ABSTRACT
The centrality of the family in women's lives was reinforced by its role as both a buffer against the colonial society and as the arena where the contradictions and inconsistencies of the colonized society played themselves out. It is difficult to envision the lives of women whose familiar landscape changed as radically as Algerian women's did. The oral tradition established by women through the manipulation of speech is exceptionally rich. Throughout the colonial era and before the advent of television, storytelling was the quasi-monopoly of women. Tales, games and magical practices, when seen as problem-solving and adaptive strategies, acquire a particular significance in accounting for women's roles in colonial Algeria. Tales of princesses and ogresses, occult formulae and divinatory games combine with romantic escapades to create a picture of women living in a special sort of time.
