111 Jeanine Pascon

A number of years ago I received computer files of a number of old snap shots taken when Paul Pascon, Paolo De Mas and the others were doing research in Iligh. One of the pictures was taken during the wedding of Hamdi Aboudmiaa. Dominique Verdugo who at the time was making a map of the White or Women's Castle had written in Hamdi's name into two little rooms. One of the people in the snap shot is Jeanine Pascon, the wife of Paul. Apparently she had come to Iligh for the wedding. She is looking straight at the camera, while her husband is being nice to young Hamdi. I'm glad I could make a good drawing of the photo. Shortly after this picture was taken Jeanine's life took a dramatic turn. First her two sons disappeared during a camping trip. They were never found: probably kidnapped and murdered. In 1985 her husband was killed in a road accident when the landrover in which he was traveling turned over when caught on a sand dune. Paul and his closest associate were sitting in the back and were killed. The other occupants of the car survived.

74 Paolo de Mas 1975-1982

From 1975 to 1978 Paolo de Mas was in Morocco for the REMPLOD project Willem Heinemeijer was doing for Dutch minister Jan Pronk: Reintegration of Emigrant Manpower and the Promotion of Local Opportunities for Development. For this project the University of Amsterdam, UvA worked together with the INSEA in Rabat: the Institut National de Statistique et d’Economie Appliquée. For this project De Mas visited Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa for the first time in 1975. Later he would stay there for a while. Him and the other project members would stay in the building the Friends of Iligh would later have lunch. When the project was done, Paolo de Mas and others didn’t want to leave Morocco yet and went on the look out for another opportunity. They found it in the building in the lot next to that of the INSEA. It was the INAV Institut National Agronomique et Vétérinaire Hassan II in Rabat. In this institute Paul Pascon set the tone. From 1979 to 1982 the UvA and Paul Pascon worked together. First on the REDRA project in the Rif: (Ressources en Eau et Développement dans de zônes Arides). In 1979 however Paul Pascon published his inventory of the documents on the trade the House of Iligh conducted in the first half of the 19th century. After this publication he wanted to conduct an in depth study of not only the trade, but also the political and social history of the House of Iligh. In October 1980 he took Herman van der Wüsten and Paolo de Mas on a fact-finding trip to Iligh. After that Paul Pascon collected a large ‘equipe’ around him and VD Wüsten contributed Dutch funds for the Iligh project that would last till 1982.

71 Paolo de Mas

Paolo de Mas was one of the Dutch experts who didn’t come to the Reunion Des Amis d’Iligh. He had prior engagements. However he was one of the Dutch connections with Iligh. All through the preparations for the Iligh project he also had been extremely helpful. Chapter 5 of the Graphic Story that had to deal with Paul Pascon had him as the protagonist. We had boldly made that choice although we didn’t have a clue what he had really done during Pascon’s stay in Iligh. He wasn’t on the cover of the book. Herman van der Wüsten was as was Daniel Schroeter and Mohammed Tozy. Bert set up a meeting with him in the ‘1ste Klasse Wachtkamer’ at the Amsterdam Central Station for May 8. Before we went we read up on him. There was an in depth interview with him and his brother on the Internet. He was the son of Italian immigrants who came to Alkmaar in the Thirties and started an ice-cream parlour there. Paolo and his brother were second-generation immigrants. When he went to school in the fifties and sixties other waves of immigrants came to the Netherlands: Italians, Spanish, Yugoslavians and from the early sixties onwards Turks and Moroccans. According to the interview on the Internet Paolo keeps close ties with the village of his parent’s birth in the Dolomites. He visits it at least once a year and takes part in the community. He also cherishes his diploma Professional Ice Cream Maker. From childhood on he was fascinated by maps and geography. When he went to study at the University of Amsterdam he chose Social Geography. His professor there was Willem Heinemeijer and that man had a great influence on Paolo’s life.

What happened at the sanctuary of Sidi Bubkr?

After lunch everybody finally went to Iligh. From Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa it is 6km to Iligh and halfway along the way in the middle of nowhere and in a bend of the road is the sanctuary of Sidi Bubkr. The Marabout is surrounded by a walled graveyard. Nobody seems to know who Sidi Bubkr was, but the Marabout marks an important land division and is mentioned in many old documents. It was also the site of a gruesome murder with far-reaching consequences. Thursday 1 December 1814 a man named Mahmud El Warari was stabbed near the Marabout ten times. His stomach was cut open and filled with stones. The assailants were send by Hashem the ruler of the House of Iligh. Like Hashem, Mahmud was a descendant of Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa. They were related in more ways than one and they were political rivals. Their fiefdoms bordered on each other. But while Mahmud obeyed faithfully his overlord, Hashem also known as 'the Lion of the Tazerwalt'followed an independent course which got him into difficulties many times. It went so far that the fortress of Iligh was destroyed twice between 1810 and 1816 by the overlord. When Mahmud met his death he was crossing the 'border' at Sidi Bubkr while on the way to Iligh for the circumcision ceremony of the son of Hashem and the sister of Mahmud. The case came to court and there is a legal document about the case kept safe in the mosque of Toumanar although it was set afire and torn into pieces. 10 years later in 1825 the son of Mahmud wanted to retaliate a disgrace his wife had suffered when she visited Iligh for a wedding (there are 5 different versions of the same story). He shot Hashem under the famous Argan tree in the souk of Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa during the yearly Moussem in honor of his ancestor the Sufi saint. The murder was part of both a vendetta and a long drawn out civil war. Paul Pascon gives an exhaustive description of the events in his study "La Maison d'Iligh'.

On the way to Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa

The next day March 23 the Friends of Iligh went first to Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa. We left in a caravan of at least three cars. Just like in Tiznit the day before there were a number of hangers-on whom nobody knew who they were. The 'Friends' were spread out over two cars and one little bus. The five people of the NIMAR had a big 4WD, Herman and Wies Opdeijn drove a hired Duster and we were in the little bus. Mohamed Ouhaou was also there and a colleague of his. We took the old road that goes from Tiznit to Tafroute. The Anti Atlas that runs from east to west sort of peters out towards the south when it gets close to the ocean. Stretching out from Agadir southwards is a great big flat basin. Where the basin meets the Anti Atlas the landscape changes abruptly. You notice it whatever road you take to Iligh. The road is straight and flat till suddenly it rises while twisting and turning. The vegetation also changes. In the basin flourish Savannah type plants. As soon as the road hits the mountains the plants change. It had rained copiously in the month of March and it was green and lush. Everywhere were flowers. Yellow linseed flowers were in bloom everywhere and the wheat was coming up. It was in stark contrast to the parched outlook the landscape had presented in September. Just before the market village of Tirmigh is the turn off for Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa. From the turn off it is about 20km to Iligh. The first time Paul Pascon came this way he walked the distance and the road wasn't paved yet. In Sidi Ahmed Ou Mousa we were welcomed by Moulay Imam Aboudmiaa, the Mayor of the village and the two spiritual leaders of the Zaouia. Imam came in a brand new Peugeot sedan and was in the company of Bouchari the older half brother of Hamdi, but I didn't know that then. The group was taken up the steps towards the Zaouia for a guide tour. I stayed behind to sketch the butcher who had just skinned a goat. While I was sketching the head was discarded, the heart given to a cat and the intestines were taken out and the insides washed.

Chapter 4 another Dutch-Iligh connection

In Chapter 4 of 'The Tears of Iligh' Aicha introduces another connection with Holland. Aisha tells about the secret documents both in Arabic and Hebrew and both on paper and parchment and how in 1982 a Moroccan scientist Paul Pascon was allowed to look into some of the documents. He had won the trust of the family. He wrote a study about the economical history of the small realm of Iligh. To him it was special for several reasons and he wanted to come back and write more and even start digging in the ruins that surround the Casbahs. Unfortunately Paul Pascon had died in a road accident in 1985. Some people thought it suspicious how he had died. Aisha then remembered there had been Dutch among the students who had done research with Paul Pascon in Iligh. She couldn't remember their names however. Back in Amsterdam Bert was on the internet again. She found the study: La Maison d'Iligh. It was out of print. One of the names listed on the cover was Herman van der Wüsten. That sounded Dutch. He was a retired professor and so was the other Dutchman Paolo de Mas. In contrast to Van der Wüsten, Paolo de Mas had kept up an interest in Morocco. Het had been director of the Dutch Institute in Morocco and had written a book about its history with another Dutchman. In 2011 he had been back to Iligh with a TV crew. Paolo de Mas proved helpful and a source of information even though it was given in fits and bounds. It had been 25 years since any outsider had had access to the archives of the family. At last meeting Aisha again now in the company of Peti Buchel the artist of graphic stories in Agadir, she promised that her father would not only receive them, but also give them access to the archives of Iligh. There was one catch, the two had to promise to bring Iligh again under the attention of the academics. The sketch is made after a photo depicting Paolo de Mas in 1984 in the company of a then young scion of the Aboudmiaa family, Hamdi.

The short life of Paul Pascon

Paul Pascon was born in 1932 in Fez. His family originally came from France but had lived for a couple of generations in Morocco. When Morocco became independent in 1956, he chose to become a Moroccan citizen. Pascon became an important sociologist embracing new methods of research and introducing them in Morocco. His work inspired a whole generation of Moroccan sociologists and historians with his post-colonial take on his studies about rural society. In 1965 he visited for the first time Iligh and the neighboring Zaouia of Sidi Ahmed Ou Moussa. Through his studies of old documents he was able to throw a new light on how pre-colonial society in that part of Morocco (Tazerwalt) worked. It was not a strictly tribal society but a society made up out of different groups formed around the descendants of the Sufi saint and its 'symbolic capital'. His studies of the society in the Tazerwalt was so sympathetic to the existing make up, history and population that his memory is still cherished. The sympathy was mutual. Also the participating students and other scientists participated in it. Unfortunately his life was clouded by misfortunes. During a camping trip his two sons disappeared never to be found again. Pascon himself died on a road trip in Mauritania in 1985. Not everybody believed it was an accident. Rumors abound.

Paul Pascon and Iligh

Bert had contacted the person behind the Dutch name that was also on the cover of the study 'La Maison D'Iligh' by Paul Pascon. He sent the book to her by return mail. She read it in one sitting. She couldn't put it down. Although it was a historic and sociological study it read like a detective novel according to her. I read the prologue. In it Paul Pascon writes how he visits Iligh for the first time to find two elderly brothers with the ear glued to a radio listening to the BBC world service. Although Iligh itself seems at the end of the world in the middle of nowhere, the brothers are very aware of what happened in this world. Pascon is surprised by the importance Iligh used to have as a hub on the Trans Sahara route and the riches of its 350 year history. The brothers take to him and in the end let him into some of the old archives. He decides to study them. When he finished his study he knows he has just scratched on the surface. There will be much more to discover. But that never happens. Paul Pascon dies in Mauritania in an unfortunate car accident. After the first interest the publication of 'La Maison D'Iligh' generated Iligh slowly sank back again into nothingness. While in the next thirty years the area immediately around and south of Agadir developed into a popular holiday destination, Iligh hardly ever saw visitors. It literally sunk into the earth as I could see on Google Earth.

Bert's first visit to Iligh

At the end of 2014 Bert is in Amsterdam planning the itinerary for the next group she'll be taking to Morocco. She writes: 'I'm looking for interesting places to visit between Tafroute and Agadir. The name Tazerwalt pops up and on a photo on the internet I see for the first time the thrilling architecture of the stronghold of Iligh. There are also references of more Jews that move from Ifrane this time to Iligh. Surprise, surprise: in connection with Iligh the name of a seventeenth century Dutch admiral of the fleet Michiel De Ruyter is mentioned in a book about Morocco in Dutch I've just bought written by De Mas and Obdeijn. According to them Iligh is in that same century destroyed with the loss of everything. Obviously a new Iligh has arisen because when I visit Iligh in March 2015 the stronghold is there. Nobody home. It is Friday afternoon. Everything seems asleep. A village woman whom I speak to mentioned a name in connection with the stronghold: Aboudmiaa. Apparently he is not here but in Tiznit. In the Summer of 2015 I discover articles about the region Iligh is in: Tazerwalt or Tazeroualt. A second name pops up Paul Pascon a Moroccon researcher. He has written a book called 'Maison D'Iligh'. But I can't find the book anywhere. But 'Maison d'Iligh' does have a Facebook page. I contact the name attached: Aicha Aboudmiaa. We set a date to meet during my next trip with a group. But when we arrive the door stays closed. Eventually I meet Aicha in the Oases Tulip Hotel in Agadir.'

Discoverings about Iligh

The Graphic Story about 'Maison d'Iligh' and its history got as provisonal title: The Tears of Iligh. Bert started on the research more or less right away. Earlier she had discovered that two names kept popping up: the Dutch 17th century admiral Michiel Adriaanzoon De Ruyter and the French Moroccan social-geologist Paul Pascon. Paul Pascon had written extensively about Maison d'Iligh. But the book wasn't in print nor was it second hand available. Aicha Aboudmiaa told Bert in Agadir that among the participants of the research project of Paul Pascon was a Dutchman, but she had forgotten his name. Then Bert finds in a footnote somewhere on the Internet that the co-writer of Pascon's book on Iligh H. Van der Wüsten was. With a name like that he must be the Dutchman. She contacts him. He is pleasantly surprised and send her immediately a copy of 'La Maison d'Iligh'. For a learned non-fiction book it was riveting reading. Herman van der Wüsten also gives Bert the name of another Dutchman who was part of the group that helped Paul Pascon: Paolo De Mas. De Mas was also co-author of a history book about Morocco. Bert also contacted him, but he didn't seem to have reacted to her email. In July 2017 Bert and I contacted Aicha. Yes, her father would be glad to see us. We booked our next trip to Iligh for September 26 to October 6.