The Moroccan Rif

8/18/2019 The Moroccan Rif

1/4

Review: The Moroccan Rif

Author(s): E. G. H. Joffé

Review by: E. G. H. Joffé

Source: The Journal of African History , Vol. 18, No. 4 (1977), pp. 626-628

Published by: Cambridge University Press

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/180838

Accessed: 19-04-2016 12:20 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at

http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted

digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about

JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Cambridge University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of African History

This content downloaded from 131.211.208.19 on Tue, 19 Apr 2016 12:20:26 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms


2/4

6 6 JOURNAL OF AFRCANHSTORY

THE MOROCCAN RIF

The Aith Waryaghar of the Moroccan Rif: An Ethnography and History. By

DAVID MONTGOMERY HART. (Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology

No. 55). Tucson: University of Arizona Press, for Wenner-Gren Foundation,

I976. Pp. 556. 20-00.

The Mediterranean littoral of northern Morocco and its hinterland-the Rif

mountains-have generally been terra incognita to historians of nineteenth and

twentieth century North Africa, despite the region s close proximity to Europe.

Isolated events there-the Spanish-Moroccan War (I859-60), the Melilla

incidents in I893, the Rogui Bu Hmara (I902-9) and the Rif War (I92I-6)-

have attracted attention, and the literature is full of scattered references to

Rifian piracy and arms smuggling or European intrigues. Such detailed studies

of the Rif as there have been have concentrated on its relevance to events in the

wider arena of the Sharifian Empire of Morocco, the subsequent French and

Spanish protectorates or the Moroccan nationalist movement. In addition, they

have generally relied heavily on European sources, particularly for the period

of the Rif War.

Recently the picture has begun to change. Historians have begun to question

the established truths of the Protectorat period and earlier neglect has encouraged

anthropologists to fill the gap. The recent publication of the proceedings of a

colloquium held in I9731 illustrates the extent to which both historians and

anthropologists have accepted that the Rif and particularly its largest tribe, the

Aith Waryaghar, is a topic of common interest with relevance to the analysis of

indigenous response to European pressure and colonialism. David Hart, already

well known for his numerous articles on Rifian ethnography, has now provided

the first comprehensive study of the region in The Aith Waryaghar of the

Moroccan Rif.

As befits his primary concern as an anthropologist, fully three-quarters of

this massive work (over 540 double-column pages, including glossaries, appen-

dices and index) comprises an ethnographic study of the Aith Waryaghar. As

sedentary agriculturalists, its members are typical of those of most tribes in

northern Morocco, although the Rif itself is heavily overpopulated and provides

a very inhospitable terrain for any agricultural activity. As a segmentary society,

it is typical of rural Morocco as a whole, although the extreme segmentation

and territorial discontinuity-itself a product of the poor resource base-shown

by the Aith Waryaghar and neighbouring tribes is highly unusual. In other

respects the central Rif tribes, the Aith Waryaghar in particular, are unique.

Although many of their political institutions are found elsewhere, particularly

in Berber-speaking mountainous areas,2 they are rarely developed to the same

extremes.

This is particularly true of the blood feud, which in the Rif, Hart believes,

almost became an unconscious form of population control (a function today

taken over by labour migration) and a political regulator in a fiercely egalitarian

society, mitigated only by the relative sanctity of the market place. In markets

1 Abd el-Krim et la Republique du Rif (Paris, I976).

2 Cf. E. Gellner, Saints of the Atlas (London, I969); J. Berque, Structures sociales du

Haut-Atlas (Paris, i962).



3/4

REVEW 6 7

there was a general agreement that feuds were in abeyance, an agreement which,

if contravened, resulted in severe fines or banishment. The fines themselves

strengthened the characteristic egalitarianism of Aith Waryaghar society as they

were distributed equally amongst its constituent clans, themselves organized

on the five fifths principle. Yet, since Hart sees the essence of the political

system as disequilibrium in equilibrium , the blood feud although discouraged

through massive fines was encouraged by a variety of formal and informal

alliance patterns which usually conflicted with the basic segmentary structure.

It is in his discussion of these liff alliance patterns that Hart s ethnographical

conclusions are most useful for historians and sociologists. He shows very clearly

that in practice these apparently formal patterns involved a considerable degree

of choice, thus corresponding to the bet-hedging that characterizes Moroccan

history and politics.3 He also shows how Rifian tribes were able to overcome their

habitual discords and unite through liffs to meet a common external threat.

The latter part of Hart s book traces the history of the central Rifian tribes

from the foundation of the Salihid kingdom of Nakur in about A.D. 760 to the

present day. Up to I898 he gives a very general review, being only concerned

with events that directly involved the Rif tribes themselves. Thereafter however

the emphasis shifts and the tribes-the Aith Waryaghar in particular-take centre

stage. Hart does not pretend to give a detailed objective account of the last

seventy years, but rather, through the immense amount of oral material and

local documents that he has collected, he attempts to present the history of

increasing Rifian involvement in the wider national and international field as

seen by the Rifians themselves: Bushta al-Baghdadi s manipulation of traditional

enmities during his I898 mehalla against the Ibuqquyen which backfired when the

tribes realized that the Sultan Mulai Abdel Aziz was forced to act by European

pressure; Bu Hmara s unsuccessful attempt to control the Rif in I908 which

met united Aith Waryaghar resistance and resulted in his own downfall a year

later

Although the Rif ignored the formal installation of the French and Spanish

Protectorates in I9I2 and the subsequent pacification, by I92I the tribes were

fully aware of Spain s intentions towards them. Their resentments and fears

enabled Abdel Krim, a qadi from Ajdir and a Salafiyist with firsthand knowledge

of Spanish aims, to persuade the Aith Waryaghar to unite against Spanish

penetration into the Rif. Hart s description of how Abdel Krim mobilized the

central Rif tribes by exploiting and adapting traditional institutions to create a

force which shattered two Spanish armies and almost defeated the French Army

in I925 brings together the ethnographical and historical themes of his work. He

also describes the reforms that Abdel Krim made throughout Rifian society,

showing how they were achieved and the fundamental effects they had on tradi-

tional society. By the end of the Rif War, the Aith Waryaghar had lost many of

their heterodox features and were perhaps the most devout Muslims in rural

Morocco.

In his account of the Spanish Protectorate in the Rif Hart relies heavily on

work done by Emilio Blanco, for a long time the local interventor, who was an

excellent amateur anthropologist. He demonstrates how Spain wisely made use,

not only of Abdel Krim s reforms, but also of many of his erstwhile lieutenants

in administering the region and how the Rifians themselves adjusted to Spanish

3 Cf. J. Waterbury, Commander of the Faithful (London, I970).



4/4

6 8 JOURNAL OF AFRCANHSTORY

control. The new administration instituted by independent Morocco in I956

was not so successful and by I958 the Rif was again in revolt. David Hart here

provides details of how traditional patterns of behaviour adapted themselves to

new circumstances4-as they had in I955, when the Rifian Army of Liberation was

created in the Spanish zone.

The great merit of David Hart s book is his ability to marry his ethnographical

studies to the recent history of the area-an area which after all provided one

of the greatest examples of indigenous resistance to the implantation of a colonial

regime. He has thus provided the most comprehensive explanation to date of

how the Rif responded to the increasingly obtrusive outside world as well as

clarifying how part of rural Morocco actually operated its complex systems of

acephalous segmentation and alliances.

Needless to say, Hart s explanations and conclusions may be controversial.

Indeed, in so far as they have appeared in his many articles on the Rif, they

have already generated controversy. Germain Ayache5 has made trenchant

criticisms of his claim that the blood feud is a centuries-old and integral part

of Aith Waryaghar society. Ayache, who has himself carried out extensive work

on the Rif, accepts the views of Rifians themselves that the blood feud was of

recent origin, as was their rejection of Sultanic authority. Indeed he claims that

both were the result of European penetration and intrigue aimed at taking over

the area peacefully, rather than by conquest.

Nevertheless, David Hart, by gathering a vast mass of ethnographic and

historical material into a highly readable and coherent account, has provided

a major contribution to an understanding of the Rif. Many of his conclusions,

controversial though some may be, contain implications that will undoubtedly

help to illuminate other neglected corners of the recent history of North Africa.

School of Oriental and African Studies, London E. G. H. JOFFE

The African Experience in Spanish America. By LESLIE B. ROUT, Jr. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, I976. PP. XV+404. ?I2.50 (paperback ?2.95).

The Atlantic slave trade drew its victims from a vast African catchment area.

It is often forgotten that they were then distributed over an even vaster American

reception area, stretching from Quebec (as Robin Winks s The Blacks in Canada

reminds us) to Valparaiso, including every European colony in the Americas,

irrespective of its climate or economy.

Leslie Rout s study covers the Spanish-speaking territories, island and main-

land. A black American, teaching at Michigan State University, he has written

his book in a very personal style, but it is none the worse for it. His own obser-

vations of Spanish America today are amplified by extensive reading in secondary

sources, and make an enjoyable and moving work of scholarship, which compre-

4 E. Gellner, Patterns of Rural Rebellion in Morocco , in E. Gellner and C. Micaud

(eds.), Arabs and Berbers: From Tribe to Nation in North Africa (London, I973).

Germain Ayache, Societe rifaine et pouvoir central marocain (I850-I920) , Revue

Historique, 5I6 (Oct.-Dec. I975), 345-70.


Documents

The Moroccan Rif