Musical Influences of the Moors The haunting music of some of the desert dwellers like the Tuarek and the so-called Moorish Arabs are strongly reminiscent of the traditional harmonies heard in the music of Spain and Portugal has left a characteristically beautiful, equally haunting quality in the traditional folk music of Mali and Islamic Africa in general.Listening carefully, one can discern in their melodies the early blues tonalities of blacks of the American South, and still found in the rhythms and melodies of modern blues. During the Middle Ages masqueraders used to blacken their faces so they might better pass as Moors and they would dance such dances as the Morris dance of England and the Moresca (dances apparently named after and derived from the Moors). Another of their legacies in dance is known as Flamenco Moro, a dance form which todays Flamenco derived. The most renowned of the Moors in the arts was such that a Frenchman wrote in the 1600s, I can tell here what the inhabitants of Venus are like; they resemble the Moors of Grenada; a small black people, burned by the sun, full of wit, always in-love, writing verse, fond of music, arranging festivals, dances and tournaments every day. (Henri Lohte) The Moors are thought to have introduced earliest versions of several instruments, including the Lute or el oud, the guitar or kithara and the Lyre. The arts and letters flourished among the Moors in Spain, and they were renowned for their skills and contributions to the sciences and philosophy as well. Rogers mentions certain books, one published in 1610 in which the Spaniards are described as a white people being ruled by a Black[African] one. The long and lanky dark brown men called the Tuarek of the Sahel countries, or Tuwareg who can still be seen, veiled and armed with a sword and shield, striding through the desert with their camels, and are still involved in the desert commerce as they were once in charge of it in the Middle Ages. They still trace their ancestry to the Yemenite Hejazi and Hejazi Arab tribes(clans), the main bringers of Islam in Africa. They still trace their ancestry to Yemen (or Southern Arabia) and like their kinsmen in Yemen, they can be seen playing Moorish melodies with stringed, percussion and wind instruments under shade trees in Mauritania. The turbaned Tibbu and Zaghawa, jet black and wiry men, once known for their sorcery and their skill in metallurgy, are still spread across the hottest areas of the Sahel and southern parts of the Sahara. The red or pastoral Fulani, renowned for their holy wars, which converted so many Sudanese to Islam, can still be seen performing acrobatic dances, steps and turns which mirror the breakdancing, revived by Afro-Cubans in America in the early years of the 20th century.
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 15:20:47 +0000
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