Liberté – May 3, 2011

Speaking in Oran on April 28, American anthropologist and president of the Society for Algerian Studies Hugh Roberts lifted the veiled on the Kingdom of Koukou, established in Kabylia in the 16th and 17th centuries, and which he said represented “a particular time in the history of Algeria.”

Mr. Roberts was addressing an audience of researchers and scholars from the Research Center on Social and Cultural Anthropology (CRASC) and history buffs. He explained that this topic is covered in a chapter of a forthcoming book he authored on the history of Kabylia during pre-colonial times. The book is due out by year end. The Kingdom of koukou, established in a region located east of Aïn el Hammam, is a village sitting atop a mountain ridge and which still bears the name of that center of power founded in 1515 by Ahmed Oul Qadi.  The founder was then Governor of Bône (present day Annaba) who settled in the region of Koukou, after Bedjaïa fell to the Spaniards and the subsequent flight of the Hafsid princes and the successive failures by the Ottoman troops to retake Bône.