Imchiguegueln
| Imchiguegueln | |||||
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| Basic data | |||||
| State : |
 Morocco
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| Region : | Souss-Massa | ||||
| Province : | Chtouka-Aït Baha | ||||
| Coordinates | 30 ° 6 ′ N , 9 ° 10 ′ W | ||||
| Residents : | 300 | ||||
| Height : | 570 m | ||||
Imchiguegueln (also Imchguiguiln ) is a small Berber mountain village in the western Anti-Atlas Mountains. The place is located in the province of Chtouka-Aït Baha in the south of Morocco and has a total of about 300 inhabitants, of which less than half are present all year round, about 60 houses and an Agadir (warehouse castle) .
location
Imchiguegueln is about 4 km northeast of Aït Baha and only about 1 km east of the main road from Agadir to Tafraoute (R105) at an altitude of about 570 m above sea level. d. M. The small and quiet place can be easily reached via paved roads by car or taxi. Buses run approximately every hour between Biougra and Aït-Baha and stop at the junction on request.
Village
In the village itself there are only a few old houses - perfectly crafted from rubble stones without mortar and metal (e.g. nails) - and most of them are already in bad shape. The houses were mostly built around a larger inner courtyard, in which in earlier times the cattle (donkeys, sheep, goats, chickens) were locked up every evening. However, a large part of the younger population - after almost all year round lack of rain in the 1970s and 1980s - emigrated to the cities of the north and only spends a few weeks a year in their old homeland, where they do their own work or with the help of neighbors Friends have built new, flat-roofed houses with hollow brick walls and concrete ceilings for themselves and their parents. Then as now, cisterns were used for the water supply, which were only dug into the stone-penetrated ground with great effort and lined with waterproof plaster layers.
Rain only falls in the winter months (November to February). As early as October, the few remaining farming families were sowing the seeds (barley) on the stone-strewn fields, which had to be harvested at the end of April of the following year. Vegetables are rarely grown in the area due to the drought; it is bought on the market ( suq ) and mostly comes from lower and thus more water-rich regions of the western anti-Atlas or the Souss plain . Cattle (sheep, goats) are only kept by a few families, as the previously practiced semi-nomadic economy ( transhumance ) has largely been abandoned; In contrast, chickens are found even more frequently. At night, a horde of wild boars sometimes visits the village, barking and shooing them away by the dogs, which are otherwise little loved in the Islamic world.
Surroundings
Argan trees
In the area around the village some argan trees still grow , which - due to the increasing drought - become increasingly rare further east. Even if the trees grow wild, the owners of the trees have been known since time immemorial and nobody attacks other people's fruits. The olive-like fruits remain on the trees densely covered with thorns until they dry out in summer and fall off by themselves; then they are collected, bagged, brought home, sorted according to quality and stored until further processing.
Depending on the requirements, the hard kernels are broken open with the help of two stones in laborious manual work; The seed flakes inside - less than almond-sized - are roasted in pans or on trays and then ground into a pulp with the addition of a little boiled water, which is kneaded and pressed by hand for about an hour. The result is a long-lasting, great-tasting cooking oil that - sometimes refined with a little honey - is eaten with bread. Unroasted argan oil usually tastes bitter and is mostly produced in smaller cooperatives; it goes almost exclusively to the European or international cosmetics industry , where it is an expensive but popular component of skin care products. The remaining argan cake is waste and is fed to the animals or - dried - used as fuel.
landscape
The rocky and stony surroundings of the village are particularly suitable for shorter hikes in early spring (February, March). Smaller, pillow-shaped cacti and larger opuntia bushes with their 'cactus' figs grow between the stones covered by natural 'rock carvings' with parallel or crossing lines, which in earlier times were often viewed as the work of spirits ( jinns ) . The affodilla and other plants also bloom during this time. From April onwards the landscape turns into a dry and heat-flooded scree steppe; As a rule, rain does not fall until the beginning of next winter. For date palms and even for olive trees it is much too dry because of the low rainfall (approx. 230 mm / year) and the high temperatures; only thorn bushes, cacti, argan trees and small almond trees can survive the extreme conditions.
Agadir
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About 100 to 200 m from the village - surrounded by prickly cactus bushes and also thorny argan trees as well as a defensive wall with a tower - is a comparatively small Agadir (storage castle ) , which was originally built by the families of the village and is still owned by them. A guard living in the village grants access to the interior of the building.
Rows of benches
In the access area, which is covered by a wooden ceiling made of crooked argan branches, there are two rows of stone benches - about eight meters long; here the village elders could discuss important matters - u. a. also about the punishment of thieves etc., because behind the back wall there is a prison cell with a center post to tie up the accused. Nowadays, the benches serve as storage space for various agricultural and household tools that are shown to visitors. Most of the objects are made of wood, as metals were largely unknown in the remote mountain regions of southern Morocco; With the exception of the sickles and a few kitchen utensils (knives, pans, kettles) necessary for the grain harvest, other things made of metal (sieves, tools, etc.) did not find their way here until the 19th century.
Storage chambers
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The building is characterized by around 80 storage chambers, which are arranged on three levels one above the other and on both sides of a straight central aisle. The upper chambers can only be reached via large stepping stones that are embedded in the mortar-free masonry. The storage chambers were previously closed with doors made of simple boards, but in some cases artistically ornamented - only about 1.40 m high - doors; most of them have since disappeared, i. H. mostly sold to antique dealers in the cities. In the 7 to 8 m deep, but only 1.60 m high chambers - during the summer migration with cattle - the long-life self-produced food ( barley , argan oil ) or dried fruit (dates, figs) and swapped for argan oil could be stored in the chambers Nuts (walnuts, almonds) as well as agricultural and household implements are stored dry and safe, because a guard team remained in the village to defend the Agadir against attacks by wandering nomads or hostile neighboring tribes. For this purpose there are small loopholes in almost all storage chambers, but they also functioned as light and air slits.
The storage chambers on the lower level have a platform about 20 cm high to protect them against rising damp. About halfway up the door, all chambers have a fist-sized hole, which was needed to close the chambers (the formerly wooden door locks were all inside the chambers), but also made it possible for cats to keep mice away from the stored food. A small window with a kind of 'horseshoe arch' was built into the wall of one of the chambers by an unknown builder - a rare decorative detail in an Agadir.
mosque
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On the north side of Agadir - and only accessible through it - there is a small prayer room without a minaret, in which a maximum of 40 men could be seated; the women regularly offered their prayers at home. In its architecture (brick columns with round arches and rectangular Alfiz -Einfassungen, mihrab alcove with horseshoe arch ) of plastered and whitewashed room almost acts like a foreign body. In its construction, which is based on the Islamic architecture of the north, the prayer room differs fundamentally from the stone-faced Agadir and one can assume that this mosque was only added in the 19th or early 20th century.
On the floor next to the mihrab niche there is a fist-sized and completely polished stone, with the help of which - alternatively - the ablutions ( Wuḍūʾ ) prescribed by the Koran in Suras 4.43 and 5.6 before the communal prayer could be carried out.
Due to the presence of a mosque, the Agadir in its entirety was additionally placed under the special protection of Allah ; But for a long time, the villagers also considered it a sacred and inviolable place.
Current condition
Like all agadirs in Morocco, the construction of Imchiguegueln - as part of the social and technical modernization of the remote mountain regions of Morocco - has become functionless; Damage is no longer repaired. During heavy storms and rains in the winters of 2009/10 and 2014/15, the ceilings of some storage chambers were blown away or collapsed due to rotten branches.
meaning
The Agadir of Imchiguegueln is easily accessible and is still comparatively well preserved. The village and its Agadir provide diverse insights into the history and culture of a time without writing and threatened with permanent disappearance.
See also
literature
- Herbert Popp, Mohamed Ait Hamza, Brahim El Fasskaoui: Les agadirs de l'Anti-Atlas occidental. Atlas illustré d'un patrimoine culturel du Sud marocain. Natural Science Society, Bayreuth 2011, ISBN 978-3-939146-07-0
Web links
- Agadir from Imchiguegueln - Video 1 (French)
- Agadir from Imchiguegueln - Video 2 (French)
- Agadire in Morocco ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- Agadires of Amtoudi, Imchiguegueln, Inoumar and Tasguent - photos