Graze, shear, brush, spin, dye, knot, and weave. This is rug making broken down to its simplest form; however, within each beautiful rug are millennia of knowledge, culture, and heritage. To appreciate the whole story behind the intricate and complex craft of Amazigh rug making, it is important to first understand the history of Amazigh people of Morocco.

The Amazigh people of Morocco, colloquially known as the berbers, are a diverse ethnic group, found across the stunningly beautiful and varied Moroccan landscape. These include ethno-language groups in the Riff mountains to the north, the High Atlas and Anti-Atlas, and the dry deserts in the south. While it is an impossible and impractical task to generalize all of these groups, they have one thing in common: the tradition of rug crafts.

Before the introduction of Islam, many of the Amazigh practiced a form of Animism: a belief that all elements of nature contain a soul and interact with humans. With the adoption of Islam, these beliefs melded together to form a unique relationship with the natural world that survives to this day. This intertwining with nature forms the foundations of rug making.

The traditional art of rug making by the Amazigh women has long been recognized within Morocco as a cultural tradition. However, many of the women that continue this tradition today live in poverty in remote villages in throughout the country. Of the rugs that make their way to Western buyers in cities like Marrakech, almost none of the money makes its way back to the women that actually produce the rugs. This has to change. By going to these villages and buying from womens collectives, which are groups of as many as 70 women making rugs in the traditional fashion in their homes, the women are paid directly and fairly for their work. This goes back into the community to make it financially feasible to continue this fantastically beautiful tradition.

The rug making tradition is passed down from mother to daughter, and each region has a unique method of knotting or weaving rugs. These women become specialized in creating specific types of rugs through hours and hours of work. Traditionally, the making of rugs was for the home. Women would treat creating rugs like writing a diary: weaving in what they experienced that day or week into the rug through tribal symbols and colors. These rugs stay in the household as family heirlooms. This tradition continuous today, with each rug being a unique expression of the woman or women creating it, harnessing their imagination and weaving inspiration from the world around them.

It all begins with the earth. In the high atlas mountains, sheep graze on the sparsely vegetated, striking hillsides. When traveling through this region, it is common to encounter shepherds leading herds of sheep across the roads as they graze for food. Twice a year, the sheep are sheared for their precious wool. The wool is taken back to the home where the women begin the long process of processing the wool for use in rugs. The first step of processing the wool is to brush and clean the wool. This labor intensive process straightens the wool fibers and cleans out impurities. The wool is then spun by hand into a thick wool yarn.

The dyeing process is a complicated and fascinating ritual that has been passed down through generations. Different plants and minerals yield a wide arrays of colors. Blue comes from the indigo mineral, green from the olive tree leaf, black from the pomegranate skin, yellow from turmeric, red from madder root, and brown from henna. The pigments are steeped overnight with the yarn, and finally the yarn is boiled in the pigment mixture with a fixant. This process can be repeated up to ten times to obtain the perfect hue.

Knotting, weaving, and/or embroidering a rug is an incredibly time intensive and expensive process. Apart from the raw materials, the amount of time that can be spent on a single rug can be mind boggling. For example, for a 7 foot by 10 foot rug, it can take up to ten months to knot. Making rugs is just part of the busy day of a Amazigh woman. While the men farm or shepherd, the busy day entails taking care of the household, cooking, and tending to the children. Outside of these daily tasks, they knot rugs for about two hours a day, and it is often seen as a therapeutic break from the hustle and bustle of daily life. The quality of rugs varies greatly as the women learn the traditional craft from their mothers. Many of the practice rugs from young girls learning the complicated rug making steps end up in the tourist markets. However, the finest rugs are made by the older experienced craftswomen and are harder to come across in the large medinas of the big cities. These rugs show the level of precision of knotting or weaving that come from decades of experience.

Each rug these master craftswomen create is an expression of their culture and identity. Symbols woven into rugs range from symbols with abstract meanings such as protection, beauty, and fertility, to symbols with more literal meanings, such as those representing camels, snakes, or mountains. One of the many beauties and complexities of these rugs is their regionality. Depending on where in the country the rug is produced, they may contain different symbols. For example, a rug produced in the Southern Sahara may contain symbols for camels and snakes, animals found in the harsh and dry environment. While one produced in the cooler and greener High Atlas may contain symbols of mountains, rivers, or turtles.

The rug loom is a staple in practically ever Amazigh home, and takes a prominent place in the home. There are three main techniques used to make the rugs: knotting, weaving, and embroidering. Many rugs combine more than one to create a beautiful effects. These rug designs and techniques vary from region to region, each adding a specific flavor from the landscape they originate from. The rugs can either be made by a single woman on a vertical loom, or pairs of women working on a horizontal looms. When more than one woman is working on the same rug, it is important that they share a deep connection, such as sisters, a mother and daughter, or best friends. This is to ensure they work at the same rhythm and understand the “feeling” of the rug pattern to create a cohesive rug.