Chaoui

The Chaoui are the Zenata Amazigh people of the Aurès massif in northeastern Algeria, highland shepherds whose name Shawi means shepherd and who speak Tachawit, a Zenati variety of Tamazight.

The Aurès long served as a Berber redoubt: its Christian kingdom, founded by King Masties in the 480s, defied Vandals and Byzantines. When the Arabs conquered the Maghreb the Aurès led the last resistance; after Kusaila fell at Mamma in 690, the Jerawa queen Dihya, known to the Arabs as al-Kahina, united the tribes, won the Battle of Meskiana and ruled as far as Ghadames until she was slain in 703.

In the Islamic era the Zenata clans of the region listed by Ibn Khaldun supplied warriors to the Zayyanid kingdom of Tlemcen, while high valleys around Baghai and Constantine kept Berber speech and tribal life through Hafsid and Ottoman centuries.