The Kasbah in 1944
The Kasbah in 1993
The court at ground floor
The kitchen area
The court at first floor
View from the terrace |
Sheikh Bassou Ou Ali has been the first dweller of Tinghir who dared
to leave the Ksar with his family
and settled near the palm-grove and the path communicating the souk to the track of Ouarzazate. This mud Kasbah had
two floors and was surrounded by an enclosure wall that also included several annexes, like stables, a garden,
Meshui ovens and a Riad for accommodating guests.
The objective of the master not being more the defense, as in ancient Kasbahs,
but the reception of guests, the prestige and the representation, this building was giving a luxurious and modern sight for
its time. A central enough large patio, besides of three meters on three, was being surrounded of pillars and of arcades
in plaster preceding covered galleries and large rooms.
On the ground floor, these rooms were reserved for women, as other parts were used
to store food. Upstairs was a long room for receiving guests -because the sheikh had a significant political activity-,
and another of similar dimensions to the people. There was also a room where they kept teapots, silver trays, glassware
imported from Europe and other valuable materials; only the master of the house had its key.
On the terrace, in the four rounds, four small rooms were used for unmarried
young of the family. The servants, on his part, lived and labored in an annex attached to the Kasbah from the south, which also
included the kitchen and its own patio surrounded by galleries, but without arcades.
The inside walls were plastered and false ceilings of the same material covered
on the first floor roof of reeds. Outside finish remained traditional, clay and straw, but it was protected by green tiles
made in the pottery of El Hart. The wrought iron windows were quite large, up to 70 x 100 cm. in the first floor. Room pine
wood doors were of a clearly city style.
Before and after the independence of Morocco, the Kasbah has experienced glorious days.
One still remember the days when they had reached forty sheep slaughtered in a single day to make Meshuis, so important was
the number of guests.
In 1966, Rom Landau wrote: «For my first
expedition on the following morning, the Supercaid himself
joined me. For reasons of etiquette, he had selected the
Kasbah of Sheikh Bassou, one of the wealthiest men of the
district. His Kasbah was quite new, built in 1944, and I
soon discovered that it differed greatly from the Kasbahs of
Skoura. Though the entrance gate was relatively low it
looked impressive, for the door was covered with metal,
painted snow-white, in striking contrast to the light brown
of the walls surrounding it. Beyond the Kasbah gate, we
found ourselves in a formal, square-shaped courtyard. The
Kasbah building itself was square, symmetrical and formal in
design, suggesting a Ksar rather than a Kasbah.
«It was
interesting to see this modern interpretation, but I had not
intended to include many very recent structures in my
survey. However, there were some structural features worth
looking at. The Kasbahs further west, usually of much
greater age, showed signs of dilapidation, bore evidence of
successive additions, and in consequence had lost their
original symmetry, though not necessary their formality.
Sheikh Bassou Kasbah had none of the zigzagging alley-ways,
diminutive courtyards, mysterious little entrances, and
steep stairways disappearing in utter darkness, that
characterized so many of these western Kasbahs. The building
material was pisé; however, the walls were reinforced with
the trunks of date palms, and the ceilings, too, were made
of palm wood. The rooms gave onto an inner patio in typical
Moorish tradition.
«Sheikh Bassou led us up the staircase to a first floor room
probably reserved for the entertainment of guests. To my
surprise I found that it was furnished with a sofa, a
carpet, several tables and table lamps and other comforts
quite exceptional in my experience of Kasbahs. Our host
himself, a thickset elderly man, no longer worked on his
land, but employed four laborers mainly for the cultivation
of olives and dates. He paid them no money, just one fifth
of the harvest and three meals daily: for breakfast mint tea
and bread, for lunch meat, vegetables and bread, and for
supper couscous. When I asked what was the purpose of the
grimly defensive towers of his Kasbah, hardly essential in
the mid-twentieth century, he admitted that they had been
erected for pure decorative purposes, and with the object of
keeping within the established tradition. Even the ramparts
that enclosed his domain were there because they were
“traditionally” correct.
«Though we had reached his Kasbah immediately after our own
breakfast, Sheikh Bassou insisted that we share some of his
mint tea, oven hot bread, butter and honey. The atmosphere
of the place, the cleanliness and order were more like those
of a well-found home of northern cities; the average Kasbah
of the south is uncared for, grimed with dust and rubble,
and as often as not quite primitive in conception». |
