XI. Among the Berbers of Central Morocco

XI. Among the Berbers of Central Morocco

1 Spring was approaching. On the hills outside of Fez, patches of orange flowers had appeared. The fruit trees in my garden had become white as snow. The birds began to sing, and the sun started to blaze down upon us. I worked more intensively than ever, for the hour of departure was approaching. I was obliged to go to London to give my lectures at the university.

2 The farewell was free of sentimentality, for I would see my friends again soon. Only the white cat took it as a tragedy. She jumped onto my lap and then hurtled out the window with a heart-wrenching scream. I had thought of interning her with my neighbour, the saint Sîdi ʿAli Bughâleb [Sīdī ʿAlī Būghālib], whose grave teems with cats that are treated to breakfast every morning by the butchers in Fez; but I was reminded that the cat did not belong to me.

3 I returned partly along a different route than the one I had come along. My travel journal looks like this:

• 5 April 9.45 a. m.–5.50 p. m. Fez (Bäb Ft^söḥ)[Bāb al-Ftūḥ] – Dwíyat^s [] (3 hours) – Mekkes [Maknās]; 6 ¾ hours in the saddle.
• 6 April 8.50 a. m.–4.40 p. m. Mekkes – Beni ʿAmar [Banī ͑Amīr] (2 ¼ hours) – Bäb Tiûka [Bāb Tīūka]; 7 ¾ hours in the saddle.
• 7 April 8.15 a. m.–3.55 p. m. Bäb Tiûka – ʿAzib Mûläi l-Kbīr [] in the Beni Ăḥsen [Banī Aḥsan] tribal area; 7 hours in the saddle.
• 8 April 8.48 a. m.–2.30 p. m. ʿAzíb Mûläi l-Kbīr – Sebû [Sabū] (1 ¾ hours) – Sîdi ʿÊsa ben Läḥsen []; 4 ½ hours in the saddle; crossing of the Sebû 1 hour 10 minutes.
• 9 April 8 a. m.–3.15 p. m. Sîdi ʿÊsa ben Läḥsen – Alcazar [al-Qaṣr al-Kabīr]; 6 ½ hours in the saddle.
• 10 April 8.35 a. m.–5.20 p. m. Alcazar – Ulad Mûsa [Aulād Mūsa]; 7 ¾ hours in the saddle; many difficult ditches on the way.
• 11 April 7.35 a. m.–4.10 p. m. Ulad Mûsa – village at the foot of l-ʿAqba l-Ḥámra [] (the Red Mountain); 7 ¼ hours in the saddle.
• 12 April 9.50 a. m.–1.50 p. m. l-ʿAqba l-Ḥámra – Maclean’s hotel in Tangier; 4 ¾ hours in the saddle.

4 The weather was lovely, the air cool. The journey took me over spring’s carpet of flowers, which constantly shifted in colour: it was usually flowers of the same kind that covered my path at each particular spot. It was sad to leave Morocco just now when spring was in full bloom.

5 When I returned to Morocco at the beginning of July and once again, accompanied by my former servants, headed towards Fez, the grass had already begun to dry and the flowers had wilted. The thermometer would surely have shown forty degrees in the shade, if there had been any shade. The only tree along the entire road that offered me some cool respite was an old fig tree about three hours away from [Jräifi]. While I was resting under its branches, I encountered an old acquaintance, the French geographer [Frédéric] Weisgerber, who was on his way from Fez. He told me that he had recently observed fifty-two degrees of heat in the shade; the birds had fallen dead from the trees, and his horse had suffered a nosebleed from the heat. I travelled along the same road as the previous autumn and found that it was almost exactly the same length as the one I had travelled in April. On the stretch between Alcazar and Beni ʿAmar, I was in the saddle for 23 ¼ hours when I crossed Wargha [Urgha], and 23 ½ hours when I crossed Bäb Tiûka.

6 On 17 July, I arrived in Fez and set up my camp outside of Bab Ft^söḥ. The governor protested as usual, but this time I did not give in. I explained that I would rather be killed by robbers outside the city walls of Fez than die of an illness in its polluted square; and besides, I intended to stay there only a couple of days. I had not returned from London to continue my work in Fez, but to settle in the small town of Ṣĕfru [ṣafrū] and from there make excursions to the Berbers in the surrounding area.

7 After I met some of my old friends and persuaded the invaluable [Si Ráḥḥo] to close his little school and come with us to Ṣĕfru, we set off along the caravan route that goes south-east from Fez. The road passes through areas overgrown with dwarf palm, spindle tree, and gorse, and past small villages that have been planted here and there like sentinels, rising further ahead up one of the outcrops of the [Aith Yúsi] mountains and then winding down to the valley that is traversed by the river Ṣĕfru, a tributary of Sebû. A few hundred metres from the place where it leaves the mountains lies the town of Ṣĕfru, straddling both sides of the river, nestled in gardens, where the cherry tree thrives better than anywhere else in Morocco, alongside the orange tree, pomegranate tree and olive. The setting is delightful, and thanks to the streams that flow down from the mountains and are directed over the fields, the landscape is fresh and green even in the summer heat.

8 We are assigned a large garden to live in, and my work tent is set up in the shade of a tall and leafy mulberry tree. A stream rushes through the garden and forms a pool, which is used as a bathtub. From this peaceful dwelling, we make daily excursions to the surrounding areas, sometimes to a holy site, sometimes to a nearby village; and thus I come into personal contact with the Berber tribe [Aith Yúsi], whose territory extends close to the [Ṣĕfru]. In addition, I hire an old man from the aforementioned tribe as a teacher and occasionally entice an old Berber woman into my garden to learn things that only women know.

9 Aith Yúsi belongs to a large Berber group that is currently as good as unknown. Almost the only information that has been reported about these Berbers comes from a French explorer, Marquis [René] de Segonzac, who visited them in the company of a son of the previously mentioned great saint-shereef [sharīf] of Wazzan [Wazzān]; but his Moorish garb prevented him from studying them more closely, and his accounts are therefore scanty and not entirely free from mistakes. I had already studied under several teachers from this group in Fez – from the tribes Aith Sáddĕn [Aīt Sādn], [Aith Nd̮ēr] and [Ait Waráin] – and was therefore quite well prepared when I began to study the tribe [Aith Yúsi].

10 These Berbers are independent of the Moorish government and do not have any permanent administration within their own tribes; only during times of unrest are one or more chieftains chosen, who then appoint their stewards within the various village communities. Each family acts as avengers of the wrongs done to its members. Blood feuds are the highest law. This institution rests on the sense of solidarity among all those who belong to the same family, that is, all relatives on the paternal side; blood kinship on the maternal side does not make two people members of the same family. If someone has killed a person belonging to another family, any adult member of the killer’s family is at risk of becoming a victim of the wronged family’s revenge, even though the avengers primarily seek to come at the killer. However, this rule does not apply without restrictions. The person upon whom the revenge is taken must be of the same gender as the one who was killed. If a man kills a woman, he thus goes free himself, whereas the slain woman’s kin seek to kill a sister of the killer or some other female member of his family; and if a woman kills a man, revenge is not demanded from her but from a man who belongs to the same kin as she. So strictly is the principle ”like against like” followed that if a pregnant woman happens to be killed in a fight between men of the same tribe, her dead body is cut open to see if the foetus in the womb is a boy or a girl, so that revenge can be taken on a person of the same sex.

11 Blood feuds undoubtedly contribute to maintaining order within a tribe, but it also brings with it the disadvantage that the loss of one tribe member entails the loss of another tribe member. That is why the tribe makes a serious effort to persuade the slain person’s relatives to accept blood money instead of seeking revenge. As soon as a murder has been committed, the perpetrator and all male members of his family living in the same village flee to some distant area. A few influential men within the tribe now act as mediators and attempt to persuade the relatives of the slain person to refrain from all reprisals for a while. This is done by sacrificing a sheep at the burial of the deceased or, prior to the body being laid in the grave, descending into it themselves and refusing to leave until the relatives of the deceased comply with their request. As a rule, this has the intended effect, and when the term for the cessation of reprisals expires, they seek to have it extended through offerings. The longer the grace period can be extended, the more likely it is that the relatives of the slain person will entirely abandon the idea of revenge and instead be satisfied with blood money (ddīṯ) [dīya, pl. dīyāt]. With the Aith Yúsi, this sum varies between two and five hundred dollars; it is generally twice as high for a man as for a woman. But it is also possible that the relatives of the deceased will demand that the killer must give his sister, daughter or niece in marriage to the nearest male relative of the murdered man, whereby the woman’s value is deducted from the blood money.

12 It is by no means considered dishonourable to receive blood money, as long as the perpetrator and his victim belong to the same tribe and at least a year has passed since the murder was committed. However, the relatives of the killer have previously managed to avoid punishment by each paying a so-called [abĕrra] or [ttĕbrîṯ], which is granted to the nearest male relatives of the slain – his father, brothers and sons. However, they only receive a third of the blood money, ddīṯ, while the rest goes to the other male members of the family, in the event that the victim was a man. The blood money for a woman belongs entirely to her father and brothers if she was unmarried, to her sons and their father if she was married and left behind sons, and to her daughters’ father alone if she was married and left behind only daughters; her more distant relatives receive nothing. The same principles apply to the payment of blood money: if a man is killed, one third of it is paid by the killer himself and his father, brothers and sons, while the remainder is paid by the other male members of his family. If the killer belongs to a different tribe than his victim, the crime cannot be reconciled through blood money.

13 No distinction is made between intentional and unintentional homicide; who can truly know whether the killing was committed with intent or not? The infliction of bodily injuries that do not result in death is always compensated through damages. To deprive a person of sight in both eyes costs as much as taking his life; to deprive him of sight in only one eye costs half of that amount. The price of the thumb of either the right or left hand is five sheep, and the price of a knocked-out tooth is one ox.

14 In sparsely populated areas, such as the Berbers’ homeland in the mountains, it is naturally quite common that crimes are committed without certainty of the perpetrator’s identity. Even in such cases, folk custom prescribes what measures and steps should be taken. The one suspected of the crime is forced to swear their innocence at a shrine or a mosque. But that is not enough. If the committed crime is murder, he must procure forty-nine other people who are willing to swear to his innocence. These are naturally primarily members of his own family, but if they are too few, the number can be augmented by other people. Even small boys can be found among the forty-nine. But among the Aith Yúsi, the custom requires that ten of those who are thus called upon to swear an oath must be chosen by the aggrieved party, though they must still be chosen from among the accused’s own relatives; and if any of these should refuse to swear, the accused is thereby considered to be proven guilty. The purpose of this institution is, however, not only to uncover a suspected person’s guilt or innocence but also to subject the guilty party and their family to the supernatural punishment that lies hidden in a perjury. That is why the number of people who are called upon to swear an oath is so large, and why even underage boys, on whom the future strength of the family depends, are allowed to participate in the oath-taking. For the more people who swear the oath, the greater the number of the perpetrator’s kin who will be afflicted by the perjury.

15 It is natural that the degree of protection that vengeance offers to the members of a family depends on the size and strength of that family. But even a weak person has at his disposal a means to obtain redress. He can seek help from another family than his own and, in effect, force the person he calls upon for assistance to take on his cause. This takes place through, as the Moroccan expresses it, putting ʿār on him. L-ʿār is a practice by which a person transfers conditional curses onto another in order to compel him to fulfil a request. If the other person does not comply with this request, then his own welfare is at stake: either he or his children will die or some other serious misfortune will befall him. The curse is therefore conditional. It is transferred to the person being called upon when the supplicant establishes a connection between himself and the other in one way or another: by taking hold of him or the horse he is riding, or by touching him with his turban or a fold of his cloak, or by taking refuge in his house or touching the pole that supports his tent. It is also ʿār if the supplicant approaches the person he seeks help from with a piece of an old tent cloth hanging over his shoulders, or if he rides to him with such a rag wrapped around the horse’s neck, or if he removes the saddle and places it upside down outside the person’s dwelling. In these cases, the tent fabric or the upside-down saddle serves as a transmitter of the conditional curse. It is likewise ʿār when, after a murder, a person tries to force the relatives of the slain person to refrain from seeking revenge for a while by descending into the grave or by sacrificing a sheep next to it. One of the most common and effective forms of ͑ār is to employ a sacrificial offering; in lighter cases, a cock or hen is sacrificed, while in the most severe cases, an ox is sacrificed. Fictitious human sacrifices also occur among the Berbers south of Fez: a father takes his small child to the entrance of another’s house or tent, places the knife at the child’s throat and threatens to kill him if the other does not fulfil his request. A few years ago on such an occasion, it happened that a father actually cut the child’s throat; but this provoked general outrage. It was said that not even the Christians allow anything of this kind. It was comforting to find that the Berbers’ beliefs about the cruelty of the Christians do have their limits.

16 L-ʿār is used to subdue not only humans but also supernatural beings – saints and jinn. When the traveller comes to a spot along the road from which he can see a shrine, he puts ʿār on the saint by placing a stone on the cairn that is usually found in such places, thereby placing himself under the protection of the saint. In the Great Atlas Mountains, I often saw a couple of stones placed on top of each other like ʿār on a saint; the small stacks had been constructed by the sick or by people who wished to be rid of the habit of stubbing their toes while walking in the mountains or by other supplicants (see the photograph on the next page [page 297]). Everywhere in Morocco, it is customary to perform ʿār by tying a piece of cloth or a lock of hair to a tree or another object associated with a shrine, or by tying knots on leaves that grow in a sacred place. Outside [Sîdi ʿAli Būghâleb]’s qóbba [qubba] in Fez, there is a tree that is entirely covered with rags and locks of hair; if a woman has a stomach ache or chest pain, she ties a small piece of her clothing to one of its branches, and if she suffers from a headache, she ties to it hair that has fallen out while combing. In both cases, she puts ʿār on the saint, although here the idea of transferring the illness is evidently associated with the invocation of the saint. In one place in the Great Atlas Mountains, I saw a stone cairn at a spot where the mighty saint [Mûläi ʿAbdlqâder] is said to have once sat. In the middle of the cairn stood a pole, to which hundreds of pieces of cloth were tied. My companions said that when a person wishes to call upon the saint for help, he tears off a small piece of his clothing, attaches it to the tree, and murmurs something like the following: ”O saint, I have promised you a sacrifice if you help me, but I will not release you from the bond that I have tied, unless you fulfil my prayer.” If the supplicant then receives what he wished for, he returns to the cairn, makes the promised sacrifice, and unties the knot. From Massa in Sūs, I heard that a person in need goes to the grave of [Lälla Răḥma Yusf], ties a knot on the leaf of a dwarf palm that grows next to the grave, and says: ”Now I bound you here, O Lälla Răḥma Yusf, and I do not intend to free you unless you free me from my distress”. Perhaps a similar idea was the basis for the Latin word religio, which is related to the verb religare, ”to bind”. It is generally believed that the connection between these words lies in the fact that humans felt bound by or dependent on their gods, but it seems more likely to me that it was the gods who were thought to be bound by humans.

17 Even the sacrifice that is made at a shrine is very often ʿār on the saint. It is often accompanied by a promise to reward the saint if the prayer is fulfilled, and this reward may itself consist of an offering, which is not however ʿār but [ziâra]. There is a significant difference between these two types of offerings. The ʿār offering is a coercive measure that contains a conditional curse; when the supplicant slaughters the sacrificial animal, he neglects to say the usual bismilláh [bismillāhi], ”in God’s name”, and the meat is not eaten by those who primarily have the right to appropriate the saint’s sacrificial gifts. The second offering, [ziâra], is, however, an actual sacrificial offering, which is why the animal is slaughtered with observance of such formalities that make the meat edible.

18 L-ʿār plays an extraordinarily significant role in the social life of Moroccans. Among the independent Berber tribes, this practice, alongside avenging oneself and the oath, constitutes the most important factor in their legal system. The fear of the conditional curse hidden in l-ʿār paralyses the avenger’s arm, gives strength to the weak, and serves as protection for the stranger. When a person is to travel within a foreign Berber tribe, it is necessary for him to obtain a protector from among the tribe’s own members, and compel one of them to take on responsibility for the traveller’s safety by putting ʿār on a tribe member. And when someone traveling in an unfamiliar area arrives at another’s dwelling as a guest, he can be sure to receive shelter and provisions there. The owner of a house or tent must, namely for his own sake, provide help and food to anyone seeking refuge there; for by staying in his dwelling, the stranger is in immediate contact with him, his family and his belongings and can thus transfer his curses onto them. In Morocco, the duty of hospitality is closely linked to l-ʿār. And the same applies to the right to asylum. Every significant shrine is a sanctuary where even a criminal can generally feel safe. Not even the saint’s own offspring, who watch over the grave, can deliver the criminal to justice, for the saint must protect him, just as a host must protect his guest; by breaking this rule, the saint would expose himself to the curses of the one seeking protection. A similar notion can be found among the ancient Greeks. In one of Aeschylus’s tragedies, Apollo says: ”Both humans and gods must tremble at the wrath (i.e. curses) of a seeker of protection, if he is intentionally left in the lurch”.

19 Even women draw much benefit from the superstition that underlies l-ʿār. This is particularly the case among the Berber tribes south of Fez, where this superstition has granted women certain rights that they do not possess even in our country. If a married woman has grown tired of her husband, she can dissolve the marriage by fleeing to another man’s house or tent and grasping the pole that supports the roof or turning the hand mill a few times, as if she were grinding with it. This is ʿār. The consequences of her actions are dire for the owner of the house or tent. He is now forced to marry the woman, whether he likes her or not, whether he is married or not, and however many wives he already has. If he does not do this, he will probably regret it; for in a woman’s ʿār lies a dangerous curse. But not only is the poor man forced to marry her, he must also pay compensation to the former husband, who was abandoned by his wife. The amount is precisely determined by tradition but varies significantly among different tribes and even within different divisions of the same tribe; among the Aith Yúsi, it is in several cases 120 dollars, but among the [Aith Sáddĕn], it amounts to as much as 500. If the new husband cannot pay the required sum and his relatives are also unable to help him do so, he tries through ʿār offerings to persuade other people to contribute what is lacking, or he seeks to convince some influential men to bring an ox to the home of the wronged party and there cut its hamstrings – the most dreadful of all ʿār offerings; or he may make short shrift of it and flee to another tribe in order to save his life. A Berber woman can set all this in motion; have you ever seen anything like it? My teacher from Aith Yúsi, who had been quite a notable man, told me that he had been forced to marry three women who had fled to his house.

20 I have myself been subjected to the natives’ ʿār a few times, though not with equally tragic consequences. Once, a woman came to my tent and wished to sacrifice a hen to force me into gifting her little son a new coat, but my servants unfortunately stopped her in her endeavour; they received a scolding for their meddling, which deprived me of the honour of being the subject of such a flattering rite as a sacrifice. In Fez, I was called upon to help by a stranger whose wife had been arrested during his absence; I intervened, of course, and with good results. During one of my trips to Fez, a man came running to my camp seeking refuge with me, hard pressed as he was by a soldier who had just seized his donkey. When I interceded on his behalf with his governor, he replied that the man had committed a villainy that not even a Jew or a Christian would have dared to. He had divorced his wife three times and then remarried her. The disturbing aspect of his actions, in the governor’s opinion, was not that he had rejected her, but in the renewed marriages. But he still wished to temper justice with mercy, for my sake.

21 During the stay in Ṣĕfru, I was unfortunately once forced to act, not as a mediator, but as a prosecutor. One day, when I was bathing in the small brook that flowed through my garden, sewage came floating on the water. My suspicions were directed at the three shereefas – holy ladies – who lived in a house a little higher up. I reported the matter to the town’s governor, who promised to ensure that I would be able to bathe in peace in the future. But the following day the scandal was repeated, again while I was in the brook. Then I became angry and gave the governor a few choice words: even if he did not care about me, he should consider that further downstream the brook flowed through a mosque, and the shereefas were hardly so holy that they could desecrate the Lord’s temple. The three impertinent ladies then had to go to jail for a night.

22 The governor of Ṣĕfru treated me thereafter with a kindness that had never before been afforded to me by an official of his rank. He invited me one day to a family feast that was held at his house to mark the occasion of his little son’s head being shaved for the first time. The guests were treated to grilled lamb served straight from the oven; fingers dug into the meat, dripping with grease, and it tasted exquisite. At another party, the dishes consisted of freshly baked bread, meatballs, liver and heart. The governor, who was sitting next to me, took a meatball, dipped it in the oily sauce, and stuck it into my mouth. After all, the Oriental says that the taste buds lie in the fingertips; but I prefer my own.

23 One day we were visited by a couple of men from [Aith Sáddĕn], relatives of [Si Ráḥḥo]. I suggested that I follow them to their tribe, but they categorically refused to take me with them; a Christian had once attempted to go there, but was humiliatingly dismissed. To penetrate the interior of central Morocco’s Berber areas is extremely risky – even for a native from another part of the country – and impossible for a European, unless he manages to disguise himself as a Moroccan; and conducting studies such as mine while disguised is not feasible. I must therefore be content with what I have gathered in the area of Fez during my interactions with Berbers from various tribes and during my visits to the outskirts of Aith Yúsi. And the only thing I could do now was to head north again.

24 After a four-week stay in Ṣĕfru, we set off. We set up camp again outside of Fez. Farewell, you wonderful city, I shall never see you again, for you have given me everything I have asked of you! At the following resting place, Mekkes, we were struck by a thunderstorm and a hurricane the likes of which I have never seen. Dust clouds darkened the air and threatened to almost suffocate us. One of the tents that had just been pitched was knocked over and the tent pole broke in two. The villages and orchards on the mountainside opposite our camp caught fire and turned into a sea of flames whose waves rolled toward the camp. Since it was also to be feared that the fire would break out in the village where we were, we had to be ready at any moment to flee with our belongings and therefore spent the night under the stars. This little adventure was of quite an unexpected nature, especially in the summer when one day tends to blend into the next. But otherwise, the journey had nothing new to offer; it was also the fourth time in the course of a year that I was now traveling between Fez and Tangier. The heat was just as terrible as before, the food was poor, the water almost undrinkable.

25 When you ride hour after hour across the monotonous plain under such circumstances, your imagination tends to dwell on your body. You design menus for delicious dinners with beer and ice-cold champagne; it provides a momentary refreshment, but afterwards reality feels so much more bitter. And yet a journey in Morocco has its charms even in the scorching summer heat. When you finally arrive at the coast and are met by the sea breeze you have been longing for, and enjoy the food and drink you have dreamed of, it does not take many hours before the nomad within you stirs again and you would prefer to load the tents onto the mules and head back the same way you came. With a sense of melancholy, you press the hands of your faithful companions in farewell and board the steamboat that will take you back to civilization. And when you see Morocco’s coast slowly receding behind you and finally disappearing into the sea, you experience a pressing sensation in your chest and you stand there on deck asking yourself: when will I see you again, you wonderful land?

26 Over the next three years, I spent a varying amount of time in Morocco each summer. The country had once again begun to grow restless; France wished to take control of the southern and central parts and Spain coveted the northern parts of the sultanate. To undertake longer journeys in the interior of the country would therefore have been difficult, even if time had allowed it. In 1911, I pitched my tents in the shereef’s village in Gharbîya [al-Gharbīya] and the following summer in the grove by Sîdi Kaṣem’s [Sīdī Qāsim] shrine on the Atlantic coast between Cape Spartel and Azîla [Aṣīla]. In the summer of 1913, I could not travel even there, no matter how much I was tempted by the shade of the grove, the white sandy beach and the divine sea baths. The unrest in the areas around Tangier had now grown so severe that some European governments had forbidden their subjects from leaving the city; and it caused surprise when one morning they saw my little caravan travelling along the road that leads to Cape Spartel. We settled down behind the cliffs on the beach south of the lighthouse, and there I spent three peaceful weeks. But from a distance, shooting was often heard throughout the day; and one day, peace was almost disturbed just outside the tents. The men in the nearby village wanted to kill some Spanish fishermen who, encouraged by the sight of the tents, had come ashore to fetch water, and it was with great difficulty that we managed to save their lives.

27 I have not been to Morocco since that summer. But I hope to see the lighthouse at Cape Spartel blinking at me once again in the dusk.