Suqueina and Shelej celebrate their wedding in the Sahara desert following the ancient tradition.
The celebration continues with the music of the tidinit and the poems recited in HASSANIA, the Arab dialect brought here from distant Yemen by the BENI HASSAN tribe in the eighteenth century.
On a sign from the bridegroom, his best friends go out to look for the bride, who, presumably, is hidden in some jaima.
This is what they call the AGLAA, the rescue dance. A tacit game in which the bride has to pretend she does not want to get married, and so hides with the help of her friends. In this way, she reaffirms her purity and chastity.
It is said that in the past some brides hid so well that they died of heat and exhaustion beneath the implacable Saharan sun. Between burst of nervous laughter, the young bride jokes with her friends and cousins who are putting the final touches to her make up.
The bridegroom starts to become impatient. If his friends take too long he will have to go out and search for her himself. Suqueina is now ready. Her friends place a white cloth over her head, a sign of virginity.
Among her friends there is frequently a divorced woman, not at all unusual in the Western Sahara, where women do not suffer the same oppression as in other parts of Africa.
In the bridegroom’s jaima, the beat of the drums accentuates the wait. Shelej’s friends must carry off the bride, even if this means fighting against her relatives, who will try to stop them. Tired of waiting, Shelej decides to go out in search of his bride.
In his jaima, the dancing is now becoming frenetic. The electrifying rhythm of the drums awakes the latent atavistic instincts of the Sahrawi nomad, and they dance wild, suggestively sensual dances.
Almost violently, the bride is dragged to the tent of the man who is now her husband. No one will now doubt the virility of Shelej.
Not everyone takes part in the celebrations. Toufa wants to know if she will be the next to get married. So, she goes to a black woman who will read her future, using the art of LEGSANA.
This divining consists of reading the future in balls of camel dung, into which small sticks have been pushed. The position in which they fall indicates what the future holds.
The Sahrawi society is very superstitious and, despite the explicit prohibition by their religion, believes in dreams, spells and the power of amulets.
On this occasion, fortune has smiled on Toufa. The balls of excrement have fallen with the sticks pointing up, which is interpreted to mean she will soon find a husband.
When the bride and groom are in the same jaima, they are considered to be properly married. Then, the guests become uninhibited and for hours on end dance explicitly erotic dances.
Men and women lose their inhibitions, intoxicated by the rhythmic sound of the drums.
Shelej’s young wife sits at her husband’s side, her head covered with a black cloth, to indicate she is no longer single. The dance of these nomads is an expression of their determination to one day live in a Sahara free from foreign occupation. Through marriage they seek to perpetuate the lineage, preserve their collective memory. Today, this is perhaps the only light in the long dark night of the Sahrawi people.
▶ SUBSCRIBE! [ Ссылка ] Full Documentaries every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday!
▶FULL DOCUMENTARIES |
[ Ссылка ]
▶ TRIBES | [ Ссылка ]
▶FACEBOOK | [ Ссылка ]
▶TWITTER | [ Ссылка ]
▶TUMBLR | [ Ссылка ]
