Proprietors of Berber Identity

      The Berbers, being the founders and distributors of Moroccan textile weaving, are considered to be the most ornate and accomplished textile weavers. It embodies everything they are, both visually and socially. The women are the ones who display the creative art work on their bodies like living art works, and in their homes - a place for relaxation and comfort not utilitarian activity like the working world, which is almost exclusively reserved for me. They drape themselves in embroidered shawls, cover their floors with intricate carpets, cover their faces with tattoos and their hands with henna, and dance the nights away with each other in beautiful and glittering belly dance costumes. In Berber culture, it is the women who carry their ethnic identity by up keeping these practices and displaying the art work in their world and on their body, making the female body a public symbol for Berber identity.

        “Ethnic identity” in the way I am using it in this context, means group membership, which is often traced through the male line, and the symbols displayed on the women’s bodies link those women to their fertility lines. “Since ethnic identity is a process that is subject to historical, political, and social dynamics….women’s arts have been transformed from localized ethnic symbols that represent a transnational Berber identity” (Becker 2006, 2). The identity of Berber culture is at a small level of risk at the moment, something the women are ensuring does not fall apart, and by extension allowing them access to pick and choose what creative liberties they take with the crafts.

        In modern Morocco, the Berber men have been leaving the rural country side which the semi-nomadic Berber people typically inhabit. They leave in the hopes that, like many before them, by setting off for the city they may be able to find employment to bring money to their home (Hoffman January 29, 2008). The women are left at home, to tend to the house and the children, and during that time they continue to practice the art of weaving and embroidery (Hoffman January 29, 2008). The culture of the art lives on in the women. As the men move to modernity and adapt the imported Western culture that is taking over so much of the world, the women in rural Morocco stay true to their cultural identity and continue the art they have practiced for so many centuries.

        Textile weaving and embroidery are one of the most ancient forms of artistic expression in Moroccan culture. It “is the greatest artistic tradition,” what with so many artisans practicing the art (Jereb 1996, 41). The Berbers were the ones who introduced the art to Morocco back in the 16^th century when they first arrived in North Africa, bringing a primitive form of weaving with them which was “both utilitarian and magical or religious….” (Jereb 1996, 41). Throughout the centuries, the textiles would be traded with merchant ships from Black North Africa, Arab and European countries in exchange for goods, spreading the skills and knowledge needed for cloth making (Jereb 1996, 41).Every stitch, line of thread and weave of a loom become a living history of the people who made the elaborate textiles we see today.

        Carrying the burden ethnic identity can be very tiring for women; however it provides them with a certain level of control upon their own social culture. “…women’s control over the visual symbols of Berber ethnic identity grants them power and prestige yet also restricts them to specific roles in the society” (Becker 2006, 1). By extension, the women influence the outside world by publicly displaying their crafts, clothing, rugs, shawls, and other wares. “They play an important role in their communities by providing commodities such as tents, clothing, rugs, sacks, and ceramic pots, in addition to acting as healers, marriage brokers, midwives, cooks, agriculturalists, and pastoralists” (Becker 2006, 5). The many crafts and utilitarian activities which the women do solidify their status as proprietors of symbolic public identity. Women, as members of Berber society, embody the architect of nomadic societies, with their arts being the gendered symbols of womanhood, ethnic identity, and female creativity. 

Works Cited

                Becker, Cynthia J. Amazigh Arts in Morocco: Women Shaping Berber Identity. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.

                Hoffman, Katherine E. We Share Walls. Wiley-Blackwell Publishing, January 29, 2008.

                Jereb, James F. Arts & Crafts of Morocco. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1996.