African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African folklore 442
Madagascar has produced many great twentieth-century poets. Many of these, poets
such as Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo, were known for their unique writing style, which
blended local Malagasy forms and rhythms (inspired by the hainteny form, a
characteristic of popular island songs) with influences from the French literary and
intellectual scene.
JENNIFER JOYCE
MAGHRIB (NORTHWESTERN NORTH
AFRICA) FOLKLORE: OVERVIEW
The term Maghrib was first used by Arab geographers to designate the western part of the
Arab world, as opposed to its correspondent in the east, the Mashriq. The latter, Mashriq
(from sharaqa, “to rise”), refers to the place where the sun rises, that is, the Arab Orient;
whereas the former, Maghrib (from gharaba, “to set”), designates the area where the sun
sets on the Arab world. The Maghrib, or “Sunset,” is situated in North Africa, spreading
westward from Libya to the Atlantic Ocean and southward from the Mediterranean to the
Sahara desert. It is composed of the countries known today as Morocco, Algeria, and
Tunisia. It was originally peopled by Berbers, who still represent a high percentage of the
population in Algeria (about 25 percent) and Morocco (60 percent).
From the eighth century, the Arabs began populating the Maghrib. A first wave
brought their new religion, Islam, which was adopted widely. The second wave, in the
eleventh century, made up of nomads (the Banû Hilâl, or “Sons of Hilal”) who shared
their pastoral way of life with the natives, exerted a deeper influence in the process of
acculturation and Arabicization.
However, while Arabic has now become the official language, and Arabicization is
total in all spheres of social life, the people of Berber origin continue to use their mother
language and to claim, mostly in Algeria, the right to have their culture acknowledged.
Sometimes French, the language of the former colonizers, is also spoken.
The three countries acquired independence from France (1956–1962), but the access
to independence for the Algerians was at the cost of a cruel war of seven years (1955–
1962). Since then, the three states of Algeria and Morocco (with approximately 30
million inhabitants each) and Tunisia (approximately 9 million) have tended towards
unification. This has occurred in spite of divergences and occasional crises aroused
mostly by frontier conflicts between Algeria and Morocco, and by Islamic extremism,
which has been a potent force in Algeria for the last decade.
In 1989, two neighboring countries, Libya at the east (with 5 million inhabitants) and
Mauritania to the southwest (2.5 million inhabitants) joined the three countries of the
Maghrib in the “Union of the Arab Maghrib”; the goal was to build a vast geopolitical
conglomerate (Lacoste 45–50). Now the word Maghrib, or phrase Great Maghrib, has
been gradually applied in political spheres to a wider area than traditionally implied.
Nevertheless, this entry will focus primarily on Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.