Travel book
The land of gold and silver
“Le Journal d'un médecin chez les Berbères du Bani”
A medical volunteer in Tata, Mustapha Akhmisse wrote this book as one would write a love letter. Reading it will make you fall in love as well. Get ready to travel into Morocco's inner garden, somewhere between black and white Africa.
In “Le Journal d'un médecin chez les Berbères du Bani” (Journal of a doctor among the Berbers of Bani), Akhmisse takes us into the desert, into the Moroccan province of Tata, a place erased from people's minds by the never-ending war against the Polisario Front.
Forget about the Rabat-Casablanca axis. There is, further south, a place where black Berbers mix with Jewish ghosts, where gold and silver used to be carried off by the wind, and where the daughter of the sky fell in love with a sleeping prince.
In this book, legends and reality dissolve into eachother, time loses its consistence, and religions become one: prehistoric engravings cover local pottery, a local smith is employed by jinns, and the son of a marooned slave has become a master in geomancy.
Mind you, the last caravan may have left a long time ago, this place is anything but cut from the rest of the world. In Tamdult, Jews founded a new Jerusalem, far away from Nabuchodonosor's army; in Tissint, people still come from as far as Mali to buy medicinal plants. As for the rest of the region, it was visited, a long time ago, by Juba II, Cleopatra's son-in-law…
This unique mixture of expedition tales, 1001-Night stories and African legends is written in French, but its easy style and the numerous pictures make it readable even to those not fluent in this language. Despite its rather sketchy, even rushed style, and a couple of anachronisms, this book will make you dream for days.
The only trouble with this journal is that the writer suddenly declares: “I stop this account, because I do not wish to finish this travel,” and abandons you in the middle of nowhere. Let's just hope there will be a sequel to make up for this.
Title: “Le Journal d'un médecin chez les Berbères du Bani”
Author: Dr. Mustapha Akhmisse
Publisher: Editions Kortoba, 139.
Extract:
In Tissint, the author meets a man who came from Mali to buy medicinal plants. He follows him to a local herbalist's shop.
He begged us to sit, which we did for hours. African discussions (palabres) have no cause to be jealous of the Moroccan “hadra.” I talked little to learn a lot. The Malian was a real polyglot. He spoke fluent Arabic, Berber, French, as well as many other dialects.
At times, the conversation would become so lively that I would think my two friends would jump at each other's throat. Sometimes, they would stop to ask me to become their impartial judge. I witnessed the confrontation of theories whose noble purpose was to relieve human misery wherever it would be. The Tissint herbalist would often disappear in his back shop and come back with an old manuscript in the hope of convincing us. Many of them were written by Arab or Soussi authors, his favourites being those of Al Antaqui* and El Ghassani**.
As for the Malian, he would only count on his ancestors' memory. He would relate the history of such and such plant with the talent of a story-teller. He would make it live, like a fairy, under the thick roof of the rainforest. He insisted that he was not a sorcerer, since, he said, “I only practice positive magic, the one which erases evil and relieves the victim.”
This phrase led to a terrible controversy confronting Islam and Animism. The Malian believed in the transfer of evil: by sticking a pin in determined areas of the wooden effigy of the patient, one can heal the liver, the spleen or the brain. One can also counter curses or kill an evil spirit by torturing an animal or drying it in the sun.
“No, no!” would repeat the Tissint herbalist. Only the Word of God can eradicate evil spirits. There are as many names of Allah as devil forms. Did you listen to the Qur'an Sura which makes the restless sleep, which rocks the anguished and heals the mad? A verse is much more powerful than a dose of medicine distilled from a big bag of plants. The Word of Allah resonates deep inside souls to relieve them.”
* Daoud El Antaqui, who died around 1008 in Cairo, was a brilliant doctor despite being blind. He left a vast dictionary of medicines and pharmacopoeia called: “El Tadkira.”
** El Wazi El Ghassani was the doctor of the Saadian Sultan Ahmed El Mansour. He summarised the medicine of his time in a book titled “Garden, flowers, herbs and drugs.”
The land of gold and silver
“Le Journal d'un médecin chez les Berbères du Bani”
A medical volunteer in Tata, Mustapha Akhmisse wrote this book as one would write a love letter. Reading it will make you fall in love as well. Get ready to travel into Morocco's inner garden, somewhere between black and white Africa.
In “Le Journal d'un médecin chez les Berbères du Bani” (Journal of a doctor among the Berbers of Bani), Akhmisse takes us into the desert, into the Moroccan province of Tata, a place erased from people's minds by the never-ending war against the Polisario Front.
Forget about the Rabat-Casablanca axis. There is, further south, a place where black Berbers mix with Jewish ghosts, where gold and silver used to be carried off by the wind, and where the daughter of the sky fell in love with a sleeping prince.
In this book, legends and reality dissolve into eachother, time loses its consistence, and religions become one: prehistoric engravings cover local pottery, a local smith is employed by jinns, and the son of a marooned slave has become a master in geomancy.
Mind you, the last caravan may have left a long time ago, this place is anything but cut from the rest of the world. In Tamdult, Jews founded a new Jerusalem, far away from Nabuchodonosor's army; in Tissint, people still come from as far as Mali to buy medicinal plants. As for the rest of the region, it was visited, a long time ago, by Juba II, Cleopatra's son-in-law…
This unique mixture of expedition tales, 1001-Night stories and African legends is written in French, but its easy style and the numerous pictures make it readable even to those not fluent in this language. Despite its rather sketchy, even rushed style, and a couple of anachronisms, this book will make you dream for days.
The only trouble with this journal is that the writer suddenly declares: “I stop this account, because I do not wish to finish this travel,” and abandons you in the middle of nowhere. Let's just hope there will be a sequel to make up for this.
Title: “Le Journal d'un médecin chez les Berbères du Bani”
Author: Dr. Mustapha Akhmisse
Publisher: Editions Kortoba, 139.
Extract:
In Tissint, the author meets a man who came from Mali to buy medicinal plants. He follows him to a local herbalist's shop.
He begged us to sit, which we did for hours. African discussions (palabres) have no cause to be jealous of the Moroccan “hadra.” I talked little to learn a lot. The Malian was a real polyglot. He spoke fluent Arabic, Berber, French, as well as many other dialects.
At times, the conversation would become so lively that I would think my two friends would jump at each other's throat. Sometimes, they would stop to ask me to become their impartial judge. I witnessed the confrontation of theories whose noble purpose was to relieve human misery wherever it would be. The Tissint herbalist would often disappear in his back shop and come back with an old manuscript in the hope of convincing us. Many of them were written by Arab or Soussi authors, his favourites being those of Al Antaqui* and El Ghassani**.
As for the Malian, he would only count on his ancestors' memory. He would relate the history of such and such plant with the talent of a story-teller. He would make it live, like a fairy, under the thick roof of the rainforest. He insisted that he was not a sorcerer, since, he said, “I only practice positive magic, the one which erases evil and relieves the victim.”
This phrase led to a terrible controversy confronting Islam and Animism. The Malian believed in the transfer of evil: by sticking a pin in determined areas of the wooden effigy of the patient, one can heal the liver, the spleen or the brain. One can also counter curses or kill an evil spirit by torturing an animal or drying it in the sun.
“No, no!” would repeat the Tissint herbalist. Only the Word of God can eradicate evil spirits. There are as many names of Allah as devil forms. Did you listen to the Qur'an Sura which makes the restless sleep, which rocks the anguished and heals the mad? A verse is much more powerful than a dose of medicine distilled from a big bag of plants. The Word of Allah resonates deep inside souls to relieve them.”
* Daoud El Antaqui, who died around 1008 in Cairo, was a brilliant doctor despite being blind. He left a vast dictionary of medicines and pharmacopoeia called: “El Tadkira.”
** El Wazi El Ghassani was the doctor of the Saadian Sultan Ahmed El Mansour. He summarised the medicine of his time in a book titled “Garden, flowers, herbs and drugs.”