Work
A bride from Imilchil, Morocco, 1993
Berber women from the island of Djerba, whose husbands insisted they not be identified, spend their afternoons spinning wool in a low domelike structure built in the courtyard using broken pottery from the Djerba pottery industry. Men are barred from entering this private space. The spindle is dropped into the pit, rising and falling like a yo-yo without requiring the spinner to raise her arms. Tunisia, 1993
In the inner courtyard of her humble dwelling, Fatima Bint Lehsen decorates a large “couscous” plate. Beni Amar, in the Rif Mountains, Morocco, 1993
Fatima Khella of the Ait Brahim people weaves a traditional “handira”. Alamghou, in the High Atlas Mountains, Morocco, 1993
Aȉcha Oubenmou weaves a cloak typical of the Ait Haddidou people from the High Atlas Mountains in Morocco, 1993
The Berbers of the Kabylia mountains still model and design their pots according to traditions dating back to ancient Roman times. Ouadhia, Algeria, 1993
Detail from a “bakhnoug”, a large shawl woven and worn by women of the mountain regions of southern Tunisia. Two gazelles eating palm leaves decorates the otherwise plain central section. Tunisia, 1995
Aȉcha Moha Ait Kaider from Tilimi in the High Atlas Mountains wears a distinctive black-and-white “handira”. She receives strangers with her face covered, but after I spend the day photographing her and talking to her about her life and Berber customs, she reveals her tattooed face as a gesture of friendship and trust. Morocco, 1993
Zahra Belarbi spins wool using her thigh to control the long spindle. Middle Atlas Mountains near Oued Amlil, Morocco, 1994
In the remote village of Ait Mesbah beneath the Djurdjura Mountains of the Great Kabylia, this potter describes her work: “The motifs I painted on my storage jars identify me from those done by women of other villages. They represent fertility of the earth, a symbol of protection”. Algeria, 1993
Fatiha Benamar helps her sister-in-law by crushing dried leaves of the fadis plant, which are then boiled to produce a yellow-green dye that turns black on firing. Tamazint, Morocco, 1994
Large water containers are used by women for fetching, carrying, and storing water. Rural community of Beni Frassen, in the plains between the Rif and Middle Atlas mountains, Morocco, 1994
Women walk together in their most dreaded task – gathering firewood (sagebrush and thuriferous juniper). Their chanting reverberates against the barren hills. From a distance it is difficult to distinguish whether these “moving bushes” are carried by women or mules. Near Moutazili, Morocco, 1995
Skeins of synthetic fibers are hung to dry over a trellis on a rooftop above the city of Fez. Morocco, 1994
Typical adobe buildings found along the Draa Valley between Ouarzazate and the Sahara, built to be formidable and functional and to serve as Berber strongholds. Morocco, 1992
Imazighen
“Life is a loom, whose threads are the days.
God decides when to cut the threads, even though [the work] is unfinished.”
Ancient Berber Proverb
In a part of North Africa where, within miles, the backdrop can change dramatically from snow-blasted mountains to wind-scoured dunes live the Berber people of the Atlas Mountains. In the third book of my trilogy on African women, I examine the difficult lives and remarkable arts of Berber women. As modern times and modern warfare in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia have encroached on their centuries-old traditions, Berber women have begun to give up the old ways. Imazighen (free people) is a record of a people yielding to the pressures of the twentieth century.
Margaret Courtney-Clarke, 1996