Claude McKAY
Apartado 27
Tanger---Morocco

LALLA SHELLAH

Native Morocco offers an interesting study in
miscegenation. There is a saying current among the natives
which is an excellent indication of the psychology of
the population.

They say that in seeking a wife the
Arab desires to know if the prospective woman is beautiful,
the Berber if she is rich, the Soudanese if she is fair.

Berbers, Arabs, Sussi, Draaui and Sudanese have
been mixing their blood indiscriminately for ages and the gen-
eral result is a people closely resembling the mulattoes of
America. That is the type commonly seen in the towns and
cities. But in the remote regions there are still to be
found pure representatives (physically at least) of the orig-
inal groups,

The Berbers of the Riff country look like blood
relations of the Spaniards---rather the Spaniards of the North
as a whole, for the Andalusians in appearance are more like the
Arabs. The Sussi, most exotic of all, bear a strange resemb-
lance to the Chinese in features as well as manner. One meets

2

with a few Chinese in the towns of Morocco and, excepting that
they are lighter-complexioned, one would class them at first
glance with the Sussi than with any other Moroccan people. The
Draaui inhabit the Moroccan Sahara and are very dark.

The Sudanese have been an important element in
the social life of Morocco. For centuries there has been a
steady stream of them passing from the Sudan into Morocco. The
first great migration on record was in the Eleventh Century
when the Berbers of Senegal invaded Morocco by way of Marrakesh.

In the Sixteenth Century the Moors invaded the black
kingdom of Timbouctou, defeating the Sudanese, and the
Sultan brought back to Morocco a special corps of soldiers to
organize a Black Guard and also the great black legist Ahmed
Baba.

Again in the Seventeenth Century Moulay Ismail,
the first and foremost sultan of the present dynasty, brought
from the Sudan and organized a famous army of blacks which was
called "Bouakir" and which was a terror to the turbulent
Berber tribes, holding them in fear and at peace. There are
numerous families of the descendants of the "Bouakir" now liv-
in the region of Meknez.

The Moors being still a medieval and even primitive
people in some customs, proverbs and folk sayings
play a prominent part in their expression.

I was specially interested in some relating to the Soudanese. They are
rather malicious on the whole and the Moorish friends from whom
I elicited them were needlessly apologetic insisting that they

3

were intended for the slaves. But I suspect that the harshness
in some of them might be traced to the formidable and ruthless
Black Guard of the sultan, Moulay Ismail. Some of them are app-
Biblical origin. Here are some of the most interesting,
arently of ^ HAMZA KHALIFAH BY THE NAME OF YOUR EXCELLENCE

1. A Negro has one rib and one glass of blood more
than an Arab.

2. Negroes were created to be slaves and labor like
asses.

3. "You smell like a Negro" is an expression of
insult.

4. The Negro woman is credited with more warmth
than the Arab and Berber woman and that is given
as the reason why the wealthy ZAKI Moors having
many wives always have Negro women among them.

5. It is believed that venereal disease can be
cured by cohabiting with a Negro woman, prefer-
ably a savage one.

6. Beans are said to exercise a fatal fascination
over Negroes. The story goes that A black knowing
the bush Negroes' love of beans, the slave trad-
ers supplied themselves with plenty of which
they scattered along the jungle paths, as one
does corn to chickens, and the Negroes followed
heedless until they were out of tribal terri-
tory and easily captured by the traders.

7. Negro color is thus accounted for: Allah had
punished some of his children for disobedience
by turning them black. They begged forgiveness

4

and being clement Allah sent them to a certain river to
wash at a certain hour. But on the way the black sinners
allowed themselves to be stopped by the Jews and delayed un-
til the hour had almost passed. And when at last they reached
the river it had nearly dried up. There was water enough only
for them to wet their palms and the soles of their feet which
turned white leaving the rest of their bodies black.

It must not be imagined from the kkkk foregoing
folk beliefs that there is the slightest shadow of social in-
equality between the Negroes on one hand and the Berbers and
Arabs on the other. On the contrary the Negroes have become
an integral part of the native life, most of them mating with
light-complexioned women while the Arabs and Berbers seem to
have a very special predilection for Negro women.

There is however one outstanding and purely
Negro groupment in Morocco--a flourishing religious kkkk order known as the Gueanoua (Negroes from Guinea).

It is interesting that among the many religious orders in
Morocco this Negro order is the only mixed one having men
as well as women members. In their practices the Gueanoua in
one of the West Indies remind

one of the Obeah and Voodoo adepts of the West Indies.
But there is this difference: the

Gueanoua do not pretend to have power over evil
spirits that serve them, they only exorcise evil spirits.

The XXXXX Gueanoua remain pure-blooded obviously
for religious reasons. They are good Moslems but have brought
with them from the Soudan the fetish practices of the jungle
which Islam has accommodated and tolerated.

The Gueanoua have a powerful hold upon the imag-
ination of the common people, excelling in divination and exor-

5

cising of evil spirits in cases of illness. They have a god called Sidi Hammou who grants them power over evil spirits. They are always in demand for exorcising since the belief in *djenoun* **kkk** (Mohammedan evil spirits) **kkkkkk** is profound and general.

Among educated Moors I have met graduates of French and Spanish schools, speaking three and four languages fluently who wear protective **shouars** around their necks or slung under their armpits. The **shouars** are charms and are not only manufactured and purveyed by the Gueanoua, but also by the Arabs and the Jews. Indeed the Moors have told me that the Jewish **shouar** is the most effective and also most expensive of all. There are also Arab consists of sorcerers whose practice **kkkkk** writing **kkkk** phrases from the Koran on a piece of paper which thus becomes endowed of magical properties.

handsome

The Gueanoua wear a **mmmmmmmmmm** headdress **kkkkkkkkk** woven of colored beads and are very picturesque on native holidays such as the **Mouloud** (Mohammed's birthday) when they **kkkk** participate in the processions wildly chanting and dancing. Sometimes they have a ceremonial week XX on an open lot where at night they give themselves up unrestrainedly to fetish antics exhorting and prancing to the tom-tom and attracting immense crowds.

When the Gueanoua are called to heal the sick, they never give any medicine. But a common remedy is placing some edible stuff by the sea at night and if it has disappeared in the morning it is a sign that Sidi Hammou has sent spirits to devour it and thus take away the malady from the stricken person. But the most general remedy is advising the sick to visit a saint and indicating **kkkk** saint. Here the Gueanoua's powers of divination are highly practical and always in demand for the cult of saints is

9

native

liberty for the Moorish women. The streets of the Medina (Moorish town) are animated with festive crowds, men and boys in gay new djellabas (bournous) and women and girls in fresh white haiks (mantles). And arriving from neighboring towns and villages, hundreds of others packed together in autobuses or mounted on horses and donkeys and travelling on foot, the sharp voices of the excited women keening, yo-yo!yo-yo!

All day the carriages roll and the people stream along the magnificent avenue of the new town out to the ruins that were once a Roman and later an Arab city. And it springs to life again. For the full rhythm of the native town is transferred there.

Praying, feasting, rejoicing. The lonely landscape is transfigured by innumerable tents. Native restauranteurs and café proprietors make busy dispensing food and drink. All the amusement makers are gathered there: musicians, snake charmers, fire-eaters, boy dancers and the placid story-tellers.

All night the glimmer of XXX a thousand candles before the shrines. And the veiled young fatmas gather together around the shrine of Lalla Shellah happily praying--perhaps wishing for some of her grace and freedom in their own lives or a royal mate like hers and what not next, while the young bucks loiter XXXX by in charming groups. They called! And that was

Lalla Shellah, the Free! A marvellous tribute indeed in a civilization where freedom for women is unknown in the western sense. The legend says that the Sultan left her free to do her will and that she used her freedom so radiantly that the people crowned her with the title of The Rising Sun.

The Lalla Shellah holiday is a precious day for the sheltered and confined daughters of Islam forever subject to the veil for the honor of the great poet and prophet who loved women so

wonderfully well.

In the nature it is

10

It is a Holy day of sweet delights, surreptitious rencontres and illicit reunions of all sorts. The pretty virgin who has been talking for months from the roof of her house with eyes and hands only to a desirable youth will find some means of escaping from the tents of her parents to kiss him tonight. And the would-be lover who xxx for many weeks has been trying to attract the proud lady on her trips to the bath will use every means to reach her tonight. He has been studying her movements and will be able to pick her out from among a thousand though she is wrapped up ever so completely in her haik.

Down in a shadowy place a young gallant is worming along on his belly through the grass, where a Fatma lies awaiting him.

Whelch it is

Legend or Fact seems of little significance before the vital and touching reality of the unions during the presta that reigns here in this lyrical resting-place of Negro nobility and Nordic radiance. The lanterns grow dim and the candles burn low and flicker in the end, while the Gueanoua prance and shout near the tomb of the Black Sultan while the fatmas shrill yo-yo! and merrily make free around the sanctuary of the Sultana, Lalla Shellah.