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The Importance of Tribal Markets in the Commercial Life of the Countryside of North-West Morocco1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

Walter Fogg
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Extract

Concerning trading in the countryside of North-West Morocco, Michaux-Bellaire and Salmon writing in 1906 about the Ḫloṭ and Tlīq tribes, state:

‘Toute la vie commerciale de la tribu s'écoule cependant sur le marché hebdomadaire. Si on trouve en effet quelques industries, d'ailleurs assez peu développées, dans les douars, le commerce y est totalement inconnu. On n'y rencontre même pas, comme dans quelques dchour djebaliens, de rares baqqâl (épiciers), ou des établissements publics où les paysans, la journée accomplie, viennent boire quelques tasses de thé à la menthe, en fumant le kif’;

and Michaux-Bellaire, writing a few years later about the Jbâla tribes, states that the imported goods, tea, sugar, candles, spices, matches, cotton fabrics, and imported fine-wool fabrics,

‘se trouvent également dans les villages d'une certaine importance’

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 12 , Issue 4 , October 1939 , pp. 445 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1939

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References

page 445 note 2 Michaux-Bellaire, E., and Salmon, G., ‘Les Tribus arabes de la vallée du Lekkoûs’, Archives Marocaines, publication de la Mission Scientifique du Maroc, vol. vi, nos. iii-iv, pp. 251–2, Paris, 1906.Google Scholar

page 445 note 3 Originally encampments of tents arranged in a circle, but now used, by the Arab tribes of the Western plains of North-West Morocco, of permanent settlements of houses and huts, in many cases without a single tent.

page 445 note 4 Italics are mine.

page 445 note 5 Villages of the Jbâla tribes composed of thatched dwellings.

page 445 note 6 Michaux-Bellaire, E., ‘Quelques tribus de montagne de la région du Habt’, Archives Marocaines, vol. xvii, pp. 180–1, Paris, 1911.Google Scholar

page 446 note 1 Transliteration of Arabic words is in accordance with the system used by Westermarck, E. in Ritual and Belief in Morocco, vol. i, pp. ix–xi, London, 1926.Google Scholar

page 446 note 2 See Fig. 5, Fogg, W., op. tit.

page 446 note 3 The village of Dar Bennsdūq near the Jbel Ḥbῑb tribe Tuesday market, with a very good reputation for iron goods, is composed predominantly of families whose male members are blacksmiths. Tribesmen from far and near go to this village for all sorts of iron goods, and in addition these wares are sold at many tribal markets, as well as at the nearby Tuesday market. But although not an isolated example, this village is of a quite exceptional type.

page 447 note 1 Antimony (kḥūl), so extensively used by the women of the towns for darkening their eye-lids, is not used by the country women; instead they use the fine soot deposited on a knife which has first been dipped in oil and then held in the flame of a candle.

page 448 note 1 That this was exclusively the calling of a Mussulman, is related to the belief that wool, coming from a holy animal, has baraka (holiness), as also has sräk; therefore, for religious reasons, these could not be exchanged with a Jew.

page 449 note 1 The author has in preparation for publication separately a detailed study of these wares.