Theology in the Threads: Morocco’s Carpet Industry
Handmade Moroccan rugs and carpets are one of the most famous industries around the world, especially in the West. It represents traditional Moroccan culture throughout the centuries because of the pattern, design and qualified natural materials that the berber use for carpets.
Each handmade carpet is uniquely crafted, reflecting tribal history. Although with today's modern technology, everything is possible to be made in a short amount of time by a machine. But on the other hand, there are people, like the Berber people, who work more and use their creativity, knowledge, and skills for designing, making their own material out of natural sources for the carpets. Berber make carpets out of wool, silk, cactus, and yarn, which is colored by natural dyes.
“I prefer handmade carpet because of the good quality of material that people use for weaving it, also handmade carpets withstand more and are more expensive than machine carpets, so machine carpets have low quality and it is cheaper,” said Abdullah, a carpet seller in the Rabat Medina.
Most of the females used to be responsible for making crafts, and people expected them to learn the techniques and skills in order to make crafts such carpets and kilim (a flat tapestry- woven carpet or rugs), for their family. This was a tradition that females make craft for their family.
“Most of the moroccan had handmade carpets in their houses, as it is a tradition.There are women who weave these carpets in the villages and I buy these carpet from them, in addition, carpet weaving is really good employment for women in Morocco,” said Khadicha, a female carpet seller in Rabat Medina.
Moroccan Berber carpets are unique because of their abstract impact, soft hand-spun wool, the bold colors,patterns, as well as the creativity, effort, and weaving techniques that the carpet weavers use. Berber have their own styles, patterns, and designs of carpets that are symbolic and meaningful for them. In addition, they reflect their culture, traditions, and personal beliefs. Berber express their faith through the beautiful designs on carpets and other crafts.
The different designs, shapes, symbols, colors, and the creativity of the carpets, in terms of modernization, made Moroccan carpets more popular.
The modern woven carpets attract the attention of businesses and foreigners, and even the fashion industries over the years in Morocco.
Berber weave carpets depending on the region and climate. For instance, the rugs that are used on the mountains have larger loops which are more closely knitted in order to protect from the cold. For warmer places, rugs have been woven more finely. Size, durability, design, material, color, and climate are important for Berber because they weave carpets based these facts.
As Abdullah says, “we have different types of carpets: Atlass, Robaty, and Sahary are mostly made by people who lives in deserts.” The first step is clipping off the camel or sheep’s hair, which is mostly done by men. The second step is spinning vole, which women mainly do, They color the spined vole by water and natural plants, like cherries, skin of pomegranate, leaves, Morgans and mainly ammonium sulfate. These are the natural sources for berber to make the natural color out of it, the qualification of these color compare to chemical color much better. So the next step is washing and dying the wool.
Then when all the material prepared berber women fixed the wool on the loom after that they start weaving the carpet till it get done. So as final step, to wash the carpet and sent it to the market as new product. So for Those who think that there is not any difference between handmade and machine carpet, there are differences, and to mention that handmade rugs have better quality than machine mat also if we attention the handmade carpets have their particular design and colors that represent the Berber culture.
