Gnawa
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- For the article about music, refer to Gnawa music
The Gnawa or Gnaoua refers at once to a style of Moroccan music with sub-Saharan Africa origins or influence, an ethnic group and religious order at least in part descended from former slaves from Sub-Saharan Africa or black Africans migrated in caravans with the Trans-Saharan trade, or a combination of both.
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[edit] Etymology
The name appears to originate from the Saharan Berber dialect word aguinaw (or agenaou), meaning "black (men)," which also was deformed in European usage to "Guinea".[citation needed]
[edit] History
The Gnawas' population are generally believed to originate from the Sahelian region of West and Central Africa, which had long and extensive trading and political ties with the Maghreb and Morocco specifically, including gold and slave trades.
Popular history particularly credits the Moroccan Sultan Ahmed Al Mansour Ad-Dahbi's conquest in 1591 of part of the Songhai Empire and in particular of Timbuktu, with bringing large numbers of captives and slaves back across the Sahara to form the Gnawa. However, the slave and gold trade with sub-Saharan African states had existed for centuries prior to al-Mansur's conquest, and it is unlikely the Gnawa community was in fact formed from one invasion but rather over centuries.
While adopting Islam, Gnawa continued to celebrate ritual possession during rituals where they are devoted to the practice of the dances of possession and fright. This rite of possession is called Derdba (Arabic: دردبة), and proceeds the night (lila, Arabic: ليلة) that is animated jointly by a Master musician (maâlem, Arabic: معلم) accompanied by his troop. Gnawa music fused mix classical Islamic Sufism with pre-Islamic African traditions, whether local or sub-Saharan.
Many modern Western scholars see parallels between Gnawa music and the associated Sufi tariqa and Black Americans music such as the blues that is rooted in Black American slave songs, as well as with other spiritual sub-Saharan origin black groups in Africa such as the Bori in Nigeria, the Stambouli in Tunisia, the Sambani in Libya, the Bilali in Algeria and those outside Africa, such the Voodoo religion and Candomble in Brazil. These similarities in the artistic and scriptural representations are seen by such scholars as reflecting a shared experience of many African diasporic groups.
[edit] Gnawa and music
In the context of music, Gnawa musicians generally refers to people who also practice healing rituals, with apparent ties to pre-Islamic African animism rites. In Moroccan popular culture, Gnawas, through their ceremonies, are considered to be experts in the magical treatment of scorpion stings and psychic disorders. They heal diseases by the use of colors, condensed cultural imagery, 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.
Gnawa music has won an international profile and appeal. Collaborators outside the Maghreb, such as musicians Bill Laswell, Adam Rudolph, and Randy Weston, have drawn on and collaborated with Gnawi musicians. Some traditionalists regard modern collaborations as a mixed blessing, leaving or modifying sacred traditions for more explicitly commercial goals. International recording artists such as Hassan Hakmoun have introduced Gnawa music and dance to Western audiences through their recordings and concert performances.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Ibiblio.org: Gnawa Stories: Mystical Musician Healers from Morocco
- gnawa at the Moroccan ministry of Communication website
- WorldMusicCentral.org
- PTWMusic.com: gnawa by Chouki El Hamel at Duke University December 1, 2000
- Etymology of Gnawa from Encyclopedia Britannica
