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IV. In Jbel lä-ḥbíb
On a late-October morning I started off from Brīsh where I had spent five or six delightful weeks. My intention was to spend the winter among the nomadic Arab tribes further south, but since I needed to travel to Tangier to acquire supplies, I decided to first make a detour to the mountains to the east, which had captivated me the entire autumn with their colours and contours and the mysterious spell of the unknown.
Yimmak and bäbäk, the men shouted at the pack animals as usual to get them moving. The words mean ”your mother” and ”your father” but are not pet names but curses. When a Moroccan curses another, he prefers to name one of their parents or grandparents, as a curse of this kind also includes the children and grandchildren; and he is so used to cursing his neighbour that he leaves out the entire predicate for brevity. And in the same way he curses his horses and donkeys and their forefathers.
As companions, I have not only Sīdī ̔Abdsslam but also his cousin, who is also a Baqqâli shereef and is also called ̔Abdsslam and must therefore also be called sîdi, ”my lord”, as well as ʿAbdŭlkrim, who is a simple mountain dweller without ancestry. The cousin serves as the cook. Of course he cannot cook, but he is reliable and well-bred, serious and commands respect and is the most devoted cousin one could imagine. The friendship is, incidentally, mutual and one would be hard pressed to find more loyal friends than both the ̔Abdsslams. ʿAbdŭlkrim is my valet and in addition performs the heavy housework. He is certainly not suited to being a servant. He is a large and rough man who hardly fits through the tent opening and is furthermore clumsy, dirty and stupid. If something goes awry, one can be certain that ʿAbdŭlkrim was there. In Tangier, he could never learn to unlock my door, instead he stood outside it and knocked until it was opened. Sometimes his unteachableness becomes too much to bear, and he is sent on his way; but he always comes back like a loyal dog. And then he is back in our good graces again. For he is an honest soul, obedient and polite, good-humoured and happy. I was very surprised once when I learned that he had been in prison for a couple of months in Tetuan for having taken the life of another man. When I asked him what exactly had happened, he became slightly embarrassed and implied that he had not really been to blame. Together with a friend he had gone out one evening to earn a little extra income. They met a lonesome wanderer and ordered him to give them his cloak and bag. But the man did not obey and so – yes, why did he not obey? Although he is already an old man, close to thirty years of age, ʿAbdŭlkrim is only now considering marriage. One evening in Brīsh when there was a thunderstorm and the lightning struck over and over again, I saw him standing outside on a hill with his gaze directed upward. ”Heaven is open now,” he said. And then he took advantage of the opportunity, stretched out his hands and asked Allah to give him a good wife and two oxen.
We set off with a certain expectation of interesting experiences to come. The nearest destination was the tribe Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb, where none of my companions had been before and which did not have the best reputation. But we were in high spirits, as we carried with us four rifles and I had with me a letter of recommendation from the shereef of Wazzan, in which he encouraged his clients to welcome me with benevolence. He is a powerful man, this shereef, the head of the most revered branch of the Mûläi Idrīs family, which is the oldest shereef family in Morocco. In some regions of the country, he enjoys higher prestige than the sultan himself. When a new sultan takes the throne, he always seeks the blessing of the shereef of Wazzan, and it is almost a dictum that, although no shereef of the family Wazzan can become sultan, no sultan can rule without the support of the head of this family. There is no-one other than the sultan himself who is heir to so much holiness or baraka as the shereef of Wazzan. The father and predecessor to the current shereef was a saint whose reputation had spread all the way to Mecca. Once, he came riding across the Strait of Gibraltar on his horse. When the area surrounding Tangier was plagued by grasshoppers, he took one of the flying insects and spat on its mouth, whereby the entire swarm flew away. He pulled down the moon from the sky, let it rest on his arm and then threw it back into its rightful place in space. At a dinner party in Paris, where some of the attendants began making sneering remarks about him, he frightened the entire company by suddenly turning himself into a lion. The same man was much given to drink and was always drunk. When I expressed my surprise that such a holy person could allow himself to disobey the Koran’s prohibition of drinking wine, I received as a reply: ”He did not drink wine but when the wine touched his holy lips it was immediately transformed into honey.” ”But how could the honey make him drunk?” I objected. ”Do you not understand,” they said, ”that for a saint, nothing is impossible.” Thus, two miracles at once: the wine was turned into honey, and the honey made the saint drunk.
The letter of recommendation proved useful to me already on the first evening, when my small caravan arrived at a village on the Gharbîya plain, which was under the protection of the shereef of Wazzan. It was examined, read and kissed. The village chief came to my tent with a pair of fat hens, a dozen eggs and other foodstuff, and I felt like I was living in clover.
Early the next morning, when the stars were still twinkling in the sky, we readied ourselves for departure. We continued to head east. We passed an area inhabited by the so-called bedáua, a group of nomadic Arabs with their own sheik. Their lives must not be very enviable, as vulnerable as they are to the plundering of the mountain dwellers. Their stronger neighbours despise them deeply and say that ”whom God wishes to make unhappy, he gives a bédui as a companion”.
The ground becomes more hilly, and we soon find ourselves in a small river valley in between the mountains. Along the road lies a pile of stones as a sign that someone has been killed. A little further on, we come to a spring with a lush palm bush, the leaves of which are full of knots. The place is visited by people suffering from a fever illness, who drink seven times from the spring and with their left hand tie seven knots on the palm leaves. We broke some of the leaves, but a man who saw this said that this was a bad thing and that we would be visited in the night by jinn.
The landscape takes on a wilder appearance. What splendid lairs for robbers, these caves and cliffs and cork oak forests on the mountainsides! But the valley is widening out and a village can be glimpsed between the trees. Sīdī ̔Abdsslam – the cook – goes to scout out the terrain, while we others stay put on a ledge below the village. How will we be received? is the big question. Up on the slope outside the small village mosque, the schoolboys stand in a huddle and stare at us, and their expressions are far from amiable. But regardless, it appears to go well as Sīdī ̔Abdsslam returns in the company of an older man, who, to judge from his clothing and demeanour, must be one of the head men in the village. With a handshake, the man welcomes me to the village of Dār Féllaq. He knows the shereef of Wazzan personally and he is also well acquainted with the name Baqqâli; I can pitch my tent outside of his house and may stay there as long as I wish.
The schoolboys are now also smiling. They come up to me and ask for a coin so that they can buy themselves a holiday from the schoolmaster; that is what usually occurs when a distinguished stranger comes to a village. And the holiday was well-earned as I have never seen more hard-working schoolchildren. Already at four or five in the morning, long before daybreak, I heard the humming of their studies in the mosque, and it continued until eleven when they were given a two-hour break. Then they studied again from one until close on six when they ate their supper, and from six to eight. They have Thursday afternoons off, as well as Friday and Monday afternoons, but only under the condition that they give a little money to the schoolmaster. Every boy goes to school, where he is taught to read and write and to learn a section of the Koran by heart. School begins at an early age and then continues for a longer or shorter duration, depending on how gifted and wealthy the boy is. Those who become shepherd-boys do not get far and quickly forget what little they have learned; but a boy who wishes to be a ṭâleb or a scribe must continue for years, until the Koran, from beginning to end, flows from his lips like running water.
The village mosque, which serves as a school, is a white-washed house surrounded by old cork oaks. In addition, there is another white-washed building in the village; it belongs to my host Buʿassab and is largely reserved for welcoming guests. There, we assemble sometimes in the evenings around a tea tray and leisurely slurp the Moroccan national drink, the sugar-sweet green tea with aromatic mint. But even more often, my host comes to visit me in my tent and there I can, with fewer disturbances in the way of curious questions, acquaint myself better with the customs and ways of Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb.
He is truly an impressive man. The face shows clear signs of the ravages of malaria, the muscles are somewhat flaccid, the eyelids slightly droopy, the eyes at times almost full of suffering. But the unusually tall, upright figure still bears witness to enormous physical strength, while the position of the head and the scornful lines around the lips reveal unyielding pride and defiance. Most of all, I was struck by the expression of generosity and sympathy that at times during our conversation would enliven the severe, serious face. There was undeniably something of the magnanimous hero of robber novels about this singular man. He told me with visible confidence, but without bragging, of the many bloody exploits in which he had played the leading role. He showed me two large scars over his knee, souvenirs from an old feud. A man from a neighbouring tribe had, in his youth, stolen his dancing girl. He killed him and chopped his body into small pieces. The family of the man he killed exacted their revenge but only managed to injure Buʿassab; and he had barely recovered from his injuries when he, together with some cousins, took themselves to the enemy village and slayed four more men. From others I learned that Buʿassab, in his younger days, had committed robberies as his main source of income, but that he was now content to simply buy and sell others’ booty. Plunder and murder are the order of the day in these mountains; during my visit to Dār Féllaq, I heard speak of at least three or four murders that had occurred in nearby villages. One murder leads to another. Blood feuds are the highest law, and blood money is not accepted. And once the murder is avenged, new revenge must be taken on the avenger or on one of his kinsmen, and so it can continue for several generations. But in a society such as this, also honour and humanity dwell alongside the violence and savagery. The members of a village form a defence alliance with other village communities, and when a feud involves another tribe, the people of the different villages stand loyally by one another. And yes, even a stranger receives protection once he has been welcomed as a guest. On the small ledge outside my host’s door, I could, for the first time during my travels in Morocco, sleep peacefully at night without a guard outside of my tent. As who would dare molest Buʿassab’s guest and charge?
So as not to draw the attention of passers-by, I removed my European clothing and put on a fez, burnous and breeches. But, regardless, the rumour that a naṣrâni, a Christian, had settled down in Dār Féllaq spread like wild-fire through the area. Sīdī ̔Abdsslam heard my presence being excitedly discussed in the weekly market and it seemed to have aroused a general sense of vexation. For these mountain folk, a naṣrâni is the representation of all that is evil. Christians, they say, do nothing but shout and fight and chase after other people’s money and land. To ”have a heart like a Christian” means to be hard and cruel. To be blue-eyed like a Christian is to be false. A Christian can barely be called human. Buʿassab told me that some men once said to him: ”We would like to go with you to Tangier to see how Christians grow.” He assured me that they in all seriousness believed that Christians grow from seeds in the ground and that they have horns on their foreheads. He, of course, laughed at such childishness, but still wanted to ask me whether it was true that women in the land of the Christians give birth to children twice a year.
It was therefore not surprising that the presence of such a monster as a naṣrâni produced such a sensation in Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb. But this did not seem to give my host the slightest concern. It seemed to me quite the opposite, as though he enjoyed defying public opinion by harbouring an abhorrent naṣrâni on his land. Just once before, he said, had the region been visited by a Christian, and that was twenty years ago, when a Frenchman had come there to hunt together with the shereef of Wazzan; but he had remained there for just one day. Buʿassab did not tell me this in order to hurry my departure, but more so to allow me to understand the unusual honour that was accorded me. Far from giving any indication that I was a nuisance, he was anxious that I should feel welcome in my new home and acquaint myself with its sights. One day, he came with me to the top of the mountain on the slope of which the village was located so that I could learn the area’s topography. In the north and west, in the remote distance, a streak of ocean could be seen, to the east, mountains and mountains as far as the eye could see, to the south, the view was obscured by the Vesuvius-like shapes of the high mountain that had given the tribe its name. Buʿassab also answered all of my questions with the greatest openness and did not betray the slightest fear of my notebook. On the contrary, both of his sons were very suspicious. When I asked a question, I often heard one of them whisper: ”Why does he want to know that?” But they never disturbed my conversations with their father. Among these mountain people, filial reverence is taken to the extreme. In the presence of a stranger, a son would not dare speak to his father. He may possibly be in the same room, but even then, at an appropriate distance from the rest of the company. It was curious to see these full-grown men sitting quietly huddled in a corner of my tent when their father was there, or quietly slipping away at the sound of his footsteps in the distance.
The region’s premier sight is the nearly one-thousand-metre-high mountain on top of which is located Sîdi Ḥbib’s white-washed sepulchral chapel. I was told that when he was alive, Sîdi Ḥbib had been the Prophet Muḥammad’s barber and that he had come to Morocco riding on a mule. He had said to his followers that if he died on the journey, they should let the mule go where it wished and bury him where it stopped. The mule made its way to the top of the mountain in question, which then became the grave of the saint. Near the top, a ring of stones has been built in the shade of some trees to mark the place where the mule rested on its way, and close by the saint’s sepulchral chapel is a deep well. At the time, there was hardly a drop of water in the well; this was considered by the tribe to be a bad omen and it caused much concern. Sîdi Ḥbib’s grave is a meeting place for saints from the eastern and western lands. He is a hospitable and benevolent man who immediately answers the prayers of those who invoke him; and at his grave are hermits who have settled there for varying lengths of time in order to purify themselves through devotional exercises. I too, naturally, had Sîdi Ḥbib to thank for all the kindness that had been shown me during my stay in his area. It can therefore seem slightly heartless when I, for my part, deny him that which a supernatural being generally values most of all – a belief in his existence. Morocco’s dead saints can be divided into two classes: those who have actually lived on Earth in human form and those that have never existed. The former can, as a rule, be recognised by the fact that they have left behind numerous offspring, whilst the latter lack kinsmen and their graves are found in places or in the vicinity of objects that in some way stand out among their surroundings – a grove, a lone tree, a spring surrounded by unusually luscious vegetation, an oddly formed ledge or a mountain. Such places or objects easily give rise to a belief in something supernatural, miraculous, holy, and are associated with a dead saint who is said to be buried there or to have worshipped or sat there, and to have left behind a morsel of his holiness. This is the kind of saint that Sîdi Ḥbib undoubtedly is. He personifies the holiness of the mountain on top of which he is supposedly buried. What we have here is nature worship in a light Moslem disguise. Both the old Arabs and Berbers had their holy mountains.
One day, we had a distinguished visitor in the village. It was Mûläi Thämi, a cousin of the shereef of Wazzan, who came to select some livestock for slaughter. It is custom at slaughter time that more or less holy men, shereefs for the most part, travel from one village to another to make a selection from among the cattle. Slaughter is a communal affair: it would never occur to anyone to slaughter a bovine animal for themselves alone; instead the meat must be divided up between the various families in the village, who naturally provide compensation to the animal’s owner for his loss. All of the village’s cattle are herded into an open area where all of the village men also assemble. With outstretched hands, the shereef calls on God and his holy forefathers to bless the people and cattle and then points to the animal or animals that shall be slaughtered. It does not help to protest: if the owner of the chosen creature refuses to slaughter it, it will soon die of natural causes. When the animal is slaughtered, the liver and a piece of meat are immediately taken to the shereef, who has already withdrawn to his tent. He eats the liver there and then, but neither he nor his companions must taste the meat so long as they are in the village. This entire procedure is very likely a remnant of an old Arabic sacrificial ceremony. It also takes place among the nomadic ”Arabs” of the plains, while it is unfamiliar to the Atlas Berbers. We know that among the ancient Arabs, each slaughter animal was a sacrificial animal; and even today, it is customary in Morocco at the large sacrificial feast l-ʿӑîd l-kbīr, to first eat the liver of the slaughtered animal.
In the afternoon, Mûläi Thämi visited my tent. He is a middle-aged man with wise eyes, a finely chiselled profile and a somewhat worldly quality. He obviously possesses a certain amount of Arabic education and is happy to discuss theoretical matters. To begin with, the conversation revolved around astronomy. He asked me about this and that, but said that he could not share my views. Allah sometimes allows the sun and moon to be darkened in order to scare people. In the evening, the sun goes down into a spring to shine for creatures in another world, and in the morning, it rises again through a divine miracle. The stars are weapons in the hands of the angels, with which they prevent jinn from rising up to heaven and listening in on Allah’s and the angels’ counsel. Should any of them venture too near the borders of Heaven, an angel will throw his star at the foolhardy being – which is what we call a shooting star. The Earth rests on the horn of a bull, the bull stands on a fish, the fish is in the ocean, the ocean on the wind, the wind on the air, the air on darkness. When the bull becomes tired of his heavy burden, he moves it from one horn to the other, which causes an earthquake. Mûläi Thämi had another tricky question for me: ”In which sky is the sun currently?” When I responded that I only knew of one sky, his lips curled into a sarcastic grin. ”The sun is now in the fourth sky,” he said in a superior manner. And that concluded our astronomical discussion, and we continued onto other topics in which he found me less ignorant.
We received yet another visit. One afternoon when I sat working in my tent, I saw to my great surprise some Moorish soldiers striding up the hill, headed towards my tent. One of them hurried in and handed me an envelope equipped with the seal of the Russian legation in Tangier. It contained a letter signed by one of the resident-ministers, Mr Bacheracht, which read as follows: – ”A rumour is circulating here that you are in danger. I have made the governor in Tangier responsible for your safety and had him send this letter with mounted soldiers, who shall be at your disposal and accompany you to Tangier if your safety be threatened.” A rescue expedition in other words! The meddlesome rumour had turned my peaceful nook among the mountains into a lion’s den. How and through whom the rumour spread is not known to me even today. All that was really required was for someone in Tangier to hear that I resided in Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb for people to immediately come to the conclusion that something must be wrong; for who would of their own free will would choose to stay in such a den of thieves? And I can well understand that Mr Bacheracht put things in motion as soon as the rumour reached his ears, when I consider all of the other kindnesses he had shown me during my stay in Morocco.
The sultan’s soldiers in Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb! Who would have thought such a thing! Sīdī ̔Abdsslam communicated to my host the reason for the rare visit. And into my tent came Buʿassab with his head held higher than normal and with an expression of stifled anger on his proud face. ”Write to your ambassador,” he said, ”that you are my guest, a guest of Buʿassab, and that I will vouch for your safety with my life!” Then he went out; and now it was the soldiers’ turn. They were assailed with insults and abuse, and the intention was to drive them away immediately. This, however, could not happen under any condition as night was near and the trails were full of robbers. The shereef and I were able, through our intercessions, to finally convince Buʿassab to let them stay until the following morning, when they were all forced to return with their mission unaccomplished. I gave them a letter for Mr Bacheracht, and Buʿassab sent to the governor the friendly greeting that if he attempted to send soldiers to Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb one more time, they would be thoroughly whipped.
It should be added that Buʿassab threat did not prevent the Moorish government from sending an entire regiment against Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb and its neighbouring tribe, Beni Ȋder one year later. Namely, two Spanish children had been kidnapped from Azila by some mountain dwellers and the Spanish government demanded that the kidnappers be punished. It was alleged that the sad incident almost led to an armed conflict between Spain and Morocco. How the punitive expedition went, I do not know, but I assume that it was a fiasco.
After a nearly two-week-long stay in Jbel lä̆-Ḥbíb, we said farewell to our congenial host and returned to Tangier to prepare ourselves for the long journey to central and southern Morocco, which I had planned previously.