Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity

Introduction

Introduction When I first arrived in Morocco in 1993 with the intention of learning about Berber art, I soon discovered that women rather than men were the artists in Berbersocieties.Berberwomenwovebrightlycoloredcarpets.Theydecorated their faces with tattoos, dyed their hands and feet with henna, and painted theirfaceswithsaffron.Theyalsoembroideredbrightlycoloredmotifsontheir indigo head coverings and wore elaborate silver and amber jewelry.Women both created the artistic symbols of Berber identity and wore them on their bodies, making the decorated female bodya public symbol of Berber identity. Theseconnectionsandintersectionsofart,gender,andidentityarethesubject of this book. This study considers women and their participation in the process of identity construction by examining the centrality of the textiles, jewelry,andotherartformscreatedbywomentothesocialrelationsandethnic identity of the Berbers of Morocco, the indigenous peoples of North Africa. Unlike Arab groups in North Africa, in Berber societies women rather than men are the primary producers of art, and women’s arts identify the group as Berber.This examination, in addition to revealing a rich body of art, is meant toilluminatethecomplexityofwomen’srolesintheIslamicsocietiesofAfrica and to demonstrate the role of women’s agency in negotiating complex social and religious issues. Its central argument is that women’s control over the visual symbols of Berber ethnic identity grants them power and prestige yet also restricts them to specific roles in that society. I use the term ‘‘ethnic identity’’ in this book to refer to Berber attitudes regardinggroupmembership .Ethniccategories,accordingtoNiraYuval-Davis (1998: 169), are based on constructs of collectivity, centering on the notion of a ‘‘common origin and/or destiny and engaging in constant processes of struggle and negotiation.’’ As I demonstrate here, Berber groups, who typi- 2 amazigh arts in morocco cally trace their heritage to a common male ancestor, attempt to guard female sexuality and fertility to maintain the purity of their group’s bloodline and by extension its ethnic purity.Therefore, the forms, colors, and designs of Berber women’s arts are public identity symbols that are clearly linked to concepts of containedandcontrolledfemalefertility.Sinceethnicidentityisaprocessthat issubjecttohistorical,political,andsocialdynamics,thisbookillustratesthat, as concepts of Berber ethnicity change, women’s arts have been transformed fromlocalizedethnicsymbolstosymbolsthatrepresentatransnationalBerber identity. To examine the complexity of identity construction and its relationship to genderandartisticproduction,thisstudyintroducesthereadertotheartofthe AitKhabbash,whoarepartofthelargestBerbergroupinsouthernMorocco— theAitAtta.TheAitKhabbashareoneofthemanygroups(butoneoftheonly Berber groups) living in and around the Tafilalet oasis of southern Morocco. Various Arab groups, both sedentary and nomadic, have lived here with the Ait Khabbash Berbers since the beginning of the nineteenth century.This diversity has kept the Ait Khabbash Berbers conscious of their difference from others in the area.1 Issues of ethnic identity are of crucial importance to Berbers, who consider themselves the indigenous inhabitants of northern Africa, a land they call Tamazgha. Berbers believe themselves to be ethnically, culturally, and linguistically distinct from Arabs, who arrived in North Africa in the seventh century ce after various groups such as the Phoenicians and the Romans had previously conquered portions of Tamazgha over the centuries. In contemporary North Africa, pockets of Berber settlements can be found from Egypt to Morocco, with approximately a million in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Libyaand140,000inTunisia,Egypt,andMauritania.ThelargestBerberpopulationscanbefoundinthewesternmostregionsofNorthAfrica .Itisestimated that 25–30 percent of Algeria’s 30 million people are Berber; and Morocco has the largest Berber population, which accounts for 40–60 percent of the country ’s 31 million people (Chaker 1998: 14). It is this large Berber population that differentiates Morocco from other African countries. ThearrivalofArabsinMoroccointheseventhcenturyresultedinthegradualconversionofsomeBerberstoIslam .Itwasnotuntilthethirteenthcentury, however,withthearrivaloflargenumbersofArabsfromtheMiddleEast,that themajorityofBerbersacceptedIslam,learnedtheArabiclanguage,andwere assimilated into the Arab culture. Yet many Berber groups living in inaccessible remote areas, such as the mountainous regions of Morocco or its desert introduction 3 fringes, continued to speak their own languages and retained their political autonomy from the urban-based Arab dynasties that ruled Morocco over the centuries. Berbers in contemporary Morocco can be found in three major geographical regions, each with its own Berber language: Tarifit in the Rif Mountains of northern Morocco, Tamazight in the Middle Atlas Mountains and southeastern desert oasis, and Tashelhit in the Sus Valley, High Atlas Mountains, and Anti-Atlas Mountains.2 Although speakers of Tamazight and Tashelhit can communicate with each other, communication with speakers of Tarifit is difficult.3 Rather than calling themselves ‘‘Berbers,’’ a pejorative term derived from the Latin word barbarus or ‘‘barbarian,’’ they refer to themselves by the name of their particular group. Berbers also use the overarching term ‘‘Imazighen.’’ ‘‘Amazigh’’istheadjectivalformoftheword.Whiletheword‘‘Imazighen’’has become more common in the last...