The victim and its masks
Subtitle: an essay on sacrifice and masquerade in the Maghreb
By: Abdellah Hammoudi ; translated by Paula Wissing.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1993
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 199
Subjects: Berbers -- Morocco -- Middle Atlas Mountains -- Rites and ceremonies.; Islam -- Morocco -- Middle Atlas Mountains.; Middle atlas Mountains (Morocco) -- Religious life and customs.; Morocco -- Social life and customs.
Description: Each year, in a solemn Sunni Muslim feast, the Ait Mizane of southern Morocco reenact the story of Abraham as a ritual sacrifice, a symbolic observance of their submission to the divine. After this sober ceremony comes a bacchanalian masquerade which seems to violate every principle the sacrifice affirmed. Because of the apparent contradiction between sacrifice and masquerade, observers have described the two as entirely separate events. This book reunites them as a single ritual process within Islamic tradition. -- Publisher description.
Notes: Includes index.