Tiout was quite an ordinary village, but in a way I found very appealing. It was so ordinary that it formed a perfect archetype of what an Amazigh village should be, with its lush palmery, half-pristine, half-ruined kasbah, and hilltop marabout. The stripes of purple or blue paint that outlined the occasional doorframe and window were pretty details, but I also noticed that some of the houses were painted with designs in white paint. They were a series of simple curved white lines, as if sprouting from the ground. Given where I was, I guessed that they were stylized palm fronds, and saw them again in other villages from the window of grand taxis. However stylized, they were the only examples of the local artwork that I saw that weren’t purely abstract patterns, so they must have some kind of significance.
For a start, the Amazigh peoples, collectively known as Imazighen, also called Berbers*, are the non-Arab natives of much of North Africa, stretching from Libya to Morocco. Most of the population in this region is the result of Arab and Berber admixture, speaking Berber-inflected Arabic dialects. But there are still patches of purely Amazigh people, speaking their own languages and practicing their own customs. They’re split into a range of different groups, such as the Chaoui of Northern Algeria or the Shilha of Southern Morocco, which is what Tiout’s inhabitants were. In the Shilha’s arid home region, at the edge of the Sahara, the date palm is a key crop, hence the extensive palmeries that were present not only in Tiout, but almost everywhere I went. While walking down a street in Tata, I passed date palms that were planted in pavement, and even managed to dig out a shrivelled-up date out of one of them. Being an indication of oases, human settlements, and thus, life, in regions that border the harsh desert has given them powerful symbolic meanings. They are symbols of hope and blessings, as well as peace and belonging. Even the fact that they were painted in white may have had some significance, as white reflects heat.
It’s a powerful image: in the midst of the dust and bare rock of the Sahara’s edge, a towering palm tree, with vibrant green fronds promising food and water. Life flourishing in desolation – something that all desert-dwellers aspire to. If any object is going to be painted on a North African house, it’s a palm frond.
Sources: Rough Guide to Morocco, a Chaoui Amazigh academic
*Note on terminology: some hold the term “Berbers” to be offensive, as it shares the same origin as “barbarian”, which was originally used by Ancient Greeks to describe non-Greek-speakers. However, as I’ve only heard this from people of Amazigh descent in Western countries, and heard North African Amazigh describe themselves as “Berbers”, I’d say it’s probably fine.
Wandering/Wondering 