Amazigh, Zaghouan

The Amazigh of Zaghouan are the people of three perched Berber villages on the mountains south and east of Zaghouan in north-eastern Tunisia: Jradou (Jeradou), Zriba El Alia (Zriba-Haut) and Takrouna, about 4,600 people. The villages stand on three separate peaks in a triangle across the Zaghouan-Sousse border and once warned each other of raiders with smoke signals from the summits. The Jebel Zaghouan was Berber country in the Middle Ages, and the villages took shape then as hilltop refuges above the plain that runs from the Hammamet coast to Kairouan; their architecture blends Amazigh, Andalusian and Arab-Muslim styles.

In the 1960s and 1970s, after floods and under government pressure, most families moved down to new villages on the plain: Zriba's people to Hammam Zriba, Takrouna's to New Takrouna below the rock. They lost their Berber language generations ago and now speak Tunisian Arabic, and many customs have faded through life alongside the Arab majority. They still take pride in their Amazigh origin, keep Amazigh dishes and household traditions, and since the 2011 revolution young people in Jradou have learned to read and write the Tifinagh script. Some historians derive Takrouna's name from an Amazigh tribe of the same name.

Takrouna's rock is also known abroad: in May 1943 New Zealand's Maori Battalion stormed it from German and Italian troops in one of the hardest fights of the Tunisian campaign.

The old villages are clusters of stone and clay houses built tight on the rock, with half-round vaulted rooms around small courtyards, lanes and stairways cut into the mountain, and a mosque at the top; Takrouna's is said to date from the 12th century, and it has a small museum. Families still bake tabouna bread in clay ovens and cook mhammesa and couscous in the Amazigh way. The three villages share a 'family resemblance' in architecture and custom, and people of the old villages return to them for cultural days, hikes and the Trans Trio Berbère mountain-bike raid that links the three peaks.

In Jradou homes are built close together and the village is close-knit, with a youth centre for young people's activities. In Zriba-Haut, abandoned for the plain, a few families restored their old houses to sell crafts and the crystals found in the mountain to visitors, and a café has opened.

The Amazigh of Zaghouan are Sunni Muslims of the Maliki school, like the Arab Tunisian majority; field workers note this as what sets them apart from the Ibadi-heritage Amazigh of the south. Each village has its old mosque on the hilltop, and saints' shrines such as the mausoleum of Sidi Abdelkader at Zriba-Haut are part of village life, as in rural Tunisia generally. Practice follows that of their neighbours: prayer, the Ramadan fast, Islamic weddings and burials.

The Amazigh of Zaghouan speak Tunisian Arabic, which has the New Testament, the Jesus Film and Global Recordings Network audio. Pray4Tunisia lists them among Tunisia's unengaged, unreached people groups. No believers or fellowship are known.