The view from Assa Kasr © Walid Bendra 2017
Despite
having spent over a year in Morocco, I had never heard of the oasis town of
Assa when a friend urged me to visit in order to see Sahrawi poetry and
folklore for myself. I barely had time to pack, buy bus tickets, and book a
hotel room in time for the annual ‘mawsim’ festival, which took place from
November 28 to December 1. Assa’s mawsim, which coincides with the celebration
of Mawlid (the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday), turned out to be a multilingual
showcase of
many
semi-overlapping local histories and vernacular literatures of Morocco. Assa
also revealed a type of local multilingual I had never considered before: that
of the mingling between Hassaniya-speaking Arab nomads and their settled
Tashelhiyt-speaking Amazigh (Berber) neighbors.
After
climbing up the topmost tower of the historic Assa fortress and surveying the
natural surroundings, it immediately became clear to me why this place has
attracted waves of human settlement for centuries- from an unknown Pagan period
to Medieval Portuguese invasions. The hill hugged by the old kasr (castle)
walls declines down to a wide plateau, forming the perfect gathering place for
anything from nomads’ temporary neighborhoods to monthly markets. An oasis
feeds a line of palm trees which make the dry desert landscape appear lush, and
small garden plots dot the scattered residences adjacent to the valley.
Although tourism remains scarce, even during the mawsim, there are several
guesthouses which blend naturally with the historical architecture. Assa’s kasr
is made with petrified palm trunks as supports and beams, filled out by a
combination of mud, straw, and brick- a very different look from the famous
tile mosaics of Fez or the red walls of Marrakech.
The old
kasr, which consists of several towers, a winding wall, a fortress, and
now-crumbling residences, was built by two Amazigh tribes: the Ida Oumlil and
Ida Ounguit. No one is sure exactly when it was established, but it probably
was before the adjacent zawiya (monastery) was built in the 14th century. Assa
contains one of the oldest cemeteries in Morocco which, interestingly, is still
in use. Upon entering, the first headstones rising from the ground are marked
as recently as 2012, but, walking further and further towards the hills, the
headstones gradually become little more than smoothed slabs jabbing pointily at
the sky. There are also three domed tombs, marking the graves of local Sufi
saints. Assa has a reputation as a place of sanctity, and legend has it that
366 Muslim saints are buried in the town. Perhaps the mystique surrounding Assa
is best summarized by the 12th century Sufi work Kitab al-Ibriz, which
repeated the local legend that there are only two places where the spirits of
all of the Muslim
saints
gather together at once: in the holy city of Mecca, and in Assa, on the night
of the Mawlid.
Old grave markers in the Assa cemetery © Walid Bendra
2017
Based on
local oral histories and on a recent excavation in the Oued Noun region, it is
believed that a lost city is under the ground of Assa, evidence that it was
populated even during the pagan period. Then there are markers of bygone
Christian and Jewish populations in the symbols nailed above the doorways. Said
Aadi, who is from Assa but currently lives in Jadida and works for the Ministry
of Interior, explained that Assa was different from other Moroccan cities in
that there was not a separate Jewish quarter. In Assa, Jewish Moroccans
distinguished themselves particularly in carpentry and craftwork, partly
because their Muslim neighbors felt more comfortable having a Jewish handyman
inside the family’s private sphere than an unrelated Muslim man mingling with
the women of the household. When I asked Aadi how people knew such details
about Assa’s social history, he said that they were stories passed down through
generations.
While
geographically Assa is situated in an oasis, it is also adjacent to a political
faultline. Assa is located 100km north of the theoretical border of the Western
Sahara- a disputed territory that most Moroccans refer to as ‘The Moroccan
Sahara’ or, simply, the South of Morocco. Although Assa is not part of the
territory Sahrawi
separatists
have demanded for their own state, the town has been entangled in the conflict
by virtue of the many Sahrawis who are settled there or who have historical
ties to the oasis[1].
As if straddling this divide did not muddy the waters enough, another level of
ambiguity is reflected in the term ‘Sahrawi’ itself. While Anglophone writers
and researchers have almost exclusively used ‘Sahrawi’ to refer to the
traditionally nomadic population which speaks the Hassaniya dialect of Arabic,
many Moroccans objected to my using the term ‘Sahrawi’ in this way. They
pointed to the fact that the word literally means ‘Saharan,’ and thus a
Tashelhiyt speaker living in the village of Tantan is no less ‘Sahrawi’ than a
nomadic Hassaniya-speaker circulating the desert. However, given the cultural
politics of the region, the Moroccan government has taken more interest in
showcasing Hassaniya poetry and culture than it has in honoring the Amazigh
history of the Oued Noun region[2].
Even in Arabic, ‘Sahrawi’ still primarily signifies a Moorish man in the
oversized, billowing blue robe of the nomads or a woman in wrapped in the
flowing melhafa. In Assa, however, many people speak both Hassaniya and
Tashelhiyt and move freely between these histories and cultures. We even met a
local poet who composes in both vernaculars.
© Walid Bendra 2017
Within Morocco, Assa is best-known for the
aforementioned Sufi[3].
When the Portuguese invaded the region in the 15th century, the zawiya led a
successful armed resistance. While there are no known Portuguese literary or
historical sources which mention Assa, the resistance and the subsequent
marriage of one of the zawiya’s sheikhs to a Portuguese prisoner of war are
still alive in Assa’s local lore. The zawiya itself is still active, and plays
an important role in religious education. According to education director
‘Aamar al-Tawif, students between the ages of 7-14 come from all regions of
Morocco, as well as from Mauritania and sub-Saharan Africa, to study a
combination of Islamic subjects alongside social sciences, mathematics, and
French.
On the other side of the oasis lies the town of Assa,
which was mostly built without central planning. Here one can find the former
regional colonial office, although the building is not sign-posted or
well-maintained. According to Dr. Bouzid Laghla, there was also once a
watchtower attached to the post which, sadly, fell into disrepair that left it
unrecognizable. Lt Henri-Pierre Perrin, one of the last French officers to
guard this post, wrote L’aventure Marocain (1979) about his experiences.
Although it is difficult to find other sources which describe Perrin’s life or
his role in the colonial government, there is a news article which mentions his
kidnapping during the Moroccan struggle for independence[4].
Assa was also mentioned briefly in Orientalist Émilien Jean Renou’s Description
géographique de l’empire de Maroc (1846).
I was
struck by how well the locals had committed Assa’s history to memory, and how
everyone from passerbys to the guesthouse staff seemed to know the significance
of different structures and symbols within the kasr. For example, multiple
people pointed out that a large, smooth stone which appeared to be an ordinary
step was actually an ancient butcher’s block. At the same time, many residents
of Assa expressed deep concern about the fact that the town’s history remains
unwritten, and thus could fade with the next generation. This was the
topic of an impromptu seminar that the residents set
up in a plaza of the kasr while the official state-sponsored festivities
continued in the plateau below. With the exception of a couple of performances
of Amazigh music, the schedule of academic panels, press conferences, and
performances, along with the trade fair, were focused on Hassaniya culture-
again reflecting assumptions about who is ‘Sahrawi’.
A troupe performs the Amazigh ‘ahwash’ for Assa’s
mawsim © Walid Bendra 2017
The
performance of midih, or praise poetry, is integral to Mawlid celebrations the
world over. Midih is a form of worship which usually centers on poetically
recounting the virtues of the Prophet of Islam, although there is also midih
about Muslim saints. Given Assa’s layered history, it is unsurprising that the
Mawlid continues to be a multilingual event where many different oral
traditions are showcased together under this unifying theme. One night, an
ensemble from Tangier performed a musical variety of midih sung in Classical
Arabic while, a 15-minute walk away, an Amazigh troupe sang the ‘Ahwash’ over
banging drums and wailing flutes. The performers, decked out in traditional
white robes with sashed belts and daggers, swayed and
shrugged
in unison, and an audience member dressed in the traditional Hassani dra’a
joined them, melding in effortlessly. The students of the zawiya also stayed up
reciting a traditional oeuvre of midih: poems including the Mimiya by Abu Faras
Hamdati, Busiri’s Hamza, and Bin Malik’s Alfiya- which, al-Tawif explained, are
the poems recited on the Mawlid throughout Morocco. The mawsim concluded with a
large ceremonial slaughter of a camel on Friday and then late into the night
ensembles sung tributes to the Prophet in Hassaniya.
To revisit the fear of Assa’s residents: is the
history of this beautiful oasis crossroads still unwritten? Although Assa does
not currently have the well-researched, verified, and academically sound
history book it deserves, this characterization is a slight exaggeration. Dr.
Bouzid Laghla wrote his dissertation on the oral histories of Assa’s zawiya,
and the famous architect
Salima Naji– who has
been charged with restoring the Kasr- produced the book Ksar d’Assa in
2012. However, the history of the city does remains incomplete without hearing
the local stories that are still so alive to the people from here. Perhaps Assa
is not exceptional in this regard.
Assa’s
mawsim concluded with a ceremonial slaughter of a camel. © Walid Bendra 2017
About the
Author: July Blalack
July Blalack is researching North
African literature for the European Research Council's MULOSIGE project. She
holds a Masters degree from the University of Virginia and her history of
Mauritanian prose was recently published in 'The Oxford Handbook of Arab
Novelistic Traditions.'
- See Walid Bendra’s online portfolio for more pictures of the Assa Mawsim.
- Paper: “Poetics of Diaspora: Sahrawi Poets and Postcolonial Transformations of a Trans-Saharan Genre in Northwest Africa” by Tara F. Deubel, published inSaharan Crossroads (features an interview with Mohamed Jghagha, a Hassaniya-speaking poet from Assa).
- Podcast: “The art of praise poetry in Moroccan literature” presented by Dr. Chokri al-Bakri (in Arabic).
- Blog feature: “Mythology: The Assa zawiya in the popular imagination, a legend of holiness” (in Arabic)
- News feature: “The tribes of Oued Noun harmonize between the Amazigh and the Hassani without any tension” (in Arabic)
- News feature: “Assa Kasr: a journey through the history of a great place with a rich memory” (in Arabic)
Notes
[1] According to Jacob Mundy, Assa and
adjacent cities were attacked by the Polisario Front in 1984 (see Conflict
and Insurgency in the Contemporary Middle East, p. 219 and 224 ) and L.E.
Smith notes that separatist activity has come from Assa, including prominent
Sahrawi independence activist Ali Tamek (see The Sahara: Past, Present, and
Future, p. 298).
[2] For more information about the
trend of the Moroccan state sponsoring festivals and events promoting Hassaniya
poetry and culture, see Dr. Tara F. Deubel’s chapter in Saharan Crossroads.
[3] In addition to being a description
we heard repeatedly, this was also asserted by al-Mukhtar al-Soussi in an Hespressarticle from 2014.
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