Ahwach

What it is

Ahwach is the collective name for a communal performance that combines poetry, song, drumming and dance¹. It belongs to the Tashelhit-speaking Chleuh, long settled, called Ishelhayn in Tamazight². A small ahwach can be played by just three boys in about ten minutes; a large one lasts about twenty minutes, brings together some sixty villagers and is part of the great weddings³.

Where it comes from

Ahwach is at home in the Anti-Atlas, the western High Atlas and the central High Atlas up to an imaginary line from Demnate to the Asif Mgun⁴. In this transition zone, the ethnomusicologist Bernard Lortat-Jacob observed around 1980 that ahwach was pushing back ahidous, for example among the Ayt Mgun⁵. The Glaoua are regarded as masters of ahwach; the encyclopaedia of the Amazigh also mentions the ahwach at the Kasbah Taourirt in Ouarzazate and those of the Ayt Wawzgit on the southern slope of Toubkal⁶.

What it is made of

The instrument is the frame drum, locally called tagnza or allun (“sieve”), of the bendir family: about sixty centimetres in diameter, with a tightly stretched goatskin, made in the village itself, with wood from the walnut tree⁷. Unlike in ahidous, the drums have no snares; in the Anti-Atlas they can be of different sizes and have roles of their own⁸. A fire in the middle of the square gives warmth and light and re-tightens the skins of the drums⁹.

How it is made

An ahwach has three groups: a poet-singer who opens with a sung couplet, numerous drummers who take up the verse in chorus, and dancing choirs of men and women¹⁰. The choirs face each other in two arcs, men on one side and women on the other, and sing in alternation, never together¹¹. The verses matter less for their meaning than for their rhythm; they can even be replaced by a formula of meaningless syllables¹².

A good fifteen drums mark the strong beats together¹³. The tempo speeds up steadily throughout; about two thirds of the way through the basic rhythmic pattern changes, and this passage is called tizi, “the pass”, because beyond it you see a different landscape¹⁴. There is no fine ahwach without a successful tizi¹⁵.

When

In the central High Atlas the festive season begins around June¹⁶. The ahwach of the great summer celebrations, above all weddings, are carried by the lâamt, the associations of a village’s young unmarried men; playing often goes on for several nights in a row, and the spectators sit all around on the roof terraces¹⁷.

Ouarzazate hosts the national festival of the Ahwach arts; the 14th edition ran from 22 to 24 October 2026 at the Kasbah Taourirt and on other squares of the city, with almost a thousand artists, organised by the culture department of the ministry and the prefecture of Ouarzazate¹⁸.

How to recognise it

Ahwach differs from the ahidous of the Middle and eastern High Atlas in its drums without snares, a rhythm of two or four beats instead of the usual five, and in that men and women usually dance separately¹⁹.