HASSAN HAKMOUN:
MUSIC OF THE GNAWA OF SOUTHERN MOROCCO

Hassan Hakmoun was born in Marrakech in 1963. At the age of seven he began to study tagnawit, the Gnawa related arts and lore. Starting with a few dances and songs, he gradually moved on to learn drumming, sintir-playing, litanies, chants, costume and knowledge of the spirits. At fourteen, he left school to pursue a less formal (and more exciting) education on the road. He travelled throughout Morocco and up into France, learning from his experiences and from the Gnawa masters he visited on his journey. Returning to Marrakech, Hassan continued to work as a Gnawi, performing as an entertainer on Jamaa el-Fna and working as a m'allem (master musician) in the derdeba. Along with other young musicians in Marrakech, he has begun to broaden the repertory of Gnawa entertainment songs by performing Arab and Berber tunes in the gnawi style. He first appeared in New York in 1987 at Lincoln Center Outdoors and has lived in the U.S. since then performing at festivals and concerts throughout North America and Europe. He recently toured Europe with WOMAD. Besides performing traditional gnawa music he has performed and recorded with jazz musicians such as Don Cherry and Adam Rudolph and has recently recorded with the Kronos Quartet.

MUSIC OF THE GNAWA OF SOUTHERN MOROCCO

Of all the musics of Morocco, the songs of the Gnawa are the most immediately appealing to the Western listener. The clear, balanced structure of the pentatonic melodies and the propulsive drive of the syncopated rhythms seem somehow familiar, even on first listening. The impression of familiarity is no accident, since the music of the Gnawa, like many of the popular musics of the Americas, is built of elements borrowed from West Africa.

The Gnawa are most visible as entertainers. Each afternoon on Jamaa el-Fna, the huge entertainment square in Marrakech, groups of Gnawa perform acrobatic dances to the accompaniment of large side drums (tbel or ganga) and metal double castanets (qaraqeb). Elsewhere in Morocco, smaller groups of three or four performers drum and dance their way through the streets of residential quarters, gathering coins from the neighborhood women who watch the spectacle from their front doors.

The sound of the drums not only entertains humans, it also rousts any spirits (jnun) that may have settled in the neighborhood. Indeed, for most Gnawa, their role as entertainers is secondary to their most important, and more secret, role as intermediaries in the spirit world. The Gnawa claim spiritual descent from Bilal alHabashi, an Ethiopian who was the Prophet Mohammed's first muezzin (caller to prayer). They also recognize and respect all Muslim saints. But most aspects of Gnawa ritual clearly come from south of the Sahara, brought to Morocco over the past 500 years by merchants, mercenaries, students and slaves. Gnawa song texts contain many references to tribal and place names in the western Sudan, and to the privations of exile and slavery.

Most Gnawa ceremonies (derdeba) are held to placate spirits that have inhabited a place or person. The goal may be to purge an evil spirit that has brought illness, infertility, or other affliction; or the point may be to prolong a happy relationship with a spirit that has brought wealth, clairvoyance, or some other blessing. The musician and devotees warm up for the derdeba with entertainment music played on the sintir, a three-stringed, skin-faced lute. When they are ready to begin in earnest, all the participants gather outside, in front of the house where the ceremony is to take place. The drums and qaraqeb announce to neighbors and spirits alike that the derdeba is about to begin. The crowd then moves back inside the house in a candlelight procession. The m'allem (lead musician) again takes up the sintir, and the group plays a series of songs to dedicate the robes to be worn during the ceremony, while the other participants share dates and milk.

The complete ceremony includes seven sections, each controlled by a different saint or family of spirits. In the derdeba, a single tune can conjure up a complex set of associations and actions. The saints and spirits each have their own tunes, and a given melody (with or without a sung text) is said both to attract the spirit and to indicate its presence. Thus, the performance of a particular tune may be used to summon the saint or spirit who "owns" that melody; if the music then sends one of the participants into a trance, that is taken as proof that the spirit has responded to the summons. In other cases, the spirit may first possess a devotee, and then express (through the dancer's mouth) its desire for the appropriate tune. The trance state is hastened by various ceremonial accoutrements demanded by the spirit; the proper combination of spices and incense must be burned, and the dancer must be dressed in the spirit's preferred color.

A complete derdeba may last from nine or ten o'clock in the evening until well past dawn on the following day. Finally, when all the participants, visible and invisible, have been satisfied, the musicians return to lighter entertainment music to relax the spectators and bring them back to the everyday world.

The Gnawa lute goes by a variety of names, including sintir (a term related to the Persian word santur), hejhuj (an onomatopoeic Arabic word) and gog (probably derived from a West African word for fiddle). The most common name for the instrument, gobri (also of West African derivation), is not often used by the Gnawa themselves. The body of the instrument is hollowed out from a single piece of wood, and covered with camel skin. The long neck passes through the top of the body and runs under the face, coming out through the skin near the base of the instrument, to serve as a tailpiece or string-carrier. The sliding leather tuning rings and the rattle-like metal sound modifier are commonly found in such West African instruments as the kora and the halam (lute). The percussive playing style is reminiscent not only of West African technique but also of certain styles of American banjo picking.