Friday 25 July 2008

The Guembri











This my friends is the guembri....used by Gnawa musicians here in Essaouria.  It's a deep three stringed wooden bass, in the lute family.  Fretless, with a long, cyndrical neck and soundbox, covered with mainly goat skin.  

Gnawa music is a mystical music, brought to Morocco by Sub-Saharan Africans, it later became part of Moroccan tradition.  The ritual of the gnawa follows rules that are part of the muslim Sufi tradition and part of African animistic tradition, similar to traditions found in African diaspora in Brazil, Cuba and Haiti.  The centre of the ritual is the so-called "leelah" (the night) also called "derdeba", the night of trance.  On these nights the seven spirits are evoked through around 100 chants.  There are many leelahs held in the spiritual community, in the Muslim month of Sha'aban, just before Ramadan.

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