Amazigh, Shawiya

The Chaouis (Shawiya; self-name Išawiyen, language Tacawit or Tachawit) are the Amazigh (Berber) people of the Aurès mountains and the surrounding high plains of north-eastern Algeria, the country's second-largest Berber-speaking people after the Kabyles. Their land runs from the Belezma near Batna through the Aurès massif to the Nemencha country of Tébessa and the plains of Oum El Bouaghi and Khenchela. The Aurès has been a refuge of Berber resistance since antiquity: Kusaila of the Awraba and Queen Dihya (al-Kahina) of the Jarawa fought the Arab conquest in the late 7th century, and the Zenata tribes of the region (Ifren, Maghrawa) appear in Ibn Khaldun. The War of Independence began in the Aurès on 1 November 1954 under Mostefa Ben Boulaïd of Arris. Tacawit is a Zenati Berber language with Belezma, Boutaleb, High Plains, Nemencha and central Aurès varieties; Ethnologue counted 2.6 million speakers in 2022. Many more Algerians of Chaoui descent, in towns such as Aïn Beïda, Khenchela and Batna, now speak Algerian Arabic: a study of Batna found speakers shifting to Arabic and most parents not passing the language on. The Centre de Recherche Berbère's 4.9 million counts this wider descent. Many Chaouis long hid or played down their origins, and 'Chaoui' could be an insult; others today take pride in an Amazigh identity.

Mountain Chaouis lived in stone-and-earth villages (dechra) stepped along cliffs, such as Ghoufi and Menaa, with fortified communal granaries (guelaa) where each family kept grain, and moved with flocks between mountain summer pastures and the Saharan edge in winter. Family and clan (arch) ties remain strong. Women wear the wrapped melhfa and heavy silver jewellery, and older women carry facial tattoos. Food centres on wheat: galette, couscous, and chakhchoukha, torn flat bread soaked in spicy sauce with mutton, a festive dish also made for Yennayer, the Amazigh New Year, when families in Batna, Arris and Menaa gather. Weddings bring the rahaba, a dance and polyphonic song of men and women with bendir drums, gasba flutes and rifle shots, and the fantasia of horsemen. Chaoui song is a style of its own, from Aïssa Djermouni and Ali Khencheli to Houria Aïchi and modern Chaoui pop; Khenchela holds a festival of Chaoui music.

Chaouis are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school. In the mountains, Islam has been carried by marabout families and Sufi lodges (the Rahmaniyya above all), and shrine visits, vows and the advice of marabouts, especially among women, remain part of life alongside fear of the evil eye and jinn. Towns such as Batna have a stronger reformist and Salafi current. Since independence the Aurès has been known as conservative and closely tied to the state and army, and no Christian community is documented among the Chaouis.

Scripture in Tacawit is limited: Joshua Project lists portions, and Scripture Earth lists the JESUS film and the Magdalena film in Tacawit but no printed or audio Scripture. Most Chaouis read Arabic and many French, so Arabic and Algerian Arabic resources reach them. No church or known group of believers among the Chaouis was found.