This episode honours a 7th Century hero. A Black indigenous Woman who was a leader. A warrior priestess named Dihya, champion of the native North African Amazigh people, her name means “the beautiful gazelle” in the Tamazight language of the Amazigh. Amazigh, plural Imazighen, means “free or noble people” in the Indigenous Tamazight language. Among outsiders, the more common name for Imazighen is Berber, which comes directly from the word ‘barbarian’ or babary. A colonizer’s word. A word that’s used to diminish and destroy. Like her people, Dihya is largely known to the world now by the name given to her by those she resisted, conquerors who wrote her history for generations and christened her “el-Kahina” or The Kahina, meaning “prophetess” or “seer” or...“witch”. This episode of the Missing Witches podcast was written and performed by Risa Dickens. Music and editing by Amy Torok. Thanks again to our sponsor Foxglove Pharm, don’t forget to use our listener offer code MISSINGWITCHES for 13% of your order. OR make a contribution to their Wildlife Rescue, Out Of The Woods. Find your witchy wellness at FoxglovePharm (that’s pharm like pharmacy with a ph) dot com. You can also support Missing Witches on Patreon at patreon dot com slash missing witches and COMING SOON, Missing Witches T-shirts on TeePublic. AND PLEASE consider pre-ordering our upcoming book, Missing Witches by Risa Dickens and Amy Torok, published by North Atlantic Books.
Story behind the image:
"During a visit to the Kabyle region in 2006, I photographed graffiti painted on a town’s whitewashed walls that featured various historical figures adopted by the Amazigh movement. Busts of three figures done by an unidentified graffiti artist included a woman on the left of a geometric design and two men on its right. Underneath each bust was a name written in Tifinagh, an ancient Berber script dating back to the fourth century BCE that was used to write administrative texts and funerary inscriptions across northern Africa prior to use of Arabic. Amazigh activists use individual Tifinagh letters as identity markers, writing slogans on public spaces, and, in this case, a graffiti artist wrote the word “Dihya” underneath this female figure referring to the Kahina’s actual name."
Cynthia Becker
https://mizanproject.org/the-kahina-the-female-face-of-berber-history/
https://intercontinentalcry.org/free-people-the-imazighen-of-north-africa/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Berber_religion
https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10355/12088/LewisKahkatYac.pdf?sequence=1
https://www.ancient.eu/Kahina/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Berber_religion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Africa_during_Antiquity
https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/kahina-r-695-703-ce
https://www.audubon.org/news/are-these-birds-better-computers-predicting-hurricane-seasons