Canadian Mohawk dancers to perform at Imilchil Music festival in Morocco
Morocco-Canada, Local, 8/27/2004

Canadian Mohawk dancers and singers of the Quebec Saint Laurent River Kahnawake tribe will perform at the music festival of Imilchil, 500 km south-east of the Moroccan Capital, scheduled on August 26 through 28.

The "Keepers of the eastern Door" band, as the Mohawk artists call themselves, will sing traditional songs and perform dances of the 7,000-strong Kahnawke tribe at the annual festival of the Imilchil village, in the High Atlas Mountains, where the nomadic Berber tribes known as the Ait Hdiddou hold the engagement festival.

The Wedding Imilchil Festival is marked by an encampment of more than 25,000 people settled in the valley of Imilchil, and the sell of goods and handicraft. Over the past few years, the marriage festival has been promoted by Morocco's Office of Tourism, and visitors from all over the world have come to witness the celebration at Imilchil.

The wedding feast of Imilchil is an opportunity for any visitor to witness the particularity of the Ait Hdidou tribe in terms of the natural socio-cultural and economic aspects. Marriage in the tribe goes beyond its literary significance as a simple union of a young couple to open on other horizons characterizing the life of the people on this part of the world.

The legend says that there was once two young people who fell deeply in love, but they were from enemy tribes and their families would not agree to their marriage. Out of grief, they wept bitterly. They went on crying day and night until their tears created two lakes. Their despair was so great, they committed suicide by drowning in those two lakes.

The Imilchil fiances moussem and festival has been created to pay homage to those two young lovers. Henceforth, all the families granted total freedom to their children to marry whomever they chose. The engagement festivities used to take place every September, but since 1999, the festival is held in August.

"The Keepers of the eastern Door" web site says the tribe has been coaching young Mohawk children, in Mohawk traditional singing and dancing as well as Pow Wow style dancing forming Keepers of the Eastern Door Mohawk Singers and Dancers from Kahnawake.

These dancers are now world champion Pow Wow dancers performing and competing throughout New York, Vermont, Michigan as well as in Canada. They also belong to Mohawk singing societies, some of which are requested to perform world wide.

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  Morocco to take part in international gardens festival in Montreal   (8/8/2003)
  Best of Moroccan tradition showcased to mark royal wedding   (7/13/2002)
  Moroccans make 8.9% of new immigrants in Quebec   (3/26/2002)
  Canadian PM meets Moroccan athlete   (4/27/2001)

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