Module 120 · Sacred & Spiritual Intelligence
The Gnawa Road
From West Africa to Morocco to the world.
A spiritual technology carried across the Sahara by enslaved peoples.
The guembri still speaks in languages its players no longer understand.
Part One
The Road
Trans-Saharan Corridors
Gold circles = source kingdoms. Purple circles = Moroccan Gnawa centres. Dashed lines = slave trade routes. Click markers for detail.
Timeline
Part Two
The Music
Instruments
Guembri
Sintir · Hajhouj · Gimbri · الكمبري / سنتير
Three-stringed bass plucked lute. Only played by the maalem (master musician). Guitar-sized, with a body carved from a single log and covered with camel skin.
Materials
Body: single piece of walnut, mahogany, poplar, fig, acacia, or iroko wood, hollowed out. Soundboard: dromedary (camel) neck skin, stretched taut and nailed or stitched. Strings: three strings of goat gut (modern: sometimes nylon). Tuning: sliding leather rings. Sound modifier: sersera — metal rings attached to neck that create a distinctive buzzing rattle.
Construction
Body hollowed from a halved tree trunk into a rectangular or canoe shape. Camel skin stretched over the playing side, functioning like a banjo membrane. The neck passes through the body, emerging through the skin at the base as a string carrier. Three strings of different thickness: the lowest is a drone (never fretted), the middle tuned an octave higher (also a drone, half-neck length), the highest is melodic. Approximately 1.2m total length; box approximately 55cm × 19cm × 14cm.
Playing
Strings plucked downward with knuckle side of index finger and inside of thumb. The player simultaneously slaps the camel skin body with free fingers for percussive tones — pizzicato cello meets hand drum. Both melodic and percussive at once. Common tunings: C, D, F, G. Pentatonic scales predominate.
Ritual Role
Attracts the mluk (spirits) into the dance space and drives trance. Only the maalem plays it. In the lila, the guembri opens the treq (path) — the encoded sequence of ritual repertoire.
Ancestor
Derived from the West African ngoni (4-stringed lute of the Sahel griots). Also related to the xalam and hoddu. The sliding leather tuning rings and percussive playing style are directly traceable to Malian and Sahelian instruments. Some scholars draw connections to the American banjo through shared African ancestry.
The Seven Colours
Each spirit family has a colour, an incense, a domain, and a suite of songs. The lila moves through all seven from dusk to dawn.
White — Moulay Abdelqader al-Jilani
مولاي عبد القادر الجيلاني
Spirits: Holy Muslim saints. The most beatific spirits.
Character: Bestows well-being, grace, and spiritual peace. The opening of the sacred repertoire. Participants draped in white.
Incense: Frankincense, sandalwood
Domain: Purity, holiness, Sufi sainthood
The Lila · All-Night Ceremony
Preparation
Before nightfall
A communal meal is shared. A sacrifice (often a black goat) is performed to assure the presence of spirits. The moqaddma (female ritual leader) cleans the space with herbs, candles, and recitations. The ceremony takes place inside a private house, shrine, or zawiya.
Music: No formal music yet
Maalem Lineages
1951–2015 · Essaouira
Most revered Gnawa musician internationally. His 1994 album "The Trance of Seven Colors" (with Pharoah Sanders, produced by Bill Laswell) remains the reference recording. At his final Essaouira concert (May 2015), visibly ill, he handed his guembri to his son Houssam. Died August 2, 2015.
Collaborations: Pharoah Sanders, Carlos Santana, Peter Gabriel, Peter Brötzmann, Bill Laswell, James Holden, Floating Points
c. 1953–2025 · Marrakech
Bridge between Gnawa ritual percussion and Morocco's 1970s folk revival (member of Jil Jilala). Preserved the Marrakchi style — more percussive and urban than the Essaouira school.
Collaborations: Jil Jilala, various European festival partnerships
b. Ksar El Kebir · Rabat (from Ksar El Kebir)
Bridges northern (gharbaoui/shamali), Essaouira (marsaoui), and southern Berber (soussi) styles. Introduced Gnawa to mainstream Moroccan audiences.
Collaborations: Jacob Collier, Snarky Puppy, numerous international festivals
b. 1963, Marrakech · Marrakech → New York City
First Gnawa musician to establish a major career in the West. Based in NYC since late 1980s. Debut at Lincoln Center 1987. Rolling Stone "Hot Pick of '94."
Collaborations: Peter Gabriel, Don Cherry, various world music projects
Regional Styles
Atlantic coast style. Greater prominence of the guembri. The Guinia family dynasty. Named for the city's old name: al-Sawira / Mogador
Urban imperial city style. More percussive, stronger tbel and ganga elements. The Baqbou family. Djemaa el-Fna street performance tradition
Northern style. Influenced by Andalusian and Jebala music. Abdellah El Gourd (Tangier). Hamid El Kasri bridges north and south
Berber-influenced. Greater role for ganga (drum). Rural ceremonial context. May preserve pre-Islamic African elements
Urban synthesis. H'mida Boussou's ceremonies. Draws from multiple regional traditions
Part Three
The Branches
The same West African peoples who were taken north across the Sahara were also taken west across the Atlantic. The same spiritual technology — music-driven possession trance — produced distinct traditions on three continents. Every tradition uses colour-coded spirits. Every tradition uses specific rhythms to invoke specific spirits. In every tradition, the possessed person is called a horse.
| Tradition | Region | Spirits | Possession Metaphor | Lead Instrument |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gnawa | Morocco | Mluk | Spirit inhabits (meskun) | Guembri (3-string lute) |
| Stambali | Tunisia | Mlouks | Spirit welcomed into body | Gumbri (nearly identical to guembri) |
| Diwan | Algeria | Mluk | Possession trance | Gumbri |
| Bori | Nigeria / Niger | Iskoki / Aljanu | Doki (horse) / Godiya (mare) | Goge (1-string fiddle) |
| Vodou | Haiti | Lwa | Chwal (horse) — lwa "mounts" and "rides" | Three sacred drums (Manman, Segon, Boula) |
| Candomblé | Brazil | Orixás | Cavalo (horse) — orixá "descends" into devotee | Three atabaque drums (Rum, Rumpi, Lé) |
| Santería / Lucumí | Cuba | Orishas | Orisha "mounts" the devotee | Batá drums (sacred, double-headed) |
Gnawa syncretised with Sufi Islam. Vodou syncretised with Catholic saints. Candomblé syncretised with the Portuguese church. The technology adapts. The architecture — colours, rhythms, horses, healing — remains.
Vocabulary
Master musician. Honorary title reserved for musicians deeply versed in Gnawa music and culture. Often attained after decades of practice. The maalem plays the guembri, leads the lila, and commands the spirits
"Night." The all-night healing ceremony. Also called derdeba. Begins at dusk, ends at dawn. A journey through the seven realms of the mluk. Private, communal, therapeutic, sacred
Possessing spirits (singular: melk). From the verb malaka — "to own." Seven families, seven colours. Not exorcised but negotiated with and integrated. Some are Muslim, some Jewish, some pagan
Trance state. The ecstatic condition entered by participants during the lila. Spectacular dancing, self-mortification, speaking in tongues. The body becomes inhabited (meskun) by a spirit
Female ritual leader / clairvoyant (also shuwafa). She determines the accessories, clothing, and incense needed during the ceremony. She diagnoses which spirit possesses each participant. The maalem controls the music; the moqaddma controls the ritual
"Path." The strictly encoded ritual sequence of music, dances, colours, and incenses that guides the ecstatic journey through the seven mluk realms from dusk to dawn
Brotherhood / confraternity. The organisational unit of Gnawa communities. Each taifa has a maalem, a moqaddma, kouyou (ensemble musicians), and affiliated families
The ensemble of qraqeb players and backing singers who accompany the maalem. They provide call-and-response vocals and rhythmic foundation
Bilal ibn Rabah — Ethiopian-born first muezzin of Islam, freed slave of the Prophet Muhammad. Spiritual ancestor of all Gnawa. His story places Gnawa identity within Islam
"Show" or "spectacle." Distinguishes secular public performances from sacred lila ceremonies. Concerts are fraja; private healing ceremonies are lila
The Bambara word was lost in the Sahara.
The guembri kept the rhythm.
The same root that became Gnawa in Marrakech
became Vodou in Port-au-Prince
became Candomblé in Salvador.
One spiritual technology. Three continents. The spirits do not recognise borders.
Sources
UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage — Gnawa inscription (2019, 14.COM). Representative List. Morocco nomination file. Official description of practices and significance
Wikipedia — Gnawa music, Gnawa people, Sintir, Mahmoud Guinia. Comprehensive scholarly citations. Lila ceremony structure, mluk descriptions, maalem lineages
IEMed (European Institute of the Mediterranean) — "Gnawa: Music and Spirit." Regional styles (marsaoui, shamali, soussi). Brotherhood structure. Historical slave trade context. Essaouira festival origins
Deborah Kapchan / Afropop Worldwide — Ethnographic interviews. Seven colour descriptions. Spirit characters (Sidi Hamou, Lalla Mira, Sidi Mimoun). Incense associations. Lila ritual phases
Penn Museum / Expedition Magazine — "Moroccan Gnawa and Transglobal Trance." Spirit possession analysis. Mluk as "possessors" (malaka). Sidi Chamharouch as king of jnun. Somatic memories of slavery
Bandcamp Daily — "The Transcendental Sound of Moroccan Gnawa Music." Album guide. Mahmoud Guinia discography. Houssam Guinia as heir. Mokhtar Gania/Bill Laswell fusion
Mohammed Ennaji / Afropop Worldwide — Historian interview. Gnawa origins in Guinea/West Africa. Integration patterns. 19th century documentation. Southern Morocco "slave parties" tradition
Dar Gnawa — Guembri construction and symbolism. Maalem biographies (Guinia, Baqbou, Boussou, El Kasri, Hakmoun). Manufacturing process documentation
Additional sources for diaspora parallels: Britannica, "Vodou" (2025). Wikipedia, "Haitian Vodou," "Candomblé," "Hausa animism," "Stambali" (2026). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Philosophy of African Diaspora Religions." Pan African Music, "Stambali: the last dance with the spirits" (2023). IEMed, "Gnawa: Music and Spirit."