In Morocco, women keep the art of traditional rug-weaving alive

The Ouaouzguit rug is better than a easy floor covering. It’s an emblem of cultural identification.

In southeastern Morocco in the town of Taznakht, the Aguiness rug cooperative produces these rugs in an all-female save of job.

Here is now not with out motive: women have held a stable connection to rug-making for a extremely lengthy time.

On the total, the rugs had been part of a bride’s dowry and had been exchanged as a vogue of asserting marriages.

Women “expressed their creativity in making the rug and used it as a medium to convey their emotions,” acknowledged Abderrahmane Janah, who manages the women’s carpet centre in Taznakht.

This rug is entirely handcrafted from pure wool peaceable from the sheep in the jam including the Sirwa mountains, now not a long way from Taznakht.

A pure product and a traditional craft

The women in Taznakht wash the wool, fade it then dye with colours extracted from local plant materials equivalent to henna, pomegranate peels, saffron or indigo leaves.

“The advantage of these natural dyes is that they are healthy and do not cause allergies. Also, these dyes remain fixed onto the rug and do not bleed or mix with one another during washing,” acknowledged Naima Akhraze, a rug artisan at the Aguiness rug cooperative.

Every coloration and form in the rug carries that system, with the geometric shapes symbolizing concepts equivalent to fertility, security, household or the human connection to the land.

The women weave the carpets the utilization of a traditional wood loom. It takes several weeks and even months to discontinuance a single carpet, counting on its dimension and the complexity of its designs.

Akhraze acknowledged the work veteran to be carried out at home, but as lifestyles evolved, women started to gather in women’s craft cooperatives to keep the profession and originate certain a actual earnings.

There are several cooperatives and groups in Taznakht that promote these rugs and goal to sell them at glowing costs to improve the women who make them.

The most prominent one is the Women’s Centre for the Promotion of the Taznakht Carpet, which consists of 35 cooperatives and entails 3,500 women who weave the rugs.

The centre, which changed into established in 2016, can make as much as 300 carpets a month at the moment.

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