Talk:Gnawa

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Categories[edit]

TUF-KAT! Thanks for your update. However, Gnawa music is still considered an African music (of African origin; most West Aficans identify themselves with it), an Ethnic music (mystical, spiritual and represents a category of people; Gnawa music is represented in ethnic music festivals around the world) and of course a World music afterall (through the contributions of Jazzmen and Reggae musicians; Gnawa musicians are touring Europe with WOMAD as well). I don't see a redundancy in that as long as one category neither directly nor explicitly relate to another. Can we please consider that right and agree about it? --Svest 10:42, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I didn't see this message until now. I removed those categories because they are too broad for this article (I'll do some more category-tweaking now, though). Generally, an article should not be in both a category and a subcategory. For example, placing this article in Category:African culture, Category:African music and Category:Moroccan music is redundant -- the whole reason we have an African music category is because otherwise the culture category would end up a useless list of thousands of articles, so putting an article in both categories defeats the purpose (and the same thing applies to Moroccan and African music). I removed Category:World music because it's a style that takes elements from just about every popular genre of music in the world. Placing them all in that category would not be helpful, and Gnawa is not primarily a part of world music. The last category I removed is Category:Ethnic music which doesn't exist and probably shouldn't (virtually all music could be considered "ethnic" in one sense or another). I've just now changed to a single cat, Category:Moroccan styles of music, in order to remove the too-large Category:Musical genres. Tuf-Kat 07:13, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Great. I appreciate that. I did some copyediting and fixed the reference links. I am inserting a peer-review template as well. Cheers - Svest 07:55, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Unclear sentences[edit]

  • They heal the disease by the colors, the perfumes and fright.
    • Changed to They heal the disease by the use of colors, the perfumes and fright. Svest 20:30, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • This is the language of the blues.
    • Removed and explained in the history paragraph. Svest 20:30, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
  • The first paragraph under "Rituals" is a single really long, run-on sentence that should be a couple sentences.
    • Fixed Svest 20:30, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Also, I was referring to genres like blues and jazz being uncapitalized. If the Gnawa are an ethnic group, it should be capitalized. If the gnawa are the members of the musician class among those people, it should be uncapitalized (unless it is generally capitalized by other authors). If gnawa is a genre of music, it should be uncapitalized. However, I am not sure if gnawa is ever a genre of music. If a Moroccan person (speaking English) bought a recording of this music and described it as "gnawa music", would he be using gnawa in the same sense as in Moroccan music or Irish music? In other words, if an ethnic Gnawa rock band formed, would that still be "gnawa music" -- if so, it should be capitalized because it is referring to the ethnic group; if the former, it should probably be uncapitalized, and it might be wise to split this article into Gnawa (on the people in general) and Gnawa music (on the genre). Tuf-Kat 18:50, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Thanx for the comments. I believe now that we should devide the article into two. One about Gnawas (as an ethnic group) and the other one about Gnawa music. I believe the preview and the history paragraph can make an article about Gnawas. The rest of the article will become Gnawa music.
Gnawa music is a widely used term; it's a genre. It is widely used with capitalization. But inside the article it will be used without capitalization as for blues. Modern rock gnawa music is considered as genre. (e.g. the Gnawa Difussion group lead singer, Amezigh, son of the famous Algerian writer Kateb Yacine, considers himself to be a 20th century version of the Gnawa. [1] Cheers - Svest 20:25, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Now Africa COTF[edit]

This is a fine article! I gave this a once-over to make some changes already suggested in the peer review above--mostly formatting stuff, but a bit of rewording for grammar and sentence clarity. I've also removed a bit of wikilinking that struck me as excessive--"rite," "ritual," and "music" for example, are all linked a number of times, while those articles won't really help anyone reading this one. Some questions I can't answer, though:

  • Gnawas are considered to be experts in the treatment of scorpion stings and psychic disorders. By who? Reputable scientists or local villagers? The passive voice ducks this issue, which is pretty critical--the article as it is claims that these people really can cure psychological disorders.
  • History paragraph 2, same problem: It is believed that gnawas arrived in Morocco at this times. Who believes this? One historian, or is there a consensus?
  • Theo and Svest appear to have come to a consensus on the archived Peer Review that this article should be split into Gnawa people and Gnawa musicians. I'd add my voice to this; the list of Gnawa musicians is probably excessive for an article on the ethnic group. This may be a job for Svest--I'm not sure I'm quite qualified to divide all this up and reorganize it.

Great stuff here! I'll look forward to seeing it again at the end of the fortnight... --Dvyost 02:10, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sources[edit]

Apart from my personal experience, you are right that that part needs sourcing. I just checked now for some and found the following:

Scorpions and healing[edit]

Arrival[edit]

Sources I relied on concernig the arrival of the Gnawa to Morocco (apart the history of Africa) are the following:

  • Worldmusiccentral.org,
  • ibiblio.org. 500 years means the same thing as in the article. Indeed, there was no other major influx of Sub-Saharians to North Africa except that period in history.

-- Svest 03:20, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

My main concern here would be that these sources don't have much scholarly heft--at least one of them has been taken from the liner notes of CD, for example. I think, for now, it might be best to revise the healing claims to "Some Gnawa claim" or some such? At least until we can find some scientific backing for these claims. Then we can revise this passive voice out and make things more specific. --Dvyost 03:32, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
You are right. -- Svest 22:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I have just sent an email to Timothy Fuson [2] asking him about some academic references. I hope he's still connected to Berkeley Univ. -- Svest 03:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I corrected the origins given in the article as of Feb 2006, it was clearly a "myth" form and unsupported by historical scholarship re black populations in the Maghreb (some of which pre-date the slave trade, i.e. were indigenous) (Collounsbury 19:40, 28 February 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Article split[edit]

I have just splitted the article into two. The new article is called Gnawa music. This one deals with Gnawa as a people. More copy editing and categorization will be done shortly. -- Svest 22:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up™[reply]

Arabic Spelling[edit]

May I inquire who rendered Gnawa / Gnaoua in Arabic for these articles. The spelling given does not match what I recall typical Maghrebine usage to be. In fact the spelling appears to be Egyptian. (Collounsbury 18:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC))[reply]


Gnawa Origins & Etymology[edit]

While I am afraid I do not have source material at hand, my understanding as to the etymology of Gnawa was from southern Berber dialects, meaning "black." (See aguinaw, Enc. Britanicca http://www.britannica.com/ebc/article-55385) The Backformation from the Ghana Empire is not possible, a false etymology based on the Romanisation. (Collounsbury 19:13, 28 February 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Regarding the origins, this seems to be entirely romantic mythologising. There is no particular reason to attach the emergence of Gnaoua taruq to Mansour's invasion. I will edit the article down to more historical facts. (Collounsbury 19:13, 28 February 2006 (UTC))[reply]

Edit summary - I rephrased some Afrocentric type claims that render Gnaouie music as specifically "Black Africa" to a more general pre-Islamic fusion. The aim in rephrasing (which hopefully reads right) is to acknowledge non-sub-Saharan African influences, such as Berber, in the fusion of forms that is Gnawa music. This may need further editing for balance, but I found the original phrasing to "black and white" so to speak. (Collounsbury 19:36, 28 February 2006 (UTC))[reply]


This page needs work , it cannot be merged[edit]

this page needs work. opiumjones 23 (talk) 00:34, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]


My name Amadou Coulibaly- I am a Bambara of Segou. The Bambara Kingdom knew the pledge of raids of the northern nomadic tribes of the Sahara that practiced slavery (till modern time). The communities of enslaved Bambara,Fulani,Hausa,Sudani all of them much inflenced by the bambara secret society GNA , its religeous believes and cultural manifestations entirely conserving the musical form and instruments even the maner of singing of their ancesters, so listen to the misic of Segou, listen to the Super Biton of Segou, you will never more have any doubt about the GNA music, the french write GNA and it should be red "n'ya " and the "w" is the plural form in Bambara, so read "N'ya'w" the followers of the "n'ya " -the "N'ya'w" this religion practice is still much alife in the Bambara world as the Voodoo in Haiti and Benin. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.84.106.223 (talk) 22:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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