by Gebhart Blazek & Henri Crouzet

In the period between 1998 - 2002, when an international market raised a strong interest in Moroccan Henna textiles, the veils of the Ahel Telt were among the most demanded types. The Ahel Telt live in the most northern part of the Middle Atlas as a part of the Beni Ouarain confederation. Their territory is situated east + southeast of the Jebel Tazzeka + south of the Oued Msoun valley. Similar to the surrounding neighbours of the Beni Ouarain confederation the Ahel Telt used to live mainly from semi-nomadic cattle breeding in the past.

It is interesting to remark that among all the Beni Ouarain tribes, examples of the complete set of textiles of the traditional female costume have only been preserved to our days in the small region of this group. While the women's shawls called 'tabrdouhte' or 'tabbnoute' (arab. handira) have been kept on being produced until the 1970ies or 1980ies even, the production of the large wrapping textiles ('tahraoukht'), the veils ('taritat' or 'tarredat'), the head bands ('tachedat n'tritat') + the traditional form of belts ('abkass ouziza') had been abandoned much earlier, generally in the 1920ies - 1930ies. In the period between 1998 - 2002, when an international market raised a strong interest in Moroccan Henna textiles, the veils ('taritat') of the Ahel Telt were among the most demanded types.

The Ourika Valley in the High Atlas region of southern Morocco , a place of idyllic beauty, has been a popular tourist destination since the period of the French protectorate. So it was surprising to discover that a previously unrecorded group of highly graphic Berber kilims, which had first appeared on the market as late as 2000, were made there. In 2004 the author travelled to the Ourika Valley with fellow Moroccan textile connoisseurs Wilfried Stanzer and Mustapha Hansali to learn more about this group of horizontally banded kilims, which are entirely woven from natural light and dark coloured wool and are further defined by the use of characteristic lensshaped motifs.

The Beni Ouarain and some neighbouring Berber tribes in the northeastern Middle Atlas are the weavers of a distinctive type of large, archaic-looking, white-ground pile carpet. These 'white giants' represent a direct link to the earlier weaving traditions of the Zenata Berber, and in their turn have had a fundamental influence on the development of the textiles woven by Morocco's mountain nomads.

Morocco's rural weaving culture has attracted a great deal of attention from the international art world over the past 20 years. Much of this interest has been generated by a new generation of dealers and collectors who have used their understanding and appreciation of abstract modern art to judge these weavings, thereby gradually replacing the use of fineness, natural dyes and age as indicators of quality.