Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity

Notes

Notes Introduction 1. In contrast, David Crawford (2002) argues that rural Berbers living in monocultural rural areas of Morocco are unconcerned with asserting their Berber identity since they do not define their identity in opposition to other groups. 2. Until the last forty years, the living situations of the majority of Berbers were rural; and rural themes persist in Berber literature , which is primarily oral. Berbers do have a writing system called Tifinagh that was preserved by the Berbers (Tuareg) living in the Saharan regions of Africa. Although it appears that the Tifinagh script greatly influenced Berber art, especially textiles and ceramics, it was never used to write history and literature (Ennaji 1997: 25). 3. Regardless of the existence of three distinct languages, the term ‘‘Tamazight’’ is used here as an overarching term to describe all three languages. 4. Gabriel Camps (1995: 66–67) writes that the word ‘‘Imazighen’’ probably derives from the words ‘‘Mazic’’ and ‘‘Mazica,’’ commonly found on ancient funerary inscriptions in northern Africa referring to the indigenous population. 5. Dadda Atta is a genuine sixteenthcentury historic figure whose tomb is located in the Upper Draa Valley 25 km north of a town called Tagunit. Not much is known about the early history of the Ait Atta, but scholars trace their history to the sixteenth century, when a number of nomadic Amazigh groups from the Sahara banded together to eject Arabs from the region of the Saghro Mountains. Ross Dunn (1977) and David Hart (1981) have written extensively on the early history of the Ait Atta. Hart (1981: 62) estimates that in 1960 the Ait Atta population was approximately 135,000. 6. Rebecca Popenoe’s Feeding Desire (2004: 92–93) discusses the role that Azawagh Arab women in Niger play in preserving group identity. 7. The Ait Khabbash, one of the subgroups within the Ait Atta, recognize that they are part of the Ait Atta but also have their own origin story that exposes how the desire to maintain ethnic purity organizes their society . Khabbash, one of Atta’s descendants, had four sons who founded four subgroups within the Ait Khabbash. In the nineteenth century, three other non–Ait Khabbash Amazigh groups were eventually adopted into the group.While these seven groups are all 202 notes to pages 4–8 united today, the four original groups consider themselves to be purer than the others. According to Marie-Luce Gélard’s study of Ait Khabbash kinship, intermarriage between the three ‘‘adopted’’ groups is prohibited in order to keep the nonpure population within the Ait Khabbash from growing too large.There are no social restrictions prohibiting marriage between members of the four original groups, however, who also intermarry with the three adopted groups (Gélard 2003: 173).While Ait Khabbash identity is flexible enough to allow non–Ait Khabbash to become integrated into their group, revealing the process of identity construction, their marriage patterns are colored by the desire to preserve the integrity and purity of their bloodline. 8. For example, in the late nineteenth century the Ait Khabbash entered into a business relationship with the Bani Mhammed, a group of Arab caravan merchants, and agreed to guard their caravans for a protection fee. They solidified this agreement through the exchange of breast milk of nursing women from both groups. 9. For a further discussion of the importance of women’s breast milk in the creation of kinship bonds, see Altorki (1980), Boddy (1989), and Popenoe (2004: 95). 10. For more information about the connection between women and identity, see Moghadam’s book Identity Politics and Women (1994). 11. This book argues that such a search for the remnants of a pre-Islamic ‘‘pure’’ Amazigh art is not possible, as historical interactions between the Imazighen and other peoples make it impossible and largely irrelevant to identify ‘‘authentic’’ Amazigh art and culture. 12. King Hassan II, confronted with social unrest in the 1960s and 1970s, integrated Arab-speaking officials from the Arabdominated Istiqlal political party that controlled Moroccan politics after independence into positions of power in the nation’s rural Amazigh areas.This policy of undermining Amazigh political influence, in addition to others that attempted to restrict Amazigh control over land tenure, angered many Imazighen and led to their political mobilization (Venema and Mguild 2003: 42–43). 13. Amazigh activists also called for the teaching of Amazigh languages in schools, which would increase the potential participation of the Imazighen in Moroccan political and...