The tribe of Ait Atta

The Ait Atta are a large Berber tribe currently spread over three provinces of central Morocco: Azilal, Ouarzazate and Errachidia.

Origin and location

For millennia, the Ait Atta live on an immense territory which extends from the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas until the Algerian borders. They are organized in confederation whose capital is Saghro. Each year, they elect an Amaghar who is responsible for managing the community, distributing resources (including irrigation water and pastures), resolving conflicts and delivering justice with other local notables.

Djebel Saghro

The historical identity of Ait Atta is linked to a character named Dadda (or grandfather Atta) considered as the common ancestor and the spiritual father, because of his relationship with the saint, Moulay Abdellah Ben Hssain, founder of the zaouïa Amagharyine.

Nomadism and sedentary lifestyle

Most of the sedentary or nomadic inhabitants of Jebel Sarghro belong to the Ait Atta tribes. The Berbers Ait Atta were the last to resist the French troops who pacified the Moroccan protectorate between the two wars. Today, these shepherds transhumance to escape the rigors of winter in the High Atlas in search of the best pastures for their herds of goats and camels. And when the Saghro becomes hot, the nomads leave for the central High Atlas. In the souks of Kelaâ M'Gouna or Boulmane du Dadès, they sell onions, potatoes, zucchini and buy flour, fresh or confit meat, honey dates, sugar loaves, tea ... for the journey.

In the Saghro, some Ait Atta built houses of raw stone, dug wells, planted almond trees, cultivated wheat, barley and various vegetables. Others have constituted herds of goats and sheep, caravans of camels. Sedentary in majority today, semi-nomadic or nomadic ... they are perhaps 200'000 or 300'000 individuals.

Remains of dwellings (Houses made of dried clay)

Ait Atta's resistance to French colonization
The most heroic episode of this resistance to colonization is late 1932, early 1933.
This is the famous battle of Bou Gafer. Nearly two months of fierce fighting in the middle of winter to take a stronghold of snow and rock. On one side, several thousand men, many guns and four squadrons of forty-four aircraft based in Ouarzazate. On the other, led by the Baslam brothers, a little less than a thousand summarily armed nomads, women and children.

The many irreducible persons removed from the Sarghro do not miss any opportunity to show their hostility; they threaten reprisals to the notables, who are trying to cope with the French. To finish, the Command decides, in February 1933, to settle the question of the Sarghro. Cut off from any communication with the outside of the massif, harassed even in the few water points, the Ait Atta had to undergo maneuvers of encirclement, shelling of artillery and aerial bombardments. They are obliged to capitulate on March 25, 1933.

It will be the last of the great feats of colonization in Morocco. But tribes avoid dishonor. Assu u Baslam went, accompanied by the boos of the women, who wanted to fight to the death. All Ait Atta tribes retain the right to self-administer outside the glawi command.

CEREMONIES OF MARRIAGE IN MOROCCO "AIT ATTA"

Weddings are collective. They are celebrated on the occasion of Aid el-kebir (or Tafaska Taxatart).
A few days before the party, the women will grind the grain at the water mills. The girls of marriageable age help their mother, they come and go in front of groups of young people who observe them and make their choice among them. They will follow them later when they go to make wood or pick grass in the fields and gardens and to whatever he wants the pretender will declare his faith.
Each fiance slaughters a beast in his hand and gives his groomsmen some pieces of meat that they put in the hood of their burnous. The beast is divided into four quarters and each quarter into seven pieces.
The next day, at sunrise, each fiance sends to the girl her groomsmen led by a mule with her coat and covered with a carpet. They find the bride ready, her hands dyed with henna, her hair combed. They jog her on the mule and raise up behind her one of her younger brothers, if she has one, then they walk her around the walls of the little ksar which they make him do three times around with the women of the house, of relatives and his mother.

The other processions are similarly organized with their fiancee, at about the same time, and turn without attention to the procession preceding or following.
One sings way making words of this kind: "warro wa warro ya arro", in which returns the term "erro", put to "overcome"; it is indeed of struggle that it is a question.
To the fiancée of the first group who stops at the entrance of the ksar his three completed towers, a bowl containing milk is presented, and three times he sprinkles this milk with the upper lintel of the door.
The men and betrothed remained in the ksar and while the bride indulges in these sprinkling rituals, they close the door, refusing the entrance of the ksar to the small processions that have joined. A struggle begins between them and the men. When we consider that it has lasted a sufficient time that leaves thevictory to the engaged, we engage negotiations on both sides. The men give the winners one or two parts of the meat they have used. The deal concluded, the great gate of Ksar opens and the processions enter the small city in the middle of noisy demonstrations, songs, gunshots, tambourines and go to the Arahbi (rectangular enclosure sometimes filled with courts where, at night, pack animals are sheltered).
Under one of these courtyards, a few days before the weddings, a long bench with palm branches was laid on which mats and carpets were spread. This bench is reserved for fiancées.
The fiancées, on their mules, thus enter the Arahbi. The men go down by carrying them in the arms so that their feet do not tread the ground and install them on the bench in the place which is reserved for them. Behind each of them hangs from a stake, stuck in the wall, the various objects that constitute the trousseau that their father gave, and among these objects, we note more particularly a kind of musette, Tahrit, closing almonds, walnuts, dates and a braided rope of white, red and black threads.
They are veiled, arms trimmed with bracelets and hands henna-hued. In front of them, the guests, men and women, organize themselves to dance and sing the Ahidous.

The fiancées thus remain seated on their seats for several days and attend various ceremonies celebrated in their honor.
One of them, called Aba3ya, is on the third day. The horsemen enter the ksar and go, one after the other, to greet them by rearing their mount which falls the feet of front on the bench of the fiancées. These put henna stains on the chamfer and chest of the horse and give the rider almonds and dates they draw from their bag-musette.
The consummation of the marriage takes place the third night in the house of the husband where the fiancées are led, without song and without noise, by two men, some relatives and the mother of the young man. After that we bring them back to the Arahbi, on the bench, we proceed to their toilet; the garment stained with the blood of the hymen is spread on their knees. They receive the congratulations of the assistants who sing their praises and say auspicious words.
On the seventh day, when the wedding is over, the brides dressed in their finery will for the first time draw water from the fountain, each with a jug.

Text source: mellab.over-blog.com/article-2215286.html; fr.wikipedia.org, www.lefigaro.fr; irchouq.skyrock.com/376156376-Mariage-chez-ait-Atta.html
Sources of photos: http://expertmat.fr; http://www.musikamazigh.com; http://www.lefigaro.fr; http://www.i-trekkings.net; http://www.randonneemaroc.com; http://nezumi.dumousseau.free.fr; http://blog.cheaptents.com; http://www.palgeo.ch; http://www.judaisme-marocain.org; http://farm2.static.flickr.com .; http://58.img.v4.skyrock.com http://www.kasbahabaha.com; http://c3.img.v4.skyrock.net