Mythologies of the Gnawa Tribe

The Gnawa (or Gnaoua, Ghanawa, Ghanawi, Gnawi'; Arabic: ڭناوة) are an ethnic group inhabiting Morocco. The name Gnawa probably originated in the indigenous language of North Africa and the Sahara Desert. The phonology of this term according to the grammatical principles of Berber is agnaw (singular) and ignawen (plural), which means black person. Gnawa was inscribed in 2019 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The Gnawa population is generally believed to originate from the Sahelian region of Africa especially from Kano a Hausa Land in present Day Nigeria, which had long and extensive trading and political ties with Morocco. The Gnawa are an ethnic group who were brought to Morocco as slaves, and their ancestry is traced to parts of West Africa. After the abolition of slavery, they became a part of the Sufi order in the Maghreb. While adopting Islam, the Gnawa continued to celebrate ritual possession during rituals which were devoted to the practice of dances of possession and fright. This rite of possession is called Jedba (Arabic: جدبة). Gnawa music mixes classical Islamic Sufism with pre-Islamic African folk traditions. The term Gnawa musicians generally refers to people who also practice healing rituals. The healing rituals have apparent ties to pre-Islamic African animism rites known as Bori in the Hausa culture. In Moroccan popular culture, Gnawas, through their ceremonies, are considered to be experts in the magical treatment of scorpion stings and mental illness. They heal diseases by the use of colors, condensed cultural imagery, perfumes and fright.

The Gnawa people came from what was in ancient times the Ghana Empire of Ouagadougou, which ruled over present day Senegal, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Gambia, and 85% of Mali. The ethnic community became part of Sufi order in Maghreb, present day Morocco. They adopted Islam but continued to practice possession, a type of dance, during rituals. The music of Gnawa mixes classical Islamic Sufism with the pre-Islamic African traditions. In Morocco culture, the Gnawa are considered experts in the treatment of psychological disorders, scorpion stings, the use of colors, perfumes, fright, and condensed cultural image.

For centuries black Africans from the Gnawa tribe, originating from sub-Saharan countries such as The Sudan, Mali and Niger, were forcibly moved from their homelands across the Sahara to Morocco as part of the worldwide slave trade. Shackled in chains as they crossed the desert, they sang to soothe and found a mindfulness in the rhythmic chanting and clanking of the chains. Today there is a small village in the Moroccan Sahara whose inhabitants are direct descendants of these slaves and this is the story of Khamlia Village. The Gnawa lived as nomads until settling last century in a small village called Khamlia. Khamlia (or the Gnawa village as it is fondly known) lies 7km south of Merzouga at the door of the desert, and despite only recently being added to maps, 390 Gnawa still live here. In 2004 a road was built through the village which has introduced tourism to the people here and on a desert tour of Morocco you can visit, meet the people and listen to performances of Gnawa music in its home environment.

Gnawa refers to a set of musical events, performances, fraternal practices and therapeutic rituals mixing the secular with the sacred. Gnawa is first and foremost a Sufi brotherhood music combined with lyrics with a generally religious content, invoking ancestors and spirits. Originally practised by groups and individuals from slavery and the slave trade dating back to at least the 16th century, Gnawa culture is now considered as part of Morocco’s multifaceted culture and identity. The Gnawa, especially in the city, practise a therapeutic possession ritual through all-night rhythm and trance ceremonies combining ancestral African practices, Arab-Muslim influences and native Berber cultural performances. The Gnawa in rural areas organize communal meals offered to marabout saints. Some Gnawa in urban areas use a stringed musical instrument and castanets, while those in rural areas use large drums and castanets. Colourful, embroidered costumes are worn in the city, while white attire with accessories characterize rural practices. The number of fraternal groups and master musicians is constantly growing in Morocco’s villages and major cities, and Gnawa groups – organized into associations – hold local, regional, national and international festivals year-round. This allows young people to learn about both the lyrics and musical instruments as well as practices and rituals related to Gnawa culture generally.

In Morocco, Gnawa music and its spiritual order are visible mainly where black people live in large numbers – large enough to form a distinctive community like those found in Marrakesh, Essaouira and Fez. These three cities are known to have had slave markets connected to the trans-Saharan slave trade. However, even in remote areas where blacks migrated in relatively small numbers, they founded communal centers where their culture is celebrated. Walk down the streets of the medina in Marrakech for long enough, and eventually you’ll hear the thrumming of a hajhuj, a three-stringed lute. The notes twang a quarter-tone off-key and hang a fraction of a second past the beat, while the vocals seem to pine for something that’s just out of reach. It’s a hypnotic sound, and one that has echoed through the mountains and sand dunes of Morocco for centuries.

Simply put, Gnawa is the music of formerly enslaved black Africans who integrated into the Moroccan cultural and social landscape, and founded a model to preserve the traditions and folkloric music of their ancestors. Rising to prominence from a marginalised practice to heal people possessed by genie spirits, it is one of the most popular styles of North African music. It has not only attracted fans worldwide.

The Gnawa (sing. Gnawi) are an ethnic group and Islamic sect of West African-descent centered in Morocco who have become globally known for their use of music in liturgy. Beginning in the 11th century under Yusuf Ibn Ta, the Sultan of Morocco under the Ottoman empire, began conscripting Black Africans into military service. In the 17th century, Moroccan Sultan Mawlay Isma’il issued orders to not only capture Black Africans for conscription into his army, but to also to force them to perform agricultural and domestic occupations. Mainly captured from the Soninke, Bambara, Fulani and Hausa empires, which were already exposed to Islam through trading, the Gnawa settled into their own communities in Morocco in which they fused their indigenous, often animist practices with their Islamic identity. Though this is the most agreed upon historical record, some Gnawa have insisted that they are instead descendants of Bilāl ibn Rabāḥ, born in Mecca in the late 6th century but of Ethiopian descent, formerly enslaved, aid to the Prophet Muhammad, and the first Muezzin to call the faithful to prayer.

Gnawa music (Ar. ڭْناوة or كْناوة) is a body of Moroccan religious songs and rhythms. Its well-preserved heritage combines ritual poetry with traditional music and dancing. The music is performed at lila, communal nights of celebration dedicated to prayer and healing guided by the Gnawa maalem, or master musician, and their group of musicians and dancers. Though many of the influences that formed this music can be traced to West African kingdoms, its traditional practice is concentrated in Morocco. Gnawa music has spread to many other countries in Africa and Europe, such as France. The history of the Gnawi is closely related to the famous Moroccan royal "Black Guard", which became today the Royal Guard of Morocco.Moroccan and Hausa cultures are connected both religiously, as both are Malikite Muslims, with many Moroccan spiritual schools active in Hausaland, and artistically, with Gnawa music being the prime example of typical Hausa music within Morocco.

Westerners who have visited Morocco have likely encountered Gnawa musicians. In the coastal Atlantic town of Essaouira, where an annual festival of Gnawa music takes place, and in Marrakesh, at its spectacular central square called Jamaa el-Fna. The colorful gowns and caps of Gnawa musicians, covered with cowry shells, coupled with the distinct sound of their instruments - metallic castanets, heavy drums and a three-stringed bass lute (guembri) – provide both visual and audio confirmation of the Gnawa presence. Some of the best known genres of music to all Moroccans come from the classical Andalusian legacy, and reflect Morocco's historic relationship with Spain. Andalusian music is recognized as a national music and is repeatedly featured on national audio-visual media. By contrast, the Sephardic music and folksongs from the Jewish communities in Morocco are unfortunately vanishing because Morocco lost its Jewish population to help create the state of Israel. Another important but often neglected genre of music is that of the Gnawa, who came from West Africa to Morocco by way of migration, both voluntary and forced. Although the Gnawa are now fully integrated in Moroccan society, the Gnawa still remain a cultural and a social distinctiveness.

Sooner or later, nearly every visitor to Morocco encounters the Gnawa, acrobatic performers in cowrie-covered clothing, who twirl the long tassels on their caps like tops as they dance to the polyrhythmic accompaniment of double metal castanets and two bass side drums. Gnawa troupes perform for tourist buses at the gate of the Casbah of Tangier, and they bring down the house at the annual Festival of Folklore in Marrakech. Most famously, one or two groups of Gnawa appear each afternoon on Jamaa el Fna, the great entertainment square at the heart of Marrakech, where the performers spend less time in twirling their tassels than in passing the hat to spectators. Public performances by the Gnawa appear to be light entertainment, and rather frivolous at that, but there is another domain where Gnawa music is very serious indeed. In all-night ceremonies, known as derdeba or lila, Gnawa musicians and officiants perform for the pleasure of beneficial spirits and for the propitiation of malicious ones, in order to secure peace of mind and cure the diseases of their devotees. The ritual is structured around a series of dance suites dedicated to seven families of saints and spirits, each characterized by specific colors, odors, flavors, feelings, actions, and sounds. In short, this is quite literally (or spiritually) a different world, marked by transformations of all the senses. The Gnawa have their roots in communities of Sub-Saharan Africans, mostly from the region of the old Mali empire, who were brought to Morocco as slaves and mercenaries, starting in the 16th century. (Similar communities, with similar practices, exist in Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya as well.) Their background is reflected in their belief system, which draws on both Islam and traditional Sub-Saharan religions. Many of the spirits in the Gnawi pantheon have close analogues in West Africa, and others bear the names of tribes in the Sahel, such as Bambara, Fulani, and so forth. At the same time, members of the group consider themselves to be good Muslims and they behave accordingly, praying, fasting, and carrying out other religious duties. The musicians sing primarily in Arabic, and their songs constantly invoke the name and epithets of Allah; furthermore, at least two of the families include Muslim saints, like Moulay AbdelQader Jilali and Moulay Brahim, who are well known in Morocco and the rest of the Islamic world; finally, several other sections of the derdeba --even those dedicated to Sudanic spirits--begin with hymns of praise to the Prophet Mohamed. In short, the Gnawa are nothing if not practical and ecumenical. The duality--or multiplicity--of their beliefs is resolved in the character of their patron saint, Bilal, the freed Ethiopian slave who became the Prophet's first muezzin (caller to prayer).