Oral Knowledge in Berber Women's Expressions
of the Sacred

Fatima Sadiki


 Conclusion

Berber women’s oral expressions are a deeply culture-bound knowledge that, while transmitting preoccupations of the self, transcends them to the level of the local community, the nation, as well as the spiritual. As such, this experiential knowledge does not need a formal canon to exert transforming power on both the self and the environment. In producing oral and symbolic knowledge of a specific type, Berber women are not mere conduits of this knowledge; they are social critics who give us accounts of underlying social and historical trends and use analytical tools. This is why their knowledge has persevered. Scholars of literature and culture need to go beyond their ideological blinkers and look at orality as a complex and dynamic phenomenon rather than as the primitive condition from which written cultures emerged. Only then will we have a more adequate account of “world literature“ and “world culture,“ going beyond the one-sided gendered and class-based view that many scholars have conventionally presupposed.

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11


Notes

1 Speech in Moroccan culture is inherently dependent on the private and public dichotomy. Public and private speeches are two distinct acts: whereas the former is geared towards keeping appearances and, thus, is far from reflecting facts, the latter is more personal and direct.

2 Four main languages are used in Morocco: Standard (written) Arabic, French, Berber, and Moroccan Arabic. Whereas the former two have written versions, the latter two are still perceived as “oral“ languages in spite of the fact that Berber has its own Alphabet and started to be taught in some schools since the end of the last century, and the Moroccan Arabic may be written in the Arabic script.

3 Most of them identify with Egyptian films because the latter are channeled through the typically oral Egyptian dialect.

4 Although Berber has now a written form and is is being introduced in the Moroccan educational system, it is still considered an oral language.

5 Mririda’s poems were translated from Berber into French and published in 1959 by René Euloge in a book called Les Chants de la Tassaout. Some of her poetry was translated from French into English by Sadiqi (2003).


Bibliography

Becker, C. (2006). Amazigh Arts in Morocco.Women Shaping Berber Identity. Austin University of Texas Press.

Brett, M. and E. Fentress.(1996). The Berbers. Oxford: Blackwell.
Chafik, M. (1982). Pour l’Elaboration du Berbère ’Classique’à Partir du Berbère Courant.

In Actes de la 1ère Rencontre in Actes de l’Université d’Eté ’Agadir, pp. 191-197. Ennaji, M. (2005). Multilingualism, Cultural Identity and Education in Morocco. New York: Springer.


Folley, J. M. (1991). The Theory of Oral Composition. Bloomington: IUP, Chapters 1 & 2.

Henige, D. (1988). “Oral, but Oral What? The Nomenclatures of Orality and Their Implications” in Oral Tradition, 3/1-2 (1988): 229-38.


Ibn Khaldun, A. The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History. Tr. Franz Rosenthal, Bollingen Series XLIII. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1967 3 Vols.

Kapchan, D. (1996). Gender on the Market. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.


Mack, B. (2004). Muslim Women Sing: Hausa Popular Song. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.


Marçais, G. (2003). La Berbérie Musulmane etl’Orient au Moyen Age. Casablanca : Editions Afrique Orient.


Ong, W. (1999). Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, p 12.


Peyron, M. (2003). Women as Brave as Men.Berber Heroines of the Moroccan Middle Atlas.
Ifrane: Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane.


Rausch, M. (2006). “Ishelhin Women Transmitters of Islamic Knowledge and Culture in Southwestern Morocco“. In The Journal of North African Studies Vol. 11, No. 2, June.


Sadiqi, F. (2003). Women, Gender and Language in Morocco. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers.
−. (2009). Women Writing Africa.The Northern Region. New York: The Feminist Press.

Schaeffer, S. (1985). Patience and Power: Women’s Lives in a Moroccan Village. Rochester: Schenkman Books, INC. Journal of Contemporary Thought, 35 (Summer 2012).

Essays in this Forum

Rethinking the Global South
by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

From Indian Literature to World Literature: A Conversation with Satya P. Mohanty
by Rashmi Dube Bhatnagar and Rajender Kaur

Asia in My Life
by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

The Global South and Cultural Struggles: On the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Organization
by Duncan Mceachern Yoon

The Fault Lines of Hindi and Urdu
by Sanjay Kumar

Reframing Colonialism and Modernity: An Endeavour through Sociology and Literature
by Gurminder K. Bhambra

Varieties of Cultural Chauvinism and the Relevance of Comparative Studies
by Tilottoma Misra

Literature to Combat Cultural Chauvinism: A Response
by Shivani Jha

Is There an Indian Way of Thinking about Comparative Literature?
by E. V. Ramakrishnan

Modernity and Public Sphere in Vernacular
by Purushottam Agrawal

West Indian Writers and Cultural Chauvinism
by Jerome Teelucksingh

Oral Knowledge in Berber Women’s Expressions of the Sacred

by Fatima Sadiki