This is our cook, Xalti Mama (Aunt Mama) one of the local weavers.
Part of training in the Peace Corps is doing a mini project with local artisans during your training period. We’re working with a group of local weavers. Our cook, Xalti Mama, has been tremendous help in getting everything set up. She talks to the women, and organizes when they come over to meet with us. We’ve met with them several times now, and I learn all sorts of fascinating things about Moroccan culture and superstitions every time we meet.
For example, last week we saw the women start a new carpet that once of them had been commissioned to make. While some towns have organized co-ops of weavers, our town does not. The women normally work independently of one another, although they all get together to help start a new carpet. Of the group of about 10 women we have been meeting with, only three weave carpets for selling. The rest just weave for fun.
Anyway, the traditions surrounding starting a new carpet were amazing to see. Two spikes are drive into the ground several yards apart. Yarn is then passed around the spikes over and over again until the carpet is the correct length and width. Before the yarn is passed, salt is sprinkled on the ground around the spikes. This is to bring good luck for weaving the carpet. We were cautioned against walking through the spikes, or stepping over the yarn at any point in the process. If an unmarried girl does so, it will keep her from getting married. The women sometimes have their young daughters walk over the yarn when they are very young in hopes that this will protect them from any sort of hanky-panky before they are married. When they reach a marriageable age, they must take a shower on the yarn, which brings back their luck and makes they available for marriage.
If a women reaches a certain age and hasn’t married, the weavers will have her shower on the yarn. This then brings back her good luck and she will be able to get married. Fascinating, huh?
This is our cook, Xalti Mama (Aunt Mama) one of the local weavers.
Hi Anna,
ReplyDeleteHow are you liking Morocco? I'm from California but have lived here almost 2 years. My husband and his very large family are Berbers and I am fortunate to have 2 very large rugs (tapis) and 4 pillows that his mom wove about 30 years ago.
I've just started a writing project about wrought iron and have written a little about Moroccan wrought iron. Later I plan to write about the Berber arts and crafts.
Good luck with your projects. I'm going to follow you on twitter.
Renee Benzaim
Hi Anna,
ReplyDeleteI love hearing about the skills and culture of the Moroccan people. You are lucky to be in such a rich culture. Love, \/m/ Mom
Recently the was a short description in a Norwegian magazine of handicraft telling about ”Kabylien weaving” (Berber weaving). I wonder, have you ever seen such?
ReplyDeleteThe way it was described to make a narrow ribbon: You set one peg in the ground just in front of you, then 5 to 8 pegs in the ground about 2m away. The warp is run with two loops around each of the remote pegs. The shed is created setting one of the loops at the bottom the other at the top of the remote pegs. The next weft is placed. The upper loop is then pushed down and the lower is lifted over to the top of the peg to make the next shed…etc. “Since the remote pegs are out of reach, there are often two weavers: one putting in the weft, the other making the sheds.”
If you always let the upper loop jump over the lower (or vise versa) the result will look like being knitted.
Have you ever seen this kind of weaving? Any photograph?
And, last but not least, keep up the good work with the Peace Corps to make the Earth a better place for us all.
Regards Kjell G