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Embodying the Countryside in ʿAiṭa Ḥaṣbawiya (Morocco)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Alessandra Ciucci
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Extract

As we left Safi and began driving along a stretch of country road on our way to Rabat, one of my female traveling companions asked me if I had a cassette of 'aiṭa on me. “Why?” I replied with a certain curiosity. “Oh …,” she continued, “I just feel like listening to it. I want to smell the soil (bghit nshdm t-trab), taste the countryside (bghit nduq l-ərubiya). ”I was struck by her answer, by how she had articulated the desire to listen to this genre of sung poetry by analogy to other senses. For her, listening to aiṭa meant to experience the countryside and, at the same time, to celebrate a rurality that for many Moroccans is an essential component of their identity. That day I did not have a cassette on me. However, the silence was soon broken by the opening verses of “Mal l-hbibi malu ‘lih” (what's wrong with my beloved, what's wrong with him); she and the others had begun singing, clapping, and rhythmically swaying their upper bodies as we continued to drive on that country road.

Type
Articles
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 44 , 2012 , pp. 109 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © 2012 by the International Council for Traditional Music

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