Title: Symbols and magic in the arts of Kabyle women /
Authors: Makilam.
Publisher: Peter Lang,
Year: 2007
Subjects: Women, Kabyle.; Kabyles Social life and customs.
Abstract: "Makilam's research on the history of women and Berber culture, one of North Africa's most ancient civilizations, demonstrates that the Kabyle women's magic practices, graphic symbols, and rites of passage permit a new interpretation of their cultural identity from those that have been traditionally attributed to them by Western observers. This completely new vision of the symbolic grammar of the "decorations," notably expressed in pottery, weaving, tattoos, and wall-paintings, leads us to reconsider the meaning of the Kabyle arts and contributes to our knowledge of Maghreb cultures and the role of women in "traditional" societies."--BOOK JACKET.
Contents: Ch. I. The Kabyle woman -- a lunar being of the human reign -- Ch. II. The married woman -- the maternal earth of human nature (the union of the moon and the sun) -- Ch. III. The pregnant woman -- the shaping of the child -- Ch. IV. The childbirth and the forty days after birth -- Ch. V. The mother -- nurturing the human race -- The link between birth and death : the cult of the ancestors -- The tree of life and the everlasting succession of generations -- The growth of the child is linked to the natural world -- A mother and her children -- Ch. VI. The grandmother -- a weaver of human ties (the eternal mother) -- Ch. VII. Death : the return to the earth mother -- Conclusion : the cyclical unity of the ritualized life of Kabyle women in traditional society -- App. The cyclical method -- the quadrature of the circle and the global plan of the study.