Glossary

Market crier.

Daily life

Used inWater, fields and markets

Literally “slipper”: a chief's luck. Bad harvests or a defeat could lead to his removal and a new election.

Institutions and leadersExpressions

Used inElecting a chief: the amghar n-ufilla

Penalty for a broken oath.

Customary law

“Year of peace” granted to a killer, within set limits and guaranteed by each section, according to the customary code of the Aït Atta of the Rteb published by Ahda; outside those limits, revenge went unpunished.

Customary law

Annual pilgrimage-fair at the shrine of an important saint. Hart mentions several in Aït Atta country: at Igherm Amazdar, at the tombs of Kuya Brahim near the Bougafer, of Kuya Lahsin near Ikniouen, of Sidi Mhand n-Ifrutant at Alnif; the Aït Atta regard buying and selling there as secondary.

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Collective pasture with rigidly fixed opening and closing dates; the agudal n-Ilimshan, for instance, is shared with the Ihansalen according to a calendar.

Herding and transhumanceCustomary law

Saint, holy man; the descendants of Mulay 'Abdallah bin l-Hsain attended the election of the top chief and kept the war banner.

Beliefs and saints

Used inElecting a chief: the amghar n-ufilla · Islam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Collective dance and poetry, sung by men and women. According to Hart, among the Aït Atta the two sexes stand in parallel lines facing each other, and only the men accompany the singing on large frame drums (allun), at a measured pace; at weddings the ahidus begins once the bride is settled in the groom's house. After 1933 Assou Oubasslam, who had become qaid, forbade women in his command to dance it except at weddings, despite a French attempt to oppose this. Syntheses also mention it at naming ceremonies and on full-moon nights.

Music and dancePoetry

Used inFamilies, marriages and names · Amazigh music of the south-east: voices, memory and commitment

Council, assembly of notables; according to Hart, real power remained in the hands of this very egalitarian assembly, each member of which had to know customary law well.

Institutions and leaders

Common or collective land.

Land and harvestTerritory

Sharecropper receiving one fifth of the harvest. Among the Ait Bu Iknifen of Talmast, ikhammasen from the lay lineages of the Ihansalen helped with the barley harvest.

Land and harvest

Used inWater, fields and markets

“Big man”, notable; Hart also gives amqqran, pl. imqqranen, with the same meaning.

Institutions and leaders

Frame drum (a wooden hoop with goatskin stretched over one side and a snare); among the Aït Atta, only men play it in the ahidous (Hart, p. 93).

Music and dance

“Safeguard”: a guarantee of safety granted by the authority to those who stop fighting. French sources call the acts concluded under this name “submission”; the agreement of 25 March 1933 was concluded, according to Gérardin, on “aman conditions” negotiated by the Aït Atta leaders (see chapter 9).

History and conquest

Itinerant poet of central Morocco; Peyron records, among the Ait Atta, the quip of an amdyaz mocking neighbours reluctant to join the fight against the conquest.

Poetry

Used in“Sell your lambs”

Elected chief, at various levels of the tribal organisation. The term also means “elder”.

Institutions and leaders

Used inElecting a chief: the amghar n-ufilla

“Land chief”: local chief of a group of clans, elected every spring by the same rotation principle. He watched over fields and irrigation channels and collected fines used for common needs.

Institutions and leaders

Used inElecting a chief: the amghar n-ufilla

“The chief from above”: top chief of the Aït Atta, elected in theory every year at Admam, near Igharm Amazdar, by rotation and complementarity between the five fifths. Essentially a war-chief, he represented the Aït Atta to the neighbouring tribes. Spillmann calls him shaikh al-'âm, “chief of the year”.

Institutions and leaders

Used inElecting a chief: the amghar n-ufilla · The Aït Ouahlim (Aït Wahlim)

Protection granted to a stranger for the time of his passage. The expression bab n-umur, “the man of the lance”, designates among the Aït Atta the head of a tribe or section according to Gélard, the representative of a lineage according to Hart.

Customary law

Used inProtecting, making amends, integrating: pacts

The oath administrator, who pronounces the formula that the accused and his co-jurors must repeat without error, barefoot, in their shirts and unarmed.

Customary law

Used inThe collective oath, vendetta and blood money

Clothing and furnishings the bride takes to the groom's house.

Kinship and marriageDress and objects

Post-harvest prayer and offering to saints, in the Saghro.

Beliefs and saintsLand and harvest

Speech, and one's given word. Among the Aït Atta, a society of oral tradition, a pledged word has according to M. Hamdane an inviolable status: “Yuf ad tṛṛẓ takatt nnk, ula iṛṛẓa wawal nnk”, “better your hearth be broken than your word”. For a marriage deed one says “sskrn awal”, “they made the word”.

ExpressionsDaily life

A man's agnates, who swear with him and, in the event of murder, accompany him into exile for three days before returning to negotiate blood money.

Customary lawKinship and marriage

Used inThe collective oath, vendetta and blood money

“The people of 'Atta”: a confederation of south-eastern Morocco that claims the founding figure of Dadda 'Atta. Ayt (aït) means “people of”: the name expresses a shared belonging, not a demonstrated biological descent.

Confederation and groups

Used inOrigins and expansion · From holm oaks to palm trees

The Aït Atta “of the shade” (umalu), north of the sub-Atlas furrow, and those “of the sun” (tafuyt), to the south, who also called themselves “Aït Atta of the Sahara”.

Confederation and groupsTerritory

Used inOrigins and expansion · The Saghro and Aït Atta country

Confederation of the eastern High Atlas (Ait Merghad, Ait Hdiddou, Ait Izdeg, Ait Yahya) formed in the 17th century to check the expansion of the Ait Atta, its historical rivals. Folk etymology: “those who found peace”.

Confederation and groupsHistory and conquest

Customary law. Duclos uses the Arabic term qâ'ida (“fundamental rule”) and distinguishes this old law from the “Berber customary justice” instituted by the 1930 dahir.

Customary law

Used inJudging: from the local assembly to the court of appeal · After 1933: administering the Saghro

The Ramadan fast (also uzum), the best-observed pillar according to Hart; no collective oath was ever sworn during that month.

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Market weigher.

Daily life

Used inWater, fields and markets

Lineage headman, appointed by the clan chief (amghar n-tmazirt).

Kinship and marriageInstitutions and leaders

Blessing, divinely granted luck. Gérardin writes that when Bournazel fell his men broke ranks, believing that “Allah's baraka had abandoned the chief”.

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints · Facing the Makhzen: distance, wars and negotiations

Flintlock rifle; Hart also records sasbu (from French “chassepot”) for the 1874 Gras rifle and tatsaʿit for the 1886 Lebel rifle.

Dress and objectsHistory and conquest

Blood money paid to the victim's agnates, the central mechanism for ending a vendetta (tamaddit). Hart devotes precise pages to it (1981, pp. 200-201, according to Peyron).

Customary law

Used inThe collective oath, vendetta and blood money

Qur'anic school teacher. According to Hart he always comes from outside the community, hired for a year: he teaches the Qur'an to the boys, leads the Friday prayer, used to write the qanun in Arabic and receives a share of the tithe.

Beliefs and saintsInstitutions and leaders

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Moroccan auxiliary unit commanded by French officers. At Bougafer, goums, partisans and harkas made up the bulk of the assault troops; Gérardin cites the 7th, 16th, 17th, 21st, 28th and 34th goums.

History and conquest

Fortified village or collective granary of earth and stone, often several storeys high (Arabic equivalent: qsar, ksar).

ArchitectureLand and harvest

Used inThe Saghro and Aït Atta country · Igharm Amazdar, the capital · Igherman: fortified villages and granaries

“The bone”: lineage. Each lineage had a representative (bab n-imurn) appointed by the clan chief.

Kinship and marriageConfederation and groups

Used inThe “five fifths”

Cemetery. According to Hart it is divided into plots corresponding to the lineages of the community; a woman is buried with her own agnates.

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Market guardians.

Institutions and leaders

Used inWater, fields and markets

Peyron notes a shift: mountain fighters, called imɣiwwuɣ (“dissidents”) or imsubren (“unsubdued”), are now called imžuhad (“fighters of the jihad”). Words first express the viewpoint of whoever uses them.

History and conquest

Transhumants; tarahhalt means transhumance, and the woman who transhumes.

Herding and transhumance

The young men who escort the bride to the groom's house or tent and must protect her from attempts to snatch an item of her clothing (Hart, p. 92). Hamdane quotes the expression “the ogress's escorts”.

Kinship and marriage

Supreme court of appeal of the Aït Atta, sitting at Igharm Amazdar: six judges (two from the Aït Y'azza, two from the Aït Zimru, two from the Aït Hassu), rechosen for each case; in case of disagreement, six and then six more arbiters, up to eighteen, the local amghar n-tmazirt breaking a tie.

Customary lawInstitutions and leaders

Used inIgharm Amazdar, the capital · Judging: from the local assembly to the court of appeal

Couplet, the dominant poetic form in Central Moroccan Tamazight; sung solo and to a fast rhythm it becomes a tamawayt (Aoudjit 2023).

PoetryMusic and dance

Used inAmazigh music of the south-east: voices, memory and commitment · “Honour is no more”

Fines. The Igharm Amazdar qânûn mostly uses the archaic form timawlin, a sign, according to Hart, of the text's age.

Customary law

Used inThe rule book of Igharm Amazdar

The “five fifths”: the uppermost division of the confederation. Their main function was to provide, in rotation, the top chief of all the Aït Atta.

Confederation and groupsInstitutions and leaders

Used inThe “five fifths” · The Aït Ouahlim (Aït Wahlim)

In the poems analysed by Bounfour, resistance is designated by metonymy: “powder” (lbarud), “bullets” (rrsâs, lqurtas). The Arabic word muqâwama only prevailed later.

PoetryHistory and conquest

Used inTelling the conquest: poetry under the bombs

Name given by the French authorities to the military conquest of Morocco (1907-1934). SAGHRO uses it in quotation marks or in book titles, and otherwise speaks of conquest, military operations or the establishment of colonial control.

History and conquest

Written document (in Arabic, mixed with Amazigh terms) recording customary rules and scales of fines. The one from Igharm Amazdar, photographed by Hart in 1961, is neither dated nor signed.

Customary law

Used inThe rule book of Igharm Amazdar · The written custom of the Ziz qsour

Messenger who carries a case and brings back the answer. In Ahda, he takes to Igherm Amazdar the question of custom raised by the Aït Atta of the Rteb and is paid by the losing party; in Stitou, without a cited source, he investigates the dispute at first instance.

Institutions and leadersCustomary law

Electoral principle described by Gellner and Hart: when it is a group's turn to provide the chief, the other groups elect him from among its members. Chiefs could be removed at any time, notably if their “luck” failed.

Institutions and leaders

Used inThe “five fifths” · Electing a chief: the amghar n-ufilla

Saint's shrine. A community's mosque and cemetery often lie within its inviolable precinct (hurm).

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Martyr, a fighter who died defending his country. Among the Aït Atta, Hart writes, a man who died fighting the French during the “pacification” was called shahid, not mujahid, and buried where he fell, without a shroud.

Beliefs and saintsHistory and conquest

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

“Agreements of the Five Fifths”: camel-skin documents, reputedly two centuries old, kept at Tiniurshan with the old war banner. Hart calls them “alleged”: he did not see them.

Customary lawHistory and conquest

Used inIgharm Amazdar, the capital

Territory outside the authority of the makhzen (central government). Encyclopedic syntheses place the Aït Atta in this “land of siba” until the conquest.

History and conquestTerritory

Used inDadda Atta's oath

Administrative and military category of the Protectorate: a “submitted” fraction had recognised the Makhzen's authority under French control. SAGHRO keeps the word in archival quotations, but uses “agreement”, “rallying” or “end of fighting” in its own texts, according to the documented facts.

History and conquest

Weekly market. According to Hart there were none at the heart of Aït Atta country: only two nearby, at Tazzarine and Alnif, and a dozen on the fringes.

Daily life

Used inWater, fields and markets

Turn of irrigation water; a neologism from the French suivant (“following”). Also called nuba (Arabic) or nubt (Tamazight). At Usikis each major igherm irrigates in turn, five to ten days depending on the water; taking water out of turn is fined.

Land and harvestCustomary law

Used inWater, fields and markets

Short wool turban worn by men before the Protectorate, which also served as a rifle scabbard.

Dress and objects

Distinctive triangular headdress worn by Aït Atta women.

Dress and objects

Pact of co-lactation, an alliance between groups sealed by a symbol of “milk kinship”. According to Gélard it is no longer a contemporary practice, but former pacts still determine marriage prohibitions. Not to be confused with the Aït Atta tata described by Duclos (judicial correspondent).

Customary lawKinship and marriage

Used inProtecting, making amends, integrating: pacts

“Closed, fenced” (root FRG, as in afrag, the hedge): among the Aït Khebbach, said of lineages between which marriage is forbidden because of former co-lactation pacts.

Kinship and marriage

Used inProtecting, making amends, integrating: pacts

Sanctuary (hurm) around Igharm Amazdar, with a radius of 27 to 29 km according to one of Hart's informants: murder was absolutely forbidden there and war booty had to wait three days at its limits.

Customary lawTerritory

Used inIgharm Amazdar, the capital

The collective oath, the “cornerstone” of the Aït Atta judicial system according to Hart. The number of co-jurors varied with the gravity of the charge: 5 for theft of barley, 10 for theft of livestock or from a house, 20 for the murder of a woman, 40 for the murder of a man.

Customary law

Used inThe collective oath, vendetta and blood money · The rule book of Igharm Amazdar · The written custom of the Ziz qsour

Individual grain-storage cubicle in the collective storehouse; a man who changes co-juring group loses it, along with his water rights (Hart, p. 10).

Land and harvestCustomary law

Used inIgherman: fortified villages and granaries

Protection given by lay tribesmen to the descendants of saints (shurfa, mrabtin), sealed by a sacrifice.

Beliefs and saintsCustomary law

The hearth, and by extension the nuclear family; it is the unit counted in censuses (“hearths”, kanoun).

Kinship and marriageDaily life

The tent, and the transhumant nuclear family living in it.

Herding and transhumanceDaily life

Marriage, generally a three-day ritual; the ahidous marks its first evening at both families' homes (Hart, p. 92). Tamghra n-w-ushshn, “the jackal's wedding”, refers to rain in sunshine, as in Hamdane.

Kinship and marriageDaily life

Very short sung poetic pieces of south-eastern Morocco, notably among the Ait Atta; improvised at celebrations and gatherings, they comment on love, separation, migration or current events. Azergui says women sing them; Salime (2022) describes them as produced by women and men.

PoetryMusic and dance

Used inAmazigh music of the south-east: voices, memory and commitment · Mora at the El Qelâa fold · The green stamp · O sun · Thin as the needle · My liver has burst · If I were a letter

Localised clan or tribe; also designates the assembly of adult men dealing with public affairs.

Confederation and groupsInstitutions and leaders

Used inThe “five fifths”

Non-Qur'anic tax levied in Morocco from 1901 to 1961. Introduced by Sultan Mulay ʿAbd al-ʿAziz, it remained, according to Hart, universally unpopular until Hassan II abolished it in April 1961.

Institutions and leadersHistory and conquest

Used inFacing the Makhzen: distance, wars and negotiations

Irrigation ditch. In the Usikis valley a network of tarugwa with permanent water irrigates the fields and walnut trees of each igherm.

Land and harvest

Used inWater, fields and markets

The liver, seat of the emotions in the speech of the Aït Atta, where English says “the heart”. M. Hamdane records among others: “Txatr as tasa”, “his liver is big” (he is fearful); “ibby tasa nns”, “it cuts his liver” (he felt great compassion for him); “Iṛbba tasa”, “he raised his liver on him” (he loves him dearly); “Ur ili tasa”, “he has no liver” (he is pitiless).

Expressions

Judicial correspondent each 'Attaoui had in every group other than his own; his mere presence made any violence during a procedure sacrilegious. Neither judge nor advocate, according to Duclos.

Customary law

Used inJudging: from the local assembly to the court of appeal

Prayer. Hart writes that the Aït Atta scrupulously observed the five daily prayers; prayer at the mosque was a male affair.

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints

Temporary protection paid by a traveller (tazttat) to a tribal protector (amzttid) to cross a territory.

Customary law

Collection of customary rules of a section, tribe, fortified village, granary, market or holy place; also called shurūṭ (“conditions”) in the qsour of the Rteb. Hart uses the plural tiʿaqqidin in another sense: the “guardians of custom”, judges of Igherm Amazdar.

Customary law

Used inThe written custom of the Ziz qsour

Written charm against bullets.

Beliefs and saintsDress and objects

The members of the istinaf, also called ait l-haqq, “the people of the truth”.

Customary law

Used inJudging: from the local assembly to the court of appeal

One-night wedding feast with a single sheep slaughtered, held by poor people; even reduced, it makes the marriage licit in everyone's eyes (Hart, pp. 91-92).

Kinship and marriage

The bride (tislit) and the bridegroom (isli). Tislit n-w-ushshn, “the jackal's bride”, means the rainbow.

Kinship and marriageExpressions

Collective mutual-aid work (Moroccan Arabic twiza): building a house, clearing land, threshing and above all harvesting. Whoever needs help announces it at the market; young men come for a fixed time, fed at his expense. Hart finds it more common among the Ihansalen than among the Aït Atta.

Daily life

Used inWater, fields and markets

Small gift in kind (sugar, henna, kohl, dates, clothing) taken by the young man's father to the girl's father: its acceptance marks the first act of the marriage. It is not bridewealth (Hart, p. 91).

Kinship and marriage

Curved dagger.

Dress and objects

“He of the sheep”: a man who changes co-juring group, or is naturalised in a new lineage, clan or tribe by sacrificing a sheep.

Customary lawKinship and marriage

Gift made at a saint's tomb (elsewhere ziyara). Every year the Aït Atta take their ʿada to the zawiya of Mulay ʿAbdallah bin Hsain at Tamslouht. The word also means “custom”.

Beliefs and saints

Used inIslam as lived: mosques, fqih and saints