Zahar,
the Ouolof slave
(1486-circa 1550)
True story!
An historical woman of
the Black Adventure…
From slavery to the highest
Moroccan kingdom’s functions.
Zahar’s memories.
The scene is located at “Tagmadert”, a southern Moroccan oasis, in the early years of the 16th century.
By the sacred spring of the holy stream, Zahar, a young and beautiful Ouolof slave , motionless and lost in her thoughts, could not imagine her future fate…
A smile appears on her face. A hopeful smile. For her new boss has talked to her, which seemed impossible but is a fact : he did talk to her, a modest slave, when he is the young “Cherif”, “Mohammed the Younger”, a descendant of the Prophet! ( note)
What for?
He asked her to gather for him her remembrances.
He wants to know how are living and behave the powerful people of the towns .
Zahar can tell him a lot, since she has worked for such people, and for a long time..
Will she become the precious eye of her young boss ?
He is only twenty years old and she feels already as an old woman being twenty seven!
Note:
see my book:” El Mahdi le Saàdien
Roi de Marrakech et Fès
(1491-1557)
Is this mission a dream? Is it realty? Zahar feels herself part of sand, sun, and earth, her heart beating more strongly and loudly when thinking of the young lord.
He is a “fquih”, a scientist, his servants told her. He is also a “hadj” having accomplished the pilgrimage in Mecque.
How can it be possible for him to wish to learn anything from his miserable slave?
Is he non satisfied ? So thirsty of a new knowledge?
Not only what he could find in books, but also everything hidden in the most humble human beings…
He asked her, passionately:
-“Zahar! You have worked for Hammou ben Barka, a VIP seduced and then desappointed by the Portuguese king,
Emmanuel 1st.
- You can now tell me what you saw, and heard in his house!
- How was life in his town of Massa?
And at Safi, how did live his friend the caïd ben Ali?
- How many slaves under his control?
- How did he behave in the everyday life and during the most important meetings and parties?
- How was his “harem” organized?
And the Christian people, how do they live there? Did you meet any of them?
-Or any one linked to the Chérifs’s ennemy, the Berber Ou Ta’Fouft and his pernicious influence? “
Zahar does not know if she will be able to answer conveniently to all those questions.
She worries but does understand how important she can become for her new boss. She does imagine how better could be her miserable state if she found a way to forward him precisely her precious experiences.
She sits up straight, her back against a palm tree’s trunk.
Face in hands, elbows on knees, eyes closed, she tries, in a violent effort , to consult her past and old pictures in her memory start to stream at random…
Zahar’s life.
A slave, she was born, from slaves parents. According to God’s will! Nothing and no one could modify her state !
Worthless to complain or blasphemy! “Mektoub”! Her fate is to be a successive bosses’ servant along a nomad’s life, thrown about a place to another one, from a house to a tent, from a town to the desert. In a few days she will have to leave the big Tagmadert’s house, on bare feet, running between the caravan’s dromadairies and horses, on the powdered track, till “Tidsi of Sous”, an unknown village…
If only the young boss could give her a donkey, just a small one, to help her to save her strength! Yes! A nice donkey is what Zahar will beg for, to satisfy her young boss’s curiosity!
Just a donkey, similar to this one…
(Yves Matte painted it . Nice, 1992).
Zahar is consulting her past…
From her birth at Safi, 27 years ago, she never had to complain about her bosses. She never was really ill treated.
She has been lucky enough to escape from hard labors, agriculture or cattle. Lucky enough to live by the lords, in their house, at their personal service. Maybe and this was her parents ‘ opinion, because of her pleasant face, her quick witted intelligence, rapid to understand and register any new words pronounced by the lords and their friends. For her, new words’ and expressions’ sounded as a musical delight.
As for her parents.
Contrary to their daughter, born in slavery, both of them were born free Ouolofs. They were collecting some wood on a beach of their native territory, when captured, young and strong, by Castillan traffickers.
Zahar’s mother worthed a double price, for she was pregnant, holding a future slave. The slavery traders did not separate her from her companion. They just formed a perfect couple, a unity for the pleasure of the eyes and for work! They were examined together, fingered, weighed, measured, and, at last, bought, after bargaining and chatting, on behalf of the “caïd” of Safi, Ahmed ben Ali.
The caïd’s favorite wife , Amanitere, was herself an Ouolof.
The lord was good-natured, but exigeant. He needed his 200 servants. Each had to perform a precise job.
At the caïd’s wake up, every morning, they had to slowly parade before him, each one holding a different dish. The purpose was to assure the boss of a fine starting of the day, owing to an harmonious breakfast.
-“This should be of some interest for the Cherif” says Zahar for herself… He is used to just swallow in a rush, and standing, a few dates and a glass of camel-milk every morning”!…
Zahar’s parents, just arrived, had to stay in a dark closet by the kitchens. With the most off-putting tasks to take care of.
Her father had to wake up at sunrise at the first rooster ‘s song. He had to walk to a cliff above the sea at the stables. There was the reserve of wood faggots. Large logs to split and bring all day long to the clay furnaces. Five women there, were cooking olive oil pies, pigeon or sheep’s “tajines”, honey cakes, never numerous enough to get the lord satisfied.
The caïd ben Ali held open table. He constantly received the most important tribes’ leaders, christian traders, foreign sovereigns’ representatives and his personal friends, a true court, interested by his liberalities.
Women never appeared at those feasts. But, before hiding themselves in their rooms, they did participate to the preparation of delicate food.
-“ I will tell my young master of the caïd’s parties, thought Zahar, but here , at Tagmadert, it would be impossible to spend a lot of money for luxury ! Money comes from very poor tribes and for religious purposes. Here , everything is rough and rustic, and contrasts with the facilities of Safi’s soft life”.
-“For my poor mother it was all the contrary of facilities!I will not tell my master how desperate she was in the darkness of the kitchens’ depths”…
Horrid times when , living as an animal, she felt decreasing her human resistance day after day.
Till Zahar’s birth.
Hung by a rag , and thrown about her back, fed along two years by the motherly milk , never the baby cried from hunger or lack of care.
Later on, by happier days, Zahar often could hear her mother mentioning her horrible hours of hell …
Fortunately, imprevisible and unexpected “Luck” arrived on a bright morning as a real miracle!
Amanitere, the old caïd’s favorite wife, had ordered to the cooks a special desert from her country, prepared with translucent dates. The sweets’ specialists, in vain, tried to satisfy her. Each time the dishes went back to the kitchen, with the angry reproaches of Amanitere, promising the whip to the incapables…
Their chief, at his limits, brought down his look to the black slave, occupied to clean the ground, her sleeping baby on her back:
-“You are an Ouolof, as is the mistress. Do you know exactly what she is asking for? If you know it, are you able to satisfy her”?
Zahar’s mother was able to do it.
There was her luck.
Orders sent her to the hamam.
Other ones wrapped her in clean clothes.
From her dirty state she was promoted to a pastrycook’s condition and sent to Amanitere, who took her and her family under her protection.
Today, by Tagmadert’s spring, Zahar looks up to the palm trees, loaded with ripe translucent dates.
Able, herself, to succeed in the fine motherly pastry, in a dream she perceives again her Mom’s thin tanned hands… Carefully they knead the almond paste, surrounded by a delicate orange ‘s flower fragrance… A happy time again…
Those were the eldest remembrances of Zahar’s youth, at Safi et in Caïd ben Ali’s house.Terrible times had to appear again.
NB:
This story will be part of a serie and I would be pleased to add other chapters to it but only If I receive any comments from nice readers!!! So, please, write to me at:
HYPERLINK “mailto:sivalesegovaleo@me.com” sivalesegovaleo@me.com
Thanks a lot!
Denise Boulet-Dunn
PAGE
PAGE 9
PAGE
PAGE 9
