About Me
Sufi Healing society from W. to N. Africa, Europe, and beyond. Located now primarily in Morocco and Tunisia as either the descendants of Black slaves brought mostly by Moulay Ismail in the 1700's from West Africa, or having come through more natural migration, the name Gnaoua is mostly the word for the language of Guinea (Guinea-wah), but one story has it that it is also a play on a Berber word "Ignawen", roughly translated as "The Un-understandables". We are now an integral part of society, performing healing trance music for births, weddings, and other events. A resurgence of interest in these traditional customs has occurred thanks primarily to the Essaouira Gnaoua Festival, a beautiful coastal town where many Gnaoua were relocated to by the late great Hassan II in order to build the arts community there. The festival itself is indebted to the international scope of Gnaoua such as Hassan Hakmoun and his family, and Mahmoud Guinea and his family.
Gnaoua customs involve an infinitely complex realm of Spirits and Unseen Forces which influence human activities, subdivisions of The One. Generally, there is a system of seven colors (White/Black/Green/Red/Deep Blue/Light Blue/Pastels, although variations in all things Gnaoua certainly exist) and all of the Saints and Spirits and "Demons" fit into this color system; furthermore, it is said that every person has one of these colors as their personal affliction. Through the night (Lila) and medicines of Gnaoua, one can identify and dance with their demons, thereby overcoming and healing. The system is directly related to traditions from Nigeria which have been exported, again usually through slavery, to the islands of the Caribbean (esp. Cuba/Haiti), Brazil, and other locales.
The music itself is driven by a Ma'alem who guides with voice and the Hejhouj (a.k.a. Sintir, Guembri, Khallem (in Senegal), more names exist), a 3-gut-stringed lute covered with a camel or goat skin which is a deep bass as well as a drum because of the skinned surface, and usually a metal shaker is attached to the top. Several Gnaoua accompany on the Qaraqeb (karkabo, qaraqesh, etc.), metal double-castanets which provide the metronomic grounding for the etheral tones of the hejhouj and voice...a solid link to the material realm for those trancing, perhaps overcome by one of these Spirits who may communicate through or heal the individual. Women are the major attendees of these Lilas, and a woman medium is usually the intercedent for dancers and supporters.
The music is undoubtedly the roots of the Blues: the vocals are drawn up from the sufferings and celebrations of the soul, the washtub bass is a cousin of the hejhouj, the double-metal Hi-Hats of the modern drumkit are a reinterpretation of the metal double-castanet QaraQeb. The music has the ability to heal the wounds of enslavement, to allow those who feel it to rise above sorrow by acknowledging and dancing with it, to put the heroes and saints of society into musical and mystical history.
