Tin Hinan : the starting point of acivilization

Abstract EN

This presentation discuses two documentary films about Tin Hinan, a 4th century woman considered as the ancestress of Tuaregs living in the Hoggar region of Algeria.

The first one was made by Ali Lacheb in 2008 entitled Tin Hinan, in which a man appears sweeping the sand with his hand; after which he finds out a picture of a very beautiful lady.

Whereas In another documentary entitled Tin Hinan, La Reine des Touaregs, directed by Rabie Benmokhtar in 2009, people are speaking about their ancestress and witnessing that she really existed in ancient times.

One of them refers to the sociologist Ibn Khaldoun who said that inhabitants of Hoggar were called Houaras who had as an ancient mother Tiski, the lame woman.

Are Tiski and Tin Hinan the same woman? Does fiction deal with Tiski, the handicapped woman? To what extend does beauty used in fiction preserve the cultural heritage of an ancient civilization? Does the cinema rely on beauty to make of a person a legend? Would people care about that woman, and would they reject the idea that she could be the queen and the mother of a whole nation if filmmakers said the truth?