Jajouka
Encyclopedia
- For the electronic band, see Joujouka (band).
Jajouka, Joujouka or Zahjoukah (جوجوكة or جهجوكة) is a village in the Ahl-Srif mountains in the southern Rif
Rif
The Rif or Riff is a mainly mountainous region of northern Morocco, with some fertile plains, stretching from Cape Spartel and Tangier in the west to Ras Kebdana and the Melwiyya River in the east, and from the Mediterranean Sea in the north to the river of Wergha in the south.It is part of the...
, Morocco
Morocco
Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
. The mountains are named after the Ahl-Srif tribe who populate the region.
The musical heritage
Jajouka or Zahjouka is well known as home to two Sufi trance musicians groups, The Master Musicians of Jajouka led by Bachir Attar and the Master Musicians of Joujouka managed by Frank RynneFrank Rynne
Frank Rynne is an Irish-born singer, record producer, art curator, film-maker, writer, and historian. He has played in three bands Those Handsome Devils in 1984, The Baby Snakes and Islamic Diggers . He has produced three CDs of Moroccan folk music by the Master Musicians of Joujouka...
. The music from Jajouka attracted the attention of writers Paul Bowles
Paul Bowles
Paul Frederic Bowles was an American expatriate composer, author, and translator.Following a cultured middle-class upbringing in New York City, during which he displayed a talent for music and writing, Bowles pursued his education at the University of Virginia before making various trips to Paris...
and William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
in the 1950s because the Sufi trance musicians there appeared to still celebrate the rites of the god Pan
Pan (mythology)
Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...
. Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin
Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...
, who had been introduced to the master musicians by Mohamed Hamri
Mohamed Hamri
Mohamed Hamri , commonly known as Hamri, was a self-described Painter of Morocco. He was a Moroccan painter and author and one of the few Moroccans to participate in the Tangier Beat scene....
, propagated this idea. Gysin linked the village's Boujeloud festival, where a boy sewn in goat skins danced with sticks while the musicians play to keep him at bay, to the ancient "Rites of Pan". In 1967 and 1968 Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
, lead guitarist with The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones are an English rock band, formed in London in April 1962 by Brian Jones , Ian Stewart , Mick Jagger , and Keith Richards . Bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts completed the early line-up...
, visited the village; at the end of his stay, he recorded the musicians for the LP Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka
Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka
Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka was an album produced by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. The album was a recording of the Moroccan group the Master Musicians of Joujouka, in performance on 29 July 1968 in the village of Jajouka in Morocco and released on Rolling Stones Records,...
. The LP was released on Rolling Stones Records
Rolling Stones Records
Rolling Stones Records is the record label formed by The Rolling Stones members Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Mick Taylor, Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman in 1970, after their recording contract with Decca Records expired. They were first distributed in the United States by Atlantic Records subsidiary...
in 1971, some two years after Jones' death. The record was reissued in 1995 by Point Music. The music from this village attracted an influx of westerners, including some who later recorded there, such as Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman
Ornette Coleman is an American saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter and composer. He was one of the major innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s....
and Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell
Bill Laswell is an American bassist, producer and record label owner....
.
Life
Subsistence farming is the main activity of most of the villagers living in Jajouka. The main crops are olives, tillage of vegetables such as carrots, turnips, potatoes, and the raising of sheep, which are grazed out on common land. Poultry are raised by the women. In the summer shepherd boys bring the herds to the higher slopes. They can be heard practicing on bamboo fluteBamboo flute
Flutes made of bamboo are found in many musical traditions.Some bamboo flutes include:Flute Country of Origin Atenteben Bashi Bansuri Chi Dizi Daegeum...
s from miles away. The livestock, chickens and high quality olive oil provide a cash element in this economy. There is also small-scale honey production by some enterprising villagers. In recent years, electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
and mobile telephony
Mobile telephony
Mobile telephony is the provision of telephone services to phones which may move around freely rather than stay fixed in one location. Mobile phones connect to a terrestrial cellular network of base stations , whereas satellite phones connect to orbiting satellites...
have arrived in the village and there is a passable road, which has reduced the cost of transporting essential goods to the village. The cost of transportation had previously made many items unavailable or prohibitively expensive to the villagers. The Ahl-Srif was also an area where kif
Kief
Kief, keef or kif refers to the resin glands of cannabis which may accumulate in containers or be sifted from loose dry cannabis buds with a mesh screen or sieve. Kief contains a much higher concentration of desired psychoactive cannabinoids, such as THC, than other preparations of cannabis buds...
(cannabis) was grown, but its cultivation has been recently prohibited. However, there seems to be no alternative cash crop for those who had depended on it in the past.
Further reading
- Hamri, Mohamed (1975), "Tales of Joujouka". Capra Press.
- Palmer, Robert (October 14, 1971). "Jajouka: Up the Mountain". Rolling Stone..
- Davis, Stephen (2001). Old Gods Almost Dead. Broadway Books, 135–37, 172, 195–201, 227; 233–34, 248–53, 270, 354, 504–505, 508.
- Strauss, Neil (October 12, 1995). "The Pop Life: To Save Jajouka, How About a Mercedes in the Village?". The New York Times.