In the Moroccan Atlas, the tattoos that adorn the faces and hands of Berber women, once considered signs of beauty and belonging to a tribe, are a tradition that is being lost under the influence of modernity and interpretations. religious.
“When I was six years old, we were told that tattoos were pretty decorations. We used charcoal to draw them on our faces, then we went to see a specialist woman who used a needle to poke the design until the blood comes out,” recalls Hannou Mouloud, 67, in the mountain village of Imilchil, about 400 km east of Rabat.
“Then we cleaned the wound daily with a chewed green herb until the tattoo was formed,” she continues, showing AFP the discreet green line on her chin.
“We, little girls, could not hold back our tears. Each mother hugged her daughter, trying to console her until the tattoo was finished. It is a tradition that our parents passed on to us”, also testifies Ait Mjane Hannou, 71, who has the same tattoo on her chin, like many other women in the town.
Each Berber group has its own motifs, “thus expressing belonging to a specific community and its own identity”, notes Bassou Oujabbour, member of the Akhiam organization, which works to develop the Imilchil area.
“In the Aït Hadidou tribe of the Imilchil region, women are distinguished by tattoos consisting of two or three lines at the chin. These lines are often decorated with motifs such as crosses and dots. Other tribes decorate their face with a variety of patterns”, he told AFP during the “engagement moussem”, a September festival where the collective marriage of young Berber couples is celebrated with dance and music.
– “Punished in the afterlife” –
Morocco is the Maghreb country with the most Berbers, whose presence predates Arabization and Islamization.
These natives call themselves “imazighen”, plural of “amazigh” which means “free man” in their language, Tamazight.
According to the latest census (2014), more than a quarter (26.7%) of the 35 million Moroccans use one of the country’s three main Berber dialects (Tarifit, Tamazight and Tachelhit).
“The Amazigh women of North Africa are distinguished by a type of tattoo which expresses a multitude of meanings”, explains to AFP Abdelouahed Finigue, teacher-researcher in geography, native of Imilchil.
“First of all, there is the notion of beauty: the woman, through her tattoos, expresses her beauty and her value as an individual independent of man.”
The tattooed motifs are also part of a certain spirituality, he notes.
“The circle, for example, represents the universe and beauty, just like the moon and the sun which occupied an important place in local rites,” he explains. “These tattoos were applied to very important and sensitive areas of the body, including the chin, forehead and hands. Some women had intimate areas tattooed, as a wedding gift, expressing their love for their husband and wife. attachment to their home.
“However, in recent years, this custom has been tainted by preconceived ideas conveyed by Salafist currents, claiming that tattooed women would go to hell,” he laments.
Tattooing is widely considered by Muslims to be a mutilation of the body prohibited by religion.
Fundamentalists “sometimes describe tattoos as the devil’s book or as the first thing to burn on the human body,” explains Bassou Oujabbour.
“This is why many young girls have given up tattooing for religious reasons, but also for reasons linked to modernity, because the modern woman (in rural areas in Morocco) generally does not get tattoos. Therefore, even Women who are already tattooed often remove their tattoos for fear of punishment in the afterlife.”
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