posted
Morocco taps African roots with Gnawa music revival By Tom Pfeiffer Sat Sep 13, 11:45 PM ET
Morocco's Gnawa, heirs to a musical and spiritual tradition brought north across the Sahara centuries ago by black slaves, are enjoying new fame as their hypnotic rhythms hook listeners across the world.
The Gnawa brotherhoods have long scraped a living on the margins of Moroccan society by offering to restore health or good fortune through seances of trance and incantation.
They symbolize the rich cultural mix of a country at the crossroads of Africa, Europe and the Arab world and many Moroccans say they are part of their national identity.
But Islamists, whose influence has grown among working-class Moroccans, have undermined their status by condemning their hedonistic lifestyle and belief in supernatural beings of African origin.
Now, the Gnawi have found an inadvertent champion in the north African kingdom's government as it seeks to bolster Morocco's moderate Maliki strain of Islam -- with its Sufi mysticism and cult of saints -- to counter Islamic extremists.
The government's aim is to entrench Maliki Islam to help discredit the more hard-line Salafist and Wahhabi doctrines that originated in the Middle East.
Authorities have promoted regional Moussems, or festivals, that involve the veneration of local saints and held international events to showcase and discuss Sufi identity.
The Gnawa have indirectly benefited because they derive their spiritual authority from the same beliefs.
The government also knows the exotic and free-spirited Gnawi are a powerful draw for tourists, and it has backed an annual Gnawa and World Music festival in the windy Atlantic city of Essaouira that this year drew almost half a million visitors.
The festival has propelled mainly poor musicians into the world music major league, introducing them to large audiences from Boston to Berlin.
"The children of Gnawi were once turning to other professions as they could not survive," said Essaouira festival organizer Neila Tazi. "Now more of them are choosing to become Gnawis and inherit the repertoire of their fathers."
TALISMANIC SHELLS
Only some Gnawi are of black African descent but their culture arrived in Morocco in the late 16th century when emissaries of the Saadian king Ahmed el-Mansour Dehbi returned from a mission in modern-day Mali with gold and slaves.
The slaves were put to work near Essaouira, processing sugar for export to Europe. When the factories shut a few years later, they mixed with local Berber and Saharan tribes.
Their belief in sub-Saharan divinities, such as Mimouna, and rites of possession fused with local Islamic beliefs in demons, or djnoun, and saints like Abdel Kader Jilali and Moulay Brahim.
Today, the Gnawi are a common sight when Moroccans come together to celebrate.
"The Gnawi play the most powerful music because they are outsiders," said Tony Langlois, an ethno-musicologist at Cork University in Ireland.
"You can't have a wedding or a circumcision without them being there, but you wouldn't want your daughter to marry one."
The first step to seeking help from the Gnawi is to call on a Tala'a, a woman with magic and religious powers who seeks advice from spirits using talismanic shells, scents and colors.
Often, she will recommend that clients hold a lila, an all-night ritual of possession.
An animal is paraded through the streets and then eaten. At midnight the possessed dresses in the color of the demon afflicting him. The Gnawa call upon the saints or spirits to take possession of those present using dancing, chant, krakeb iron castanets, galga goatskin tambourines and the gelbri, a type of bass lute made of fig-tree wood.
The offended spirit is placated through a complex, frenetic ritual involving specially chosen colors, perfumes and musical patterns symbolizing the cosmic elements. At dawn, the elements are reunited and the human body's powers re-balanced.
Lilas can be used to cure scorpion stings, welcome home migrants, and bring success in studies or job-hunting.
Gnawi say they are kept busy with lilas, despite the disapproval of Islamists, but now foreign music sales and concerts are making a small number much wealthier than before.
LOST ROOTS?
Gnawa music fuses well with other styles, such as blues and jazz whose roots also lie in sub-Saharan Africa.
Moroccan groups like Nass el Ghiwane and Darga have brought Gnawa elements to concert stages at home and helped ensure the country's musical heritage is not subsumed by Lebanese pop.
But some Moroccans say the Gnawi's new fame has severed the music from its spiritual roots, turning it into disposable folklore.
They say the split began when hippies visiting Essaouira in the late 1960s asked a famous Gnawi, Abderrahman Paca, to organize a lila at their seaside villa. It widened when the Essaouira festival appeared in 1997, mixing Gnawa with music that had no obvious spiritual function.
"The Gnawi no longer serve their traditional purpose -- they're just playing world music like all the rest," said Moroccan ethno-musicologist Abdelkader Mana.
Tazi says the festival has restored the Gnawi's standing.
"You saw them playing for coins in the street or in tourist hotels ... They were perceived as just beggars," the festival organizer said.
Successful Gnawa musicians deny they have abandoned their social function for material gain.
Hamid El Kasri from the northern city of Ksar el Kebir, a regular at the Essaouira festival, says he has sold 300,000 CDs in the past 15 years and recently played to 12,000 in Germany.
But he still is obliged to perform lilas when requested.
"Lilas are spiritual occasions. We cannot refuse to perform a lila just because our host is poor," he says. "Lilas are the only thing I cannot do without."
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/ )
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Evergreen: Morocco taps African roots with Gnawa music revival By Tom Pfeiffer Sat Sep 13, 11:45 PM ET
An animal is paraded through the streets and then eaten. At midnight the possessed dresses in the color of the demon afflicting him. The Gnawa call upon the saints or spirits to take possession of those present using dancing, chant, krakeb iron castanets, galga goatskin tambourines and the gelbri, a type of bass lute made of fig-tree wood.
The offended spirit is placated through a complex, frenetic ritual involving specially chosen colors, perfumes and musical patterns symbolizing the cosmic elements. At dawn, the elements are reunited and the human body's powers re-balanced.
Evergreen Writes:
Sounds like the journey through the Duat (subconscious realm).
Posts: 2007 | From: Washington State | Registered: Oct 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
"Morocco's Gnawa, heirs to a musical and spiritual tradition brought north across the Sahara centuries ago by black slaves, are enjoying new fame as their hypnotic rhythms hook listeners across the world."
How true is this, considering many blacks in North Africa were (and still are) discounted as "slaves" from south of the Sahara instead of being original natives of the area?? This was said about the Haratin despite historical and other evidences saying otherwise. Could it be true of the Gnawa?
I also like the musical stylings of the Tamashek (Tuareg) band Tinariwen. Posts: 26279 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Gnawa people and culture mainly derives from the Bambara.
quote:Originally posted by Djehuti: "Morocco's Gnawa, heirs to a musical and spiritual tradition brought north across the Sahara centuries ago by black slaves, are enjoying new fame as their hypnotic rhythms hook listeners across the world."
How true is this, considering many blacks in North Africa were (and still are) discounted as "slaves" from south of the Sahara instead of being original natives of the area?? This was said about the Haratin despite historical and other evidences saying otherwise. Could it be true of the Gnawa?
Posts: 8014 | From: the Tekrur in the Western Sahel | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
It is typical of the way firstly EUROPEANS view North African history and on top of that the local majority who are infused by Arab identity. MUCH of Morocco's unique heritage and culture derives from AFRICA. And indeed in many ways the 15th and 16th centuries were the END of the LONG relationship between Northern Africa and the South which saw the rise of MANY black dominated dynasties in North Africa, widespread trading networks across the Sahara and WEALTHY black kingdoms in the Sahel, Sahara and further South. It is these BLACKS who are PRECISELY the root of much of Moroccan culture to begin with. But of course, because of what has happened SINCE the 16th century, with the onslaughts of Arabs in Morocco, Mali, Mauretania and elsewhere, this history has been largely overlooked. In fact, what is happening today is that many European entertainment organizers are perpetuating myths when they travel the Sahara in search of "musical" lore. Of course they stress the "white" origin of Berber culture and treat the blacks as simply descendants of slaves, which is absolute NON sense and this is IN the Sahara, Mauretania and Mali. It is stupid how some of these folks try and pretend that white "berbers" from the North introduced the musical styles to the blacks of the Sahara and Sahel.
But anyway, ALL of Morocco's music is African and if you look you will see it:
The heavy use of the drum and chants.
Male only and female only traditional dances and chants.
Male / female songs and chants celebrating courtship.
Line/circle dancing with claps and chants.
Heavy amounts of footwork and steps in chants and dances.
And so on...
Sure, it doesn't sound uniquely African and of course other people have similar customs, but if you understand the patterns of music and dance across Africa, you will see how it fits in.
And, in terms of African spirituality, this infuses ALL PARTS of the Islamic culture of North Africa and Morocco and DEFINITELY is something that originates further South. And what people forget is that EARLY ISLAM was VERY INFUSED by traditions of magic, superstition and mysticism (much of it from Africa as well as Persia and the East) and these traditions are STILL FOUND across Africa among the various Sufi brotherhoods. In fact, many of the BERBER dances and SUFI musical traditions are just as infused with spiritual overtones as that of the Gnawa. But again, this is something that reflects more of a STEREOTYPICAL view of North Africa as a separate entity from Africa, when in fact these are primarily AFRICANS practicing forms of AFRICAN culture, with an overly of European and Asian traditions and ancestry.
Posts: 8896 | Registered: May 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
^ Absolutely. Which is the reason why the response from Takruri
quote:Originally posted by alTakruri: Stupid article heading. Makes as much sense as saying England taps European roots with Celtic revival.
Decent info in it nonetheless.
Also I agree that whenever blacks are mentioned in North Africa they are automatically assumed to be slaves from south of the desert, despite all scientific and scholarly work showing otherwise. The (black) Haratin of Morocco were not slaves. The (black) Tamashek [Tuareg] of Algeria were not slaves, and neither were the (black) Djerba of Tunisia or the (black) Siwa of Egypt-- all Berbers.
Posts: 26279 | From: Atlanta, Georgia, USA | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged |
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic