Judaic Threads in the West African Tapestry: No More Foreever?

Author(s): Labelle Prussin Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jun., 2006), pp. 328-353 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067248 . Accessed: 28/12/2010 17:34
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in the West Judaic Threads No More Forever?

Labelle Prussin
From
can desert art

African

Tapestry:

its inception,
history until and, quite

the newly
recently,

emerging

discipline
south and

of Afri
of the inter

and ever,

associated given

encompassed

only regions it was perceived

with indigenous the diminution and

West

African of

cultures.3 meaning

How in time

distancing

and
these to An

space and
resources, similarities. attentive might Jewish Christianized, and

the limited
it is no

preted
horizontal viewed cultural demic within

through
swath as

a bifocal
across and between north of

availability
easy matter

of field
to address

studies
and

and
trace

lens:
the an black of

the Sahara, which

was impenetrable and white. the desert were or in

cuts a

historical

continent,

a wasteland

traditionally barrier In the subsumed Egyptian aca

reading have presence often

of been,

the

evidence

suggests the dominant,

that result

these of some eco genius a

exchange world, the and regions domain

similarities historical

in some in the

measure, of African

service

classical, and studies, debate collections

Islamic, housed a

art of

times nomic, adapted,

Islamized, whose

political,

history Near Eastern the tian glaring former current art

archaeology or Islamic curatorial

in museum example Mus?e was de

departments in illustrated dichotomy over the exclusion of Egyp art. Another of African organization where the of the

cultural and presence

entities

absorbed, this

transformed was exemplified

them

indigenous over by

time.

More

specifically, role sional within stretching the

the multidimen who trading and performed networks Africa, a

of a trader-cw^scholar-ciiTT?-artisan framework across of extensive the familial Islamic world,

the

long-standing Paris,

l'Homme,

departments

of Afrique
administratively, other.

Noire

and Afrique
and conceptually

Blanche

were

Europe,

physically,
from each

historical landscape
moved lations. panses a conduit

divorced

presence
included These,

that has largely disappeared. these resourceful through which

not only sedentary crossing through but and the also themselves Sahara Desert diffusion: controlling centuries, of fact,

The African individuals

popu vast served it was often ex as

Early studies, based on a paradigm that had evolved out of context in which the discipline of Afri the anthropological
can art history itself of was born, echoed data the entities. in both methodologies ethnographic conveyed discrete creativity generally collection. accepted Mirroring cul that

nomadic

of

the

in cultural

in point

within
Jewish cal

this nomadic
presence of

flux

models, synchronie they as isolated, tures existed explorations of artistic

that the shape

Responding and to disreputable by the worlds

and form of the

the varied activities around Judaic trades?and, weaponry, role histori that them, coa by

impression As a consequence, sedentary and

unfolded.

framework sanctioned expertise in the

no were the lesced role logical

madic
nition Eastern in African

societies were
and art, cultural the historical art word, of studies: were

tightly circumscribed
affiliation. Further, dimension sub-Saharan played African to have than led

by linguistic defi
European or a very minor cultures, little or no

respectable or proscribed by silver, in tandem

unlike

generated gold,

this multifaceted silk, with and spice

extension,

lacking indige

metalworking,

the written nous record.1 nomena the tradition

presumed art other history have

money

handling,

jewelry,

silk weaving,
the

and gold
aesthetic sculptural, collaborators:

and

silk
of arti pa

in the to

archaeological disregard trade and phe

These outside

paradigms their

scholars

embroidery. a From any

practitioner's

perspective, it be architectural,

communication for the millennia,

Sahara with

1 ) ,2 and peripatetic

of spread the contributions "strangers,"

the travel, purview: notably, and that traversed the correspondence or often in conjunction partnership Islam and nomadic transhumance (Fig. made and by "servile" itinerant groups artisan that, "castes,"

design?whether a commission producers, into their set

genesis or the

sanal?involves trons the pleted of the who actual work

of

participating the work, the users

the

conceptual

and own brings

behavioral to the

functioning

participants

integrate ritual settings. or her his process or

who

designers, the com Each own

both within
served,

and outside
artisans and urban have

the cultural
entity been

frameworks
a separate mobile As vast

that they
identity. sector of "outsiders" expanse of

cultural heritage,
often dialogue diverse, among set

infusing and endowing

of meanings in the conceptual resources,

it with a different,
of its life. and The the materials,

maintained

a distinct

and the most

course

Traditionally, both rural with the of kinship continent, arts far

sedentary extending often

networks they beyond were

populations. across the primary agents

technological
object's creation

processes
is intrinsic

that the designer

to its aesthetic,

employs
and these,

in the
too,

in the diffusion and style, sus and met

are progressively
to available planted duction imbue sions, in into and much space,

modified
and these

in the course of time in response

patron or client by demands. their and very in Trans intro turn

cultural in the

boundaries, iconography, formats and and the Near woven East

maintaining materials, in architecture, textiles. to the into

resources

taining technology alworking, over the sula Africa, far more and

similarities of and centuries from these the select

forms

another overlay like an

practices change new owners context: product process with of new

users

embroidered from

Extending Penin

the accrued

symbolic

dimen patination.

Iberian

conceptual

Mediterranean have stood discrete

littoral in

sub-Saharan

It is from perspective
merits

similarities

familiar,

culturally

contrast to the striking art traditions identified

this historically broad comparative iconographie that the story of African gold, silk, and indigo

review.

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

AFRICAN

TAPESTRY

329

1 Trade West

routes

on coast

the African are not

continent, (map

llth-16th by Eric Ross)

centuries

(sea

routes

between

Portugal's

North

African

possessions

and

the

African

shown)

Reviewing
Scholars

the Sources

that frained ioning lowed

Jews, from of

certainly callings

those such metals, immemorial. revealing

in as

the

Magreb,

should and they

have the had

re fash fol

at various of Judaism times and have, places, poi a North for not only African residential pres gnantly argued ence over but also a these last two millennia millennium-long or the Sa trade presence throughout Jewish Judeo-Berber hara.4 Yet many scholars continue to credit the tacit assump

weaving, others,

precious since time

among

dyeing, that

A particularly in countered from mappa raphy Abraham mundi, at

illustration and interpreting famous the golden most

of

the the

reading Cresques's a product The

problems sources

en comes

tion
northern that, the

that the Jewish

termini a few of at most, inhospitable

presence
trans-Saharan Jewish

never

extended
trade routes, have Early

beyond

the

traders of the

may desert.

believing across ventured Arabic sources

of

late-fourteenth-century age of Judaic familiar to

cartog of

Majorca.6

panel

scholars

expanses

West
Mansa

African
Musa,

history
gold

illustrates
in in that

the Muslim
hand, itself

king

of Mali,

forWest African along

accounts, patterns, tered interests flicts, en of

history, addressing the spread of Islam south the desert routes, dealt primarily with biographical
political rather route.5 events, than Early with geographic the cultural observations, conditions focusing economies and trade encoun on and Since the con they

nugget

nomad?a

rendering

to a adjacent Tuareg invites ques tantalizing

tions about Muslim

gold, ism, less of the and familiar silk reputed its role to

proscriptions

regarding
heritage across travel panel that Rhadanites,

the handling
nomad Sahara. the illustrates en

of
Far

European seagoing on

sources, colonial coastal

expanding reported

Judeo-Berber in facilitating is another them presumably

of Tuareg

a group route via

selectively

conditions.

Jewish

traders,

the North African usually raised no special legal problems, sources to had little about say Jewish artisanal trades. Judaic
Absent daic, edgment from Islamic, of the all or these references was and any between accounts, indication trader, whether or acknowl and Ju European,

camel in Asia (Fig. 2). It reveals that the information embod ied in the maps came from both far-flung Jewish sources in
situ trade and their networks correspondents as well as from along earlier extended, Muslim worldwide travelers. In

unique

interface

scholar,

addition

to indicating
activities, constitute

land and sea routes, political

and even the mappe ethnography, mundi also the serves

geogra
full set as a map

artisan
with

that migrant Muslims

to the African

and/or

Jews may have brought

it is inconceivable

them

scene.

However,

economic phy, that of panels

330

ART BULLETIN

JUNE

2006

VOLUME

LXXXVIII

NUMBER

ki,

'iM fY;

oss a i:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2f~:i

i;
/C

4;. .a

-~~
I

- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2 Panel merchants from

of

a caravan on the

Abraham

of Jewish to China, L Atlas Cresques, route

c?tala

de Cresques New York and Tilden

The 1375-77. Abraham, Lenox Public Astor, Library, Division Foundations, Map

(artwork in the public domain)

of religious
Muslim sites

geography
around

marking
the world.

sacred Judaic, Christian,

Of particular relevance

and
are

European

accounts

of African

life,

both

pagan

and

Islamic,

the auspicious
reference to Old

and

inauspicious
events

days defined
and the set

uniquely
of cosmolog

by

to the Jewish presence and activity and passing references the Portuguese established a foothold in there. Concurrently,
a number of North African European ports and of call. The contemporaneous Arabic juxtaposition sources offers of fur

Testament

ical and astrological

istic theosophy.7 The well-known Africanus provides

illustrations

heavily

infused with Kabbal

Muslim illustration traveler of the

early-sixteenth-century another provocative

ther insights into the way in which extended Jewish family a multiplicity of services in both the networks performed
Islamic in turn and European worlds. Dutch, also The French, yield by Spanish, accounts that Portuguese British and albeit were followed incursions, often deroga

Leo

nature of Judaic involvement in the African multifaceted milieu.8 His detailed account of Jewish enclaves in the Islamic
domains through which he traveled evinces more than a

leaving

passing,

passing
awareness

acquaintance
of the

with

the Jewish presence

of F?s (presumably

in Africa. His
non-Muslim),

to the Jewish and New Christian (converted tory, references in the middlemen resident traders and European Jewish)
African smiths, emergent interface, and as well as who and to the blacksmiths Islamic rulers, served interpreters, colonial needs. bards, interests, gold newly

alchemists

his acquired
teenth-century Jewish masons,

knowledge
Moroccan weavers,

of Kabbalah
Jewish goldsmiths, thought), and

(so prevalent
his references blacksmiths,

in six
to his fa

indigenous

When
daic lens,

reviewed
the

through
also

this new, albeit hypothetical,

illuminate the widely complex,

Ju

miliarity with Jewish customs and the Jewish merchants with of the whom he traveled all invite a broader interpretation its Sa in both North Africa and connection Islamic-Judaic
naran outreaches. In light of Judaic strategies that frequently

sources

diverse,
tions in an with

and paradoxical
local rulers on

roles fulfilled
the West African

by Jews
coast. account

in their rela
For of example, the coun

early-sixteenth-century

Portuguese

involved conversion
and Islamic worlds,

and reconversion
perhaps the most

in both
tantalizing,

the Christian
chameleon

try between Arguin and the Senegal River (then controlled by it was noted, "If it happens that a the Islamized Maures)
man the . . . custom having of taken the under his and country, safeguard serves him a merchant, as an alforma as (that is

like comment
says of himself:

in his Description de VAfrique (1600)

"For mine owne part, when

is what he
I heare the

Africans
Granada;

euill
and

spoken
when

of I will affirme myself

I perceue the nation

to be one

of

is, a Jew or guide),

revenge kills emerge his on any

then the protector

who takes undue Alternative

is obligated
advantage relations European

to take
of, or also ac

of Granada

to be

attacker

discommened
land guese zation, desert who and

then will I professe my selfe to be an African."9 to Muslim control of the over Competitively responding
routes initiated in West the mid-fifteenth coastal the century, exploration, earliest the Portu coloni eyewitness African furnished

'protege.'"10 concurrent in two

sociocultural sixteenth-century

counts of the West African

one, Andr? Thevet,

coast below
monk

the Senegal River.

and cosmographer

In
to

a Franciscan

settlement

Henry

II who

visited

the king of Cape Verde

in 1575, de

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

AFRICAN

TAPESTRY

33}

scribed a Jewish
contrast, wily a Portuguese

slave of the king

trader on Jewish entrepreneur

in remarkable
the coast Joao related Ferreira,

detail.11 By
how who the es

Portuguese

Jewish Identity With the founding

curators were

of the new Israel Museum

with the need

in Jerusalem,
criteria

its (and

confronted

to establish

tablished himself
politics political gal, married a thriving of the local control one commerce

in the interior,
king, over the of the with assisted Futa

integrated
indigenous region daughters, and English

himself

into the
for Sene

that could
acquisition) der both

guide
of crescent

decisions
ritual, and

regarding
and The

the definition
Judaic they art criteria

Toro

aspirations in eastern and

secular,

ceremonial

un

cross.17

outlined

new

king's

developed

French

traders?much

to the chagrin of both

Coast tian) residents.12 personality was

the Portuguese
prominent Le Maire, Isaac

and the Upper Guinea

converso who was (New Chris involved heavily

identification within a Jewish milieu, but they do not address the basic issue confronting Jewish creativity outside the "pale"?that is, the dialogue between Jewish art forms afford
and who those were within called a host on to culture create or Jewish or artists artifacts and artisans for non objects

Another

in the activities and success of the East Indies Company.13 A

number tain of references on seventeenth-century to resident the Upper Portuguese Jewish Guinea and/or Coast, New while records Christian the active also con com re

Jewish use. Scholars of Islam have suggested that "the term Islamic art denotes virtually any kind of art produced within
the Islamic world and of Jews art .... this living have of art in is the work Islamic not lands. called to of Muslims ..." Renowned to the the fact but Christians scholars centuries-old

munities

corded
activities Joal,

concern
far

of the Inquisition
that of commerce major and Rufisque,

implied
itself. trading

the existence
The ports towns at

of
of the

Islamic

pointedly refusing

attention

tradition

beyond

acknowledge over

Portudal,

that professing
recently, activities.18 maintained

Jewish

artisans

in the Islamic world,

select

until

mouth

of the Senegal River, boasted resident Jewish families.14

Revealing, teenthscholars ratives and albeit more controversial, early-twentieth-century who on their drew own not only

synagogues
are reports on earlier

and wealthy
nine

a virtual

monopoly

artisanal

the many by

of Africa but also of oral reports, of racism,

Islamic and

European nar "doc of eye the and races.15 the cor ar

Equally relevant to the definition of "Jewish art" was the attitude of the Jewish community itself toward craftsmanship, scholarship, and trade. Historically and geographically, many
Jewish scholars, their artisans unable were scholars and their were Hebrew As men of men callings respected pun letters, of or letters, earn to fulfill as many just a from living

personal oral and history. "myths,"

observation Their and by

umentation" indigenous witness ories

indigenous traditions were which skills heavily

renditions even their

activities, religious in the medieval reflected craft is a kingdom).19

artisans?poignantly "Melakha-melukha" Jewish artisans were

influenced "superior" more

then-current technologies

(a

attributed to diffusion

organizational accounts The pus tisan under more many used These and nous, of traditions castes

by

"advanced" related endogamous who and

also engaged
their times,

in the philosophical
and Jewish artisan in addition exercised like are those

and theosophical
guilds to their mirrored of carried out

issues of

of

indigenous specifically as metalsmiths of bondage,

historians, associated and

who with weavers

such

functioned merit among terms

religious obligations The skills that Jews Hebrew patronymics,

specific tasks. professional in work-related and Islamic

conditions

patronage, in light of

servitude fact that all the

European

artisans: (haddad), penters

both

credence?particularly indigenous to designate often West these African castes

the

cultures, are of

virtually

(al bannay), they (sekkaka), coppersmiths goldsmiths (najjer), tailors (kayyat), and dyers (sabbag). Since
and European over other?swept a presence Jewish to the respective expansion?often the West African would in tandem for canvas have

were

builders

blacksmiths (safifar), car

contradictory both written raise and

foreign origin.16 accounts of recorded oral, exogamous of caveats. and WHiat

Islamic each

history indige do they

with

memory,

centuries, sponded regarding cross and among

simultaneously

a number

actually
reflect traditions

tell us? Were

the mind-set that of actually presence Testament

they truly autochthonous

those who recorded claims they and of Islamic its them? a support or were sources

or did
Were

they
they

re presumably and proscriptions prescriptions under both these traditions that were prevalent crescent. interactions and Theosophic parallels African Hebrew

long-vanished traditions To that what

Islam,

"Judeo-Berber" on Old rested extent in the did minds the

cohabitation of medieval and

of Hebraic scholars of by and

theology? Islamic and artisans and

religions, and Arabic,

and Judaism, Christianity, indigenous as well as between etymological analogs in a cultural often resulted m?lange.

learning affect iconogra resources the

The position
the patron-client

of Jews under
relationship

Islam was
established

initially defined
under the Pact

by
of

transmission phy? Were

the

transmigration accounts colored

thought the

external

that emerging
right sion to rule? across Did

indigenous
they

polities
from

drew on to validate
the

their

(seventh century CE), a writ of protection extended by to their dhimmi?their Allah's community "prot?g?s," both Christian and Jew. Involving protection and servility, nobility Umar
and degradation, parvenu and pariah, the treaty set forth a

emanate or from

the desert

the European

Islamic expan early converso presence

they "invented traditions" that endowed them with enhanced by historical circumstance in of the process integration into the indigenous credibility African milieu? These difficulties of interpretation invite an African coast? Were alternative
is used generated reaching to

on the West

host of proscriptions
havior, economic sanctions. have tive gated travel, access The ritual, to

and obligations
social relations,

regarding

identity, be

persisted attributes to Jews.20

strategy in which descriptive

trace visual expanses the and of genesis iconic space and of a similarities time.

and graphic evidence

process across that such has wide

segregated residency, and economic indigenous populations, of the relations established by the pact impact to this in a set of distinc day, notably, visually a set of skills to Islam," and "vile hence rele Under the original pact, Jews were not per

design

mitted
adornment.

to resemble Muslims
Subsequently,

in any way by dress or traditional

other dress codes and colors were

332

ART BULLETIN

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2006 VOLUME

LXXXVIII

NUMBER

decreed
tian had and ruler

and prescribed
the Abu reign Islamic Yusuf over worlds,

for Jews throughout

but those toward and ordained the the end

both

the Chris

associated across the

with desert

al-Mansur North Africa

by the Almo of his twelfth Peninsula

elsewhere around gold over this last millennium

the world.23 has been of

Its

trade

credited Islam, what the

to Islamic was the

century

Iberian

but given the constraints expansion, of actual those who could identity and "handle" the gold mines to its artistic and ornamental world itself was in many gold?

approach

reverberated
worlds.21 which, into of a

throughout

both
and over

the Christian
interpretations time?subsequently Africa, material

and the Muslim

of the pact? extended carrying culture. a host

sub-Saharan In addition elry in

Applications to be varied sure, gradually Islamized for

value, cases

gold

jew to and con

the Muslim hence

equivalent

sub-Saharan and

currency, money-changing

implications

its aesthetic

practices.

in usurious enveloped In West Africa,

proscription gold jewelry

Some
thought

professions
and practice, were

were
and

discredited
particular

in traditional
manual occupations

Islamic
or

tinues

to be sold only by weight,

is regarded as usurious

since

the added
it is a

value of
tradition

workmanship

gain:

those associated with

points Professions in time, considered

them, despised
also vile relegated functioned

by Muslims
or restricted in tandem

at different
to with Jews. the

reflected in the Songhay term tolom? (to pawn), the name for the massive twisted gold earrings traditionally worn by Fulani women (Fig. 15).24
Another major medium of currency in Africa was cloth.25

proscriptions
commentaries to abstain

reiterated
on from

in the corpus of Malekite

Muslim silk gold, and within men were

and Shiite
admonished

the Koran: wearing wearing, "usurious" contrasted

hence touching, that condemned metals. This

from refrain absolutely an Islamic framework with rare

While the use of gold (and silver) currencies in both Europe on the minting and the Muslim world depended and han dling of money, African cloth currencies involved silk, indigo,
and mately trade, strip-weaving linked and the to traditions the nomadic Jewish in cotton presence, trade monopoly and the wool?all trans-Saharan over silk and inti

attitude

associated practices to references in

the Koran,

which
medieval

speaks

in glowing
Islam

terms of gold
expressed in principle,

in Paradise.22
of usury, the Jews. to

Like
and This

virtual

its practice

Christianity, was abandoned,

a horror

spices
terranean

(which subsumed
Basin, and

indigo)
Given

in North
similar

Africa,
restraints

the Medi
on the

beyond.

abhorrence
moved lending,

of usury

in both
to a virtual

the worlds within

Jewish monopoly and gold

which
over working

Jews
and

wearing
relation Jewish between

of silk within
between involvement weaving and trade implications per

the Malekite
and elsewhere, se and what the

tradition and the intimate

that then silk trade was characterized the relation both did what the the were

contributed money

money

producer

merchant

handling,

minting,

ultimately It is generally
engaged they and in their

defined

the historic acknowledged

trade

role of the Jew as merchant. that Israelites were heavily

for or several kin plied millennia the trade and that routes

trans-Saharan trans-Saharan its design

coastal in indigo for

routes? and

In whose silk reside,

along hands and

international representatives

the

sub-Saharan

cultural

aesthetic?

stretching
and North particular

to and from Europe

Africa, commodities: maintaining the

to East Asia,
a virtual in precious

the Middle
over metals,

East,
three the silk

One might
varied design tial for also sides visual formats commerce,

also ask: To what

resources by the influence

extent
the artisan? and

did

literacy and
essen

its
of

monopoly

trade

trade, and the spice trade (including

Jews also held a virtual monopoly

indigo). By extension,
over those skills most

practicing as scholars and Muslim as viziers, and

conceptualization was Literacy men of letters, courts physicians, on

Jews both

served of the

in both Sahara

European

directly
and timid, pertise

related

to international
As gold Mamluk, to coinage to their and

trade in both
under Saadian

the European
Fa ex or their

advisers,

bankers, and military and

Islamic

worlds.

minters

the Abbasid, dynasties,

ambassadors?and machinations all

Almoravid, extended

spies. involved a

Economic, a crucial literacy role. who

political, in which In the as a

secrecy early notary,

incorporating raw materials broidery, who,

jewelry, gold into it. As compatriots responded

frequently silk mercers for to

converting they

in

turn,

provided em silk weaving and the requirements de

played cryptography de Gonzalo century,

sixteenth adviser,

Burgos,

served

and

scribe

in the Canary
was al-Fishtali

Islands during
indicted by scribe-secretary invasion

their Portuguese
the Portuguese to Ahmad Africa al in

occupation, Inquisition; Mansur

fined by their Christian and Muslim clientele. In the golden age of Islamic textiles, indigo dyeing was often in Jewish
hands. As indigo cloth merchants and dyers, they undoubt

subsequently was the

during

the Moroccan

of western

1591; the Pallache

tans in of Morocco, the seventeenth

family, advisers and diplomats

acted as intermediaries The same to century. reputation

to the sul
for multi

edly influenced the design and dyeing of the parchments on which the written word was inscribed, which required special
preparations. Is it not networks nean world logical would also into the to surmise have heart that these south sub-Saharan same of international the Mediterra milieu? Schol

the Netherlands

linguistic
well-known to engage extended of the

acuity also explains

nineteenth-century Jewish guides and

the proclivity
European interpreters.26

of many

of the
in Africa

explorers

ars of African
European nor

history
Muslim

have
ever

all tacitly assumed

succeeded in

that neither
the

The Graphic Heritage

Assuming ars-n/m-artisans the validity along

of Judaic Theosophy
of the their presence as traders-oiwa-schol what might trans-Saharan routes,

penetrating

regions of West Africa. relatively inaccessible gold-producing of the sub-Saharan gold sources in the Muslim Early legends
origin "vegetal" a fearful with attitude surrounded it, imply or the toward handling, working touching, magical practices was to be im considered metal. In sub-Saharan Africa, gold like alchemical much bued with processes powers, apotropaic that accompanied accounts, such as its and the "silent barter"

these migrant
Saharan egies and their milieu? that

Jews have
In addition extended

brought
family

with
networks

them
and in brought

to the
trading conversion response literacy,

sub
strat

to a set of

cultural

involved

adjusted patronage-client new environments,

they

would

relationships have

to a

graphic heritage

of Judaic

theosophy,

and a mastery

of select

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

AFRICAN

TAPESTRY

333

artisanal

skills.

These

elements

were

often

linked

to an

intel

lectual discourse
nography ology, and gematria, of

heavily
cryptography, the concepts

imbued with Kabbalah-derived

apotropaic and persisted, powers such as numer

ico

associated

iconography

and while the alchemy, new mean it acquired

ing within
related art

the fertile African

forms and graphic

soil, finding
metaphors.

new expression
Concepts and

in
skills

culturally defined and reinterpreted

nous iconic African wefts woven

within the Judaic heritage were modified in the course of integration into indige
Looking into the yields for traces of warp some of a of these trader for a artifactual convincing

cultures.

scholar-artisan

loom

further

evidence

unique
try.

historical Jewish presence the probable

one of

in the West African Jewish

particularly

tapes in
2 "I 3 1 3 S X i "i 3 ? n a "l 3 3 N N 4 :9 !2 7

In addressing
sub-Saharan Africa,

historical

presence
stressed

its advocates

into indigenous likely insinuation of Jewish Kabbalah occultism.27 Kabbalistic thought is graphically expressed in a the
number ology, (Fig. accepted worlds 3). of for visual representations circles, many of spirals, of these and are cosmogony triangles, simple many equally and and graphemes parallels capable numer squares are in of the ex example, To be sure, as of universal and

3 5 I j
8

n 3
"IDS*

! 1 I6

3 N

S 3

symbols, Christianity

Islam

pressing
ubiquitous exemplify

both

religious
of

and philosophical
these simple graphic

concepts,

but the
seems Practical to

TOTO

presence practical

Kabbalah's

graphemes resources.

Kabbalah,
as the use and tions, tradition

often
of rituals that has

equated with Jewish magical

charms, to counter over number the the evil and eye,

practices
letter is

such

amulets,

combina

evolved

centuries,

the popular differentiated

from
arose

the earlier
in twelfth-

esoteric,
to

mystical

Kabbalah
France

tradition
and Spain

that
and

3 Kabbalistic
of Kabbalistic within which by Barbara

icons: 1 ) the Ten Sephirot or Divine Attributes

thought numbers as a basic and Zev letters ben set of were Shimon ten concentric circles inscribed Halevi, (drawing Kabbalah

thirteenth-century in later Safed. sixteenth-century of the earliest One forerunners

Paxson

after

of Kabbalah

thedsophy on the

was

[London: Thames

and Hudson,

1979], 38); 2) the creative

the Sefer Yesirah, or The Book of Creation, penned

century sources CE then Jewish scholar in Palestine. in Palestine Drawing and Egypt, prevalent

by a third
esoteric act of

creation, manifested
ten distinct a tree circles of life. within

in Ten Divine Attributes

was sometimes often as a wheel micrographie

(Sephirot) and
symbolized concentric was in as

of numbers in the Sefer Yesirah and letters power (drawing Paxson after Hebrew Halevi, Kabbalah, 66); 3) cryptic by on a abracadabra formula inscribed triangular prophylactic amulet Hebrew Amulets, (after Shrire, 59); 4) magic square letters and their numerical (kamea) with Hebrew equivalents; 5) an alchemist's of magic an amulet s.v. square with for gold: "Compute letters and inscribed grow on after a

of emanation, stages It was often pictured which Hebrew

rich!" (drawing by Paxson after Patai, The Jewish Alchemists, fig.

26.1); magic 6) part ibranniya square, unknown provenance "Amulet," (drawing vol. 1, fig. by Paxson 17)

script

scribed, or as a spiral symbolizing the life cycle of fate, birth, the flowering of renewal, and/or infinity (Fig. 3: 1). With practical Kabbalah many centuries later, the graphic design
frame was abstracted into a conceptual model and trans

Encyclopedia

Judaica,

formed

into an icon. To be sure, the Tree of Life also figured Islamic Sufi thought, but the render strongly in subsequent ing of this particular icon seems to be unique to the Hebraic
tradition?in contrast to the ubiquitous spiral as a primary

The ment

number of Kabbalah

twenty-two,

which

dictates also

the recurs

commentaries,

linear arrange in a number of

West African the nomadic

particular reference ancestor westward. ty-two twin

rituals and genealogies. The mythic itinerary of to which Fulani migrations, the diaspora of
have cows been that attributed, accompanied on their stages enumerates the of and Faro, the one genealogy makes their route twen of the of

symbol of the Infinite in the Sufi Islamic tradition. Also pictured in the Sefer Yesirah is a geometric symbolism (inher ited from Greek and Babylonian the concepts) expressing
creative Pythagoras's power of numbers are and marked letters. by The the three Hebrew corners mother of Tetractys

traditions weaving to the first twenty-two Tyanaba The villages Mande associated of the and the myth with human

twenty-two of creation the ritual race,

letters for air (aleph), water (mem), and fire (shin), and the Hebrew tetragrammaton YHVH is placed in the center (Fig. to the seven planets and the twelve signs 3: 2). Corresponding of the Zodiac, the remaining nineteen letters of the sacred
twenty-two centric letter circles. Hebrew alphabet are arranged in two con

progenitors

Tuareg
tured The

metalsmith
slaves.28 number three,

families
the most

is attributed
favored and

to forty-four
potent

cap

mystical

number
occurs

in Jewish
more often

folklore,
in magical

popular
texts

belief,
than

and superstition,
any other number:

334

ART BULLETIN

JUNE

2006 VOLUME

LXXXVIII

NUMBER

Gematria-inscribed

magic

squares

also

serve

as visual

expres

In
* 4-

sion in both Kabbalah

5). In both Arabic square the

and Sufi belief

and add Hebrew, up the to fifteen is of the

and practice
numbers in all also of

(Fig. 3: 4,
a classic but to the And the use planets circles, the three of to

>C C I

SI

//H
0 7 1

three-by-three in Hebrew,

directions,

number

fifteen form the

equivalent

7W^l?WWW?I

Hebrew in sun these their they the

YH, Judaic gold.

a shortened tradition, Alchemical squares,

tetragrammaton.30 square made metals the symbolizes extensive and concentric

six-by-six treatises various Like

and magic

ascribing order.

ascending acquired

numerical iconic

symbolic of Arabic, religious

meaning, Hebrew, secular use of of the

as witness and contexts. jewelry, historic as context, word and

^7^Ve?3V?Jk7I2tf

*
//// 1fc> no

*
Ut Ht-

ni
177 <i B <J ?* g &

by-three script The

arrangement in a host of creation,

Judeo-Arabic

and and a part and

embroidery communication, ten word or

production, is as much exchange, ideogram. In

textiles, process

and of

7i^?feAOT*feyf7in/7<?ri^
X? X

interpretation African

is the writ by exten

the West

5" y

) 6 ? f
?_o

> 8 ? P
-o

v/3?^

??l

IX ?X

? *
? ? ?
7~)

y r

sion, cal

the power

association

between the

the written alchemical Their systems

its mysti of like commu the

E.7?nnr7-3DX

<> ri
T) L

raw materials written nication. to where these the word,

to is analogous into a finished are

transformation surfaces, of of visual

product. two-dimensional from also and once the be one

The others

passage can aura it was equate

medium in

communication analogies, the Dogon recently while more the spe

7/7K^?^K7^myni^ 1

seen

indigenous both: (albeit with in more

same

2
people discredited), nomadic

power

surround

of Mali,

suggested

Asiatique 15, no. 10 [1910]: 339); 2) Vai syllabary from Sierra

Leone West by Paxson (drawing Africa," 28) after Hau, "Pre-Islamic Writing in

an amulet, from of twenty-two lines composed 17th century Salonika, ibranniya script, (drawing by Barbara Paxson after M. Danon, "Amulettes sabatiennes," Journal 4 1) Talisman of

Songhay-speaking

word spoken weavers

Niger

weaving, are

"to know how to weave is to read (kiow)" and the mythical ancestor of the Tukulor weavers in Senegal is said to cific:
have produced cloth through the power of the word.31

The
context face the of

symbolic prophylactic
of a religious of belief art or and piece potent in the

pattern
been

that has evolved

projected (hence onto endowing

in the
the sur it with

graphically
extension, prophylactic

represented
the cryptic amulets

in two dimensions,
Hebrew is always formula arranged

it is a triangle. By
used on con in a triangular

architecture power) use and

abracadabra

same

supernatural extensive

finds of

expression

range

quintessential amulets. The

art

figuration
interlaced, Projected assumes results

(Fig. 3: 3). Wlien

they into a conical form three a Seal dimensions and and of

two equilateral
Solomon and or rotated, two the cones biconical

triangles
the base

are

of amulet from God

primary, invoke evil lence, eye or God's

a Star

of David. triangle to base beads so

preparation in both the Judaic

overarching protection its author, in the In easy for have purpose

was

considered and
of the

a highly prized the Muslim context:

amulet was influence God's either of benevo

gift the
to the

form, shape

in

the

placing form of

against Satan,

the malefic or of interface in to invoke

and help, ends.

prevalent inWest African jewelry. The biblical figure Bezalel applied

to combine the letters the the by which created" cle. His in building evokes ability letter has gold-enveloped concept

achievement the

particularly between the way

favorable Judaism amulets with scholar, it was visual

or and were

his knowledge
heaven ark and of

of "how
were

desirable Islam prepared: script may rare metal ated by

reality,

earth

found

accommodation an enclosed

the Taberna in which each

of gematria, This

sacred meates lated

a numerical treatises:

equivalent. graphic of

alchemical to effect the

diagrams various

per concept were manipu into gold.

a Muslim by produced cover that protective enveloped a on his own artisan Jewish drawing

example, been

sheet

its Arabic but often the cre

resource

transmutation

metals

bank

Given
considered

the affinity between

all existing mineral,

the Kabbalah
vegetal,

worldview,
animal, and

which
human

(Fig. 3: 6). Transformed into

djeddoual, were

iconographie,
sebe), these often

prophylactic
geometric by

prototypes
projections enigmatic se

(kamea, and

khatem,

things as containing
transmigrate whose from one primary goal it was inevitable that

a basically
state the was

identical

essence
and that of of base should

that could
alchemy, into use metals make

paradigms

accompanied

to another, transmutation

creted
in ated turn with

scripts attributed

to Judaica,
to the

such as ibranniya, which

creative process associ written languages,

gold, of theories tation. dents

readily

that Jewish alchemists to a lent themselves alchemists were or

have contributed may one of West Africa's

indigenous

Many of

Jewish

mystical teachers rabbis, and

interpre or stu diagrams

religion,

physicians,

moneylenders,

secreted script in Sierra Leone (Fig. 4).32 These "All recall the the world knows Maurish syllabaries proverb that a hidden thing is far superior to a visible thing," as well the Vai
as the Fulani are magicians. proverb ?33 from Senegal that says "those who write

drawn
their

from Kabbalah
correspondence,

were
and

interspersed
their recipes.29

in their writings,

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

AFRICAN

TAPESTRY

335

The Bani Israel

The term Bani Israel, frequently mentioned in the Koran and

network communities),

of

early who

Islamized claimed

Soninke-speaking from descent

cloth-trading the Bani Israel.

used Jewish
occurs

by Muslim colleagues
frequently

for their scholars as a polite designation more in lieu of the Yahudi, derogatory
in an oft-cited seventeenth-century Muslim

to the local informants, "they speak a language According to comprehend; which few of us have begun they marry
not mix do themselves, they . . . are Muslims, but They practice . . . the fashion rudimentary populations never to call them Bani ceased Israila."41 among tions. histories in Arabic; very found there, one began with the of other religion the Boundu popula in a very have

Tarikh (historical account) of West African history.34 Accord ing to its author, they had previously occupied a site that in 1496-97 was selected for Tendirma, a new capital city inMali for the brother of the Songhay ruler the Askia El Hadj
Muhamed. In the course of the of Bani kings of Israel occupancy, ruled "seven the city, to and refer descendants princes, a each with major military masons and be remarkable wells ences term bannay, both group hay the of ruler. were to the still evident." the Jews, were and force," "reputed they and their tombs well builders, same of Tarikh skilled also "terrace for includes

in Hebrew, parts were

Among then in

the written continued a a script close men

in another,

certain the

"abrani, as

among widespread of ibranniya, recalls cognate tioned above.

Jakhanke." the illustrated

Abrani, secret

script

The a caste similar al-banna) Arabic tribes"

soro-banna, of and and artisan

builders"?a "mason" (al in

The Blacksmiths
Mallam, nology of a political craftsperson, (in contrast or and elite variants usage, but of it, in both honorific scholar, a or Hebrew and Arabic not person, of a termi only a fine a is an also a

reminiscent bennay, Hebrew "servile

designations and related sources. who They

patronymics were one to the

designating literate the head

"belonged"

Song

the master to its workmen

of a craft, and

in 1493, the Askia El Hadj Mu Several years previously, hamed had been declared caliph of the Songhay Empire (in
what "chief is now Mali) of or to than by, djinn, Shem among not of others, Cheikh Chamharouch, race."35 a striking The name of a tribe the human bears the

apprentices).

workshop In sub-Saharan

Africa, the term Mallam is used notably by the Tuareg smiths and throughout northern Nigeria by the Hansa builders,
embroiderers, Mu'alkmin, attached to an the their According the and weavers, as well variant, clans obvious nomadic as by is used and a host by the of dignitaries. metalsmiths that traverse as is asso

Chamharouch, resemblance name God. holier In North

haroush, ha-meforash,

phonetic a

Shem all

others usage,

used

tetragrammaton, to the Hebrew in reference one of the seven

Mauritania; mu'allema. ciated with

leather-working to oral tradition, obscure,

lineages are wives their enigmatic the

addressed

African

Chemhourash,

terrestrial kings of the djinn attributed with a Hebrew

is frequently seven inscribed on amulets, evoking a

historically . . . descended the

heritage "Bafour":

origin,
re The who were made Mallams taught Jews the the from Bafours; iron and it is they they have autochthonous race. of The art: Mallams one the calls Jews have Berbers make working; always were

legend

counted
the time,

in Morocco
rabbis who

by the Jew Ichaq Ma'allem

came and Jerusalem.36 association conceptual from At

respecting
the same between

of works

the mythological on

the djinn and

the blacksmithing
throughout are a multitude to ago the

castes has also been

North of and West recorded inhabited study noted oral

fre
tradi

after artisans. tribe.42

commented quently In Mauritania, there tions djinn, that and make some

Africa.

legend, And the

only Mallams

them yohouds in Mauritania neither

because, the nor

homeland

reference decades

places a detailed

the by a tradi

The

contradictory and

nomenclature interdependent

reflects status of

yet

again

the and

com servi

Tichit
Oued

tion from the 1830s that a djinn called bennani was (still a major center of Jewish metalsmithing)
Noun, Morocco.37

living at in the

plementary

nobility

tude held by these ambulant

cultures. Scholars tribute migration their who have

artisans within
the Adrar

their various host

at to

Although
name their them to which dhimmi nor conditions to travel, they status

the original Tarikh did not mention

refer specifically to their dhimmi status, the of bondage, and the conditions safe-conduct

the trades by
it defined that permitted and servitude of rule. the A

addressed in city of the

presence the

Bafour enigmatic area of Mauritania in southeast Morocco,

from

Sijilmassa

were

of patronage reminiscent conditions subject?all under Islamic elsewhere established version these there of the same

the regions of the Djebel Nefusa

Algeria?each ensemble tense of of these areas and relations of all Jewish in need Ibadite Jewish across artisans of skills

in Tunisia,
traders the under considered

and the Mzab of

in a

"inhabited

a by large co-existing maintained who Sahara, as well by Ibadite as

nineteenth-century cally the enumerated soro-banna, the griots, The

"servile

artisan

tribes":

specifi manuscript to in addition the same-seko, of praise the sing arti North

commercial

concentration protection,"

were, and

among the

others, kom?,

puritanical vile or

incompat

diam-tene, ers, or

diam-ouali,

a caste

ible with
iron

Islamic

tradition,
tradition

such as tanning,
credits

dyeing,
with

gold or
found

sans.38

associated the metalworking with usually term of related same-seko is a cognate

working.43

Oral

the Bafour

ing the city of Ouadan

Portuguese there "Ahude" quarter teenth by a resident "Maurish that city existed or

in the Adrar
Joao known "the until chief is,

region.
Fernandes under

In 1446,
was the and of name

the
of

African
the ouara term

terms for goldsmith

tene refers Songhay to the term is the for

(sekkaka) and the mint

and the term

(sikka);
ouali

explorer

hosted

blacksmiths;

gold.39 in sub-Saharan of the Bani Israel presence continuing more was recent observ Africa documented by subsequently a mission ers on to the Boundu In 1941, the scene.40 region The

Maim?n, in the

Jew Maim?n," the beginning

Jewish the seven

century.44 traditions recorded early in the last century also

Senegalese

(Upper Guinea)

recorded

information

on the Jakhanke

(a

claimed

that the "Sebe Bafour" were Jews,

initially forced

336

ART BULLETIN

JUNE

2006

VOLUME

LXXXVIII

NUMBER

The
African ulets, ers

term sebe is used by a multitude

cultures both metal the the of the respect in reference and leather, to the range designed

of North
of

and West
am wear sug and of the who partic

protective to their protect it has been

gested that the "slaves acquired

against that role of

More djinn.45 term subsumes the State" and Sebe in status Baor the

generically, the black was comparable Sudanese

populations, to that empires, full

early over time

to become

ipants in local political

The awe, fear same and complex denigration

affairs.
paradoxical continues situation of respect the and social to characterize

position
a discussion Caro

of the metalsmith
of artisanal that are noted caste, them an the

to this day. Some decades

castes in the Western a lowly, "ma'lemin, called

ago, in

Baroja

alworking accord

equally Israelite

majarreros," But, said

Sahara, Julio met despised and "traditions

5 Pair Private by the

of

silver

fibulae,

early

19th in the

century, public

southwest domain;

Morocco. photograph

paradoxical of majarreros similarity to

position, are who the terms

origin."46 "it is also of the

their reflecting again are families there that line." The (Jews phonetic con who

Sherifian or

collection author)

(artworks

mehajeria

mohajir

in light of the verted to Islam) is particularly intriguing to the Jewish mehadjerin in the Mzab multitude of references
oases of from for of Algeria ancient Djerba, the most who "were Touat, Tunisia, part, Algeria, tolerated casters and reputed or to be forcibly the last descendants migrants they were, converted because of precious

precisely smelters

metal."47

Until women

the piece of jewelry most favored by Jewish throughout North Africa was the triangular fibula created termed Croix du Sud by Europeans), (misleadingly a in minute filigree rings together soldering by meticulously recently,
technology, often with attached triangular "wings"

derived

(Fig. 5). Classically, such fibulae were used in pairs to fasten and the draped costume worn by North African Phoenician
Roman number filigree 6 Fibulae of Solomon, from North Africa, early-mid-20th (from Paxson century: "Les 1 ) cast du women of gold during pieces were the first centuries similar in CE, and very design, in an eleventh-century recently, also using a

techniques,

unearthed

cache
flecting extension,

silver fibula

(khelala) with floral motifs

Ghardaia, Algeria

interwoven with a Seal

bijoux Tamzali,

of jewelry
the Judaic

from

Ifriqiya
for design?they

(present-day
the number were also

Tunisia).48
three?and, considered

Re
by a

Yelles,

preference

Djebel Amour,"
Algeria protect Paxson (drawing

120); 2) triangular silver fibula, Mzab region,

by Barbara written Rouach, after Wassyla

triangular

prophylactic
Solomon, by script, often

amulet.49
sometimes framing

Sometimes
with Hebrew, motifs,

inscribed with
Arabic, they came or

a Seal of
from

Abzim [Paris: Dessain

the newborn after David

et Tolra,

1984], 142); 3) talisman to

Judeo-Arabic uniquely

in Judeo-Arabic script (drawing et traditions Les talismans: Magie

floral

juives [Paris: Albin Michel,

1989], 99)

the hand of Jewish mallams

centers of southwest Morocco

in the traditional Jewish jewelry

and the Djebel Amour in Al

regions of reputed Bafour origin (Fig. 6). These geria?both a share design of intertwined script and floral motifs, pieces into a pendant merely by and the fibula can be transformed south by the Almoravids
south by the Hassaniya

in the eleventh
in the sixteenth

century and further

century, who settled

inverting
The itinerant

it 180 degrees.
presence in the of Sahara Jewish well nomads, into the warriors, nineteenth and cen

among
as Sebe

theWolof
Baor.

populations,
set of

where
locally

they are still designated

recorded indigenous

persistent traders

Another

traditions noted
in southwest with into other the

that the Bafour were Jews of the Oued Noun,

who Berber clans the had tribes descended and were into the Adrar inte region consider the Bafour in eventually

the vassal smiths (enaden) among tury also brings to mind nomadic Tuareg clans in the Ahaggar and Djebel Amour
regions of southern Algeria, who continue to be addressed

Morocco,

region grated Mauritania; themselves

nomadic of

some

traversing Trarza nomadic accounts

the Trarza families credited

with the honorific mallem. Their myths of Jewish ancestry and origin from David (based on both the Old Testament and the
Koran) early and have been recorded and and accepted by most scholars, they are late, Muslim European.50 Reputedly,

descendants.

Other

with

the introduction
wells technologies with

of irrigation
extensive involving

and

the construction
galleries? and met

of

stone-lined building

subterranean masonry, carpentry,

the issue of the Jews of Touat, who were expelled The forty-four artisans enslaved by the Amenokal
Kel-Rela to as the Tuareg dag in the mid-nineteenth ec-ci of the Adrar.51 The century term were daga

in 1492. of the
referred is used to

alworking

skills, all attributed

to the Bani

Israel.

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

AFRICAN

TAPESTRY

337

7 Tuareg (drawing

Mountains, t?reout, Ahaggar after La Paxson by Barbara

southern Algeria vie du Sahara [Paris:

Mus?e de l'Homme,

1960], fig. 13)

designate

the

southwestern

Tuareg

vassals

who

"originally

had no camels, and like the Jews in North Africa, could only and ride donkeys." Among both the Songhay at Timbuktu
the Fulani to in as northern Burkina the Faso, Fulani the serfs were "are also pagans is con 8 paradox holds sway: "Portrait wearing au centre de l'Afrique," de Mardoch?e, voyageur Illustr? of an Algerian rabbi the dress (from Le Monde referred because trary daga. "Daga," and inherit nephews to the Koran."52 Thus, said,

matriarchal the same

inheritance

while
scorn

their situation within Tuareg

and fear, the honorific as well in continues as blacksmiths intermediaries as

society

is enveloped

with
their

5 [July-December

1874]: 109; artwork in the public domain)

mallam,

acknowledging

reputation preters, even and In rour, who and

as musicians, jesters, used.53 Rabbi

spies, the mid-nineteenth intrepid

negotiation, to be century,

inter singers, tax collectors,

Mardochee

Aby

Se

an had

fibulae, albeit in a simplified geometry and technology. With from the traditional North African the shift in costume
draped toga so to a they tunic, were The fibulae merely were no inverted functionally longer into and turned was abandoned were "wings" see the persis a in

Moroccan the over

frequented Timbuktu for According

trader-o?m-scholar-rt?m-goldsmith routes Morocco between southwest a decade, to him, they wrote were an an account extended of the (still

requisite, singular of favor attached

Daggatoun.

viable) nomadic group in the Sahara north of Timbuktu, whom he had traded many times: These Jews, the Tuareg
say, Jews on who all have sides spread

with

pendant. the simple to the base

fastening clasp and the triangular loop, we Here of the triangle.

tence of the triangular

wide who prophylactic the most properties preferred

iconography
associated with among

and the efficacy of the

the the number three? even Tuareg?writ

called

them Daggatoun,
their faith. There They are

that is to
are those

number

changed in the

desert.

larger within Gold Trade

Jewish

the Tuareg world and Goldsmiths

in working

of apotropaic

jewelry.

reside close to Timbuktu, others close to Boudjebiha; are on the banks of the Niger, in the cities of Agades
Bamba; but the greatest number among them reside

they and
in the

involvement

with

precious

metals,

particu

great desert of Adgag,

orthodox verted he pays, the came Jews for Tuareg, is under this a

in the midst
who

of the great family of

. . .Each protects sum each of him these and con whom

the Ouelamiden. Tuareg a certain

service, of

year.54 black triangular an

history dating back to larly gold, has a long and distinguished contain hun Testament The books of the Old biblical times. to gold and gold working, and Jewish dreds of references to flourish and spread across the Med gold work continued
iterranean under Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, and Babylo

From smiths

hands the

these

Tuareg configured, is no triangular

mallam-cum-daga spectacular

uniquely

pendant
woman magnified

(t?reout) that was once

7). (Fig. version Its of design the

the pride
more motifs than

of every Tuareg
of elaborately the Moroccan

nian rule.55 Their ranks were bolstered by Jews following in the wake of the Arab invasion of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, who brought their skills with them. Their renown as goldsmiths and the objects they fashioned for both their
own ritual use and their overlords traveled in tandem with

338

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.-

-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~7 tI-I
.I I ., I~~~~.. C~~~~~~~~ I; Q

L,, a_

I_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
V;i;

a_
9 Part of the gold hoard from the
"Tr?sor de Segou," 1890 (artworks by Etienne des Mus?e in

the public domain; photograph

li domain, public curator, F?au, Arts Africains provided the former et Oc?aniens)

in the

the extensive
virtual monopoly.

Jewish gold
By the

trade over which

turn of the fourteenth

they exercised
century,

a
the

both his own account and the biographies of him is any to his gold-smithing and its reference activity in Timbuktu
environs.

majority
both

of Sephardic
and

Jewry, responding
was composed of

to the demands
artisans, and

of

crescent

cross,

with

the subsequent diasporas of 1391 and 1492, the skills of many into the Jewish smiths from Spain and Sicily were welcomed
courts of Turkey, Italy, and North Africa.

in the biographies is any reference to the Equally missing of West African politico historical unfolding complexities religious activity during his decade of residence. Timbuktu
was under the the Kunta, to his lahi, cording aegis and own of various then account, briefly rulers: the the Fulani at an at Hamdal Segou. Ac to the Tukulor was

Historians
beginning in sion of the

of African
the tenth

history have
but gold there

traditionally
traffic is reason to

dated
expan

the
that

trans-Saharan century,

Islamic to believe

Mardochee

adviser

it began much
man turies desert, European introduction that was

earlier, probably
of the camel sub-Saharan to mint Muslim the

in conjunction
to North Africa. transported of both many of

with
In

the Ro
the cen the

followed, used and

gold, currencies

across the medieval the minters

Fulani ruler Ahmadu; then, with the shift in political control over Timbuktu, he was a client (that is, a dhimmi) indebted to El Bekkay, the head of the Kunta tribal confederation. Sub sequently, he was briefly beholden first to El Hadj Umar, the
Tukulor ruler, southwest have been one and of then his son, who Gold Aby continued to rule at cer and Segou, tainly Timbuktu. of the services would smithing Serour provided,

worlds?and

in

the service of ruling polities were multifaceted

the Renaissance, treatise on metals the and author of the first vividly definitive described metallurgy

Jews. During
European the mul

undoubtedly,
relatives those

the models
down from the

and
with hands

technologies
them of would their Jewish

that he and his

have resembled the

the high standing in tiplicity of skills required of goldsmiths, were which and their alchemical held, they proclivity: he could well have been describing Jewish goldsmiths.56 Closer in time, Rabbi Mardochee Aby Serour's account of
his ten-year residence in and out of Timbuktu in the mid

brought came that

compatriots, smiths.58

mid-nineteenth-century

North

African

The results of their creativity may well have been part of what later became known as the Tr?sor de Segou. In 1890, in
the course of the French military expansion into West Africa,

nineteenth
have been at various teacher,

century
a man times an and

(and biographies
skills, an a man places, a officiating an guide,

of him)
of all rabbi, active

reveal him
trades: he was, a scholar, trader, and

to
a a

the city of Segou

dence and had Tukulor sequentially rulers)

in Mali
been was

(which during Mardochee's

the captured. to France, capital As part of Bambara, of the booty,

resi
Fulani, the

of many

interpreter,

French
The

confiscated
was

a vast hoard
brought

of gold and silver (Fig. 9).

where some of the gold

goldsmith who reputedly ended his life as an alchemist (Fig. His father, with whom he apprenticed before embarking 8) ,57
for Timbuktu from southwest Morocco, was considered the

treasure

most renowned goldsmith in the northern Sahara; in the course of his Timbuktu was joined by Serour residence, Aby
four goldsmith relatives. Yet, while his account clearly reveals

was initially exhibited at the Exposition Universelle of 1893 in were at the then and both the and silver exhibited Paris, gold 1900 Exposition Universelle there.59 A comparison of the silver and gold pieces of the hoard provides revealing insights into the West African history of
silver and gold metalworking: the silver pieces bear a close

his dhimmi status during

his Sanaran

travels, missing

from

JUDAIC

THREADS

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TAPESTRY

339

| iii .w LM4N>~~~~~~~~~~~~Ad

* N , 't ': '* I AAWAA Mt ts II

I~~~~~~~~~~
8t "
-. si

;W

e?8v
v W>S -t .1.:^ ._.

_r~gr : ! 1I__ q

nL* f~d ~ rr

___.

S iS~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1

iE1
8i :: .:? s?<x, it ' S-' t ,$. : "'t : ::f ''y03 ' o 0 '' ; LI

? .,

1 worn 10 Jewelry by Timbuktu, acquired African coast, early George across Munster, India, the women on 19th the North of

from century, a Route Journal of 487 London, 1819,

(artwork in the public domain)

to those still associated with resemblance the Mauritanian and Tuareg smiths, while
were far more intricate in detail, involving

and produced by the pieces in gold

the extensive use

of granulation and filigree?techniques still associated pri the Mediterra marily with Jewish workmanship throughout
nean world.60 To the best for of my illustration of a precedent worn two of knowledge, the most the common earliest pieces

in the gold
trating from Princes the the

"Tr?sor" was published

"Jewelry originals, by from purchased from the pilgrimage

in an 1819 account
of Timbuktu a group of Moroccan

illus
drawn

the women

returning

via

the Mediterranean

on an English ship" (Fig. 10).61 The trefoil (khmar) and the disk (twaba) are currently worn in Morocco primarily by Jewish women (Fig. 11). The trefoil
is variously bourghdad besahu, ferred called in North khmar, Africa foulet-hamsa, and Mauritania in West Europeans, hen, mughdad, san and Although actually a and u sebe, re trian

11 Gold
century, public

trefoil pendants
Akka, Morocco.

(khmar) and disks (twaba), early 20th

Private

in the collection (artworks after a photograph Paxson domain; by Barbara drawing de l'Afrique Centrale, Tervueren, Royal provided by Mus?e

Belgium)

trefal, and walata-idye to as a cruciform by

Africa. it is

gular

configuration
bar

in which
or a corner cultural

each
cluster serves and

of
of to

the
three

three points

is
the

smiths on the Senegalese-Mauritanian 12, 13). The pendants are still found
antique markets of Nouackchott,

border in 1999 (Figs. in great quantity in the

but in lieu of

emphasized integral a chain. onto

a circle by at the fourth Defying

granules; the pendant string provenance,

Mauritania,

gold

filigree

and granulation
in silver on that ebony, Muslim

they are interpreted

in copper, smiths are in brass,

via new
and in to

geographic

technologies cloisonn?,

this piece
throughout executed ously

(or minor
sub-Sahara in gold,

variations
as an silver,

of it) continues
its unique as as well

to be used
vari design, in a range of

materials

permitted

amulet: or brass

related
as

technologies,
to trace attributed

is as difficult

to locate
Identical

in geographic
{san pieces Bamana

space u sebe) were

in cultural

history. gold to a late-eighteenth-century

in the (Fig. 14). In the 1960s, reflecting continuity were the still tradition, (bourghdad) pendants iconographie in but the Ulad Gerrar blacksmiths, a silver, by being made, nomadic Jewish enclave living south of Tiznit in the Oued handle
Noun, southwest with Morocco. mejar?an The term gerrar version is itself of used syn onymously In the the abbreviated majarrero.63

king in Mali, and several examples, dating from the eigh teenth or nineteenth century, came to light in the Asante of Ghana.62 Variously attributed to the Tukulor, to the region
"Maures," and to the Fulani, gold trefoils were available in

Songhay executed trefoil,

of turn-of-the-century Timbuktu, language a was or "son in called walata-idye, gold,

of Walata," goldsmiths
Mauritania, sequent shift

Mopti, Mali, in 1966; they were acquired (as a "dowry" heir in Tahua, Niger, in 1974; and loom) from Songhay women
gilt-silver versions could be obtained from Sarakolle-Soninke

implying the site of its design inspiration: Jewish in Walata, and merchants had been observed
in the in sixteenth early trade patterns century. that led to However, the city's the sub gradual

340

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12 Gold trefoil pendants, Niger, 1974. Private collection (photograph by the

author) 13 Gilt-silver trefoil

pendant,

Senegal,

1998. Private collection by the author)

(photograph

14 Silver-on-ebony trefoil pendant, to similar Mauritania, Nouakchott, Gerrar. the Ulad those made by

Private collection
author)

(photograph

by the

15 Gold
goldsmiths Industries

trefoils, disks, and earrings

(dyam), et principales Timbuktu, professions, ca. pis.

(tolom?)made by the
(from xxrv) xxm, Dupuis-Yakouba, in (artwork

1900

the public domain)

demise prompted
ing its artisans and

much

of its population,
to migrate

presumably
to Timbuktu,

includ
where

merchants,

the dyam (servile castes) went on fabricating gold trefoils and disks (as well as the gold earrings, or tolom?) far into the twentieth century (Fig. 15).64 The term diam may be phonetically related to jaam, djam,
or dian, terms still used to refer to various artisanal castes in 16 P.-David

West Africa. In Mande, diamu (the name that honors) also that extends implies a hereditary family-affiliated occupation the boundaries. cultural and Among beyond geographic
Songhay, and yet, dyam or tarn still carries in the the paradoxically, early implication twentieth of century, slavery, the

century, xiii pi.

Trarza Senegal, goldsmith, vol. Boilat, Esquisses s?n?galaises, in the public domain) (artwork Boilat, from

mid-19th 1, Paris, 1853,

to distinguish term was used generically the goldsmiths from in iron and other the Tuareg blacksmiths (garasa) working
base lated the In metals. term g?nies an Among diansa-ta with whom Fulani blacksmiths, neighboring a sacrifice means to "to make the blacksmiths note that to four are on in the to one " but the the the re djinn,

identical Thiam, the renowned Wolof the phonetically in who excel in gold filigree and granu Senegal goldsmiths the Wolof of Senegal the term for the lation work.67 Among and the slave class is jamu or dyaam, while the blacksmiths of
goldsmiths, families, were their part often of the also caste identified and system by their a attached to freeborn indicative patronymic families. "protector" French-trained

early-twentieth-century eastern noted it was Senegal, blacksmiths there belonged the was Tyam, equally 'a caste used by of

rapport."65 blacksmiths

in the were Tyam

of

both The

specialization

"prior clans,

Islamization, of whom term

accomplished

mid-nineteenth-century

jewelers,' captive the respected Tukulor

illustrator P.-David Boilat had suggested that the Senegalese Wolof the skill from their northern acquired goldsmiths
neighbors the Trarza, found in enclaves along the Atlantic

scholars-cwm-trad

ers (torodbe).66 The

(sebe means "amulet"),

same trefoil, called a san u sebe inWolof

also constitutes part of the repertoire

coastline north of the Senegal River, and linked by distant oral tradition to the Bafour (Fig. 16). "This [Trarza] gold

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

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34I

smith, those

named who came

Mohamed, to work

was the

of the most adroit reputed in the of gold colony Senegal.

Not only could he imitate to perfection the models which came from France, but he spoke both French and English
without skills.68 an Given accent"?obviously his costume a (indigo testimony dress to his and a wide, linguistic multi

colored
name hamed

sash) and the traditional practice of assuming aMuslim

conversion, have been one could is tempted a descendant to wonder of converted whether Jews. Mo 17 Early Akan cast-brass gold Paxson after G. Niangoran-Bouah, weights by Barbara (drawing The Akan World of Gold

with

in becomes more history of the Thiam goldsmiths a in of number of Wolof and light triguing legends, rituals, The
practices a from a French that, it has been suggested, base.69 Judaic trader who Perhaps drawing had visited the may proceed directly on the observations of same region a hundred

Weights [Abidjan: Les Nouvelles

Editions Africaines,

1984],

135)

and fifty years previously, Boilat had written that for Taleu bone, the Wolof feast on the tenth day of the first month of
the year, which coincides feast), small round with "one the achoura of Islam (that is, the Muslim great form "Those which quantity a of who ends Tabaski of prepares without in each a family, in the leaven, bread); a recall

was craft

considered

an

honorable

m?tier, Many translated and of

extolled

as

bread,

necessary and Jew, were in found script,

to civilization.73 scholars, metal who amulets,

its artisans, the visual into

luxury Muslim

attributes the iconog

jewelry

pastry" eat it, with

unleavened Passover (recalling a chant chant with mysterious of the Hebrews."70 the 'alleluia'

raphy of embroidery
surrounds Like the writing word, the written and just as

design,
of amulets

and
by

it shared
scholars

the aura

that

of various

faiths.

Considering
amiss trader, not which

the

"multiple-role"
the on dual role a balance

paradigm,
of system

it would

be

munication, script, African

embroidery be considered it could is associated and lore. By

to mention depended

goldsmith-om-gold using weights,

weaving

com is a system of visual a extension of logical in West with "the word" the symbolic and

mythology

transferring

gold dust, gold nuggets, and also finished jewelry pieces (Fig. 17). Cast in brass, the circular shape and design of early
weights, not unlike the traditional twaba, were often associ

prophylactic
theosophy

patternings
and cosmography,

that had evolved

the

in the contexts

of by

scholar-i:w/7^embroiderer

endowed
sacred

the surface of the cloth with

script.

the potency wielded

ated with coinage

apotropaic activity. gold, some ing Given one of aura the

itself, but were

that enveloped

subtly imbued with the same

both Islamic artisanal reluctance the and trading to handle of

continuing to is tempted about speculate Rabbi Mardochee Serour's Aby in Timbuktu.71

conversion gold-trad

in the framework of guidelines regarding dress, Unfolding in gold and silk, along with the virtual trading monopolies skills to employ these materials, led to the development of an
embroidery that extends tradition across considered which using gold, the African in these the silk, and/or cotton Equally is the thread relevant, nomadic continent. same traditions context, evolved.

surviving

relatives

While
replicating

the complexity
a "Judaic

of the historical
prototype"

process
with new

involved
and substi

in

albeit tradition

never

design

within

Assembling

tute materials
essay, ical a number process

and technologies
of merit

is far beyond
that mention:

the limits of this

the the histor

narrow weft strips (flijs) into a tent cover required

and, the by many on extension, triangular the tent vellums sources reinforcing motifs of embroidery?as reinforcing Saharan with critical nomads. references

tailoring?
attested structural by

developments at least passing

influenced

availability

(and at times higher

changing world market

value)
value

of silver and
and devaluation

silver coin,
of gold,

the
the

points Old

Testament

abound

to the

skill

adaptation
from tropaic metals

of techniques
armor) such as

using
to more

precious
available brass; and

metals
yet the

(inherited
apo of

of Jewish
Tabernacle,

embroiderers
the ephod of

(for example,
the robe,

the curtains
as a

of

the
em

damascene

copper

equally substitution

Aholiab

chief

cloisonn?
amalgam the changing is worn

for gems,
process

the use of gilding

(a close relative of usury, of

to simulate
alchemical and,

gold,

the

broiderer) , and the tradition of Jewish women embroidering gold thread onto silk was carried on in Egypt and the Near
East in the centuries under Islam.74 Although the extension

perceptions

processes), client ultimately,

style preferences.
gold almost

To this day, echoing Malekite

exclusively by women. Most

proscription,
significantly,

into North Africa is reputed to of gold thread embroidery have been introduced with Turkish rule, presumably by Jew
ish North hanced artisans Africa by and who in earlier on accompanied the sixteenth diasporas, the Iberian was the Ottoman century, the well expansion tradition, established for the into en in ex

however,
formats to

the widespread
particular ethnic

attribution
groups of

of such specific design

ethnonyms emphasizes

both
relation societies. oral

the complexity
between In the

of

intercultural
artisanal questioning scholars,

identity
niches the recent

itself and
and their

the
host of has

Europe

already Evidence Peninsula.

peripatetic course of by earlier

port of gold and silk embroidered

the guese Sahara sources can also as well be as found in in the subsequent

textiles
early

(bordados) across
Islamic and Portu accounts.75

interpretation scholarship

traditions

European

cogently Gold
Sewn medieval

begun

to address

the issue of these identities.72

and Silk Embroidery

garments Islam, have long been a worldwide by extension, luxury item. In tailoring?and, embroidery?

of gold embroidery thread involved Since the manufacture the fabrication of gold sheet and filigree as well as silk for its over both the gold market cores, the virtual Jewish monopoly
and the silk trade would have also subsumed these textiles.76

What

this gold

thread embroidery

may

have

looked

like is

342

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19

"Accoutremens

d'aucunes

Africanus, Description vol. 1, 151. The New Tilden 18 Pedro Museu de Garc?a de d'Art ca. 1470-80. in the Foundations,

de Fez," from Leo gentis femmes de VAfrique, 1556, Lyons: Jean Temporal, Lenox and York Public Astor, Library, in the Rare Division Books (artwork

public domain)
Nacional Benabarre, of Herod, Banquet Barcelona de Catalunya, (artwork

public domain; photograph

Catalunya, Barcelona,

? MNAC?Museu
photograph

Nacional
by Calvaras/M?

d'Art costumes:
cycle, three The man's

2005,

rida/Sagrist?)

the wheel
fate, birth,

design
renewal,

universally
and "soul" for infinity, or

symbolizes
and "spirit" Jewish and symbolic

the life

the number (Fig. 20).79 woman's the twenty

is a Hebrew same its icon matching used is

synonym applied pair to fasten to of

the Moroccan three soutaches the

suggested
which dered Salome in

by a
gold

late-fifteenth-century

Iberian

painting
embroi evoca

in

shroud; two buttons

wears a gown the Jewess thread whose patterning

sumptuously is particularly

it express

continuity

from marriage
evidence mark of of design the

(fertility and birth)

remarkable continuity rendering

to death. Trans-Saharan
of this hall singular in a mid tu

tive of floral motifs of the same in Sephardi micrography a woman costume of in a wood of F?s The period (Fig. 18).
cut included in one of the earliest copies of Leo Africanus's

persistence and creativity of the

nineteenth-century

appeared cotton-embroidered

Description de VAfrique in the following century bears a close resemblance, perhaps signaling the large Sephardi popula tion in F?s that Leo observed during his residence there and on gold attire imposed by Fer the concurrent prohibitions dinand and Isabella after the diaspora of 1492 (Fig. 19).77 Both illustrations, which may add credence to the claim that thread has been attributed to the "invention of gold metallic the Jews of Fes" who had fled Spain, appear to be historical cos for the heavily gold-embroidered wedding precedents
tumes from T?touan, which still constitute the haute couture

nics worn by Bornu women

a thriving terminus linked

in Kanem, Niger
by a trans-Saharan

(Fig. 21). Once

trade route to

Tripoli,
North

Kanem was heavily

African Jewish traders.

trafficked by nineteenth-century
Here, interestingly, the embroi

dered
been

tripartite
rotated of presence 90

design
the degrees tunic. cotton

of
and

linked,
centered

spiraling
on

soutaches
the most

has

visible

component The

of

soutaches

in

early

Tellern

grave

of North African Jewish brides.78 The three elaborately em broidered gold thread spiraling soutaches on each side of the wedding vest form the hallmark of these extravagant wedding

echo of Jewish sites (Fig. 22: 1) may well be an ephemeral to the burial evidence, lending weight possibility that North in the cloth trade by African Jewish merchants, specializing the tenth century CE, brought textile embroidery across the
Sahara to the Bandiagara escarpment in Mali. However, cen

JUDAIC

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343

20 Part of a Jewish woman's shroud (left) and gold thread embroidery on a Jewish wedding bodice (right), T?touan,
Morocco, mid-20th century. Israel Museum, Jerusalem

(photographs ?

Israel Museum,

Jerusalem)

22 West

African

soutaches:

1)

tunic

soutache,

Tellern

grave

site, Sanga, Mali, 12th century (from Rita Bolland, Tellern Textiles [Leiden: Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde, 1991], fig. 178 Z 1-7); 2) soutaches from Timbuktu, early 20th
century professions, (from pi. Dupuis-Yakouba, xvti) Industries et principales

them in white silk on recently, the women who embroidered worn the robes (derra'a) by local dignitaries and in black on
the headpieces worn by Mauritanian women.81 The ramifica

shifts and substitute materials for the process transformation begs to be ex technological The ritual further. heritage (involving plored early Judaic was in the hands of men (for example, Aho needlework) tions of gender of stylistic and
21 Woman's tunic, Kanem, Niger, 1870s (from Gustav

Nachtigal, Sahara und Sudan [Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, Paul Parey, 1881], 186)

and Renaissance European Jewish life, embroidery historically came from women's hands, as it had in Near Eastern Islam. One clue to the gender shift might lie in a study of the guild regulations of Jewish embroiderer tailors at the beginning of the twentieth century in the Souk liab);
El-Trouk, Tunis.82 Women "who worked at home" (that is, as

in medieval

turies later, at Timbuktu,

that make is, the Muslim soutaches. these This

it was recorded
tradition

that only
were

the alfa,
to

scholars-cwwHailors,

reflects

permitted the centuries

domestic soutaches
garments:

from creating the seamstresses) prohibited and the large embroidered pockets on the front of
this was the province of skilled, literate, male hand

were

in the Islamic milieu old multiple role of the scholar-artisan with regard to the han and its less stringent proscriptions The same hallmark of dling and wearing of silk (Fig. 22: 2) .80 concentric circles and spiraling motifs is still used in neigh as such the boring regions, Futa-Djallon, Guinea, where the
Imams are also the embroiderers. Current West African em

embroiderers?just
Could the economic,

as it is today elsewhere
religious, and socio-cultural

in West

Africa.

exigencies

generated by trade between North and West Africa have redefined the cultural perception of the profession and the its vis-?-vis shifting gender roles? subsequent complexities Silk and Indigo
The numerous citations from early Arabic sources that refer

broidery practice achieves a similar visual effect by using sateen cotton in lieu of silk or gold thread for the same
stitches. The use of the more easily available, affordable, and

thread may well explain the gradual entr?e of acceptable into a realm of artisanry previously Muslim embroiderers that precluded inaccessible to them by virtue of proscriptions the handling of gold. The ongoing creation and use of these soutaches is also
evident in Walata, Mauritania. There, however, it was, until

to the wearing of silk by West African dignitaries (toylasen) from and to the silk trade across the Sahara from Andalusia, evidence the Magreb, and from Egypt present convincing that silk was of major import in both the North and the West
African context for over a millennium. Concurrendy, the

constraints
"otherness,"

set forth in the Pact of Umar?the

servility, and humility that was

designation
imposed on

of
the

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24 ca.

"Alhambra" 1400. The

Hispano-Moresque Hispanic Society

silk panel, Granada, of America, New York,

H921

(artwork in the public domain)

virtual duction.

monopoly Known

that they as Alhambra

exercised silks or

over striped

its

trade

and

pro cloth,

Alhambra

they were produced

centers trade such and for as Granada gift

in great quantity
and Almer?a among exchange

in the southern
and rulers used of

Iberian
in

extensively various persua

sions (Fig. 24). The Makkari (1591-1632)

Andalusia and fineness Jewish as "famous of texture" silk

North voiced
all over and

African praise
the world made there.85

Arabic chronicler al for the woven sashes of

of colors for brilliancy to references frequent a account His strikes

medieval

weavers

23 Belt
of the Museum,

(zunnar) worn by Rabbi David ben Barukh, president

guild, Essaouira, ? Jerusalem (photograph 1935. Morocco, Israel Museum, Israel Jerusalem)

goldsmiths'

poignant note in light of the fate of these weavers, many of whom fled to Morocco following the diasporas of 1391 and Nonetheless the 1492. thriving silk textile industry of Almer?a after the fall of the Nasrid dynasty in Granada. persisted long
Of roccan particular enclaves interest were the of Azemour, Portuguese-held and from F?s, Safi, urban where Mo tap

dhimmi

peoples

under

Islam?focused

on

two

conspicuous

dress features, the wearing of a silk belt and a dark blue or black dress. A prescribed hallmark of Jewish male costume, the belt (zunnar), worn by repeatedly folding a large piece of fabric and winding it around the waist many times, continued to be a visible symbol of Jewish identity not just in North Africa but throughout the Islamic world. Today, however, an transformation from degradation following iconographie to distinction, it is worn primarily by dignitaries such as
rabbis, scholars, leading workshop patrons, and traders (Fig.

estries (hanbels, or lambens) like those from Alen tejo in Por tugal were being exported and traded directly to Portuguese strongholds along the West African coast, including Arguin,
Mauritania, century, Portuguese and these crown Cape textiles from Verde, were resident Senegal. actively heads In the early commissioned of North sixteenth by the Jew mon for

African

ish weaving
of his family

guilds

such as Meir Levi of Safi. Various members

performed viziers, Moroccan roles as traders, and a ambassadors, rulers,

subsequently

eylenders, interpreters, both and Portuguese narrative,

spies

An 23) .83
was evident

intriguing
in the

echo of the belt as a mark of distinction

dress worn by both

mid-nineteenth-century

to the surely integral complexity ment in the textiles saga.86 the centuries Now, later, indigo-dyed

adding fascinating of Jewish involve

strip-woven

cotton

Mauritanian in Senegal.
.. . with silk "very beautiful

goldsmiths Their dress

embroidery belt, also

(Fig. 16) and Sarakolle commoners consisted of "an indigo-dyed tunic

on the breast in the and shoulders" plus a woven country."84

cloths
haven

(pa?o de obra bicho) of the Cape Verde

for expelled Portuguese Jews and

Islands?once
New Christians?

to the silk "Alentejo" textiles (Fig. bear a striking resemblance Their lends itself easily to the narrow 25). design geometry
weft madic strip-weaving cultures: technologies almost identical inherited weaving from patterns Saharan were no repli

While
the dent

neither
silk

the European
silk traders traders, and

nor Arabic
all noted in weavers

sources described
the the renown urban of resi centers

trans-Saharan Jewish

cated by ingeniously
create supplementary

introducing
weft-float

additional
patterns in

single heddles
indigo.87

to

from which

the silks were

being

imported?suggesting

the

JUDAIC

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345

t %

> 1

25 Strip-assembled Santa Catarina,

cotton Cape Verde

cloth

(pa?o de obra bicho), Islands. Museu Nacional

Santiago, de

Etnologia,

Lisbon, 077 (photograph

by Benjamin

Pereira)

cotton, Guinea-Bissau, (pa?o biche), Pepel peoples, of African Museum Art, synthetic dyes. National National Museum of Natural Smithsonian Institution, History, with funds D.C., by the Washington, purchased provided Smithsonian Collections 1983-85, Program, Acquisition

27 Wrapper natural and

EJ10107

of

these

woven their way

as well across Levi's

as

embroidered the Sahara, as

found sioned export duce ing yet

would have products had those commis for concept, Portuguese intro they weav the T? on

in Meir to

Moroccan coast. in As the a

workshop design

the Guinea another The strand

genesis

of West pattern

African

traditions.

overall

checkerboard

touan
Saharan the

textile, which
nomadic

lent itself admirably

technologies, configurations

to indigenous
still that prevails distinguish

sub
in

strip-weaving magic-square

apotropaic

26 Multicolored century. The

silk brocade, Newark Museum,

17th Morocco, T?touan, gift of Louis Bamberger,

1927,

strip-woven, indigo-dyed textile design in Guinea-Bissau (Fig. 27). The substitution of indigo-dyed cotton for multicolored
silk using an indigenous ingenious the extent adaptation. to which One strip-weaving technology to is speculate tempted the virtual Jewish monopoly is another further over on the

27.767

(artwork in the public domain)

In the wake
Peninsula guese-ruled multitude embroiderers of Safi,

of
had

the earlier

diasporas

from

the
like

Iberian
Portu for and a

indigo
traders

trade and
on the West and into

the early presence

African coast may of exploitation weaving

of Portuguese
have indigo contributed cultivation In contrast

Jewish
to the and to its in

to Morocco,

Spanish-held into a concentrated grown artisans, equally among preeminent. whom

T?touan,

Sephardi were

refuge silk weavers

encouragement integration

the

repertoire.88

Although an

executed

digo
essential have

collected

in the wild,
crop

cultivated
to sugar with

indigo
and

constitutes
so Jewish and export

an
in

in silk brocade,
from

the patternwork
T?touan

on the multicolored
reflected already

textile
well

seventeenth-century

established

weaving

technology

(Fig. 26). Undoubtedly,

some

operated in volvement

complementary in tandem the

cotton,

it may

well-documented sugar plantation

burgeoning

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28

Songhay (Wogo) textile (kunta arkila),

nomadic Tera,

weavers, Niger, 1974.

narrow Private

weft

cotton

collection

(photograph

by the author)

use of indigo-dyed cotton cloth as trade. The widespread the late sixteenth would have reflected currency by century
these trader-artisan-cultivator interfaces. Other important

factors
these

in tracing
textiles are

the design
the

genesis

of the patterning
trade route entrep?ts

on

trans-Saharan

such as Sijilmassa and Timbuktu

the cotton make savanna habitat and than reference climate, was to the the cultivation passing

and the geographic

which rain was forest. more Early of cotton

limits of
to

receptive accounts plant

29 Albert Benadou, gold fibula, Agadir, Morocco, Private collection (photograph by the author)

1999.

integration

fibers from the north with

nous silk-cotton (baobab)

those of the less workable

tree.

indige sembled from narrow weft strips woven by the Songhay-speak ing nomads in Niger, may not be coincidence (Fig. 28).91 Nor
are the weaving occur frequendy patterns on the not narrow unlike weft a of sampler woven strips those in wool that on

Suggested
yet another

Jewish genealogies
aspect of the

for the Tuareg

dress

smiths evoke
code: the im

indigo-related

position of black or indigo dress on the dhimmi peoples. Could the continuing Tuareg inclination for an indigo dress code be a logical outcome of their Judeo-Berber heritage? The
earliest

horizontal
vellums.92

looms

(flijs) and assembled

into nomadic

tent

preference
Muslim

for blue
visitors to

clothes,
the courts

specifically
of

noted

by the
Africa,

sub-Saharan

African Genesis:
In Africa and

No More
the African

Forever?
diaspora, as everywhere else, the

was voiced by both the veiled Berber sultan of Tadmekka, a a in northeast of Timbuktu inhabited the city region by traders in that Tuareg nomads, and the most distinguished country.89 Like the belts, indigo dress also assumed a sym bolic duality: initially a mark of denigration, it, too, was transformed into a hallmark of distinction and dignity. The extensive in early Islamic indigo trade is indicated
references in the to frequent the sub-Saharan observations preference of early for blue cloth and European traders

historical
expression

process
through

of exchange
artisanal

and interpretation
creativity, and its

has found
con

products

tinue
forms

to be reinterpreted
and contexts over

and reconstituted
time and in space.

in varying visual
The African

genius for integrating and perpetuating same time, its ongoing interaction with
emerges the above. Several years ago, in Agadir, Morocco, in a range of of contemporary the iconographies pervasiveness

design and, at the the Judaic heritage

that have illustrate addressed

examples we

throughout
khunt, blues," cloth and

the African
khout?terms cloth," currency.

trading world

to Ihennt, hent, khent,

"gui?ee as a trade

with "blues," always equated "indigo or in the context cotton" of "gui?ee same terms These recall the Arabic

gold

"Croix

du

term al-qutn (cotton), adopted by Jewish traders for the cot tons that they introduced into Europe from North Africa.
More ment term relevant in used the to and cloth revealing, comes trade the the centuries-old to mind.90 subtly woven Kunta Kunta cotton involve arkila, textiles the as

classic fibula?executed in superb filigree and was on in the granulation, display shopwindow of a Jewish It exhibited the goldsmith (Fig. 29). unique marriage of two
design elements addressed and illustrated above?the trian

Sud"?the

gular design of silver fibulae and gold trefoil pendants. scrutiny revealed a pair of simulated tablets mounted
crossbar of the triangle, subtly evoking the Ten

Closer on the

designate

Command

JUDAIC

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347

fabric design, Mauritania, 31 Machine-printed collection (photograph by the author)

2003. Private

30 Cast-gold beads, reputedly made by Baule goldsmiths,

Coast, late 20th century. Collection of Susan Vogel

Ivory

(photograph

by the author)

ments. associative

Integrated imagery,

into the

the

design, endurance

it conveyed, of ancestral

in a very Jewish

basic virtu

osity in goldsmith technology. With its complex technology of filigree and granulation, the modern fibula contrasts sharply with the far more famil iar pieces of gold casting for which the Baule goldsmiths in the C?te d'Ivoire are so well known (Fig. 30). The cast pieces that they create (in brass as well as gold) by simulating filigree in cireperdue are identical to the gold disks with their concen tric circles from Morocco and Timbuktu (Fig. 15) and also reminiscent of the cast-brass gold weights used by the gold traders (Fig. 17). Could a clue to the enigma of cultural transformation lie in the fact that goldsmiths, who cast both the brass weights and the gold disks, associated them concep tually and functionally by simulating the "look" of filigree and
granulation in another technology using more available met

32 Yellow woman's

mercerized tunic, Dakar,

cotton Senegal,

machine 1970.

embroidery University of

on

Iowa

Museum of Art, gift of Labelle Prussin, 2003.344 by the author)

(photograph

in

space

and

time.

The

same

icon

appears

in a number

of

contexts, going far beyond varied, yet related, prophylactic the metalworking and traditions. The leather technologies wives of the blacksmiths (mu'allema) still appliqu? working
leather pieces (walata-idye, or trefoils) onto new prayer rugs

als such as copper? Could another clue be embedded in the in related of beads the closely repertoire cast-gold neighbor ing Asante panoply, or on the face of a gold object resem are shaped in letters that bling a watch whose numerals to mimic both Vai and appear ibranniya script? The phonetic between the carried similarity Kyem (an Asante patronymic in in the the diam mentioned Kumasi, Ghana), by goldsmiths and the Wolof Thiam Tarikhs, the Timbuktu presents dyam, an intriguing parallel.93
Nowhere, however, is iconographie continuity more exten

and flank them with a pair of hands (khamsa)?the Jewish Hand of Mariam or the equally prophylactic Islamic Hands of
Fatima. Even more striking evidence of the subliminal inte

gration of the icon into daily life can be found on contem fabric design (Fig. 31). It is easy to envi porary Mauritanian aura sion the body completely in a protective enveloped into when such a fabric, with its overall pattern, is assembled
a sweeping robe. The realm of dress embroidery offers even

greater testimony to its iconographie spread: following in the thread trefoils and soutaches are tradition, embroidery gold
now writ large on a woman's tunic by tailors in Dakar using

sive than material,

in the trefoil pendants, and technology ismatched

whose

diversity only by their prevalence

in size,

machine precise

cotton (Fig. 32). A stitchery and yellow mercerized of their design replica gold jewelry forerunners, they

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duction nian kente

of

and the world-renowned cloth indigo-dyed weavers. In Asante cloth produced by

Gha the indigo

dyed
square,

cloth,
mere

the basic motifs

echos seem of the to underlie

of circle,
Judaic

triangle,

and magic
that, have like been

geometric

configurations iconography,

hallmarks,

organized
tated by

into the traditional

narrow-weft strip weaving

block

patterns
34).

originally
The contempo

dic

(Fig.

rary kente cloth, although

of the centuries-old

retaining

the underlying
has attained

geometry
the vi

traditional

fabric,

brant

in silk by symphonic display of color once achieved an of fibers available rainbow rayon acrylic (Fig. substituting lies the African genius: an iconography inherited 35). Herein
a culture where and in trade traveled in tandem a new with nomad ism was icon. The expanded term kente transformed itself evokes an into indigenous relation

from

etymological

with
above.95 ponent

phonetically
Would of it be

similar
historical the

terms

such
to

as kunta,
infer that

discussed
one com trade

its hallmark,

heresy narrow weft-woven

indigo

from cloth once enhanced with silk thread unraveled to intersection could be traced the silk fabrics, ported
tween trade and artisanal skills that characterized

im be

the West

African Judaic heritage? Any cultural diaspora

gration their and culture integration. in their

brings
Just as wanderings,

into play the dynamic

Jews elsewhere Jewish migrants

of mi

transported to sub

Saharan West Africa initially brought with them from the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, and the Near East four
essential skills tradition 33 Mali, Detail 1970. of an embroidered collection bodice for a man's by the robe, Djenne, author) family roles that such resources: as of ties; as were a virtual monopoly over and select artisanal a metalworking, worldwide silk weaving, networks trade interactions embroidery; extended involving among and in the cultural sub-Saharan their various strategies African

Private

the complex scholars-merchants-artisans easily implemented

(photograph

also

constitute

an

easily

affordable prototypes. same triad

substitute

for

classic

hand

embroidered An exact

apotropaic of the replica

of

soutaches

that

defined

both North African Jewish shrouds and tunics from Kanem, Niger, appears on the right-hand side of the bodice of a robe
boubou hand grand he sat in the marketplace was or embroidered at Djenne, by a kola-nut pursuing merchant his as trade Mali,

(Fig. 33). The entire bodice,

ephods, weft-woven were much space, embroidered strips that sewn have create to

reminiscent
the separately; the expanse it. Other an even basic wider

of traditional
assembled of the great still in time

ritual
narrow robe very and

subsequently in vogue,

motifs,

traveled

from coastal Liberia extending an Facilitated assembled by already Nigeria.94 hand-embroidered could be vas, triangles elongated magic into squares long dagger could be

path in the west

to northern fabric or can and

expanded three-by-three rotated,

("knives"), shapes abbreviated and

and

soutaches
that envelop the tailors,

could be freely expanded

the mallams. the quintessential as out started African part of a flowing robes created

into the swirling spirals

by the embroiderer

Perhaps have may

transformation theosophy

of what grounded in

Kabbalah
essentially that the

is best exemplified
cognate Soninke illustrations: dyers

by two seemingly
the basic Senegal,

different

but
icons pro

at Kaedi,

geometric use in their

34 Detail of indigo-dyed cloth, Kaedi, Mauritania, Private collection (photograph by the author)

2003.

JUDAIC

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TAPESTRY

349

environment;

and

preexisting

symbiotic

relationship

be

tween Kabbalah
gematria, and

and Sufi Islam in which

resulted

alchemy,
graphic

amulets,
meta

cryptography

in similar

phors. To be sure, the important

master needs ings. artisans to be However, in the in wide assessed the production light of

role played by professional

of material its localized of uses designs culture and and also mean tech

distribution

niques
"culture

that cross
areas"

linguistic
not

boundaries,
only from

belief
the

systems, and
of these

emerges

ability

Jewish
materials local roles

artisans
available populations that,

to adapt
but also

their skills and knowledge

to from the their demands multifaceted initially required for and

to the
tastes roles? of

in response

precisely dhimmi, or

because

"strangers," viability in

conversos,

were they were

"outsiders," long-term

the

sub-Saharan

milieu.

In addition
them, reserve

to the tools that migrant

important a bank and

artisans bring with

resources?a of particular visual skills:

two carry they equally of artifactual imagery

what
made. always

things ought
But the most conceptual?their

to look like and how

important fixed part ideas

they ought
equipment proper dead, These

to be
is to

of migrants' of the

way marry con

accomplish ing, building

it be task, whether any a house, or designing

the burying an artifact.

cepts in the mind

extremely by client

of the original

creator?culturally

defined,
35 Detail of University a contemporary Los of California, Asante Angeles, kente cloth. rayon Fowler Museum of

durable?are reinterpretation

over transformed time subsequently a new and in milieu. integration

What
seemingly iconographie

I have attempted
vanished historiography

to do in this discussion
by reinterpreting a new to render and

is to trace a
traditional perspective

Cultural History, X97.7.1

(photograph

by Don Cole)

presence

patterns through their by tracking stylistic and technological visual attributes. More than one hundred and fifty years ago, in his seminal study on Judaism and Islam, Abraham Geiger
noted man scientific not on yet that, thought... of "speaking generally a correct intuition so that a generally the whole sphere always idea, some same of precedes though hold for this hu almost correct obtains say the

future

research

into

sub-Saharan always these rendition remain

creativity.

To

be

sure, but

the then,

resulting one could a fully forever."

may tapestry ask whether true

historical of

hypothetical, threads what may

can be

ever "no

objective,

yield more

knowledge,

by supported of men. the minds

evidence, adequate . . ,"96 One might

the Jewish hypothesis where seemingly unrelated

Islamic sources, sources, from from travelers' and from some the style.

on

in sub-Saharan Africa, presence bits and pieces of evidence from

sources, from history, some creative from scholarly mythologies questionable, logic of European treatises and of have origin, been

Labelle Prussin,
in the United

both professional architect and art historian, taught

States, Ghana, Malaysia, and Japan and has pub

Hebrew accounts, oral valid,

manuscripts, and etymologies, interwoven technology,

lished widely on African architecture in theUnited States and Europe with support from the Aga Khan Program in Architecture, the Fulbright Awards Program, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Smithsonian Institution [3 Anders Lane, Pomona, N.Y. 10970,
lprussin@aol. com].

with and

artisan's

iconography,

of a Judaic heritage inWest Africa is a rare this heritage is barely acknowl exception today.97 Although on African its study, more than much of the continent, edged The assertion
an the which neglected played movement, scholars historical out the may a effort loss to to of redress a tradition, a grievance introduces of interpretation a sharper or mourn lens some through

Notes
Interest in historical Jewish This article is drawn from a work in progress. involvement in sub-Saharan African artisanship was sparked by passing refer on Islamic design ences discovered inWest Africa during earlier researches and African nomadic and more recent research for a proposed architectures for African Art, New exhibition, African Crossroads, funded by the Museum York. I would like to thank Idrissa Ba, Suzanne Blier, George Brooks, Nehemia Eric Ross, and Robert Farris Thomp Levtzion, Peter Mark, John Middleton, son for their criticism, and to The Art and encouragement, suggestions, the anonymous Bulletin editor Marc Gotlieb, reviewers, and Lory Frankel for comments. to Michael their constructive I am equally indebted Terry, chief at the New York Public Library, and librarian of the Dorot Jewish Division librarian of the Warren Robbins Library at the Smithsonian Janet Stanley, Institution, Washington, D.C., for their help in tracing obscure materials. are my own, and the line drawings, based on original sources, Translations are by Barbara Paxson. The phrase "No More Forever" comes from Lloyd Cabot Briggs and N. Guede, No More Forever: A Saharan Jewish Town (Cam Press, 1964). bridge, Mass.: Harvard University

examine, aspects catalytic and

reconstruct, ultimately art of African history. Clearly, in trans-Saharan trade and role research to be the an arts by essential and a new

and

long its presence population of in through a broader the

diligent it reveal

generation

of development African continent.

ingredient architecture in

When

considered

context
and

in which

self-identity
design,

revised perceptions of cultural ethnicity and interface with the technology of artisanal style
an innovative paradigm for the pursuit of

it offers

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1. For the relevance of African oral tradition to art history and nonsculp tural art traditions, see Jan Vansina, Art History in Africa (London: 1984); and idem, Oral Tradition as History (Nairobi: Heine Longman, mann Kenya, 1985). The implication of Judaic oral traditions on histor are discussed by Yosef ical reconstruction and the collective memory Zakhor, Jewish History and Jewish Memory (Seattle: Hayim Yerushalmi, of Washington Press, 1982). University from this paradigm was initially instigated by archi 2. My own departure tectural research on trans-Saharan aspects of Islamic design and no madism. Labelle Prussin, Hatumere, Islamic Design in West Africa (Berke of California Press, 1986); and idem, African Nomadic ley: University D.C.: Smithsonian Architecture (Washington, Institution Press, 1995). 3. The remarkable similarities among jewelry pieces from southern Mo rocco and Iberia were pointed out by Henri Terrasse, "Notes sur l'origine des bijoux du sud-Marocain," Hesp?ris 11, nos. 1-2 (1930): 125-30, and several decades later, similarities between North and West to diffusion from sub-Saharan Africa via African jewelry were attributed sur the gold trade by J. Herber, "Influence de la bijouterie soudanaise la bijouterie marocaine," Hesp?ris 37, nos. 1-2 (1950): 5-10. The diffu sion of weaving and their design motifs from the Near technologies to nomadic Berber East toWest Africa has been variously attributed the Fulani and/or (Peul) nomads. Ren?e Boser-Sarivax?va populations toWeavers and Dyers inWest Africa," in Tellern nis, "An Introduction voor Volkenkunde, Textiles, ed. Rita Bolland (Leiden: Rijksmuseum between North and West African weaving 1991), 37-51. Similarities out by Peggy Stoltz Gilfoy, and design have been pointed techniques D.C.: Smithsonian Patterns of Life (Washington, Institution Press, 1987); and Christopher Spring and Julie Hudson, North African Textiles (Wash Institution Press, 1995). ington, D.C.: Smithsonian 4. Nachum "?tude sur l'histoire des Juifs et de Juda?sme," pts. 1 Slouschz, and 2, Archives Marocaines 4 (1905): 347-41, and 6 (1906): 1-167; and Haim Zeev Hirschberg, A History of theJews inNorth Africa, 2 vols. (Lei den: Brill, 1974-78). The gold route from the Sudan to the western to Salo W. Baron, Magreb was often called the Jewish route, according A Social and Religious History of the Jews, 18 vols. (New York: Schocken vol. 17, 288; and Charles G. M. B. de La Ronci?re, La Books, 1957-58), d?couverte de VAfrique au Moyen-?ge, cartographes et explorateurs, 3 vols. vol. 1, 102, (Cairo: Soci?t? Royale de G?ographie 1924-27), d'Egypte, spoke of a "Jewish Era in the Sahara." 5. Joseph M. Cuoq, trans, and ed., Recueil des sources arabes concernant VAfrique occidentale du Ville au XVIe si?cle (Paris: CNRS, 1975); and Ne hemia Levtzion and J. F. P.Hopkins, eds., Corpus of Early Arabie Sources 2000). Although for West African History (Princeton: Markus Wiener, surveys by Ahmad Y. al-Hassan and Donald R. Hill, Islamic Technology to fill the lacunae, the historical (Paris: UNESCO, 1986), have begun record is still in its infancy. See Hirschberg, A History of technological theJews inNorth Africa, vol. 1, 265, for the silence of scholarly Hebrew on the subject. commentators 6. Abraham (Barce Cresques, L'atlas ca?ala de Cresques Abraham, 1375-77 lona: Di?fora, Natio 1975). The original atlas is in the Biblioth?que nale de France, Paris. 7. The intriguing evidence of names and dates has led some scholars to that Abraham Cresques was the copyist and illuminator of speculate the contemporaneous Farhi Bible, while others suggest a kin Hebrew scholar Hasdal Crescas. Barcelona ship with the fourteenth-century Th?r?se Metzger and Mendel Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (Se caucus, N.J.: Cartwell Books, 1982), 40.

his death, some writings and m?moires, all in rolls in the fashion the . . .were found in the house of his master. He other side [of Africa] had gathered and edited, from upper and lower Africa ... an ensemble of the nature of the beasts, the fish, the herbs, the plants, the trees, the fruits, and the temperature of the climates; and, being versed in the art of medicine, he had observed them in order to [apply] them to various illnesses." Andr? Thevet, La cosmographie universelle d'Andr? Thevet, 2 vols. (Paris: Pierre l'Huillier, 1575), vol. 1, 93-94. in the language of the which means, 12. "The blacks call him Ganagoga, as indeed he does. So he 'aman who speaks all languages,' Beafares, can cross the whole of the hinterland of our Guinea (speaking to) whatever blacks there may be there. ..." George Brooks, Landlords and (Boul Strangers: Ecology, Society and Trade in Western Africa, 1000-1630 der, Colo.: Westview Press, 1993), 252, citing the late-sixteenth-century trader A. A. de C. Almada. Portuguese 13. His 1624 epitaph, read, "He died as a Christian." implying conversion, "Isaac le Maire et le commerce des actions de la com J. G. Van Dillen, Revue d'Histoire Moderne, n.s., 16 (1935): pagnie des Indes Orientales," 137. The success of the East Indies Company, which was heavily in volved in the gold trade and the subsequent Brazilian and slave trade, on far-flung family ties. depended 14. Innumerable references from Padre Antonio mis D. Br?sio, Monumenta sionara africana (Africa occidental), 5 vols. (Lisbon: Agencia General do are cited by Nize Isabel de Moraes, "Sur les prises Ultramer, 1958-79), de Gor?e par les Portugais au XVIIe si?cle," Bulletin d'Institut Fran?ais and idem, A la d?couverte de la petite d'Afrique Noire 31 (1969): 994-96; c?te au XVIIe si?cle (S?n?gal et Gambia), 4 vols. (Dakar: Universit? de innovative research by Peter Mark Dakar, 1993-95), passim. Recent and Jos? da Silva Horta, "Two Portuguese Early Seventeenth-Century on Senegal's Petite C?te," History in Africa 31 Sephardic Communities sheds new light on their activities. (2004): 231-56, 15. The argument for an important Jewish role in the early history of the to a Berber-derived desert and the Sahel (attributed Judeo-Syrian hege at the turn of the twentieth century by the great , articulated mony) French ethnographer Maurice Delafosse and his followers, also un folded within the then-prevalent ambivalence of French Orientalist and anti-Semitic sentiment. Maurice Delafosse, Haut-S?n?gal-Niger, 3 vols. a later, equally eminent French (Paris: Larose, 1912). Louis Tauxier, Delafosse's Tauxier, strongly questioned ethnographer, interpretation. Moeurs et histoire des Peuls (Paris: Payot, 1937). The extent to which they their data and the validity of its use as objective docu "interpreted" mentation have recently been addressed by Jean-Louis Triaud, "De la coutume inMaurice Delafosse, entre orientalisme et ethnogra ? l'histoire," et E. Sibeud et Larose, (Paris: Maisonneuve phie, ed. J.-L. Amselle 1998), 221ff. an indigenously 16. For example, recorded oral tradition related to metal working, which asserted that the first king who ruled over the Futa Toro region of Senegal came from a locality north of Syria, credited him with the alchemical ability to "transform stones into gold and sil ver by some magic practices of which he had the secret or acquired which he inherited from his ancestors, the Egyptian Pharaohs." Sir? Abbas Soh, Chroniques du Fouta S?n?galais (Paris: Leroux, 1913), 15-16. For linguistic evidence that reflects the complexities of the implied castes, see Tal Tamari, "foreign origin" of some of these endogamous "The Development of Caste Systems inWest Africa," fournal of African History 32, no. 2 (1991): 221-50. at the Israel Museum," 17. Aviva Muller-Lancet, Israel "Jewish Ethnography Museum News 15 (1979): 52-63. For a recent exhibition catalog ad art history, see Vivian Mann, in Moroccan the Jewish presence dressing ed., Morocco: Jews and Art in aMuslim World (New York: Jewish Museum, from both Eu 2000) ; and for a still unsurpassed summary of evidence A History of Near East, see Mark Wischnitzer, rope and the medieval Jewish Crafts and Guilds (New York: Jonathan David, 1965). 18. Bernard Lewis, The Jews of Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, in Jewish 1984), 5-6; Leo Ary Mayer, "Jewish Art in the Moslem World," Art, ed. Cecil Roth (New York: New York Graphic Society, 1971), 133. use of Arabic A striking example of this phenomenon is the common hallmarks by nineteenth-century in Algeria and Tuni Jewish goldsmiths sia. P. Eudel, L'orf?vrerie alg?rienne et tunisienne (Algiers: A. Jourdan, 1902), 129-43.

8. Giovanni Africano Leone, Description de VAfrique, tiercepartie du mond, trans. Jean Temporal, 2 vols. (Lyons: Jean Temporal, 1556). The last extant manuscript, "Lives of the Arab Phy chapters of Leo Africanus's are devoted to Hebrew physicians sicians and Philosophers" and philos extant manuscript of a trilingual, albeit ophers, and his little-known at the Escorial, Spain, "Vocabulaire Arabe-H?breu-Latin" incomplete, which he reputedly co-authored in 1524 with a Hebrew professor of at the University medicine of Bologna, invites closer scrutiny. Also see Idrissa Ba, "La probl?matique de la pr?sence juive au Sahara et au Soudan 146-76. d'apr?s Jean L?on l'Africain," Lagos Historical Review 5 (2005): Pory, 3

9. Leo Africanus, The History and Description of Africa, trans. John vols. (1600; London: Hakluyt Society, 1896), vol. 1, 190. 10. Pierre de Cenival and Theodore Monod, de Ceuta au S?n?gal par Valentim Fernandes 1938), 95.

Description de la C?te d Afrique (Paris: Larose, (1506-7)

11. "This king had slaves of diverse nations, among them a Jew, native of . . .He knew how to Maroc. speak twenty-eight different languages, and to read and write in each. He informed the mariners of the changing tides, the shifting winds, rains, storms, tempests and dangers of the sea . . and there was no one under the that were approaching. sky, in his the horoscope and birth of men and the time, who better described which would come to them, which he knew. After hour of misfortune

19. S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean of Society, 6 vols. (Berkeley: University California vol. 1, 91. Another medieval Press, 1967-78), proverb, to rabbis "Great is labor, for it honors its practicers," refers specifically as artisans. Israel Abrahams, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (1896; New York: Jewish Publication 1958), 228. Rabbi David Society of America, ben Barukh, head of the goldsmiths' in guild in Essaouira, Morocco, the 1930s, carried on a tradition already set by the talented sixteenth century Moroccan goldsmith Rabbi Judah ben cAttar. Haim Zafrani, Deux mille ans de vie juive au maroc (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1998), 172.

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des origines ? la La Berb?rie orientale sous les 20. Robert Brunschvig, Hafsides, 1940 fin du XVi?me si?cle, 2 vols. (Paris: Institut d'?tudes Orientales, and idem, "M?tiers vils en Islam," Studia Isl?mica 47), vol. 1, 396-430; 16 (1962): 41-60. "Le signe distinctif des Juifs au Magreb," Revue des ?tudes 21. E. Fagnan, "The Distinctive Dress of Juives 28 (1894): 295; Lise Lichtenstadter, non-Muslims in Islamic Countries," Historia Judaica 5 (1943): 35-52; and Alfred Rubens, A History ofJewish Costume (London: Peter Owen, and communication 1981), passim. For dress as a system of nonverbal as a coded sensory system involving cognitive and affective processes, see Joanne B. Eicher, "Dress," in Encyclopedia for Women (London: Rout ledge, 22. Both 2001). the Fatimid treasures and the fabled gifts of gold by Mansa Musa in the quantity of jewelry amassed (the early ruler of Mali) highlight the treasures of Muslim dynasties despite the hostile attitude toward in North and West African the wearing of gold reflected Islamic com mentaries. Abd Allah ibn Abi Zaid al-Kairouani, La risala, ou ?p?tre sur trans. Leon les ?l?ments du dogme et la loi de l'Islam selon le riteMalekite, Le droit Bercher 1945); and G.-H. Bousquet, (Algiers: Jules Carbonel, musulman par les textes, pr?cis de droit musulman (Algiers: La Maison des Livres, 1940), vol. 2. use of a rod to divide "the gold mithqals [standard custom insists that these princes should gold], because ben gold with their fingers," is noted by Abderrahman Tmran ben cAmir Es-Sa'di, Tarikh es-Soudan, trans, and (1913-14; Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1964), 40. of weight for never touch the Abdallah ben ed. O. Houdas

31. Olivier

de Sardan, Syst?me des relations ?conomiques et sociales chez lesWogo 1969), 108; and Roy Dilley, "Perfor (Niger) (Paris: Institut d'Ethnologie, and Power in Tukulor Weavers' mance, Ambiguity Songs," in Discourse and Its Disguises, ed. Karen Barber and P. F. de Moraes Farias (Birming ham: Center of West African Studies, 1989), 138-51.

32. The close similarity of indigenous West African Vai script with Thamu dic script (a pre-Islamic in western Arabia closely related to alphabet to the early presence of Semitic trading ibranniya) has been attributed in families on the coast of Sierra Leone. K. Hau, "Pre-Islamic Writing West Africa," Bulletin d'Institut Fran?ais d'Afrique Noire 35 (1973): 33. De attribution spite the Cherokee recently argued by Konrad Tuchscherer and P. E. H. Hair in "Cherokee and West Africa: Examining the Ori gins of Vai Script," History in Africa 29 (2002): 427-96, they cite the to the Reverend (437): "it bears a strong resemblance Leighton Wilson structure of the Hebrew language. Some of the characters are evidently Arabic. Some resemble Hebrew characters." Ibranniya is similar to both Sabean script and the neo-Punic and pre-Islamic alphabet of Carthage, it resembles Tuareg when terminating circlets are omitted, (Berber) as well as in manu trade documents tifinar. It was used in the Genizah scripts of practical Kabbalah over the centuries.

23. The

vol. 2, 156; 24. Oskar Lenz, Tombouctou, 2 vols. (Paris: Hachette, 1886-87), and Auguste Dupuis-Yakouba, Industries et principales professions des habi tants de la r?gion de Tombouctou (Paris: Larose, 1921), 42. inWest Africa, Cloth Trade 25. John Vogt, "Notes on the Portuguese International Journal of African Historical Studies 8 (1975): 1480-1540," "Cloth as Money: The Cloth Strip Cur 623-51; and Marion Johnson, rencies of Africa," Textile History 11 (1980): 193-202. The earliest (elev to woven strips of cotton reference enth-century) (chigguiya) used as currency comes from Takrur, north of Senegal, a region of extensive nomadism and early cotton cultivation. Abou-Obe?d el-Bekri, Description de l'Afrique septentrionale (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1965), 325. 26. Gordon in Tripoli; Hugh Clapper Laing recruited a Jewish interpreter a Jew to some Jews, maintained ton, traveling with a caravan belonging a "Hebrew of Te ish servant as far as Kano; John Davidson engaged Panet used a "Maurish Jew" as a guide. Later touan"; and Leopold included Gustav Nachtigal, Oskar Lenz, nineteenth-century explorers Charles Foucauld (who engaged Mardochee Aby Serour), and Edmond Doutt?. some fascinating re "There is in this domain of Jewish permeation, search to be done, but for which a judicious preparation is indispens able." Charles Monteil, "Probl?mes du Soudan Occidental: Juifs etju of da?ses," Hesp?ris 38 (1951): 293. For a preliminary exploration see Kabbalah and its involvement in African imagery blacksmithing, Labelle Prussin, "David inWest Africa," Bulletin of the Yale Art Gallery, 2005: 80-101.

33. Pierre Laforge, "Les djenoun de la Mauritanie saharienne," pt. 3, Bulle tin du Comit? des ?tudes Historiques et Scientifiques de l'Afrique Occidentale Fran?aise [A.O.F] 18, no. 1 (1935): 18-19; and Henri Gaden, Proverbes et maximes Peuls et Toucouleurs (Paris: Institut d'Ethnographie, 1931), 318. The African creation and use of secrecy-enveloped graphic writing systems is examined by David Dalby, L Afrique et la lettre:Africa and the Written Word (Paris: Karthala, 1986); the use of cryptic scripts on secret sixteenth-century diplomatic missives authored by Jewish scribes is ana "Note sur quatre systems Turcs de lyzed by M. J. A. Decourdemance, notation secret," Journal Asiatique 14, no. 9 (1899): 258-71; num?rique and a cryptic script identical to ibranniya was found in a letter describ invasion of the Sudan, penned ing the 1591 Moroccan by al-Fishtali, the Sultan Ahmad al-Mansur's Jewish secretary. George S. Colin, "Note sur le syst?me cryptographique du sultan Ahmad al-Mansur," Hesp?ris 7 (1927): 221-28. 34. Goitein, Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. "Banu Isra'il," vol. 1, 1020-22; Mah moud K?ti, Tarikh el-Fettach, trans. O. Houdas and M. Delafosse (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1964), 119-20; and Edmond Doutt?, En Tribu (Paris: Geuthner, 1914), 208-9. 35. In both North and West Africa, the djinn are a special race of spiritual in constant contact with evil, sometimes benevolent, beings, sometimes mankind. Their nature and doings and the beliefs and practices relat measures and remedies de ing to them are cause for prophylactic signed to avert the troubles they cause. There are also a number of to "Semharus, references the sultan of the djinns," in Islamic magic. See Edward Westermarck, Ritual and Belief inMorocco, 2 vols. (London: Eu Macmillan, 1926), vol. 1, 270, 283, 284, 328, 391, 571. In medieval rope, Satan, as the chief of the evil djinn, was often associated with the The Devil and theJews (Philadelphia: Jews. Joshua Trachtenberg, Jewish Publication Society, 1983).

27.

Ba and Germaine Koumen (Paris: Mounton, 28. Hampat? Dieterlen, 1961); Marcel Griaule and Dieterlen, Signes graphiques soudanaises (Paris: Her "The Mande Creation Myth," Africa 27, no. 2 mann, 1951); Dieterlen, "Les artisans de l'Ahaggar," Libyca 20 (1957): 124-37; and D. Jemma, (1972): 269-90. 29. Gershom Sholem, Kabbalah (New York: Times Books, 1974), 69; and Peter Sch?fer, "Jewish Magic Literature in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages," Journal ofJewish Studies 4 (1990): 74-91. The visual ex are explored by Joshua pression of Jewish magic and superstition Jewish Magic and Superstition (New York: Behrman's Jew Trachtenberg, ish Book House, 1939); and T. Schrire, Hebrew Amulets (London: Rout southern ledge and Kegan Paul, 1966). The early-thirteenth-century of practical Kabbalah from its mystic and vision Spanish development of Jews from Spain ary base was accelerated by subsequent expulsions and Portugal, spreading widely in Europe and North Africa. Many of were from North Africa. Raphael Patai, the Kabbalists-om-alchemists The Jewish Alchemists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). The a region renowned Dra'a region in southwest Morocco, for many of active Jewish arti them, was concurrently populated by a particularly sanal metalworking industry and by a number of nomadic Jewish popu lations. Haim Zafrani, Kabbale vie mystique et magie (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1986). 30. The introduction of the three-by-three magic square in Europe, written with Hebrew number-letters and presumably transmitted from the to Mediterranean world by scholarly Jewish traders, has been attributed ibn Ezra, the twelfth-century Jewish scholar of Toledo. Abraham "Islamic and Indian Magic Squares," pts. 1 and 2, Schuyler Camman, History of Religions 8, no. 3 (1969): 181-209, and no. 5: 271-99.

36. The attribution In contrast to of these djinn also invokes controversy. Edmond Doutt?, Magie et religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers: Jour that the pro dan, 1908), 121, Sholem, Kabbalah, 35-37, 324, suggested on Sufi of Kabbalah in eleventh-century ponents Spain drew extensively in Arabic were translated literature: books originally written into He to the intermingling of traditions. brew, thereby contributing 37. The many amulets (djedwal ) that were examined?all involving a divi nation system of gematria, which permitted with the correspondence not only verses from the Koran but also Hebrew djinn?contained as well as the secret ibranniya script. Pierre words and numbers "Les djenoun de laMauritanie 3 pts., Bulletin du saharienne," Laforgue, Comit? des ?tudes Historiqueset Scientifiques de l'A.O.F. 14, no. 3 (1931): 446-52; 15, nos. 2-3 (1932): 419; 18, no. 1 (1935): 15, 18-19. 38. K?ti, Tarikh el-Fettach, 20, 111. The paragraphs relevant to the Bani Is rael, the status and the traditions of origin of the servile castes such as the soro-banna and Shamharush (or Shem haroush), may have been at inserted early in the nineteenth conditions century, hence reflecting the time in the western Sudan. Nehemia "A Seventeenth Cen Levtzion, tury Chronicle by ibn al-Khutar: A Critical Study of Tarikh al-Fattash," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 34, no. 3 (1971): 571 93. A recent examination of extant nineteenth-century correspondence in Timbuktu to the dhimmi and, in addition, reveals references suggests a Judaic heritage for K?ti. Ismael Diadi? Haidara, Les Juifs ? Tombouctou Mali: (Bamako, 1999). Donniya, 39. In late-fifteenth-century eastern Barbary, the Jews were called sikliyyin, the yellow headgear reputedly reflecting imposed on them in the early thirteenth La Berb?rie orientale, vol. 2, 405), (Robert Brunschvig, century but itmay equally be a reference to their goldsmithing activity. In the early twentieth century the Tendirma "was still known " cemetery to all as the 'cemetery of the Bani Israel.' M. A. Bonnel de M?zi?res, et dans la r?gion de Fati," Bulletin de G?o "Reconnaissance ? Tendirma

40.

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graphie 29 (1913): 128. Several years later a nearby set of ruins in the to the Bani vicinity of Lac Faguibine, Mali, was also being attributed Israel. Auguste Dupuis-Yacouba, "Les ruines de Bokar et de Kama dans la r?gion de Bankor," Bulletin du Comit? des ?tudes Historiques et Scienti Decades later, in a recorded oral fiques de l'A.O.F. 1 (1922): 400-406. tradition of the origins of the inhabitants of Goumbou just south of it was claimed that the families that founded the Walata, Mauritania, "from the family of Bani Israela, infants of Jacob city were descended who had originated in Canaan." Boubou Doucour?, "Notice sur Bulletin IFAN 2 (1940): 350. A l'origine des habitants de Goumbou," similar set of traditions was subsequently recorded for the Diawara, who live east of Nioro on the Mauritanian-Malian border. Gaston Boyer, Les Diawara, un peuple de l'Ouest Africain (Dakar: IFAN, 1953), 21-22. Local informants were still able to point out "the wells of the to me in 1970-71. Bani Israel" in Tendirma Labelle Prussin, fieldwork notes, 1970-71. 41. M. A. Bonnel de M?zi?res, et du Bundu "Les Diakanke de Banisraila M?ridional (S?n?gal)," Notes Africaines 41 (1949): 21-22. sur l'ethnique maure sur et en particulier 42. J. A. Lucas, "Considerations une race ancienne: Les Bafour," Journal de la Soci?t? des Africanistes 1, no. 1 (1931): 151-94. 43. Tadeusz Sci Lewicki, ?tudes maghr?bines et soudanaises (Warsaw: ?ditions de Pologne, 1976), 28-31; and Pessah Shinar, "Reflections entifiques sur la symbiose Judeo-Ibadite en Afrique du Nord," in Communaut?s juives des marges Sahariennes du Maghreb, ?d. Michel Abitbol (Jerusalem: Institut Beni-Zvi, 1982), 82-83.

55.

See Wischnitzer, in History ofJewish Crafts, passim, for workmanship gold, silver, and brass. Most of the gold of biblical times and ancient Egypt as well as the classical world of Greece, Rome, and Byzantium came from southern (nub means Egypt and Nubia "gold" in Egyptian), and long before the appearance of Islam many of the Jews of Alexan as well as devotees dria were goldsmiths of alchemy, magic, and de Under the Baghdad commenta monology. caliphate, scholarly Hebrew the Talmudic of tors, following sages, stressed the special importance and the Genizah records of the eleventh-twelfth goldsmiths, century contain numerous to the extensive Jewish gold trade. references

56. Vanoccio Pirotechnia (New York: Basic Books, 1959), 363. A Biringuccio, of Renaissance large number of the anonymous specimens gold smith not so parenthetically, Benvenuto Cel ing were of Jewish workmanship; to a Florentine lini was apprenticed Jew. Cecil Roth, The Jews in theRe naissance (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1965), 195. 57. Auguste Beamier, "Premier ?tablissement des Israelites ? Tombouctou," Bulletin de la Soci?t? de G?ographie (Paris), 5th ser., 19 (1870): 345-70. was tran The Arabie account, written on his return to Akka, Morocco, scribed in Hebrew script. Ren? Bazin, Charles de Foucauld, trans. Peter Keelan (London: Burns Oates and Washburn, 1923), 23-34; Y.-D. Se "Un rabbin voyageur marocain: Mardoch?e mach, Aby Serour," Hesp?ris 8 (1928): 385-99; and Jacob Oliel, De J?rusalem ? Tombouctou (Paris: Ol the twenty-two buttons on Mardochee's in his bia, 1998). Note garment portrait (Fig. 8). the Algerian 58. Eudel, L'orf?vrerie alg?rienne et tunisienne, 129-43. Among hallmarks recorded in 1875 was that of Moise Serour. 59. The

et d'arch?ologie sur Azougui, 44. Raymond Mauny, "Notes d'histoire Chin Bulletin IFAN 17 (1955): 52-54. The region of guetti et Ouadane," as the "mountain of the Bafor" and "Ouadan Ouadan was designated was its principal city, by reason of its commercial importance." Cenival and Monod, Description de la C?te d'Afrique, 83. Also see George S. Colin, "Les Gui "Mauritanica," Hesp?ris 10 (1930): 131-43; F.-M. Colombani, et Scientifiques de l'A.O.F. dimaka," Bulletin du Comit? d'?tudes Historiques Tadeusz Lewicki, 14, nos. 3-4 (1931): 365-432; "L'origine nord-afri caine des Bafour," in Proceedings of the Second International Congress of Studies on the Cultures of theWestern Mediterranean, vol. 2 (Algiers: Soci?t? et de Diffusion, Nationale d'?dition 1978), 145-53; and Idrissa Ba, "Les bafours au miroir des traditions maures et soudanaises," PhD diss. draft Universit? de Paris I, 2003. 45. Prussin, fieldwork notes, Guinea and Sierra Leone, and Mau 1979-80, see Monteil, "Probl?mes du Soudan Occi ritania, 2003; for Senegal, see Doutt?, dental," 281; for Morocco, Magie et religion, 154-60. 46. Julio Caro Baroja, Estudios Saharianos (Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Africanos, 1955), 45 ff., 252. 47. Alfred 1908), G. P. Martin, Les oases sahariennes, 2 vols. (Paris: Challamel, vol. 1, 39; and Marcel Mercier, La civilisation urbaine au Mzab (Algiers: Emile Pfister, 1922), 119.

in "Le Tr?sor d'Ahmadu, gold was published expos? au Palais de it was first confis l'Industrie," L'Illustration, February 4, 1893. When cated at Segou, the total treasure was valued at 500,000 francs, but al most the entire treasure has vanished, and the saga of its disappear ance is yet to be written. Many identical (which may actually be pieces in an early-twentieth-century exhi part of the treasure) were displayed at Vienna's bition of gold jewelry "from Timbuktu" Mu Ethnographic seum. Michael Haberlandt, V?lkerschmuck (Vienna: Gerlach und Wied ling, 1906), pi. viii. Identical pieces were recorded in the 1930s at Tichit and Tafrout, Mo centers of Jewish metalwork like Akka, were traditional rocco, which, (Casablanca: ing. Jean Besan?enot, Bijoux arabes et berb?res du sud Maroc de la Cigogne, ?ditions 1953), pis. 37-39. Journal of a Route across India: Through Egypt toEngland of the Year 1817, and the Beginning of 1818 (London: "Moroccan prince in charge of 1819). The attribution John Murray, the pilgrims" may be suspect in light of the fact that his name was Had evocative of the common West Afri jee Talub Ben Jalou?a patronymic can surname Diallo. See Timothy Garrard, Gold of Africa (Munich: Pres of a Ghanian Asante tel, 1989), 34, for an eighteenth-century engraving chief wearing a similar gold pendant. Gold of Africa, 222. See Haberlandt, V?lkerschmuck, pi. 28, for on the Gold "from Ashanti gold trefoils and disks in filigree

60.

61. George Munster, in the Latter End

48. Marilyn Jenkins, "Fatimid Jewelry, Its Subtypes and Influences," Ars Ori entalis 18 (1988): 39; A.-M. Goichon, La vie f?minine au Mzab (Paris: Paul Geuthner, in cast silver from 1927), passim. For identical fibulae Rabat? and Andr? Goldenberg, Meknes, 1813, see Marie-Rose Bijoux du Maroc Edisud, (Aix-en-Provence: 1999), 121. 49. D. Jacques-Meuni?, des "Bijoux et bijoutiers du sud-Marocain,"Cahiers Arts et Techniques d'Afrique du Nord 6 (1960-61): 57-72; and Bachier Yelles, "Les bijoux du Djebel Amour," Cahiers des Arts et Techniques 116-25. d'Afrique du Nord 6 (1960-61): 50. Charles-Eug?ne de Foucauld, Dictionnaire touareg-fran?ais: Dialecte de vol. 3, 1300; 1951-52), l'Ahaggar, 4 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, Johannes Nicolaisen, Ecology and Culture of thePastoral Tuareg (Copenha 1963), 18-19; and Henri Lhote, Les Touareg du gen: National Museum, has been recently (Paris: Colin, 1984), 200. The attribution Hoggar Saenz, "They Have Eaten Our Grandfather! questioned by Candelario The Special Status of Air Blacksmiths" (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1991). 51. Jemma, "Les the Ahaggar were reputed Henri Lhote, 90 below for artisans of l'Ahaggar," 269-90. Most of the blacksmiths from the region of Adrar-des-Ifoghas, region, originally to be vassals of the Dag-ech-cheich (Kunta trading families). Le Hoggar: Espace et temps (Paris: Colin, 1984), 58. See n. the Kunta. langue so?ay et ses dialectes (Dakar: IFAN, 1956). de

62. Garrard, identical Coast."

63. Wolfgang in der Westsahara: Die materielle Nomadenkultur Creyaufm?ller, ihre handwerklichen Technike und ornamentalen Grund Kultur derMauren, strukturen (Hallein, Austria: H. Nowak, 717. Sa 1983), 47, 65, 580-85, naran Jewish nomadic (bahusim), warriors, populations interpreters, and caravans from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century are refer enced by Georges retrouv?s dans le Sahara Colin, "Des Juifs nomades au XVIe si?cle," M?langes d'?tudes luso-marocaines d?di?s ? la marocain m?moire de David Lapes et Pierre de Cenival (Paris: Belles-Lettres, 1945); Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the and Row, 1976), vol. 2, 818; Age of Philip II, 2 vols. (New York: Harper and Brunschvig, La Berb?rie orientale, vol. 1, 399. 64. Dupuis-Yakouba, Industries see above at n. 38. et principales professions, 36-44. For the diam, de la Soci?t?

65. Beatrice Appia, "Les forgerons du Fouta-Djallon," des Africanistes 35 (1965): 321, 325. 66.

Journal

Soh, Chroniques du Fouta, 142, 278, 308. 67. For a historic overview of the Thiam and a discussion of possible de "Black Gold" (PhD sign sources for their work, see Marian Johnson, diss., Stanford University, 1980). 68. M. 69. l'Abb? P. D. Boilat, 1, 378. Esquisses s?n?galaises (Paris: Bertrand, 1853), vol.

52. R. P. A. Prost, La

53. Edmond "Place et r?le du forgeron dans la soci?t? touar?gue," Bernus, inMetallurgies africaines: Nouvelles contributions, ?d. Nicole Echard, M? moires de la Soci?t? des Africanistes, 9 (1983), 237-51. Dominique The Inaden in Tuareg Society," in Casajus, "Crafts and Ceremonies: in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. The Other Nomads: Peripatetic Minorities 1987), 291-310. Aparna Rao (Cologne: Bohlau, 54. Rabbi Mardochee Aby Serour, Les Daggatoun: Tribu d'origine Juive de meurant dans la d?sert du Sahara, trans. Isidore Loeb, Supplement au Bulle tin de l'Alliance Isra?lite Universelle, January 1880, 3-11.

"There exists, in scholarly Muslim books, notably the Torah, called, du Soudan Occidental," 282.

that rests on Jewish usage, a teaching inWolof, tavret." Monteil, "Probl?mes

70. Boilat, Esquisses s?n?galaises, 378, recalling Fran?ois Froger, A Relation of a Voyage made in the years 1695, 1696, 1697 on the coasts of Africa, trans, from the French (London: Printed for M. Gillyflower, 1698), 14-15. The observed rituals thus may likely have resulted from the seven and cultural intermixture between the Wolof presence teenth-century

JUDAIC

THREADS

IN THE WEST

AFRICAN

TAPESTRY

353

Se "Two Portuguese Mark and da Silva Horta, and the Portuguese. with Mark over the last few and conversations phardic Communities"; that alleluia comes from the Arabic Allah, years. It has been suggested an or Halelu! Yah, meaning but Hallelujah, "praise ye the Lord," is also term found only in the Psalms of the Old Testament. ancient Hebrew George Panati, Sacred Origin of Profound Things (New York: Penguin, 1996), 15, 71. he ex In 1880, when the explorer Oskar Lenz arrived in Timbuktu, currency "at the house of a Jew" there. Lenz, Tombouctou, vol. changed to one of Aby Serour's biographies, several of his 2, 144. According at Tim to Islam in the course of their residence relatives converted 385. See also F?lix "Un rabbin voyageur marocain," buktu. Semach, trans. Diana White Timbuctoo the Dubois, (New York: Long Mysterious, mans, Green, 1896), 267. Amselle, Mestizo Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and trans. Claude Roual Press, (Stanford: Stanford University

centers) were also con (major weaving of this period. Wischnitzer, geographers History ofJewish Crafts, 111-12; Philippa Scott, The Book of Silk (London: "Material for a His and Hudson, Thames 1993), 108-9; R. B. Serjeant, tory of Islamic Textiles up to the Mongol Conquest: The Magreb," Ars Isl?mica 15-16 (1951): 41-54; and Florence Lewis May, Silk Textiles of 1957), Society of America, Spain, 8-15th Centuries (New York: Hispanic 252 n. 34. while Granada sidered Jewish and Tarragona cities by Muslim and supply of these tex 86. Correspondence relating to the commission tiles can be found in Les sources in?dites de l'histoire du Maroc: Archives et 1934n), vols. 1 biblioth?ques de Portugal, 5 vols. (Paris: P. Geuthner, (1934), 3 (1948). 87. For a detailed John Picton, 1995). 88. For see of West African weaving discussion technologies, The Art of African Textiles (London: Lund Humphries,

72. Jean-Loup Elsewhere, 1998). 73.

a noble position because of In medieval Islam, "crafts" that occupied and tailoring. their purpose included architecture, carpentry, weaving, The Muqaddimmah, trans. F. Rosenthal, 3 vols. (New York: Ibn Khaldun, Pantheon, 1958), vol. 2, 347-68. History ofJewish Crafts, 65, 139. de l'empire de berb?rie et l'organisation Ricard, "Le commerce au XVe et XVIe si?cles,'* Annales de l'Institut d'?tudes Orientales Portugais docu One specific instance is the sixteenth-century 2 (1936): 266-85. mented exodus of four hundred Jewish widows, experts at gold and to join their coreli who went from Portugal silver thread embroidery, L. Brown, "AMoroccan Kenneth City and Its gionists at Sal?, Morocco. in Studies inJudaism and Islam, ed. Shelomo Morag Jewish Quarter," Press, Hebrew University, 1981), 56. (Jerusalem: Magnes

74. Wischnitzer, 75. Robert

with sugar in the of indigo in conjunction the early cultivation The Canary Canary Islands, see Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, neighboring Islands after the Conquest: The Making of a Colonial Society in theEarly Six teenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982). The spread of cotton from Sijil cultivation and its export across the Sahara, particularly Les textiles dans le monde musul is described massa, Lombard, by Maurice man du Vile au Xlle si?cle (Paris: Mouton, 1978), 71-78.

is beaten into a gold-leaf 76. The metal thickness, cut into long, narrow can strips, then wound on a core of silk thread. A similar visual effect be achieved by winding yellow silk thread around a core. 77. Ruth Matilda Anderson, (New York: His Hispanic Costume, 1480-1530 1979), 139-40. panic Society of America, 78. Nitza theRemotest West: Ritual Articles from Synagogues in "Dec 1989), 6; Alia Ben-Ami, (Tel Aviv: Israel Museum, Israel Museum Journal 8 from T?touan, Morocco," and in Costume "Elements (1989): 31-40; and Aviva Muller-Lancet, to the Jews of Morocco," Israel Museum News 11 Jewellery Specific (1976): 46-56. Bahrouzi, Spanish Morocco orated Shrouds From vests are part of Jewish women's wedding Identically embroidered dresses in Tunisia. Alya Bayram et al., Les costumes traditionnels f?minins and de l'?dition, de Tunisie (Tunis: Maison Tunisienne 1970-79); Cl?mence Sugier, Bijoux tunisiens: Formes et symboles (Tunis: C?r?s, 1977).

89. Cuoq, Recueils des sources arabes, 320, 373; and Levtzion and Hopkins, Corpus of Early Arabie Sources, 150. and Macmillan, 90. Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House s.v. "Textiles." The three main Arabic-speaking Kunta lin 1971-72), eages, whose esteem as scholars ismatched only by their cloth-trading in the early sixteenth century as a from Touat, Algeria, acuity, emerged in involvement distinct and relatively large entity. Their commercial and eventual the textile trade, augmented integra by the acquisition in tion of tributaries and artisanal groups (such as the blacksmiths south from north extended who use the same patronymic), Mauritania eastern Mali to the banks of the Senegal River. E. Ann McDougall, "The Economics of Islam in Southern Africa: The Rise of the Kunta Clan," Asian and African Studies 20 (1986): 45-60; and Thomas Whit on the Origins of the Kounta," pts. 1 and 2, Bul comb, "New Evidence letin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975): 103-23, 403 17. Syst?me des relations ?conomiques, 108. Saharan populations 92. Flijs and tent vellum assemblies among nomadic see are illustrated in Prussin, African Nomadic Architecture. For Morocco, Ivo Grammet, (Tervueren, Belg.: Le Mus?e Royal Splendeurs au Maroc Imami Pay and passim; and Niloo de l'Afrique Centrale, 1998), 56-60 dar and Ivo Grammet, eds., The Fabric ofMoroccan Life (Indianapolis: see Irmtraud of Art, 2002), passim. For Tunisia, Indianapolis Museum Craft and Folk Reswick, The Traditional Textiles of Tunisia (Los Angeles: Art Museum, 1985), passim; and Habib Ben Mansour, Tapis et tissages en Tunisie (Tunis: Simpact, 1999), 88. 91. Sardan, 93. For the Kyem family and their goldsmith activities, see Pamela McClus University key, Art from Africa (Seattle: Seattle Art Museum/Princeton died in Press, 2002), 113. William Kyem, a renowned Asante goldsmith, on Kumasi May 9, 2002 (Prussin, fieldwork notes, Ghana, 2002). chic (Basel: Museum der Kulturen; Gardi, Le Boubou?c'est 2000), passim; and Prussin, Hatumere, figs. 4.12h, Christoph-Merian, 4.12h, j. of Cul 95. Doran H. Ross, Wrapped in Pride (Los Angeles: Fowler Museum the most up-to-date, tural History, 1998), who provides in-depth, and of the Kunta detailed survey of kente cloth history, makes no mention or the terminologies in the that were associated with their involvement indigo-dye cloth trade. 94. Bernard 96. Abraham Geiger, Judaism York: Ktav, 1970), 1. 97. and Islam, trans. F. M. Young (1833; New

79.

80. Dupuis-Yakouba, Industries et principales professions, 33-35. In the late tailor sixteenth century, where only the alfa (scholars) could practice a mu'allim but a ing, the master of the tailoring house was not simply sheikh. Es-Sa3di, Tarikh es-Soudan, 315. 81. Prussin, fieldwork notes, Guinea, "Arts et coutumes du Puigaudeau, no. 3 (1968): 413. 2004. Odette 1979-80, Mauritania, des maures," Hesp?ris-Tamuda 9, du

82. Robert Attal, "Une guide d'artisans-tailleurs juifs ? Tunis au d?but XXe si?cle," Revue des ?tudes Juives 130 (1971-72): 327-35.

83. Rubens, A History ofJewish Costume, passim. Georg Simmel's insights in seem particularly "The Stranger," "Secrecy," and "Adornment" applica between and the indigenous the Jewish migrant ble to the relationship African Simmel, On Individuality and society in which he/she moved. Social Forms (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971); and idem, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans, and ed. Kurt H. Wolff (New York: Free Press, 1950). 84. Boilat, Esquisses s?n?galaises, 28. 85. At the height of the Cordovan caliphate, Jewish silk weavers were being to produce silk fab overlords commissioned precious by their Muslim rics and banners with Arabic slogans and emblems interwoven. Lucena, a weaving center south of Cordova, was entirely inhabited by Jews,

In 1997, a news report from Timbuktu the creation of the announced d'Amiti? avec le Monde Isra?lite (ZAK Association Tombuctienne HOR). Jeune Afrique 1879 (January 8-14, 1997). The press release also to many sources, the descendants noted that according of Malian Jews affirmation of identity carry the names Tour?, Ha?dara, or Daga?an that recalls Mardochee Aby Serour's account of the Daggatoun.