A Deeper Meaning to It All

Morocco’s ceremonial arts of music and dance incorporate numerous artistic traditions to celebrate life and death and are some of the best times to see them displayed.  Morocco stands as one of the very few surviving examples of ancient world civilizations, unchanged for centuries. However, modernization has not completely over looked Morocco, and is now rapidly proceeding. The traditional arts and antique pieces are vanishing in reaction to changes in social structure, craft specialization, and the tourist market demand. However, Morocco has not evolved as quickly as other more southern African states, keeping many of their traditions intact. Festivals provide an ideal opportunity to witness firsthand accounts of the richness of Morocco’s artistic traditions and heritage. This in large part is because of the spiritual and ceremonial context the arts are applied to during ceremony which expresses not only the importance of arts in culture, but spirituality in the arts.

The traditions of art and craft are displayed in their most vibrant, personal, religious and communal activities during festivals, which are meant to have both religious and economic in their intent (Jereb 1996). Men and women wear their most colourful, decorative, and elaborate clothing to display the wealth of their family; men play music and sing songs dedicated to their god; both sexes dance to a rhythm that puts them into a trance; and special markets open selling everything from “camels to jewelry” (Jereb 1996, 137). Moroccan people will dedicate the celebrations to their gods, which they have many of, throughout the year – some individually or as a group. Saints play a major role during the development and practice of artistic traditions, each one having their own patron saint (Jereb 1996). For example, Berber women who spin and weave textiles consider it to be very important to acknowledge and give homage to the local saint to receive help with the work of weaving materials. Offerings women may make to their saints and gods of their craft come in the form of distaff of wool, or other similar tributes regarding the creation of craft. In exchange, the women may take away some dirt from the shine they pray at and work it into the rug or fabric they are creating as a way to implement good fortune and positive spiritual energy into what they are creating.

How they do this is through the use of prayer and careful consideration for the creation of the textiles. Their prayer, “spin, spin, my little distaff, God and his envoy watch over thee” ensures the quality of the wool and the protecting from evil spirits which might work their way into the textile and bring bad luck on the weaving (Jereb 1996, 138). It is, in a way, their duty to ensure the spiritual quality of the textile throughout the entire process of the textile creation. This includes the spinning of the wool, dyeing of the yarn, and weaving of the rugs. By carefully protecting the material from bad spirits, djoun, the weaver creates a material that is a protective shield from both the physical and spiritual world for the owner of the textile. The spiritual significance of the craft goes beyond just the material that goes into the textile, but everything which comes into contact with it. As the story goes, the tools and loom used for weaving were gifts from Allah to Fatima, the goddess of femininity and the mythic ancestor of women (Jereb 1996). Beyond the authenticity of the story, the existence of the tale for where tools for creating textiles came from signifies the importance the objects are.

Because we are talking about ceremony, I should mention performance and music in regards to how spirituality is so important in all forms of creation. Women find other ways of becoming closer and better acquainted with their gods other than through prayer and paying tribute. They will create music, often on the drum and other percussion instruments such as shakers. Men are traditionally the players of more complex musical instruments such as oboes (ghaita), flutes and fiddles (Jereb 1996). However women find ways of making their own music in order to hold their own spiritual celebrations and rituals that are exclusively meant for women. The most important musical instrument for the Berbers is the human body (Jereb 1996). The activity of clapping, chanting, singing, and stomping of feet is central to their music, accompanied by very view musical instruments. The instruments they do use consist of drums like the guedra, bendir, deff, tbal and long necked lute the gimbrid are very characteristic of southern Morocco (Jereb 1996). A very popular dance performed by women is the guedra, named because of the guedra drum used in the dance. A veiled woman will stand on her knees in the middle of a circle of women. She will begin by creating sensual movements with her arms, hands and fingers, moving until the dance consumes her entire body, gradually unveiling herself¸ eventually falling into a trance that in some cases has her collapse to the ground. The practice of the guerdra, and other trance inducing dances, are meant to bring the women closer to the spiritual world.  Acting as a gate way into the spiritual world, performance through music and dance brings the women closer to their gods, saints, and ancestors, building a connection between the real world and the spiritual world.

This connection, this interwoven bond between the spiritual world and real world are as tightly entwined as the threads that create the beautiful textiles so characteristic of Morocco. Spirituality is an incredibly integral part of creativity to Moroccan people; the two could never be separated. This to me is what makes Moroccan art and craft so much more powerful than other forms of creativity, because there is so much more depth to it comparatively to Western decorative house wares. Even if the purpose of the craft is utilitarian, so much more goes into the making of the piece that it becomes something more than an object to be dressed in or walk upon. It is a spiritual connection of the weaver and every other weaver before her, laying out a history as long as the stories from which the loom came from.