Amazigh women have transmitted their language from mother to child for millennia. They have been the safe keepers of tribal heritage through symbols and mark making in intricate tattoo, body henna, makeup, jewelry, straw weaving, pottery, and colorful tapestry.
All of these vehicles have been threatened from outside influences and oppressors. Facial tattoos were once thought of as an expression for women empowerment, beauty and earth vitality. With the introduction of Islam, tattooing has come to be viewed as impure. While the tradition of henna is still alive and practiced daily, the Amazigh symbols have been replaced by flowers and purely decorative motifs, possibly an adaptation from Indian patterns.
Villages have been gutted of their ritualistic jewelry - sold to outside vendors who came to the rural communities offering just a handful of dirhams for these masterful sacred objects. These wonders have made their way into shops and museums far from the women who have worn them in times of celebration and ritual.
The French also bought their front doors - mystically carved wood shields that bravely displayed the language of their people. The doors are now in riads throughout Morocco and have been replaced by metal doors without language.
With the increasing price of goods and a dwindling trade practice, men have had to seek work outside of the villages and plastics, polyesters, chemical soaps, packaged cookies and cheap manufactured goods have been brought into the villages. One of the largest threats of these imported goods is the plastic carpet which has replaced traditional rugs for a cheap price.
In the adobe homes of my host family at Asunfu Ntessa, these carpets stretch from wall to wall, crumbling under my feet in high traffic places, the little barbs of plastic breaking off like thorns. They hold no traditional symbols or language and do not warm in the winter as was the intention of the original rugs. These invaders may last a year or two, while the handmade rugs may last hundreds of years, carrying the language of the grandmothers and their grandmothers like a handwritten letter spun from wool.
Reviving the weaving traditions in Amazigh villages can build a resistance to capitalistic pollutants and re-introduce a rich tribal practice which incorporates song, celebration, togetherness, feasting and magic. While tapestries were not originally sold, this art can now be a lucrative outlet and an addition if not replacement to the laborious production of argon oil which holds no mark of their mother tongue.
Chelsea La Bate
www.tencentpoetry.net
