Tin Hinan

Tin Hinan is the legendary ancestress-queen of the Kel Ahaggar Tuareg, remembered as the woman who journeyed from the Tafilalt oasis of southern Morocco to the Hoggar highlands and became the mother of the noble Kel Rela. Oral tradition, first set down by Charles de Foucauld and later analysed by Henri Lhote and Gabriel Camps, names her maidservant Takama as the companion of her migration and her daughter Kella as the eponym of the ruling lineage. The monumental drystone tomb at Abalessa, opened in 1925-1927, held the richly adorned skeleton of a woman of the fourth or fifth century, which local memory identifies as hers. Sources differ on whether the tomb's occupant is the historical original of the legend or a later noblewoman assimilated to it.

Children

• Kella

Domains

• ancestry
• migration

Powers

• found the noble matriline of the Kel Ahaggar
• lead the migration from the Tafilalt to the Hoggar

Epithets

• Ma-nnagh — our mother / mother of us allHenri Lhote, 'Les Touaregs du Hoggar' (Paris: Payot, 1944) (secondary)
• ta-n ehen — she of the tent(s)Encyclopedie berbere, s.v. 'Tin Hinan' (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud) (secondary)

Relations

• child: KellaKella is her daughter, born in the Hoggar.Charles de Foucauld, Kel Ahaggar foundation legend, in 'Dictionnaire touareg-francais' (1951-52) (primary)
• companion: TakamaTakama is the maidservant who accompanies her migration.Charles de Foucauld, Kel Ahaggar foundation legend, in 'Dictionnaire touareg-francais' (1951-52) (primary)

Sources

• Tin Hinan is the legendary ancestress-queen of the Kel Ahaggar, who migrated from the Tafilalt to the Hoggar and mothered the noble Kel Rela.: Charles de Foucauld, foundation legend of the Kel Ahaggar, in 'Dictionnaire touareg-francais' (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 1951-52) (primary); Henri Lhote, 'Les Touaregs du Hoggar' (Paris: Payot, 1944) (secondary)
• Her monumental tomb at Abalessa held a richly adorned female skeleton of the fourth-fifth century.: Gabriel Camps, 'L'age du tombeau de Tin Hinan', Antiquites africaines 5 (1971): 65-83 (secondary)