El Matrag in the Tlemcen hawz: the example of Ain El Hûts

Ain El Hûts El Mahrûça is a locality in the Hawz of Tlemcen, the former capital of central Maghreb. Its population lives in a territory (Le Tlemcenois), then made up of the intramuros (the old medina) and the extramuros (Arbad and hawz). This publication is part of a series of socio-historical works on the locality of Ain El Hûts. It contributes to the development of a socio-anthropological approach on the one hand, and that of the social and human sciences on the other.In this work, we focus on popular and playful games, including El Matrag in the sense of the use of the stick. A traditional game, it falls into the category of competitive games. In fact, it’s spreading throughout Algeria, even though it’s very old and ancestral to the local population.