ⴰⵢⵜ ⵄⵟⵟⴰ · Ayt Ɛeṭṭa · آيت عطا
The Aït Atta
An Amazigh confederation of south-eastern Morocco, centred on the Saghro, organised in “five fifths” and governed by its own customary law.
Nomad camp in the mountains (1955) — Nationaal Museum van Wereldculturen (Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam), CC BY-SA 3.0
These pages rely largely on David M. Hart's ethnography (fieldwork in the 1950s–1960s) and on Georges Spillmann (1936). The pages actually consulted are cited with their number; syntheses are flagged as such.
Territory
A historian's interpretation5 sourcesOrigins and expansionA confederation that claims to have been born in the Saghro and spread, from the 16th to the 19th century, from the Drâa to the Tafilalt and up to the slopes of the Central Atlas.Read 
Confirmed by a verified source5 sourcesThe Saghro and Aït Atta countryAn arid massif, symbolic and political heart, at the centre of a territory scattered between mountain, oases and pre-Saharan steppes.Read
Political organisation
Confirmed by a verified source6 sourcesThe Aït Ouahlim (Aït Wahlim)One of the five “fifths” of the Aït Atta: the tribes of the Aït Zemro and the Aït Hasso, from the Todgha to the Draa.Read 
Confirmed by a verified source5 sourcesThe “five fifths”At the top of the segmentation, five groups without their own chief, whose essential function was to provide, in turn, the chief of all.Read 
Confirmed by a verified source3 sourcesElecting a chief: the amghar n-ufillaA top chief elected each year by those who could not be elected, removable, unpaid, and whose office lapsed around 1926-1927.Read - Confirmed by a verified source5 sourcesIgharm Amazdar, the capital“London, Paris, Washington and Igharm Amazdar”: a village of a hundred houses that was the political, judicial and sacred centre of the Aït Atta.Read
Customary law
Confirmed by a verified source4 sourcesJudging: from the local assembly to the court of appealTwo-tier justice, without professional judges, protected by the sacred.Read - Confirmed by a verified source4 sourcesThe collective oath, vendetta and blood moneyProof through the sworn word of agnates, vengeance contained by compensation.Read
Confirmed by a verified source1 sourcesThe rule book of Igharm AmazdarA document photographed in 1961: rations owed to the shurfa, fines in measures of barley, oaths at Timjraj.Read - Confirmed by a verified source3 sourcesProtecting, making amends, integrating: pactsBetween groups and between persons, ritual commitments (an animal's blood shed, milk shared) created protection, peace and chosen kinship.Read
- Confirmed by a verified source3 sourcesThe written custom of the Ziz qsourCollections of rules, written in Arabic with Amazigh words, organised life in the fortified villages: houses, water, theft, marriage, oath.Read
Society
- Confirmed by a verified source7 sourcesDefending the Saghro: fighters, women and familiesWhat the sources really allow us to say about the defenders of 1933 (their words, their conditions, their endurance) and what they leave unsaid.Read
Confirmed by a verified source6 sourcesProtectors and protected: Aït Atta, Haratin and JewsIn the conquered oases, a hierarchical society based on unequal protection agreements.Read 
Unverified information3 sourcesFamilies, marriages and namesAn agnatic kinship system, names that state filiation, weddings celebrated over several days.Read
Economy & land
Culture & heritage
Confirmed by a verified source2 sourcesIgherman: fortified villages and granariesRammed earth and stone, several storeys, guarded stores: the architecture of permanent homes.Read 
Unverified information3 sourcesDress, jewellery and languageWhite turban and beard for men, indigo veils and silver for women, a variety of Tamazight.Read - Confirmed by a verified source5 sourcesTelling the conquest: poetry under the bombsAmazigh poems from the Central Atlas, collected after the conquest, name the aeroplane, the cannon and the disaster.Read
- Confirmed by a verified source6 sourcesMusic today: four voices from the south-eastMusicians from the Tinghir and Dadès region take up the ahidous and sing of the memory of the Bougafer, of migration or of water. Their origin is given as the sources give it: none says they are Aït Atta.Read