Evidence reveals a “death trend experience”
Ancient Amazigh elegies clearly show that the ancient Amazighs were not terrified of death, but rather they reminded themselves of the signs of its proximity, and considered it a kind of “travel” to a place they had not declared...
Imagine that you were living in the first century BC and that you entered a Amazigh cemetery and read what the relatives of the perished had written on their tombstones... If you did that, you would find on each tombstone the name of the perished, his surname, or his tribal affiliation, followed by an elegiac phrase consisting of one or more sentences, each of which begins with a verb. It expresses the stage of decline leading to death, followed by a verb that means “he left” or “he passed and did not return”...
The most horrifying thing about these evidences is that they describe in a sensual way the stage of decay, reminding you that the perishing person was “emaciated” ({Āṣram}), “turned pale” (Imsu}, “covered with wrinkles” ({īndārm}), and “afflicted with sores.” " ({Emnakad}), and "He was ground" ({Efzi}), and "He fell (the fall of illness)" ({Aers}), and "He bent down and his body became small" ({Emkardz/S/Sh})...
Whenever you turn to one of the witnesses, you will discover a unique “experience of a tendency towards death” for a person, and you will realize the fragility of human existence and its slow march towards its “departure”...
Therefore, many of the images included in these evidences take the form of a person carrying his “luggage”, as a metaphor for his departure, and palm branches, as a reminder of what he will need in his departure, including what he will use to build a shelter in which he will spend the night if the heat of the sun becomes too intense for him while he is on the way...
The elegies of our ancestors were a unique symbolic embodiment of what Heidegger called “being heading toward death.” He means our existential state when we are authentic (there is no falsity in us) and real (we are not overcome by illusions) such that we remember our mortality with courage and coexist with it, and when we are aware that we are temporal beings heading toward death. Towards its annihilation, this leads us to consciously rearrange our priorities, and when we realize that our death experience will be unique, we will not be able to build any relationships through it with another... and we will not be able to describe it to another... and we will not be able to tell it to another...
The ancient “Amazigh elegy” is a unique speech act. The traditional “rules of meaning construction” cannot encompass all its cultural details... This is what I will show through an inaugural lecture that I will present on April 16 at a very important international conference that will be organized at our university...
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