Imilchil Moussem - The Brides Market - 22nd to 24th September

The Souk Aamor Agdoud N’Oulmghenni, or the renowned Imilchil Moussem; the “Fête des Fiancés” or “Marriage Market”, is the most impressive of all the Berber mountain souks

Held at the end of summer, over three days - September, 22, 23rd and 24th - it represents the annual meeting of the great family tribes Aït Haddidou, Aït Morghad, Aït Izdeg and Aït Yahia. A gathering of the Berber people of remote villages of the Middle and High Atlas mountain valleys and nomadic herders of the southern slopes leading to the fringes of the Sahara desert

These days the event is organised in collaboration with the municipality of Bouzemou and the province of Midelt, aims to contribute to the preservation of cultural and symbolic heritage of the region through the promotion of local traditions and mountain tourism.

There are two main competing versions of stories that lay claim for the inception of the festival. They are both pragmatic and probably the real truth lies somewhere in between the romantic fact and fiction.

Berber legend tells that two young people from different feuding tribes fell in love but, in a Moroccan triste akin to Romeo and Juliet, they were forbidden to see each other by their families. The grief of unrequited love led them to their deaths. One ending of legend tells that they cried themselves to death, creating the neighbouring deep alpine lakes of Isli (his) and Tislit (hers), near Imilchil.

The second ending, equally dramatic, is that the lovers drowned themselves in the separate lakes. Accordingly the Imilchil Marriage Festival was founded as an anniversary to those lover’s death, and in a tribal tradition, as an opportunity for unmarried Berbers, particularly women trapped at altitude for most of the year, to survey and mingle with prospective spouses. For some it’s the opportunity to commit to the vow of marriage and commence the tying of the marital knot with their chosen love.

The second and more unromantic version of the story is that the marriage tradition purportedly derives from the French colonial times of the last century, when the foreign officials used to insist that the Berbers assembling for their yearly souk, registered their births, deaths and marriages. Most probably it is that act that instituted the official contract signing and noting of the exchange of vows we know them today. While its not apparent it is said that most marriage matches are arranged in advance and merely formalised at the moussem with the contract signing.

Whatever version of the story you want to believe, the souk and moussem is a delightfully unique and colourful event. Small groups of young Berber women dressed in traditional finery and roughly, woven woollen robes distinctive to each family tribe, some with berber fibules (amulets), eyes rimmed with heavy black kohl, and intricately hennaed hands, amble through the commerce of the souk talking, flirting with or being approached by the potential bachelors trying to strike up meaningful conversation. The wary eyes of elder relatives, looking on, following them protectively at a furtive distance.

On the second day of this year’s moussem, under the white and black appliqué of the official Moroccan tent, 29 young couples apprehensively waited to make their vows at the public ceremony. A large crowd of onlookers sparsely sprinkled with few tourist eyes, Moroccan media and a few film documentary crews looked on from a short distance. For all the sense of frivolity surrounding the evident flirting, courtship and mingling in the souk the young nuptial couples sat in nervous congregation before approaching the officials together and solemnly signing their betrothal contract with the stamp of their inked thumbs. Then each couple, striding from the official’s tents, amidst the celebratory rhythmic tamborines, singing and shrill tongue warbles, successively broke through the parted circle of the crowd. Stepping over the threshold of tradition and through the open door of their married lives ahead of them.

Text and photographs: John Horniblow

The Imilchil Marriage Festival 2013

The Souk Aamor Agdoud N’Oulmghenni, or the renowned Imilchil Moussem; the “Fête des Fiancés” or “Marriage Market”, is the most impressive of all the Berber mountain souks. Held at the end of summer, over three days late in September, it represents the annual meeting of the great family tribes Aït Haddidou, Aït Morghad, Aït Izdeg and Aït Yahia. A gathering of the Berber people of remote villages of the Middle and High Atlas mountain valleys and nomadic herders of the southern slopes leading to the fringes of the Sahara desert. John Horniblow reports for The View from Fez

Crossing from Middle Atlas into the High Atlas and up to Imilchil the Atlas Mountains presents formidable natural barrier that has maintained the autonomy of the Berber tribes of the mountains and the desert directly at their southern slopes for millennia. Wild sweeping vistas of stark mountain peaks and deep ravines are traversed by thin ribbons of bitumen that wind in narrow neck turns over the passes to reach the high plateau. In this week in September you jostle for space on the thin roads with steady stream of ancient red Bedford trucks (Berber taxis) either laden with goods, livestock and people heading to the moussem or brimming with wooden crates carrying the apple harvest out of the mountain valleys.

While named after Imilchil the moussem actually takes place in a small valley between Bouzmouz and Agoudal on the high plateau. From what might appear at first to be an informal souk and camp around the tomb of Sidi Ahmed Oulmghenni, a small temporary town of tents and stalls swells across two small hillsides with alleys of eateries, clothes markets, shoes stalls, grain markets, carpet traders and village weavers, Berber jewelers and desert traders. On one hillside of a lively trade of animals occurs on the first day. From the other side overlooked by nomadic families camped under the rock ledges high on the hill, the souk bustles with people keen to trade handicrafts, tools, buy and sell provisions, or simply amble watching and catching up with distant friends and family members. Then at night they celebrate with lively music, singing and dancing before the onset of winter snowfalls cuts them off from the rest of the world.

There are two main competing versions of stories that lay claim for the inception of the festival. They are both pragmatic and probably the real truth lies somewhere in between the romantic fact and fiction the two of them. As far as Berber legend goes two young people from different feuding tribes fell in love but, in a Moroccan triste akin to Romeo and Juliet, they were forbidden to see each other by their families. The grief of unrequited love led them to their deaths. One ending of legend tells that they cried themselves to death, creating the neighbouring deep alpine lakes of Isli (his) and Tislit (hers), near Imilchil. The second ending, equally dramatic, is that the lovers drowned themselves in the separate lakes. Accordingly the Imilchil Marriage Festival was founded as an anniversary to those lover’s death, and in a tribal tradition, as an opportunity for unmarried Berbers, particularly women trapped at altitude for most of the year, to survey and mingle with prospective spouses. For some it’s the opportunity to commit to the vow of marriage and commence the tying of the marital knot with their chosen love.

The second and more unromantic version of the story is that the marriage tradition purportedly derives from the French colonial times of the last century, when the foreign officials used to insist that the Berbers assembling for their yearly souk, registered their births, deaths and marriages. Most probably it is that act that instituted the official contract signing and noting of the exchange of vows we know them today. While its not apparent it is said that most marriage matches are arranged in advance and merely formalized at the moussem with the contract signing.

Need less to say, whatever version of the story you want to believe, the souk and moussem is a delightfully unique and colourful event. Small groups of young Berber women dressed in traditional finery and roughly, woven woollen robes distinctive to each family tribe, some with berber fibules (amulets), eyes rimmed with heavy black kohl, and intricately hennaed hands, amble through the commerce of the souk talking, flirting with or being approached by the potential bachelors trying to strike up meaningful conversation. The wary eyes of elder relatives, looking on, following them protectively at a furtive distance.

On the second day of this year’s moussem, under the white and black appliqué of the official Moroccan tent, 29 young couples apprehensively waited to make their vows at the public ceremony. A large crowd of onlookers sparsely sprinkled with few tourist eyes, Moroccan media and a few film documentary crews looked on from a short distance. For all the sense of frivolity surrounding the evident flirting, courtship and mingling in the souk the young nuptial couples sat in nervous congregation before approaching the officials together and solemnly signing their betrothal contract with the stamp of their inked thumbs. Then each couple, striding from the official’s tents, amidst the celebratory rhythmic tamborines, singing and shrill tongue warbles, successively broke through the parted circle of the crowd. Stepping over the threshold of tradition and through the open door of their married lives ahead of them.

Text and photographs:  John Horniblow

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A Moroccan Valentine

Writing in the Guardian newspaper today, Valentine's Day, Tahir Shah gives a glimpse of a Moroccan festival with plenty of romance.

Young Moroccan bride, Imilchil (photo Paul Almasy)

If Morocco is a land of romance, then its heart is surely the remote Berber village of Imilchil – without doubt the most romantic place I have ever been. Nestled in the Atlas, it lies beyond the Gorge of Ziz, in a wild and unforgiving frontier of narrow passes and sweeping mountain vistas. Once each year, in September, a festival is held in which the young are permitted to choose a spouse for themselves. In a realm usually confined by tribal tradition, the would-be brides and grooms are free to pick whoever they wish to marry. Dressed in roughly woven black robes, jangling silver amulets and amber beads heavy around their necks, the girls stream down from their villages. There's a sense of frivolity, but one tempered with solemn apprehension as they approach the doorway to a new life.

Reaching the village square, they catch first sight of the grooms. All of them are dressed in white woollen robes, their heads bound tight with woven red turbans, their eyes darkened with antimony.

The betrothal festival owes its existence to a legend, itself a blend of love and tragedy – a kind of Moroccan Romeo and Juliet. The story goes that, forbidden to marry, a couple who hailed from feuding tribes drowned themselves in a pair of crystal-clear lakes called Isli and Tislit. (One version of the tale says the lakes in which they drowned were made from their tears.) So horrified were the local people at the loss that they commenced the annual festival. No one is quite sure when the tradition began, but everyone will tell you that the marriages which follow betrothal there are blessed in an almost magical way.

The first time I visited Imilchil, almost 20 years ago, I met a young couple, Hicham and Hasna. They had met, fallen in love and been betrothed all on the same morning. They were glowing, their cheeks flushed with expectation and new love. Last year, when I visited Imilchil again, I tracked down the pair. They look a little older now. Hicham's hair has thinned and his face is lined from a life outdoors tending his goats; and Hasna looks fatigued. But then she has given birth to six children, four of them boys. As we sat in the darkness of their home, a wooden shack clinging like a limpet to the mountainside, I asked them how the years had been.

Hicham looked across at Hasna, and smiled. "On that day all those years ago," he said, "I became the happiest man in all the world. And each day since has been conjured from sheer joy." He glanced at the floor. "Do you want to know our secret?" he asked me bashfully. I nodded. Hicham touched a hand to his heart. "To always remember the love of the first moment, the tingling feeling, the first time it touches you, and the first moment your hands touched."

A few days after leaving Hicham and Hasna at their home in Imilchil, I reached my own home overlooking the Atlantic, in Casablanca. As I stepped in the door, my two little children, Ariane and Timur, ran up and threw their arms around my neck. They asked where I'd been. I told them about the winding mountain roads, the Berber villages, and the Gorge of Ziz. "And what did you bring?" they asked both at once, straining to look sheepishly at the ground. "I brought you a secret," I said. "What is it, Baba?" "Always to remember the feeling of tingling love," I said.