Dear Gurus and Travel Gumbo friends, I beg your indulgence. Our friend and colleague contributor PortMoresby started me searching through some veeerrry old photos upon which I came upon these that I would like to share with you. I must firstly apologise that they are not of today's digital quality as they were taken in 1980 on print film that has been duplicated and scanned, messed around with and generally resurrected... But here is the story....
Back in 1980 I happened to bump into a National Geographic article now indexed as: Hunt, Carla, and Nik Wheeler. "Berber Brides' Fair." National Geographic (January 1980), 118-29. It was totally fascinating as it described and showed in the usual beautiful photos a little known annual "Berber Bride Fair" which is held in Imchlil some one and a half hours travel behind Marrakesh up into the High Atlas mountains.
Here the boys and girls of the Berber tribes of the local High Atlas villages come down to this point (Imchlil) for a Moussem (a meeting on neutral ground) where potential brides and grooms helped by their friends would introduce one another with a view to becoming "wed" in front of the local Magistrate.
Girls who had not been married before traditionally wore a pointed hat, and those that were coming back for a new match wore flat hats. If a union made this year did not work out, then apparently, wearing the appropriate hat you were entitled to coming back again next year for another try!
Apparently fearless, we, with two friends, set out in my aged Renault 16 (shown on the day) and just drove up the mountain to Inchlil. The road was only loose gravel and quite narrow. I remember even now my fear of meeting a laden goods lorry coming down the mountain the other way. We arrived, the only Europeans, and set up our modest tents and just watched the events unfold. We were immediately accepted as friendly by all those attending the Moussem and were, in reality, just ignored.
Unfortunately some of my better photos of "brides" were lost in food rioting in Casablanca a year or so later, but I hope that these pics are fun for our Travel Gumbo readers as they are of a "certain period" and perhaps of an event that is no more. I have tried to Google "Imchlil" but come up with only occasional historic entries. Maybe the Bride Market exists no more...
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