Amerolqis

Amerolqis is the archetypal poet and civilising hero of the Tuareg of Niger and the Air, a genie-like being whose name preserves that of the pre-Islamic Arabian poet Imru' al-Qays, reworked in Tamasheq oral tradition. He is credited with instituting language, poetry and the forms of social life, and above all with fashioning the imzad, the single-stringed bowed fiddle, which in the tales collected by Mohamed Aghali-Zakara and Jeannine Drouin he invented to overcome the fear his great size inspired in women and to draw them to him with music. As master of eloquence he stands at the head of the poetic tradition and is associated with the spirit-world from which poetic inspiration is felt to come.

Domains

• music
• poetry
• language

Powers

• invent the single-stringed fiddle to charm women
• institute poetry, eloquence and the forms of social life

Epithets

• amghar n imedyazen — master / chief of the poetsMohamed Aghali-Zakara & Jeannine Drouin, 'Traditions touaregues nigeriennes' (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1979) (secondary)

Relations

• companion: Kel EssufSources link the archetypal poet-genie to the spirit-world of solitude from which poetic and musical inspiration is felt to come.Susan J. Rasmussen, 'Spirit Possession and Personhood among the Kel Ewey Tuareg' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Aghali-Zakara & Drouin (1979) (secondary)

Sources

• Amerolqis is a pre-Islamic civilising hero and archetypal poet-genie of the Niger Tuareg who instituted language, poetry and social forms and invented the imzad.: Mohamed Aghali-Zakara & Jeannine Drouin, 'Traditions touaregues nigeriennes: Amerolqis heros civilisateur pre-islamique et Aligurran archetype social' (Paris: L'Harmattan, 1979) (secondary)
• His name derives from that of the pre-Islamic Arabian poet Imru' al-Qays, absorbed into Tamasheq oral tradition.: Encyclopedie berbere, s.v. 'Amerolqis' (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud) (secondary)