Gnawa

"Gnawa" or "Gnaoua" (in Arabic چنّاوة) is a group of Moroccans musicians who might be descendants of former slaves originating from Sub-Saharan Africa or came freely to Morocco with Caravans during the Trans-Saharan trade trade, or both. Their name in arabic could possibily indicate that they came from the old Ghana Empire, which has no connection with modern day Ghana. The same word also refers to a small part of these people who are musicians and ritual healers and thus bringing the rite of African animism with them. Gnawas are considered to be experts in the treatment of scorpion stings and psychic disorders. They heal the disease by the use of colors, the perfumes and fright. Gnawas play deeply hypnotic trance music, marked by low-toned, rhythmic sintir melodies, call-and-response singing, hand clapping and cymbals called krakebs. Gnawa ceremonies use music and dance to evoke ancestral saints who can drive out evil, cure psychological ills, or remedy scorpion stings.

Contents

1 History 2 Music 3 Rituals 4 Gnawa music today 5 List of Gnawa maâlems 6 See also 7 External links 8 References

History

Gnawas are generally believed to originate geographically and culturally from Old Sudan, a geographic region in northern Africa, extending south of the Sahel, from Mali (also once known as French Sudan) into the country of Sudan. However, others point out to Ethiopia or the Nile.

In 1591, at the fall of the Songhai Kingdom at Timbuktu in Mali, when the Moroccan Sultan Ahmed Al Mansour Ad-Dahbi, brought with him slaves into Morocco. It is believed that gnawas arrived in Morocco at those times.

Among the slaves who were taken were many speakers of Bambara, a language still heard among Moroccan gnawas, Songhai, and Hausa.

While adopting Islam, they continued to celebrate the dramatized African spirits during rituals where they are devoted to the practice of the dances of possession and fright. This rite of possession is called Derdba (in Arabic دردبة) which proceeds the night (lila, in Arabic ليلة) that is animated jointly by a Master musician (maâlem, in Arabic معلم) accompanied by his troop, by conspicuous affiliated with the brotherhoods of the gnawas and his assistants. Gnawa music is already a mix between Moroccan Sufism and the spiritual power of African celebration music.

Gnawas assimilation in their new environment is represented by their songs where they sing and dance to ease the pain just as Black Americans did when they sang as a way to deal with their plight. In this regard, Gnawa is very similar to the blues that is rooted in Black American slave songs. There are also similarities with many spiritual black groups in Africa such as the Bori in Nigeria and the Stambouli in Tunisia, the Sambani in Libya, the Bilali in Algeria and outside Africa such the Voodoo. These similarities in the artistic and scriptural representations seem to reflect a shared experience of many African diasporic groups.

Music

Gnawa music is a mixture of religious Arabic songs and African rhythms. It combines music and acrobatic dancing. The music is both prayer and a celebration of life. In a song, one phrase or a few lines are repeated over and over throughout a particular song though the song may last a long time. In fact, a song may last several hours non-stop.

The melodic language of their stringed instrument is closely related to their vocal music and to their speech patterns, as is the case in much African music. It is a language that emphasizes on the tonic and fifth, with quavering pitch-play, especially pitch-flattening, around the third, the fifth, and sometimes the seventh. This is the language of the blues.

Gnawas have venerable stringed-instrument traditions involving both bowed lutes like the gogo and plucked lutes like the guembri چمبري (also called hag'houge هجهوه) (a three-stringed bass instrument). The Gnawas also use large drums called tbel (in Arabic طبل ) and krakebs (large iron castanets; in Arabic قراقب) in their ritual music. The gnawa hag'houge has strong historical and musical links to West African lutes like the Hausa halam, a direct ancestor of the banjo.

Gnawa hag'houge players use a technique which 19th century American minstrel banjo instruction manuals identify as "brush less drop-thumb frailing". The "brush less" part means the fingers do not brush several strings at once to make chords. Instead, the thumb drops repeatedly in a hypnotically rhythmic pattern against the freely-vibrating bass string producing a throbbing drone, while the first two or three fingers of the same (right) hand pick out, often percussive patterns in a drum-like, almost telegraphic manner.

Rituals

Gnawas perform a complex liturgy, called lila or derdeba. The ceremony recreates the first sacrifice and the genesis of the universe by the evocation of the seven main manifestations of the divine demiurgic activity. It calls the seven saints and supernatural entities (mluk, in Arabic ملوك) represented by seven colors, as a prismatic decomposition of the original light/energy. The derdeba is jointly animated by a maâlem (the master musician) at the lead of his troop and by woman-conspicuous who gets in charge of the accessories and clothing necessary to the ritual.

During the ceremony, the conspicuous one governs the accessories and clothing ritual necessary. On the other hand, the maâlem, using the guembri and by burning incenses, calls the saints and the supernatural entities to present itself in order to take possession of the followers who will devote themselves to fright.

Inside the brotherhood, each group (zriba; in Arabic زريبة) gets together with an initiation (moqadma; in Arabic مقدمة), the priestess that leads the ecstatic dance called jedba (in Arabic جدبة), and with the maâlem, the master of the guembri, who is accompanied by several players of krakebs.

Preceded by an animal sacrifice, that assures the maintenance of the presents, the night-ritual starts with the opening and the consecration of the space, the aâda ( "habit" or traditional form; in Arabic عادة), when the gnawa musicians perform a swirling acrobatic dance, playing the krakebs.

The mluk (melk in its singular form) is an abstract entity that gathers a number of similar jinn (genie spirits). The participants enter a trance state (jedba) in which they may perform spectacular dances. It is by means of these dances that participants negotiate their relationships with the mluk either placating them if they have been offended or strengthening an existing relationship. The mluk are evoked by seven musical patterns, seven melodic and rhythmic cells, who set up the seven suites that form the repertoire of dance and music of the gnawa ritual. During these seven suites, are burned seven different types of incense and the dancers are covered by veils of seven different colours. Each one of the seven mluk is accompanied by many "characters" identifiables by the music and by the footsteps of the dance. Each mluk is accompanied by its specific colour, incence, rythm and dance. These entities, treated like "presences" (called hadra; in Arabic حضرة) that the consciousness meets in the ecstatic space and time, are related with mental complexes, human characters and behaviors. The aim of the ritual is to reintegrate and to balance the main powers of the human body, made by the same energy that supports the perceptible phenomenons and the divine creative activity.

Later, the guembri opens the treq (path; in Arabic طريق), the strictly encoded sequence of the ritual repertoire of music, dances, colors and incenses, that guide in the ecstatic trip across the realms of the seven mluk, until the renaissance in the common world, at the first lights of dawn.

Almost all Moroccan brotherhoods (Issawas, Hmatchas, etc...) relate their spiritual authority to a saint. The ceremonies begin by reciting that saint's written works or spiritual prescriptions (hizb حزب) in Arabic. In this way, they assert their role as the spiritual descendants of the founder, giving themselves the authority to perform the ritual. Gnawa, whose ancestors were neither literate nor speakers of Arabic, begin the lila by bringing back, through song and dance their origins, the experiences of their slave ancestors, and ultimately redemption.

Gnawa music today

During the last few decades, gnawa music has been modernizing itself and thus becoming more profane. However, there are still many lilas organized privately and thus conserving its stautus of being a spiritual music.

Within the framework of the Festival (http://www.festival-gnawa.co.ma) of Essaouira ("Gnaoua and Musiques of the World"), the gnawas play in a profane context where does not exist any more religious or therapeutic dimension. The art is brought back to the musical expression of their culture which they share with other musicians coming from the four corners of the world.

With that, gnawa music is taking a new dimension by fusing its core spiritual music with similar genres like jazz, blues, reggae, hip-hop. Every summer (4 days in June), the Festival welcomes famous musicians that come to participate, exchange and mix their own music with the gnawa music creating one of the best jam sessions on the planet. Since its debut in 1998, and entirely free to the public, the audience of the festival has grown from 20,000 visitors to 200,000 in 2004 including 10,000 visitors from around the world.

Among the participants, you find musicians like Randy Weston, Adam Rudolph (Best World Music Artist by LA Weekly Music Awards 2003), The Wailers, Pharoah Sanders, Keziah Jones, Omar Sosa, Doudou N'Diaye Rose and the Italian trumpet player Paolo Fresu, to name a few.

There are also projects like "The Sudani Project" which is a jazz/gnawa dialogue activated in the collaboration of saxophonist/composer Patrick Brennan, Gnawi maâlem Najib Sudani, and drummer/percussionist/vocalist Nirankar Khalsa. "The krakebs and the guembri, being metal and gut bass strings, are parallels to the cymbal and bass in the jazz sound. I liked the kind of polyrhythmic relationship between them, and that's part of what I began to incorporate into my own writing, multilevelled rhythm being one of my favorite orchestral preoccupations. And, the gnawa "bass" is so melodic and up front"., Brennan commented.

Since a few years, new young musicians, from different backgrounds and nationalities, started to form modern gnawa bands. "Gnawa Diffusion" from France and "Gnawa Impulse" from Germany are examples. They offer a rich mix of musical and cultural backgrounds, fusing their individual influences into a collective sound. They have woven elements of rap, reggae, jazz and rai into a vibrant musical patchwork.

List of Gnawa maâlems

• Mahmoud Guinia (the King)- He played with the likes of Pharoah Sanders and Carlos Santana, to name but two. Guitarist Jimi Hendrix spent a few months in his house to take some lessons.

• Brahim Belkane (The traditional)- He played with Led Zeppelin, Robert Plant, Adam Rudolph, Randy Weston, and Jimmy Page. He says that "there are many colours on earth: red, green, blue, yellow. You have to find these when you play, to be bright like the sun."

• H'mida Boussou (The grand master)- As a child H'mida immersed himself in Gnawi culture as taught him by the Maâlem Ahmed Oueld Dijja, and became a Maâlem himself at the age of 16. He also worked with Maâlem Sam from 1962 to 1968.

• Chérif Regragui (The communicator)- He became a Maâlem by the age of 18. He worked with Tayeb Saddiki in theatre and he was behind the group Taghada.

• Mahjoub Khalmous - His skills took him to many festivals in Europe. In 1993 he formed his own group and became a Maâlem. He has worked for several years with Professor Bertrand Hell, head of the anthropology department at Besançon University in France.

• Allal Soudani (The dreamer)- His grandparents M'Barkou and Barkatou were brought from Sudan as slaves. "When I play I no longer feel my body, I empty myself. And when I reach the state of trance I become nothing more than a leaf on a tree blowing at the mercy of the wind" he says describing his trance moments.

• Hamid el Kasri - He began his apprenticeship at the age of 7. He has the gift of being able to fuse the music of the north with that of the south: gharbaoui from Rabat, marsaoui from Essaouira and soussi or Berber from the south of Morocco.

• Omar Hayat (The showman)- Tought by Mahmoud Guinea, he created his own group in 1991. His style is particularly influenced by reggae. He participated recently at the festival of Avignon.

• Abelkebir Merchane - He is from an Arab family, none of whom are gnawa. His style is a mixture of marsaoui (Essaouira) and Marrakchi (Marrakech).

• Abdeslam Alikkane and Tyour gnawa - He is a Berber from the region of Agadir. He learnt how to play the krakebs at the age of 9. He is particularly interested in the healing aspect of gnawa. He has performed at many international festivals, playing with Peter Gabriel, Gilberto Gil (currently Brazil's minister of Culture) and Ray Lema.

• Abderrahman Paca - He is one of the founding members of the group Nass El Ghiwane. In 1966 he briefly joined the Living Theatre then two years later met the legendary Jimi Hendrix.

• Mohamed Kouyou - In 1984 he played at the opening of the Moroccan Pavilion at Disney World.

• El Mokhtar Guinea - Son of the great Maâlem Boubker. He is the younger brother of the legendary Mahmoud.

• Mohamed Daoui - He teaches the younger generation of future maâlems for which his reputation has stretched far and wide.

• Abdelkader Benthami - He owes his education to some of the greatest Maâlems such Zouitni.

• Si Mohamed Ould Lebbat - At the age of 18 he began to play with Maâlem Sam, whom he accompanied to festivals in France.

• Ahmed Bakbou - He has worked with some of the great Maâlems - Ba Ahmed Saasaa, El Hachimi Ould Mama, Homan Ould el Ataar, Si Mohamed Ould el Fernatchi.

• Essaïd Bourki - He has his origins in the south of Morocco. He performed with his group in Belgium in 1990.

• Abdellah Guinea (The Marley)- He became a Maâlem at the age of 16.

• Mohamed Chaouki - Formely a horse trainer once worked in the stud farms of Rabat. At the age of 19 he became a maâlem. He formed a group with his brother, sons and nephews with whom he has performed in Europe 18 times.

• Saïd Boulhimas - He is the youngest Gnawi to play at the 7th edition (2004) of the gnawa festival.

• Hassan Hakmoun - By age four, he performed alongside snake charmers and fire-breathers on Marrakech streets. His mother is known throughout the city as a mystic healer. He worked with Peter Gabriel. He is currently based in New York.

See also

• Mahmoud Guinia
• Music of Morocco
• Malhun
• Andalusian classical music

External links

• Many ressources about gnawa at this site (http://www.gnawa.net/music.htm)
• Essaouira at WorldMusicCentral.org (http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/article.php?story=200407300930188&query=gnawa)
• gnawa at the Catholic University of America, D.C. (http://computing.cua.edu/as/wfl/lsc/ems/gnaoua.htm)
• gnawa at brickhaus.com (http://www.brickhaus.com/deepdish/the_gnawa_and_their_lila.htm)

References

• Ibiblio.org: Gnawa Stories: Mystical Musician Healers from Morocco (http://www.ibiblio.org/gnawastories/)
• gnawa at the Moroccan ministery of Communication website (http://www.mincom.gov.ma/english/gallery/music/gnawa.html)
• WorldMusicCentral.org (http://www.worldmusiccentral.org/article.php?story=20030414201518943&query=gnawa)
• PTWMusic.com: gnawa by Chouki El Hamel at Duke University December 1, 2000 (http://www.ptwmusic.com/gnawa.htm)fr:Gnaoua