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Contes & Légendes Populaires du Maroc
Imaginemos la plaza de Jama el-Fna de Marrakech en plena ebullición: culebreros, magos, domadores de animales, curanderos, sacamuelas, danzantes, músicos, equilibristas... Llega el cuentero apoyándose en un largo bastón. Elige un lugar y con su bastón dibuja un amplio círculo en la tierra. Se coloca en el centro, atrae la atención de los presentes e inicia su cuento. Imaginemos también el harén del palacio Dar el-Majzen, donde el sultán y su familia escuchan cuentos narrados por una vieja esclava o por una de las esposas, mientras se toman un oloroso té con menta. O las cocinas, donde las mujeres de la servidumbre de palacio esperan a que una mendiga ciega a la que han dado cobijo esa noche inicie la narración de una historia. La doctora Légey recopiló directamente de estos narradores y narradoras, a comienzos del siglo XX, los noventa y tres cuentos que componen este libro. Los escuchó en la plaza, en los harenes y en su propia consulta, adonde venían algunos de sus pacientes a sentarse y a charlar, y los transcribió lo más fielmente posible a como habían sido contados. Gracias a su rigor, hoy nos llegan las voces de estos marroquís de comienzos de siglo como si salieran de sus propios labios.
368 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1926
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 26, 2015
When I lived in Morocco in the late '90s, I was always fascinated by the storytellers who gathered every evening in the Djma'a al-Fna'a square in Marrakech. It was such a resolutely non-touristic form of entertainment: speaking in colloquial Moroccan Arabic, often with flurries of Tamazight, the storytellers were incomprehensible to anyone but locals, who stood or knelt patiently around them for what seemed like hours at a time, eating pistachios and sipping spice tea. I used to lurk on the edge of the crowd, peering through the smoke wafting off the nearby snail-sellers, and try to pick out a word or two I recognised from my twelve-month course in Modern Standard Arabic. There were generally a lot of hand gestures, and I got the impression that several dirty jokes were involved.
This book was out of print in those days; not that I knew it existed. The author was a French doctor in Marrakech in the first two decades of the twentieth century (i.e. when the country was still a French protectorate), where, apart from her medical work, she threw herself into the study of local folklore. The result is this collection of tales translated directly as they were told to her, either in the Djema'a al-Fna'a, or during a series of private meetings she arranged for the purpose. For anyone interested in folklore or myth and legend it's a fascinating read, like a very Maghrebi version of the Thousand and One Nights.
There are all the elements you expect: orphaned children, evil step-families, capricious queens, all-powerful kings, talking animals, djinns and afrits. Like all pre-modern stories, they are much more bloody and vindictive than the fairy-tales we are used to. Quite often, you read them with considerable delight, right up to the happy ending: and then suddenly comes a final paragraph of pure ultraviolence. The Moroccan Cinderella, ‘Âïcha Rmâda, takes revenge on her evil stepsister and stepmother like so:
The end. Sleep tight, children!
As with similar tales from around the world, they remind us that storytelling was once a serious business – a way for people to live out cathartic fantasies of happiness, power, revenge or fulfillment, as well as a way of teaching preadolescent boys and girls how society expected them to behave. My favourite bits were actually the more obvious Moroccan elements – kif-smokers, or references to historical sultans and viziers in Marrakech or Fez.
The people Légey spoke to were the best in the business. Some of them had been slave-girls in Sultan Hassan I's harem, where storytelling was a part of their duties – one, Zahra, had been dubbed by the sultan his ‘little Scheherazade’. Interestingly, Légey herself was instrumental in getting the slavery and harem system shut down under French rule, publishing a consciousness-raising letter in the New York Times about Moroccan women's rights. It's good to see that she was not unaware of the cultural losses that could ensue from such important social shifts. Someone, I forget who, once said that every time a storyteller dies, an entire library is burned. This book is a way of rescuing a few legible remains from the ashes – and giving yourself a few deliciously magical and nasty shocks in the process.
This book was out of print in those days; not that I knew it existed. The author was a French doctor in Marrakech in the first two decades of the twentieth century (i.e. when the country was still a French protectorate), where, apart from her medical work, she threw herself into the study of local folklore. The result is this collection of tales translated directly as they were told to her, either in the Djema'a al-Fna'a, or during a series of private meetings she arranged for the purpose. For anyone interested in folklore or myth and legend it's a fascinating read, like a very Maghrebi version of the Thousand and One Nights.
There are all the elements you expect: orphaned children, evil step-families, capricious queens, all-powerful kings, talking animals, djinns and afrits. Like all pre-modern stories, they are much more bloody and vindictive than the fairy-tales we are used to. Quite often, you read them with considerable delight, right up to the happy ending: and then suddenly comes a final paragraph of pure ultraviolence. The Moroccan Cinderella, ‘Âïcha Rmâda, takes revenge on her evil stepsister and stepmother like so:
‘Âïcha Rmâda had her stepsister decapitated and her head salted; then she gave an order to have her body cut up into small strips that should be dried in the sun. When the gueddid (dried, smoked meat) was ready, she put the salted head at the bottom of a bag, covered it with the meat, and sent the bag of presents to her evil stepmother.
She, thinking that she had received gifts from her daughter, ate up the meat, and then when she reached the bottom of the bag and saw the salted head, she realised that she had eaten her daughter – and died of rage on the spot.
The end. Sleep tight, children!
As with similar tales from around the world, they remind us that storytelling was once a serious business – a way for people to live out cathartic fantasies of happiness, power, revenge or fulfillment, as well as a way of teaching preadolescent boys and girls how society expected them to behave. My favourite bits were actually the more obvious Moroccan elements – kif-smokers, or references to historical sultans and viziers in Marrakech or Fez.
The people Légey spoke to were the best in the business. Some of them had been slave-girls in Sultan Hassan I's harem, where storytelling was a part of their duties – one, Zahra, had been dubbed by the sultan his ‘little Scheherazade’. Interestingly, Légey herself was instrumental in getting the slavery and harem system shut down under French rule, publishing a consciousness-raising letter in the New York Times about Moroccan women's rights. It's good to see that she was not unaware of the cultural losses that could ensue from such important social shifts. Someone, I forget who, once said that every time a storyteller dies, an entire library is burned. This book is a way of rescuing a few legible remains from the ashes – and giving yourself a few deliciously magical and nasty shocks in the process.
February 18, 2024
En esta recopilación se presentan 93 cuentos de diversos narradores y narradoras marroquíes (de la plaza de Jama el Fna, harenes, etc). Vienen agrupados en tres secciones: cuentos maravillosos, cuentos de animales y leyendas hagiográficas. Cada cuento es corto, de lectura ágil y se pueden extraer algunas moralejas.
Algunos guardan alguna semejanza con otros cuentos conocidos como Aisha Ramada, Aisha. Sucia de cenizas=Cenicienta. En algunos momentos los sentí reiterativos y muchos de ellos con una alta carga de violencia.
A través de este libro se tiene un acercamiento a elementos del folclor y cultura marroquí. Por ejemplo, al inicio se explica cómo desarrollan los cuentistas su arte, lo cual me pareció muy interesante (el círculo amplio dibujado en el suelo, las palabras de inicio y final, la recolección del dinero, etc). También, trae un glosario que ayuda a comprender cierta terminología. Naturalmente, cada cuento ofrece historias de su tradición oral.
Algunos guardan alguna semejanza con otros cuentos conocidos como Aisha Ramada, Aisha. Sucia de cenizas=Cenicienta. En algunos momentos los sentí reiterativos y muchos de ellos con una alta carga de violencia.
A través de este libro se tiene un acercamiento a elementos del folclor y cultura marroquí. Por ejemplo, al inicio se explica cómo desarrollan los cuentistas su arte, lo cual me pareció muy interesante (el círculo amplio dibujado en el suelo, las palabras de inicio y final, la recolección del dinero, etc). También, trae un glosario que ayuda a comprender cierta terminología. Naturalmente, cada cuento ofrece historias de su tradición oral.
January 16, 2025
Me ha costado tres años decidir dejarlo inacabado. Creo que es mi primer 'fail'.
Cuentos muy repetitivos, con una carga de casualidad y situaciones mágicas, excesiva.
No le veo más virtud que la de preservar la tradición oral de los cuentacuentos, más, con 10 de ellos hubiera bastado.
Te lo recomiendo si te gustó 'Las mil y una noches', y no te importa que la calidad decaiga en picado.
Cuentos muy repetitivos, con una carga de casualidad y situaciones mágicas, excesiva.
No le veo más virtud que la de preservar la tradición oral de los cuentacuentos, más, con 10 de ellos hubiera bastado.
Te lo recomiendo si te gustó 'Las mil y una noches', y no te importa que la calidad decaiga en picado.
September 2, 2021
Recueil très intéressant. Cependant, je ne m'attendais pas à autant de contes merveilleux (quasi deux tiers du livre.) Pour le reste le style de la doctoresse Légey est agréable et les ajouts de l'éditeur valent le détour.
January 13, 2019
Una gran recopilación de cuentos de tradición oral. Una lectura muy interesante para los amantes de la cultura árabe.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews