Mastery of the art of carpet weaving is passed on from mother to daughter, which is a tradition of learning in rural areas. The community's common traditional visual language and the techniques for skillfully knitting the threads of the weaving are also learned on the job, in confrontation with reality.
However, this tradition is under threat, as Amazigh women unfortunately do not earn much from their art because they are exploited to the full by hordes of middlemen.
How can women make the most of their work? The Christian Science Monitor journalist Taylor Luck found an answer in the bustling Moroccan carpet market in Khemisset, an Amazigh town 80 kilometres south-east of the capital Rabat, by cutting out the mostly male middlemen:
"Over the past three decades, the women of the town have teamed up with relatives and contacts from outside villages to sell carpets and rugs directly to the vendors. The business has grown to include 40 local women vendors who evaluate and sell the goods of 400 women from the surrounding Berber villages. It is believed that every Tuesday, this small souk provides a livelihood for up to 1,000 people.
And he adds:
"Before dawn, Khemisset merchants like Fatima Rifiya gather at the market to wait for the dozens of women from remote Berber villages (locals refer to themselves as Amazigh, which does not mean "free people") who arrive by horse-drawn carriage at 4 a.m. The vendors and middlemen then rummage through the piles of carpets, evaluating each piece according to its size, colour, thickness, weaving and pattern. The women of Khemisset say the secret to their success is an eye for desirability - tailoring each carpet to the target audience and the buyer who never knew they still needed it. "Every carpet already has its place. We're just acting as a matchmaker," says Rifiya as she rolls out a red kilim carpet for a customer who is trying to hide her impatience.
Taylor Luck goes on to say that once the carpets are sorted, the female middlemen start selling to the male buyers:
"The carpet dealers come from Marrakech and Fez. The men sneak in between the small stalls mumbling: "Really, it's too much" or "I swear to God I can get half that price somewhere else". But Mrs. Rifiya and her siblings hold out. She and some of the more experienced salespeople, like Faten, act not only as translators for the Berber weavers, but also as coaches in the way they barter and sell. Simple rules such as: Never appear desperate for a sale. Let the customer go, he will always come back. Add 20% to your preferred price to open the negotiation. A customer who buys one carpet is always more inclined to buy others".
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