Berber: Odes from the Atlas Mountains

The Berber tribes of the Mountains of Morocco are one of the great and inspiring survival stories of our times. They have occupied their mountain homelands since before the dawn of history, and travellers have long marvelled at how their music, dance, pre-historic rock carvings, traditional jewelry, tattoos, indigenous pottery, embroideries and carpets have all been impregnated with the wild soul of their fierce mountainous landscape. Never before have their traditional odes – which open up to us a precious window into a Homeric nobility and spiritualized landscape – been translated into English. Michael Peyron who has taught, explored and researched the history of the Berbers of Morocco over the last fifty years, has an exceptional understanding of this region and a unique archive of oral transmissions from some of the last bards uninfluenced by the modern world. This collection is both a gift to travellers and a priceless legacy.