Extract of SENATUS CONSULTE   june 18 1893 

(Source Archives d'outre mer - Aix en Provence- france)

"According to which Hodna had been inhabited originally by a Berber population which was subjected by the Romaines legions. The region had reached a degree of prosperity to be judged some by the vestiges which one found in particular in Tobna in the Eastern part. Hodna which formerly had a great reputation of fertility found fatally on the passage of the Moslem tapes which invaded the north of Africa starting from the VII ° century. However the final establishment of Arabic went up only with the XI ° century and they are even only 500 years later according to the tradition than the current fractions on the basis of the extreme points of Algeria would have penetrated in Eastern Hodna driving back in the west the occupants of then probably Ouled Derradj and Ouled Mansour or Madhi. The principal groups are: 

1° The Ouled Sahnoun confine in the South Western of which the ancestor be originating of Toggourt arrive with XVII ° century with Magra on the slope southern western of Bou Thaleb and give birth with 10 other fractions

2° The Slelha confine with South East group made up of three other fraction distinct which occupy the Djebel Djezzar

3° The Ouled Amor and the Ouled Neja himself say downward of Ouled Derradj which remain in the North of Hodna after the repression of their tribe of origin of with dimensions of Me Sila

4° The Ouled Sidi Ghaneur form a hundred of family resulting of a Marabout come of Oran in 1891 which himself establish with Ain Kelba at the edge of Chott.

5° the ZOUI mixes of 4 families whose origin is not exactly known " 

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