.
According to the anthropologist Joan
Bamberger, the principal function of the myth of
the primitive matriarchy is to relegate the power of
the women to a very remote past in order to guar-
antee the present state of the domination of one sex
over the other5 (Bamberger 1974 : 280). But if Yuri
Berezkin is right, the matriarchal myth already
existed during the Out-of-Africa period. That
implies that this myth could pass to the later cul-
tures, and that matriarchy never existed, as might
be the case in the Saharan Neolithic. How can this
be statistically demonstrated ?
Material and method
The rst person to have applied the phyloge-
netic method to the mythology is, to my knowledge,
Thomas Abler who in 1987 used the techniques of
cluster analysis to classify and show relationships
among the forty-one variants from the Iroquoian
myth of the creation of the world. He showed that
most clusters of the statistical trees represent a
national or tribal tradition. The idea to use phylo-
genetic tools to classify tales or many versions of
the same tale was taken up by Jun'ichi Oda (2001)
and Jamie Tehrani (2013). Since 2012, I have used
similar tools to trace lines of transmission of myths,
folktales and mythological traditions back to a com-
mon ancestor and to test hypotheses about human
prehistory and the processes explaining the current
geographic distribution of the myths and folktales. I
have also used these techniques to quantify patterns
of borrowing, reconstruct proto-mythology and test
various claims, such as the rate of evolution, about
mythological evolution.
Myths are not genes: the biologist’s softwares
have been used in this particular eld of study for
convenience. These programs allow researchers to
construct statistical trees of relationship based on
similarities and differences between the studied
units. If we accept that two ethnic groups who are
genealogically close share more narratives in com-
mon than two more distant groups, or that their tales
have more in common with each other than with
more distant groups, such programs allow us to
reconstruct "trees" of oral traditions (d’Huy 2012a,
2015b). However, these results mean nothing with-
out a point of comparison, and need to be tested and
compared to other results.
I used the analytical catalog of the mytho-
logical motifs, graciously made accessible by Yuri
Berezkin (http://ruthenia.ru/folklore/berezkin,
accessed February 22, 2016), to identify narra-
tives about the differentiations between men and
women, their cohabitation and their confrontations.
Narratives as basic units to conduct phylogenetic
studies have been used many times before (d'Huy
2015, 2016a, Ross and Atkinson 2016, da Silva and
Tehrani 2016). The Berezkin's database is made up
of 19th, 20th and 21st century simplied subjec-
tive summaries of longer secondary-source sum-
maries of native myths in diverse genre of widely
varying types and accuracy. It is necessary to note
that such narratives are easily translated from one
language to another : translations do not affect the
foundations of tales, only their style. Moreover,
Yuri Berezkin classies the tales on an abstract
level; the details of the text, and its many alternate
versions, are also not very important if the motif
itself remains intact. Finally, numerous works, since
Charles-Félix-Hyacinthe Gouhier in 1892, showed
the durability through time of such motifs (also see,
among others, Bogoras 1902, Jochelson 1905, Hatt
1949, Korotayev and Khaltourina 2011, Berezkin
Matriarchy and prehistory : a statistical method for testing an old theory
161
2013, Witzel 2013 and Le Quellec 2014, 2015a, b).
The continuous and repeated transformations and
simplications that take place in oral myths when
they were passed into literate form have little impact
on our analysis which is quantitative, on an abstract
level, and not qualitative.
The cultural areas determined by Yuri Berezkin
have also been considered as units of analysis. Such
a choice implies that cultural areas are more than a
convenient ction : they are a real thing with ances-
tors, descendants and relations. Moreover, such
units should be able to endure historical phenomena
and persist over time. An advantage of this approach
is that if a narrative has been lost in a given ethnic
group, the neighbouring tribe of the same cultural
area might remember it.
The following features were selected among
the Berezkin's corpus F1, F5, F5A, F8, F16, F16B,
F16C, F16D, F38, F40A, F40B, F41, F42, F42A,
F43, F43A, F43B, F43C, F44, F45, F45A, F45B,
F46, F46A, F47, F47A, F48 and F97 (F39 being
not available online). For every cultural area, each
motif was coded by 1 if it was present, by 0 if it
was absent. Then, to avoid any bias in the study,
only geographical areas possessing at least eight
narratives were retained. Finally, F45A that is not
present in the altered Berezkin's corpus has been
deleted from the dataset.
Tools usually used by the biologists to establish
liation between species were used to construct a
phylogenetic tree. A bio Neighbor-joining phylo-
genetic tree (software : PAUP*4.0a147 ; Retention
Index = 0.49) has been built. Indeed, the NJ method
using cultural databases generally produced accu-
rate results (e.g. McMahon et McMahon 2003;
Nakhleh et al. 2005). According to the near-con-
sensus position held within the scientic com-
munity about the recent single origin of modern
humans and the hypothesis or assumption that a
part of the matriarchal mythology may have spread
at the time of the Out-of-Africa, the tree was rooted
in East Africa.
One important consideration should be raised.
Over time, the original character traits of a species
can become diluted, disappear or even be wiped out
when new character traits are incorporated into the
initial genome without being inherited (e.g. follow-
ing symbioses or hybridization between species).
In the case of myths or oral traditions, these new
features are borrowings from other versions or
traditions that are added to the original account.
Fortunately, the methods used by biologists to study
the evolution of genes can also be applied to esti-
mate the extent of borrowing and the role of inherit-
ance. For instance, the Retention Index (RI) allows
us to measure the amount of analogous structures
created by convergent evolution (homoplasy), but
also measures how well the shared derived trait
states (synapomorphies) explain the tree. This tool
(among others) enables measurement of the per-
centage of traits shared by two or more tales or
traditions that are not inherited from a common
ancestor, i.e. it allows one to distinguish between
a version / tradition that moved wholesale and one
that was reconstructed out of very simple and com-
mon features (d'Huy 2012). Here the RI (0.49) shows
a low yet existing vertical transmission. This low
score could be explained by the nature of cultural
evolution with borrowings that eradicate a great
part, yet not the totality, of the phylogenetic signal.
Results and discussion
In the tree obtained from my analysis (Fig. 1 ;
appendix A), two major clades can be identied:
the rst one, the Eurasian, also includes the Arctic
area and western Africa; the second one, essentially
Amerindian, can be subdivided into two minor
clades : the most important group includes the
areas of South America and Melanesia, the other
contains only an area of North America. This tree
is only a model yet its structure ts very well with
what is known about the rst human migrations6.
Accordingly, a strong correlation between a num-
ber of motifs and genes has been shown by Andrey
Korotayev and Daria Khaltourina (2011). A low
correlations between the distributions of a set of
tales-type and spatial associations among popula-
tions is also consistent with vertical processes of
Fig. 1. Bio
Neighbor-joining
tree of 13 cultural
areas ; narratives
about the differen-
tiations between
men and women,
their cohabitation
and their confron-
tation (Berezkin's
database).
162
Julien d'Huy
mythological inheritance (d'Huy 2015b ; Da
Silva and Tehrani 2016). Moreover, phylo-
genetic trees based on many versions of the
same myths or on many oral traditions asso-
ciate rather strongly with the distribution
of certain genetic types (d'Huy 2012a, b, c,
2013a, b, 2015a, b, c). So myths considered at
a general level seems to respond very slowly
to changes in environmental or social condi-
tions at a rate similar to genetic changes, and
could reect a particular history of settle-
ment, i.e. the cultural history of most of the
ancestors of a given area.
According to the tree, human beings would
have gone out of Africa, followed the south-
ern coastline of Asia and colonised Australia
around 50.000 years ago (in the current tree:
Melanesia). The early Amerindian people
moved via the Bering Strait to South America
when sea levels were signicantly lowered
due to the Last Glacial Maximum (in the tree:
Guiana, Northwestern Amazonia, Southern
Amazonia, Eastern Brazil, Chaco). The
American mythology of this period is distrib-
uted throughout the Americas. The second
migration from Asia, maybe during or shortly
after the initial peopling of America, has left
an impact only in North America (in the tree:
Great Southwest); the third migration, sub-
sequent to the rst migrations, has only left
a trace in Arctic populations. The African
mythology was largely lost in Continental
Eurasia (in the tree: Balkans, Southern
Asia, Northeastern India), likely because the
decrease of population density during or soon
after the Late Glacial Maximum. The place
of western Africa could be explained by an
early Back-to-Africa, or by an inuence of
the more northern regions, themselves bound
to the Mediterranean culture.
It is remarkable that the structure of the
tree is widely compatible with the distribution
of the male rites suggested by Yuri Berezkin.
It is also remarkable to nd a similar tree
from a completely different databases of nar-
ratives based on the motifs of dragons and
serpents (d’Huy 2016a ; Fig. 2) ; the fact that
results from an independent and unrelated
source "converge" on the same conclusions
(also see below) shows that the result of the
phylogenetic method is very strong and that
the output obtained by this method may be
directly proportional to the input.
Once the structure of the tree is checked
by what we know about the settlement of the
planet, it becomes possible to reconstruct
statistically the proto-folklore about the
dichotomies between men/women before the
Out-of-Africa diaspora. Only the features
reconstructed both at the root of the tree
and the cluster Melanesia / Northwestern
Fig. 2. Bio
Neighbor-joining
tree of 22 cultural
areas ; narratives
about serpents
(Berezkin's
database).
Fig. 3. Altered bio
Neighbor-joining
tree of 13 cultural
areas ; narratives
about the differenti-
ations between men
and women, their
cohabitation and
their confrontation.
Matriarchy and prehistory : a statistical method for testing an old theory
163
Amazonia were retained. The reconstructed fea-
tures are: F38. Women were possessors of the
sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or ritual objects
which are now taboo for them or they made
attempts to acquire such a knowledge or objects ;
F40A. An anthropomorphic male or an androgyne
is the only possessor or leader of women ; F40B. A
man gets into the village of women. Usually he has
to satisfy every woman against his will or every
woman claims him for herself ; F42. The men feel
themselves offended by the women and abandon
them ; F43. Women of the ancestral community kill
or abandon the men ; F44. Women and men quarrel
and abandon each other ; F45. There are (or were)
women who live apart from men in their own vil-
lage or villages.
In order to control the reconstructions, the
results (Tab. I) could be compared to those obtained
by Andrey Korotayev and Daria Khaltourina
(2011). Using principal component analysis,
these researchers show the existence of a mytho-
logical cluster associating the Melanesian and the
Amazonian areas. This group is associated with the
distribution of mtDNA haplogroup B : it is believed
to derive from the rst waves of human migration
from Africa along the southern edge of Asia and
to correspond to the rst colonisation of Oceania
and America. Signicantly, only one reconstructed
feature (F40B) is not found in Korotayev and
Khaltourina's reconstructions.
Additionally, according to Yuri Berezkin, the
distribution of the motif F38 and F40B at the world
level ts with an African origin: this author sup-
poses a diffusion by the rst human migrations in
Australia and in New Guinea before reaching the
New World via the Bering Strait (Berezkin 2013:
147-148). The phylogenetic reconstruction is thus
supported, at least partially, by the results from two
others methods7.
To control for the existence of a possible “glue”
holding the various elements of the reconstructed
folktales together since the out-of-Africa diaspora,
a new tree based only on these traits has been cre-
ated. The general structure of this new tree (Fig.
3 ; appendix B) is very similar to the rst one (with
the exception of the Chaco area) and shows a hight
Retention Index (0.7) which suggests a cohesive
transmission of a set of folktales as a core tradition.
According to these results, the core matriarchal
folklore seems to exhibit sufcient coherence and
integration to create a recognisable history when
the core and the peripheral elements are taken
together. Consequently, a part of the matriarchal
stories should have a common origin and should
have followed the diffusion path. Integration of
these reconstructions seems to protect the core
of the tradition, even if cross-cultural borrowings
could locally distort the transmission.
Verication of the results
A reasonable prediction can be made about
these results: if the women were supposed to domi-
nate the men in a remote time, they also had to pos-
sess re. To test this hypothesis, 39 other features
of Berezkin's database (D1, D1A, D1a1, D1a2, D1B,
D2, D3, D4A, D4AA, D4B, D4C, D4c1, D4D, D4E,
D4E1, D4F, D4G, D4H, D4h1, D4i, D4J, D4K, D4L,
D4M, D4N, D4O, D4P, D5, D5A, D6A, D6B, D7,
D8, D9, D10, D11, D12, D12A, D13F) concerning
the acquisition of re by the human race were used.
F16 F38 F39 F40A F40B F41 F42 F43 F44 F45
Current
paper
X Not
covered
XX XXXx
Korotayev &
Khaltourina
XXX X XXXXX
Tab le au I
Fig. 4. Bio
Neighbor-joining
tree of 24 cultural
areas ; narratives
concerning the
acquisition of re
by the human
race (Berezkin's
database).
164
Julien d'Huy
After identifying the geographical areas possess-
ing at least 8 narratives, a tree BioNeighbor-joining
(Retention Index = 0.4), rooted on East Africa, was
built (Fig. 4 ; appendix C).
This tree presents two major amerindian clades.
The rst one clusters in the Midwest and the sub-
arctic zone and would represent the second expan-
sion in North America from Eurasia (i.e. Fig. 1,
the Great Southwest ; Fig. 2, the Coast Plateau,
Midwest, Great Plains and Mesoamerica) or the
third expansion (i.e. Fig 1, Arctic). The second
cluster, rooted in Australia and Melanesia, groups
all other versions. This clade is divided into two
sections: a set of areas belonging to the south of
North America, Central America and the north of
South America on one hand (with the exception of
the Coast Plateau), and a set of South American
areas on the other hand. This cluster is probably the
residual trace of the rst expansions in America.
The place of North-West Amazonia at the root of
the rst subtree suggests that there was a reverse
ow across the Panama isthmus after the initial
settlement of South America (also see Reich et al.
2012). The Coastal Plateau, Mesoamerica and the
Great Southwestern areas have a rich and complex
history, lying on the route of both waves of settle-
ment, between the inuence of North Amerindian
and South Amerindian folklores. That explains
their changing place in Fig. 1, 2 and 4.
The features reconstructed at the level of both
the root of the tree and the node clustering Australia
and Melanesia are : D4A. Fire is stolen from its orig-
inal owner or brought back to the people from the
person who had stolen it before ; D4L. 1) First re is
sent to earth from the sky. 2) Ancestors come from
the sky and bring re or warmth from there ; D5. A
female personage is the owner or inventor (but not
the personication) of re ; D9. A raven or other big
dark-feathered scavenger bird is the owner, personi-
cation, spouse, obtainer or stealer of re, daylight,
or the Sun ; D12. 1) The rst people or inhabitants
of a distant country cook food in the sun. 2) The re
owner lies that he or she cooks food in the sun.
The reconstruction of the feature D5 shows the
predictive capacity of the phylogenetic method. It
explains the widespread idea according to which
women possessed re before men and/or that re
springs from the body of a woman. Besides, if
Frazer's analogy between the use of the re plough
(Collina-Girard 1998) and the relationships between
the sexes is accepted (according to a primitive link
between the masculine stick and the feminine sup-
port) (Frazer 1930 : 220-221), this reconstruction
would tend to prove that such a relighting tool was
known before the Out-of-Africa diaspora. Note that
it is nonetheless tricky to precisely determine the
meaning of these primitive stories, which depends
a great deal on the context, including the social and
historical context. However, the fact that the femi-
nine power was again relegated to the remote past
shows that the matriarchal myth would have been
known before the Out-of-Africa diaspora.
Frazer's large collection of re myths (1930 ;
completed by Schmidt 2013) was used to create a
new database to check roughly the plausibility of
the previous results about the acquisition of re. 36
features were taken into account for 9 geographic
areas (with a number of features greater than 8; see
appendix D) and a tree bio Neighbor-joining (Fig. 5 ;
Retention Index = 0.34), rooted on Africa, was
built. The amerindian clade is probably the result
of the rst expansions into America. The features
Berezkin's
database.
D4A D4L D5 D9 D12
Frazer's
database.
4 ; 5. 2 ; 3 ; 6. 1Not
reconstructed
Absent from
the database
Tableau II
Fig. 5. Bio
Neighbor-joining
tree of 9 cultural
areas ; narratives
concerning the
acquisition of re
by the human race
(Frazer's database).
Matriarchy and prehistory : a statistical method for testing an old theory
165
reconstructed at the level of both the root of the tree
and the node cluster ing Oceania, Asia and America,
are : 1/ Fire in possession of women before men ; 2/
Fire derived from lightning ; 3/ First re came from
the sky / heaven ; 4/ Fire is stolen by an animal ; 5/
Fire is stolen from an animal ; 6/ Tree set on re by
lightning or re in tree.
In order to provide a control on the reconstruc-
tions, the two results could be compared (Tab. II).
Only one reconstructed feature (D9) is not found in
Frazer's reconstructions.
Conclusion
These results can be harmoniously integrated
into the model constructed from the trees previ-
ously reconstructed with the phylogenetic method.
Indeed, taken together, mythological trees show the
African origins of modern humans, who followed
the southern coastline of Asia, colonised Australia
around 65.000 years ago and reached America from
an East Asian source.
A second migration again reached North
America maybe at more or less the same time from
a North Eurasian source. An admixture between
the two mythological complexes took place in
Siberia and in North America. However, during the
Last Glacial Maximum in Eurasia, the two com-
plexes mostly evolved in isolation, separated by
natural barriers.
After the Last Glacial Maximum, new stories
emerged in Eurasia and spread across the conti-
nent, blurring boundaries between the primitive
areas. Finally, a last ow reached America, limited
to the circumpolar area, or migrated back to Asia,
bringing Native American folklore (for the Out-of-
Africa diffusion, see d'Huy 2013c, 2014, 2016a, b,
d; for the second ow in America :d'Huy 2012a, b ;
2013a, b ; 2015b ; 2016c ; 2017 ; for the third and last
ow in America : d'Huy 2016c, d). This super-tree
of the myths would correspond to that of the genes
(e.g. Raghavan et al. 2014, Skoglund et al. 2015).
Additionally, several papers in comparative mythol-
ogy based on different methods lead to the same
conclusions (Berezkin 2007a, b, 2009, 2013 ; Le
Quellec 2014, 2015). The fact that multiple sources
of evidence are in agreement leads to very strong
conclusions. The existence of the matriarchal myth
during the Out-of-Africa process indicates that the
tales in which females hold primary power, predom-
inate in roles of political leadership, moral authority,
social privilege and control of property at the spe-
cic exclusion of men was already relegated to the
mythical past, at least 65.000 years ago.
Consequently, the hypothesis of a matriarchal
society should be inappropriate in the context of the
later Saharan rock art, contrary to the suggestion
of François Soleilhavoup and Jean-Pierre Duhard.
Many reconstructed myths,
using phylogenetical myths, go back
to the Out-of-Africa period. The use
of phylogenetic methods to recon-
struct the past evolution of myths
and folktales has been applied since
2012 (d'Huy 2012a) to numerous
families of narratives8.
The rst reconstruction of
myths going back to the Out-of-
Africa period concerned the motifs
of the dragon and the snake: « The
mythological serpents guard water
sources, releasing the liquid only
under certain conditions. They
can y and form a rainbow. They
are giant and have horns or antlers
on their head. They can produce
rain and thunderstorms. Reptiles,
immortal like others who shed
their skin and thus rejuvenate, are
contrasted with mortal men and/
or are considered responsible for
originating death, perhaps by their
bite. » (d’Huy 2013c, 2016a). This
analysis was based on several data-
sets (borrowed in part from existing
and already published databases
such as Fontenrose 1980) and was
built by varying both the denition
of the “dragon” (e.g. chimera with
serpentine traits; horned serpent;
rainbow drinking water; snake;
structural plot where a giant or lion
may replace the dragon; etc) and the
units of analysis (individual ver-
sions of the same tale-type, types
of dragons, cultural or geographical
areas) to avoid as much as possible
a potential for judgments of what
stories / motifs to analyze to bias the
results. Many statistical methods
were also used for the same pur-
pose. The proto-narrative, recon-
structed from these various sources
and analysis, probably existed prior
to the Out-of-Africa diaspora. This
reconstruction was conrmed by
studying the distribution of various
narratives around the world and
the prehistoric diffusion of these
motifs (d’Huy 2016a). It was also
corroborated by the comparison of
many rock art images throughout
the planet and by the local mythol-
ogy that accompanies each of them
(d'Huy 2014).
The second phylogenetic recon-
struction was based exclusively on
African narratives. It is a tale of the
origin of death: « The Moon sent the
Hare to the people with a message of
life: that men will die but be reborn
as the Moon. The Hare modied
the message, which then introduced
death to human beings, which is
why the Hare is hated by them. In
punishment, the leap of the Hare
is stopped, perhaps by the Moon,
which explains the Hare's lip. » The
ancient age of this narrative, and its
likely presence during the Out-of-
Africa migration, was demonstrated
by observing the existing patterns in
the distribution of motifs (Quellec
2015a).
The third reconstruction is also
exclusively based on an African
corpus (Le Quellec 2015b) and the
world distribution of this motif is
elegantly explained by an Out-of-
Africa diffusion (Berezkin 2007b;
Le Quellec 2014, 2015b). The proto-
tale is this: « Animals and men
came directly out of the ground,
women came rst and a portion of
the human beings remained under-
ground. Rock art testies today
to this emergence, which can also
explain the origin of death. »
166
Julien d'Huy
[1] « situation, dont il n’existe pas d’exemple
attestés, où l’autorité est exercée exclusivement, ou
principalement, par les femmes. »
[2] « Des sociétés où le pouvoir serait entre
les mains des femmes avec des hommes dominés
n'existent pas et n'ont jamais existé. […] Il n'y a
pas de sociétés matriarcales, parce que le modèle
archaïque dominant sur toute la planète est en place
dès le départ. »
[3] « В Африке (…) встречаются аналогии
тому характерному главным образом для
Австралии, Меланезии и Южной Америки
ритуально-мифологическому комплексу,
который связан с институализированным
противостоянием полов и обычно включает
рассказы о былом господстве женщин не только
в социальной сфере (истории о "женском
царстве" в прошлом или в далекой стране
известны по всему миру), но и в области культа
и ритуала. »
[4] « Можно предполагать, что мужские
ритуалы, связанные с нституализированным
противопоставлением полов, возникли в Африке
и были принесены в встралию и на Новую
Гвинею первыми сапиенсами. Через Восточную
Азию этот итуально-мифологический комплекс
проник в Новый Свет вместе с первой волной
шедших по побережью мигрантов. (…) Из Азии
полностью, а из Северной Америки в основном
соответствующие мифы и ритуалы были
постепенно вытеснены другими, связанными
с континентально-евразийским очагом
культурогенеза. »
[5] « Myth and rituals have been misinterpreted
as persistent reminders that women once had, and
then lost, the seat of power. This loss accrued
to them through inappropriate conduct. (...) The
myths constantly reiterate that women did not know
how to handle power when they had it. The loss is
thereby justied so long as women choose to accept
the myth. (...) In fact, if women are ever going to
rule, they must rid themselves of the myth that
states they have been proved unworthy of leader-
ship roles. The nal version of woman that emerges
from these myths is that she represents chaos and
misrule through trickery and unbridled sexuality.
(...) Such visions will not bring her any closer to
attaining male socioeconomic and political status,
for as long as she is content to remain either god-
dess or child, she cannot be expected to shoulder
her share of community burdens as the coequal of
man. The myth of matriarchy is but the tool used to
keep woman bound to her place. »
[6] A recent study has pointed out a phyloge-
netic signal in animal folklore that may reect a cul-
tural exchange between anatomically modern man
and Neanderthals (d'Huy 2015b). However, such
cultural exchanges between our species and other
ancient hominids have not been taken into account
here because of the small number of tales studied.
[7] The creation of a tree also allows us to esti-
mate the contents of certain tales at several steps
in human history. For instance, it is possible to
reconstruct the proto-folklore at the node of the
Balkans to estimate the contents of the European
Palaeolithic myths about matriarchy, i.e. F38,
F40A, F40B, F44, F45 and F97 (“After eating cer-
tain fruit, berry, tuber, etc. people become sexu-
ally aware”). Such a reconstruction is of obvious
interest — allowing us, for example, to rule out the
hypothesis of a primitive matriarchy in interpreting
the Palaeolithic Venus and representations of vul-
vas. Conversely, the phylogenetic reconstruction of
an African myth about the emergence of humanity
from the underworld (Le Quellec 2014, 2015b) or
of a Palaeolithic tale about the appearance of game,
delivered by a person who enters the dwelling of
the master of animals (d'Huy 2013, 2015a), give an
additional breadth to the interpretation of a part of
this prehistoric art, seeing it as an illustration of a
mythological emergence from the earth (Le Quellec
2017). It is also possible to use the West African
node attached to the Eurasian cluster to reconstruct
the Neolithic Saharan folklore and to propose an
explanation of some rock art images of this area:
F1. Woman, or a female supernatural, is created
by changing the sex of a man; F38. Women were
possessors of the sacred knowledge, sanctuaries or
ritual objects which are now taboo for them, or they
made attempts to acquire such knowledge or objects;
F40A. An anthropomorphic male or an androgyne
is the only possessor or leader of women; F40B. A
man gets into the village of women. Usually he has
to satisfy every woman against his will or every
woman claims him for herself; F45. There are (or
were) women who live apart from men in their own
village or villages; F97. After eating certain fruits,
berries, tubers, etc. people become sexually aware.
The idea of such a mythological past where women
possessed power (F38) may have been illustrated in
many images of Saharan rock art, e.g. women rid-
ing lions or other dangerous animals (Soleilhavoup
and Duhard 2013 : 90-91). Similar stories could be
found in the Kabyle folktales (i.e. the Amazons,
Frobenius 1921 : 55-60; 1922 : 3-11; the rst woman
with sacred knowledge, Frobenius 1921 : 70-83).
F40A (or bigamy) may also have been illustrated
in an image of the Wadi Taleshut representing
two women on both side of an anthropomorph
(Soleilhavoup and Duhard 2013 : 81-82).
[8] The worldwide distribution of these motifs
is not uniform and a phylogenetic message and a
geographical progression have been demonstrated,
consequently the simplistic neurobiological expla-
nation should be rejected. However, it remains
possible that certain innate human reexes, such
as fear of snakes (Jones 2000, d'Huy 2013c) or a
Notes
Matriarchy and prehistory : a statistical method for testing an old theory
167
tendency to animate images of living beings (d'Huy
2013d), could contribute to a proper conservation
of certain myths over time. Yet the unequal and
variable distribution of the studied tales strongly
implies that archetypal, neurobiological or physio-
logical factors can not be the unique explanation of
complex similarities between mythologies (d'Huy
and Le Quellec 2014).
The author thanks Brian Hayden, Jean-Loïc
Le Quellec and George Sumner for their construc-
tive comments.
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Matriarchy and prehistory : a statistical method for testing an old theory
169
Appendix A : "opposition" between men and
women; nexus format ; more than 8 motifs.
#NEXUS
begin data;
dimensions ntax=13 nchar=28;
format datatype=standard [interleave] missing=? ;
Matrix
WESTERN_AFRICA
1001000011100000000100000001
SUDAN_EASTERN_AFRICA
0111000010101011001100000001
MELANESIA_OCEANIA
100100101111111101110 00010 0 0
NORTHEASTERN_INDIA_EURASIA
1110100000100000000101000001
SOUTHERN_ASIA_EURASIA
0110101001100000000100000001
BALKANS_EURASIA
0000100110000001001101000001
ARCTIC_AMERICA
1110000001100000000100100001
GREAT_SOUTHWEST_AMERICA
0110001001101010001100100000
GUIANA_AMERICA
0110 010001001111101100111100
NORTHWESTERN_AMAZONIA_AMERICA
1000100111111010001100000000
SOUTHERN_AMAZONIA_AMERICA
01101100110 01011101100110000
CHACO_AMER ICA
1001100000011100001100111110
EASTERN_BRAZIL_AMERICA
00000 0 0011101111101101110110;
END;
Appendix B : "opposition" between men and
women; nexus format ; amended database.
#NEXUS
Begin data;
Dimensions ntax=13 nchar=7;
Format datatype=Standard interleave=yes
missing=?;
Matrix
WEST ER N_ A FRICA 1110 0 01
SU DA N_ EASTERN_ A F RICA 1011111
MELANESI A_O C EA N IA 1111111
NORTHEASTERN_INDIA_EURASIA 0010001
SOUTHERN_ASIA_EURASIA 0110001
BALKANS_EURASIA 1000011
ARCTIC_AMERICA 0110001
GR EAT_SOUTHWEST_A M E R ICA 0111111
GU I A NA_ A MER ICA 0101111
NORTHWESTERN_AMAZONIA_AMERICA
1111111
SOUTHER N _ AMAZON IA _AMERICA 1101111
CHACO_ A M ERICA 0001011
EASTER N_ BRAZ I L _AMER ICA 1111111
;
END;
Appendix C : Origin of the re; Berezkin's
database; nexus format.
#NEXUS
Begin data;
Dimensions ntax=24 nchar=39;
Format datatype=Standard interleave=yes
missing=?;
Matrix
BANTU_AREA_AFRICA 00000001000
0001000001010010100000100100
SUDAN_EASTERN_AFRICA 00000001010
0011000000010010000000100110
AUSTRALIA_OCEANIA 000000010?0
0000000100010001101000100101
MELANESIA_OCEANIA 00000001000
0001000000010000111000011100
SUBARCTIC_AMERICA 000010010011
000000000010100000001100000
COAST_PLATEAU_AMERICA 110010110010
01010001111111000001110110 0
MIDWEST_AMERICA 0000000100110000001
01000110000000000100
SOUTHEAST_AMERICA 100010110000
100000001001010100001100000
CALIFORNIA_AMERICA 000010110000
111010 00101111010 0 010111101
GREAT_SOUTHWEST_AMERICA 10 00
10110000010010000001000100010100000
NORTHWESTERN_MEXICO_AMERICA 0 00 0
10110000100000000101000100010000000
MESOAMERICA_AMERICA 000010110000111
010000000000101000001000
HONDURAS_PANAMA_AMERICA 0 0 0 0
10110000000000000000000101111001000
NORTHERN_ANDES_AMERICA 0000
11110000000100000000000101011001100
LLANOS_AMERICA 0000101100000001000
00000001101010000100
VENEZUELA_AMERICA 00001011000
00000000000?0000101010000101
GUIANA_AMERICA 000010110000000000
000010000111010100100
NORTHWESTERN_AMAZONIA_AMERICA
100000110000000010000000010111010001101
CENTRAL_AMAZONIA_AMERICA 0000
10010000000000000000000101111100000
MONTANA_AMERICA 000001110000000000
000010001100010100100
Supplementary material
170
Julien d'Huy
BOLIVIA_GUAPORE_AMERICA 100 0
01110000000010000000001100111100100
SOUTHERN_AMAZONIA_AMERICA 0000
11110000000100000000?00100110101100
EASTERN_BRAZIL_AMERICA 00000011000
0000100000010000000111000100
CHACO_AMERICA 0000111100000100100
00000010100011110001;
END;
Appendix D : Origin of re ; Frazer's data-
base ; nexus format.
1/ Bat brings rst re or help to steal re.
2/ Bird shows how to make re by friction.
3/ Bird in possession of re.
4/ Bird steals re, fetches re or brings re from its
rst possessor.
5/ Branches rubbing against each other, re
produced.
6/ Cockatoo the rst re-bringer, or brings rst re.
7/ Crow associated with discovery of re or tries
to fetch re.
8/ Dog brings or fetchs rst re.
9/ Fire originally unknown.
10/ Fire in possession of women before men.
11/ Fire extracted from body of woman.
12/ Fire derived from lightning.
13/ Fire is stolen by an animal.
14/ Fire is stolen from an animal.
15/ Fire is stolen by fox / coyote.
16/ Fire procured from the sun / moon.
17/ Fire stolen, pa s e d down a line of animal run ners.
18/ Fire produced by branches rubbing against each
other in the wind.
19/ War of re and water.
20/ Frog steals re for men or swallows re.
21/ Fire fetched from or sent by God / Great Spirit.
22/ Hawk rst bringer of rer or steals re.
23/ Humming-bird rst bringer of re or steals re.
24/ Fire stolen from a feline.
25/ Pigeon steals re.
26/ Raven rst bringer of re or steals re.
27/ Fire-myths told to explain the red colouring of
birds.
28/ Squirrel steals or helps to steal re.
29/ Fire obtained from the sun.
30/ Tree set on re by lightning or re in tree.
31/ Vulture rst possessor or rst bringer of re or
steals re.
32/ Fire in wood.
33/ Woodpecker steals re.
34/ Wren procures re or fetches re from God.
35/ First re comes from the sky / heaven.
36/ Origin of re : hand.
37/ Origin of re : stars.
#NEXUS
Begin data;
Dimensions ntax=9 nchar=37;
Format datatype=Standard interleave=yes
missing=?;
Matrix
AUSTRALIA 000001101110110100000100101
0010001001
TORRES_STRAIT_ISLANDS_AND_NEW_
GUINEA 10000101111011000000000000
10110000110
MELANESIA 01010001111011000000000000
00000000110
POLYNESIA_AND_MICRONESIA 01 0 0
100011110001010000000010010000010
INDONESIA 01010000000011000010000010
00010000100
ASIA 001100001000110000100000000000001
0100
AFRICA 001000110101110000001001000
0111000100
SOUTH_AMERICA 00110000111111000001
00100010011100000
NORTH_AMERICA 10010000100111111001
111101111101100 0 0;
END;
Association des amis de l’Art Rupestre Saharien
Association (loi de 1901) fondée en 1991 et dont le but social est de « promouvoir
les études sur l’art rupestre saharien, faire connaître les documents s’y rapportant, et
toutes les opérations liées directement ou indirectement à cet objet. L’association se
propose en particulier de réunir périodiquement les personnes, amateurs et/ou pro-
fessionnels de la recherche, intéressés à des titres divers par l’art rupestre saharien ;
communiquer tous renseignements utiles, par échange d’informations et d’opinions,
au sein de l’association ou par des publications ; publier une Lettre de l’AARS infor-
mant les membres de tous les événements, scientiques ou autres, liés à cet objet. »
Siège social et adresse postale
Chez Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
Brenessard, F — 85540 – St-Benoist-sur-Mer
Conseil d’administration
Président : Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
Vice-Président : Frédérique Duquesnoy
Secrétaire : Sylvia Donon
Trésorière : Anne-Catherine Benchellah
Trésorière adjointe : Marie-Jean Nezondet
Responsable site Web : Sylvia Donon
Adjoint : Patrick Dumoulin
Assesseurs : Gérard Germond, Jean-Marc Rouzet
Tarifs 2018: La cotisation annuelle est de 35 €
Les chèques sont à libeller exclusivement à l’ordre de :
« Association des Amis de l’Art Rupestre Saharien »
et doivent être adressés à la trésorière :
Anne-Catherine Benchellah,
34, rue Boussingault, 75013 - Paris
annebenchelah@gmail.com
L’AARS publie comme auteur-éditeur
Conseils aux auteurs
Les articles adressés pour publication doivent être saisis, sans mise en pages, dans un
chier au format .doc ou .rtf. On évitera les caractères insécables. Cartes, dessins au
trait et photographies doivent être sous forme de chiers images, avec un document
et un numéro individuel pour chaque illustration (éviter les a, b, c dans les légendes).
Les chiers images doivent avoir une densité d’au moins 300 dpi pour une largeur
d’au moins 20 cm, et doivent être sauvegardées au format JPG / JPEG en CMJN ou en
niveaux de gris. Textes et illustrations seront transmis soit par courrier (CD ou DVD
exclusivement) soit par courriel ou service de transfert à l’adresse ci-dessous. Voir les
articles de ce numéro pour le formatage bibliographique. Les envois ne respectant pas
ces recommandations ne seront pas pris en compte.
Tout membre de l’AARS à jour de sa cotisation peut participer aux publications
de l’association, sous réserve d’acceptation par le comité de lecture. Les articles
sont publiés sous la responsabilité exclusive des auteurs et ne représentent pas
forcément les positions de l’AARS.
Les propositions d’articles sont à envoyer à :
Jean-Loïc Le Quellec
Brenessard
F — 85540 – St-Benoist-sur-Mer
JLLQ@rupestre.on-rev.com
Datations
Les datations mentionnées dans les articles sont exprimées soit par rapport à
l’ère commune (AEC pour « avant l’ère commune » et EC pour « de l’ère com-
mune »), en se référant au calendrier grégorien, soit en CalBP auxquelles il suft
de retirer 1950 pour obtenir leur valeur par rapport à l’ère commune.
Orthographe et accords
En berbère, les noms commençant par un [t] étant féminins, les termes s’y
rapportant seront accordés en fonction (ex.: la Tasīli-n-Ăjjer). Les toponymes et
ethnonymes sahariens, souvent déformés sur les cartes et dans la littérature, seront
restitués dans la mesure du possible, sauf dans les citations, dont l’orthographe
originale sera respectée. Pour les termes arabes et touaregs, on utilisera les corres-
pondances du tableau suivant:
arabe tinaγ AARS Description, valeurs, commentaires
ء’Explosive glottale
(attaque vocalique comme dans «assez ! »)
اaāVoyelle longue (â), souvent intermédiaire entre [a] et [e]
بbbLabiale occlusive sonore (comme dans bateau)
تttDentale occlusive sourde (comme dans tableau)
ثṯInterdentale spirante sourde
(émise avec le bout de la langue entre les dents)
جj Ð
Z j dj g
Spirante palatale sonore (comme dans jeune)
pouvant, selon les régions, être articulée dj (arti-
culation ariquée connue notamment en touareg
de l’Ăjjer et en arabe algérien) ou g (en touareg de
l’Ăhaggar et en arabe égyptien)
arabe tinaγ AARS Description, valeurs, commentaires
حhḥSpirante laryngale sourde
خxḫFricative vélaire sourde
(comme dans l’allemand Buch)
دddApico-dentale dentale occlusive sonore
(comme dans date)
ذḏInterdentale spirante sonore (émise avec le bout
de la langue entre les dents, comme le th anglais).
رrrVibrante linguale ( [r] « roulé » ou « liquide »)
comme il peut l’être par exemple en italien
زzz Dentale spirante sonore (comme dans zéro)
سss Dentale spirante sourde (comme dans sortir)
شcš Palatale spirante sourde (comme dans chuinter)
صṣ Dentale spirante sourde vélarisée ( s emphatique)
ضDḍInterdentale spirante sonore vélarisée
( [d] ou [ḏ] emphatiques)
طUṭ Apico-dentale occlusive sourde ( [t] emphatique)
ظZẓInterdentale spirante sonore vélarisée
( [ḏ] ou [z] emphatiques)
عcSpirante pharyngale sonore
غp \ γVélaire spirante sonore ( [r] grasseyé du français)
فfṛ fLabiodentale spirante sourde (comme dans
«faux»)
ڤggOcclusive vélaire sonore (comme dans «gamin»)
قq p q
Occlusive arrière-vélaire sourde avec explosion
glottale (se prononce [g] en arabe libyen,
et [ ’] en arabe égyptien)
كkkPalatale occlusive sourde (comme dans kaolin)
لllLinguale correspondant au l français (comme dans
loi). Peut être exceptionnellement emphatisée, et
se note alors avec un point souscrit [ ḷ ]
مmmBilabiale nasalisée (comme dans marteau)
نnnDentale nasalisée (comme dans numéro)
íñNasale vélaire voisée
(comme à la n de parking)
هhhSpirante sonore
(comme dans le [h] anglais de « hello! »)
وuū w Voyelle longue (comme dans poule) ou spirante
labiovélaire (comme dans ouate ou tramway)
يi y ī y Consonne longue (comme dans pile)
ou semi-consonne (comme dans yeux, lien)
Remarques:
- Ă ă Ǝ ə: voyelles brèves; [e] se prononce toujours (comme un [é] ou un [è]);
- ā ē ī ō ū : voyelles longues;
- ḍ ṭ ḷ ẓ ṣ : consonnes emphatiques;
- les consonnes palatisées seront notées dy ḍy ty ;
- r : c’est le [r] roulé, vibrant, alors que γ note le [r] fortement grasseyé, fricatif
et vélaire, souvent noté gh dans la littérature (ex. : l’oasis de Ghat / γāt) ;
- g note toujours le son [g] de « garder »;
- k note le ك arabe et le k touareg (ekk « aller »);
- q note le ق arabe et le q touareg (eqq « manger »);
- s se lit [ss] (jamais [z]); seules les consonnes tendues sont redoublées à l’écrit;
- š note la chuintante [ch] du français chapeau ;
- ḫ note le خ arabe et le x touareg (fricative vélaire sourde correspondant à la
jota de l’espagnol ou au son nal de l’allemand « Bach ») souvent notés [kh]
dans la littérature (ex.: Takharkhouri / Taḫarḫūrī);
- ñ note la nasale uvulaire [ŋ] qui est rare (ex.: Ti-n-Abañher).
N.B.: Le même son peut être rendu par des caractères tinaγ différents selon les
régions et les dialectes. Le tableau et les remarques qui précèdent ne visent pas à
l’exhaustivité, mais devraient permettre de faire face à la plupart des cas usuels.
