Hamama

Hamama (Hamema), a powerful Arabo-Berber people of Tunisia, dominant in the southern districts along the northern shores of the Shotts Jerid and Gharsa between the Gulf of Cabes and the Algerian frontier, and extending beyond the Gafsa oasis northwards to the Freshish territory. Before order was restored by the French occupation (1882), the Hamamas were practically independent of the Bey, and maintained a chronic state of warfare with all their neighbours, their marauding expeditions ranging far into the Algerian Sahara. In those days every Hamama male child was placed on tiie very day of his birth on the back of a horse, and saluted with the words, "Saddle and bridle and life on Islam," meaning that his inheritance would be a horse and arms with which to earn his bread by plundering his Mohammedan neighbours. At present they find it more profitable to earn their bread by acting as caravan guides, cultivating date plantations, and seeking employment as labourers and porters in Tunis, Bona, and other large towns. (French Official Reports, 1886-92.)