Aït Atta

Population: Estimated 300,000 to 500,000

Location: The Jbel Saghro, the eastern High Atlas, the Dades and Todgha valleys and the Draa, in south-eastern Morocco

Language: Tamazight (Central Atlas Amazigh), with Arabic

Language family: Afro-Asiatic → Berber

Traditional governance: The historic confederation of five khums (fifths) with an amghar n ufilla elected annually by rotation among them, and village jmaa councils; Moroccan provincial administration today.

Most African peoples are federations of named sub-groups (clans, sections, chiefdoms or sub-tribes), each with its own dialect, territory and traditions.

Clothing: Women's black or dark blue wraps with heavy silver fibulae and amber; men's djellaba and turban; the woven wool of the tents and the flat-woven rugs of the region.

Food: Barley bread and couscous, dates from the Draa and Todgha oases, tagines of meat and dried fruit, goat and sheep, olive oil, and the mint tea that structures the day.

Ceremonies: The annual election of the amghar; moussems at saints' tombs; weddings with the ahidous line dance; the transhumant departures and returns.

Marriage customs: Patrilineal and lineage-endogamous in preference; bridewealth in silver and livestock; the confederation's internal marriages bound the khums.

Initiation rites: Circumcision in Islamic form; a young man's standing is built in herding, in the transhumance and in the jmaa.

Every dish the Atlas publishes for Morocco, at national rather than community level — 9 in all: the staple a household eats daily, the dish the country names as its own, street food, what is cooked for a wedding or Eid, regional specialities and a drink. Quantities and method are given for every one, so these are recipes rather than descriptions, and each has a photograph from Wikimedia Commons. The Food page carries the whole continent, searchable by country and by ingredient.

“The chief of this year eats with the men of the next.”

On rotating office.

“The mountain was not taken; the terms were accepted.”

On Bougafer, as the Aït Atta state it.

“The granary has one door and forty keys.”

On the collective ighrem.

Creation: Islamic monotheism; the saints (igurramen) of the Atlas as intercessors, with their tombs and moussems; the mountains, springs and particular trees carrying observance.

Beliefs: Sunni Islam of the Maliki school; saint veneration and moussem pilgrimage; the older Amazigh calendar and agrarian observances surviving alongside; the collective oath (tagallit) as a judicial institution.

Ancestors: Lineage genealogies determine khum membership and therefore the rotation of office; the confederation's founding ancestor, Dadda Atta, is the reference point for all of it.

Traditional settlements: Black woollen tents in the pastures; fortified mud-brick villages (ksour) and kasbahs in the valleys; collective granaries on defensible rock above.

Building techniques: Rammed earth and mud brick with decorated towers in the Draa and Dades kasbah tradition; woven wool tents; the ighrem granary with individual cells and locking doors; flat-weave rug making.

Village layout: A valley ksar of packed houses with a single gate and irrigated gardens below; the granary on a crag above; the tents wherever the herds are.

1. 1500s–1600s

   The Aït Atta confederation forms in the Jbel Saghro under the founding ancestor Dadda Atta.

2. 1600s–1900

   The confederation expands across the eastern Atlas and the pre-Sahara; the rotating chieftaincy is maintained.

3. 1912–1933

   French protectorate; the pacification campaigns move south through the Atlas.

4. 1933

   The Battle of Bougafer; the Aït Atta hold the Saghro for over a month and surrender on terms.

5. 1956–present

   Independence; drought, land registration and sedentarisation reduce the transhumance; the granaries fall empty.