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Berichte und Kommentare 
Anthropos 99.2004 
Draa, Touat, and Tafilalt. In the course of the 
20th century the tribe (taqbilt) started to adopt a 
sedentary way of life. 
Before the protectorate, men whose values cor 
responded to their nomadic way of life travelled 
freely, the only demarcations of space being the 
tracks of nomadic routes. This period is remem 
bered as a time of great freedom in the collective 
memory. In drawing up and imposing the Mo- 
roccan-Algerian frontier, the colonial authorities 
deprived the Ait Khebbach tribe of two thirds 
of their pastoral land, forcing them to gradually 
abandon their nomadic existence. And the process 
was accelerated by the Moroccan-Algerian border 
disputes 4 of the 1940-60 period, when their cara 
van routes were declared “prohibited areas.” Then, 
in the 70s, came the Moroccan barrage building 
policy, which deprived the tribe of a large portion 
of the water resources upon which they relied to 
pursue their new agricultural mode of life. 
Within a century, this ancient power of warring 
nomads found itself forced to settle and eke out a 
precarious existence within the bounds of a much 
shrunken territory subjected to adverse climatic 
conditions. 
Today, the Ait Khebbach, nomads and seden 
tary populations alike, mostly live close to the 
Moroccan-Algerian frontier in the Ziz valley, par 
ticularly in the pre-Saharan region of Merzouga. 5 
The Foundation Myth and Uterine Kinship 
All versions of the tribe’s foundation myth 6 adopt 
the same narrative form and all relate the biog 
raphy of the eponym ancestor, the constitution 
of his descent group, and finally their choice of 
a place in which to settle. This myth, like the 
fundamental narratives of other Berber-speaking 
tribes from the south and the Moroccan Atlas 
region, is constructed around three main themes: 
the ancestor (endowed with the virtues of wisdom), 
4 In 1963, Moroccans and Algerians waged the “war of the 
sands” (tanaght n-talght) over frontiers drawn up by the 
colonial power. There has, as yet, been no settlement of 
the conflict as Morocco still has to ratify the convention on 
territorial limits. 
5 Merzouga, a village that has existed for over 100 years, 
is situated in a desert region bordering the Sahara, 35 km 
southeast of Rissani (Tafilalt) and 50 km from Erfoud. Its 
population of approximately 1100 inhabitants, principally 
stockbreeders and date producers, are all members of the 
Ait Khebbach tribe. 
6 The author will not examine in any detail its various themes 
such as the mystery of their ancestry or breast-feeding by 
males. 
the dispersal (tribal wanderings 7 ), and lastly the 
reunification and geographical implantation of the 
group. 
The narrative 8 invariably begins with the su 
pernatural appearance of the Khebbach 9 ancestor, 
a hero who arrives from nowhere, so to speak. 
“He was found; no one knew where he came 
from” or, he had lost his way, in which case his 
maternal ancestry is mentioned. There is never any 
indication of who his father was. “A woman left 
her children and one of them got lost” (Yat tmttut 
tudja ichiran ns izl yan dichsn). The ancestor’s 
mother supposedly descended from Idriss I. 10 11 This 
made her a descendant of the Prophet (shrifa, 
masc. shrif). n “The woman who lost her child 
was an Idrissid.” From the very beginning, the 
mother’s prestigious ancestry is associated with the 
founder’s baraka (good fortune), a sort of divine 
benediction inherited from his mother. 
While all sources, male and female, agree that 
Khebbach was found, opinions vary as to the 
gender of his adoptive parent. Some versions are 
neutral: “Someone found him.” In other more 
precise versions, the infant was taken in and raised 
by a man named Ouaiza or Yahiya, or else by 
a woman from the Jebel Saghro (which is the 
one and only precise geographic reference). It is 
curious to find these two narrative versions, the 
one with a male and the other with a female figure. 
“He was adopted by the Sheik Ait Sdrat,” “he 
7 Provoked by enemies, or due to famine, drought, invasions 
of locusts, birds, etc. 
8 Despite the many varied narratives, when oral accounts tally 
and whenever they form a stable, homogenous narrative, 
this will be referred to in the singular as “the narrative,” 
while the plural will indicate the body of texts proposed by 
the various narrators. 
9 Fundamental narratives have one central theme: the kheb 
bach ethnonym. In the Berber dialect, spoken on the study 
site (tamazight), the term khebbach literally means to 
scratch, to draw on the ground, and serves to introduce 
the myth. The narration begins with something like the 
following dialogue between the founder and a passerby 
(male or female): “What are you doing?” (may tschrd?)- 
And the reply: “I am scratching?” (kn khbbach). 
10 In 786, Idriss I fled from Arabia where the Prophet’s 
descendants were being massacred and took refuge in 
Volubilis (Morocco). Ibn Khaldoun (1999/11:209) writes: 
“Upon reaching the Maghreb, Idris I, descendant of El- 
Hacen, the son of El-Hacen (grandson of Mahomet), rid 
the land of every trace of the Jewish, Christian, and 
pagan religions and put an end to the independence of 
these tribes.” Idriss I extended his authority by concluding 
alliances with many Berber tribes. The Idrissid dynasty 
remained in power from 788 to 1055. The appendix to 
volume II (Ibn Khaldoun 1999) is a mine of information 
on this historic figure. 
11 The shurfa are the descendants of a saint.