Tracing the history of a song : aserraH

Aissa Boudraa of latti3ad n Tshawit conducted an interview with Gareh Abderrazeq. Mr Gareh is a poet/song writer from the area of Oum el Bouaghi. He wrote many lyrics for the artists of the area. Abderrazeq revealed that he is the author of the song aserraH - see the post iness iness - of the band Thiguiyyer .

He summarized the idea of the song as follow, "...in the old days, the chance of boys meeting girls was limited. To communicate, they needed an intermediary..." That is where the shepherd came in.

For a boy to send a word or a gift to his lover, he used the shepherd of the family of the girl as a messenger. He described a trick used by the boys to send gifts to their lovers" ...chmal inin ettigan dis lcadeau, qli n lbariantine, qli n lluban". Chmal was used to hide perfume and gum. He described chmal, "C'est un morceau de tissu, ttiguiniT f Tangheft n tfunaset, nnigh n tka3uzet, nnigh Tikhsi, bech izmer nnigh ighid nnigh a3ajmi u ditattaDcha yemmes..." Chaml is a piece of fine fabric used to cover the udder of goats, sheep or cows during day time to preserve milk.

Amawal
-chmal : a piece of fine fabric, see above.
-Tangheft : udder
-Tafunest : cow
-Taka3uzet : goat
-Tikhsi : sheep(one). Ulli, plural
-nnigh : or
-izmer : baby lamb
-ighid : baby goat
-a3ajmi : baby cow
-qli : a bit/some
-lluban : a type of gum