Oral Knowledge in Berber Women's Expressions
of the Sacred

Fatima Sadiki

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Poems/Songs

Berber female poets have always existed. Mririda N’Ait Atiq, for example, is an illiterate monolingual poet whose poetry was recorded around 1927 by a French scholar.5 Mririda N’Ait Atiq expressed love at a time when women had no public voice and when expressions of love, even by men, was shunned:

In the nights bathed by the moon
He will call me Mririda, Mririda,
The soft nickname that is so dear to me For him I will release my sharp ’zrarit’, My strident, prolonged ’zrarit’,
That men admire and women envy.

Although these lines express Mririda’s desire to please “men,“ the real subject matter is that of self, a rather unconventional theme within the overall Moroccan culture. She also says of a man who abandoned her:

He took back my jewels,
Did he ever give them me?
You who once were my mother-in-law, Say to your son that
Even his name I do not recall.

In these lines Mririda voices her dissent and condemnation of a husband who exploited and then divorced her. She accepted the divorce as a regain of freedom. The fact that Mririda addresses her mother-in-law, another woman, attests to the notorious power that mother-in-law has in Moroccan culture. This is a strong woman-to-woman language. In the text, the poet speaks of the jewels given by the groom to the bride upon contracting a marriage. These jewels remain the property of the husband who takes them back in cases of divorce. ’Did he ever give them to me?’ asks the poet; a simple question that raises the whole issue of Moroccan women’s legal rights.

Women are the artists in Berber communities (Becker 1996). Weaving (azda) is a woman’s art and traditionally, every tribe, sometimes every family had its own carpet weaving design (Chafik 1982). Berber women sang beautiful verse during carpet weaving. The following lines are an example:

Bless you azda
So that you be peace.
A well-weaved carpet
is like a Pacha in front of his tea tray
With a carpet in front of fantasias
His house full of goods and wherever his there is happiness

Oh bee God gave you the craft of weaving

You produced a weaving that no fingers made.

Songs like the above are not related just to the activities being performed; they are usually popular songs that are known in the community. When asked, these women often replied that singing made them forget about the “harshness“ of life and about the “passing of time.“ As working in fields or weaving are generally considered strenuous jobs, this type of songs often creates solidarity among women and make them valorize their work.

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Oral Knowledge in Berber Women’s Expressions of the Sacred

by Fatima Sadiki