Amazigh: The Berbers of Morocco
FEUDING
In contrast to the view of feuding as dysfunctional, Hart observes: “It can be , and has been, argued that feuds and wars, far from promoting the disintegration of the tribal system, provided in fact the main force that kept it going. This state of affairs led French and Spanish investigators of a generation ago to categorize the tribal system as “organized anarchy.” (Hart 1976, p.12) His explanation as to why feuding developed to such an extreme degree in the Rif is partly ecological, overpopulation which exceeded the carrying capacity of an arid, infertile landscape. Faced with insufficient arable land, and a lack of other viable alternatives for making a living, Rifian men turned on each other.... Ironically, the regime credited with bringing feuding to an end in the Rif was the independent Berber republic established by Abd al-Krim in 1921. To this modernizing revolutionary, the Berber tradition of blood feuds was anathema, the height of backwardness and self-defeating fratricide. As he successfully took on the daunting challenge of driving Spain out of northern Morocco, he refused to tolerate his warriors killing each other for reasons that he personally considered barbaric and un-Islamic. Severe punishments were imposed on anyone who violated the new ban on all feuding.
SAINTS, SHRINES AND MARKETPLACES
One of the most distinctive aspects of Moroccan Berber tribal society is the existence of past and present “saints.” These holy men (and women) have had a profound impact on Berber history and culture, and continue to exert influence today. In the Atlas Mountains they are known as igurramen, in the Rif, imrabdhen. These saints founded lineages, which occupy their own communities to this day, continuing to provide the tribes with new saints with each generation. The saints play a key religious and social role in tribal life, while they oversee the burial sites of their ancestors, which are considered holy shrines and destinations for pilgrimages from the mountain villages. We should stress at this point the importance of the shrines as sacred ground among the Berber tribes. The shrines are usually the places where the saints are buried, but may also include places where they lived and worshiped. Some are places where the saints worked miracles. No violence or crime is permitted in these holy places, not even armed men. Therefore, during the days of endemic tribal warfare they were the only ground where rivals could meet in peace to negotiate. For the same reason, they were the only place where recurring markets could be held, since only there could feuding tribesmen gather to buy and sell local and outside produce with assurance they would not be attacked by their rivals. Thus, in a very real sense, the weekly markets, which continue to be a fundamental aspect of rural life in Morocco, developed from the shrines of the saints. Colonial administrators realized the importance of these weekly markets and used them to make proclamations to the masses of tribesmen that would concentrate there from their homes in the mountains. Both the Spaniards and the French eventually sought to maximize that advantage for colonial administration. They set up offices on the sites of the weekly marketplaces. Over time, permanent commerce developed in what once had been a weekly affair and towns grew up in the vicinity of the shrine of a saint.