Dr Christopher Witulski is an assistant professor of ethnomusicology and earned his PhD at UF. He is also the author of Focus: Music and Religion of Morocco (2019); The Gnawa Lions: Authenticity and Opportunity in Moroccan Ritual Music (2018); and “Light Rhythms and Heavy Spirits: Entertaining Listeners through Musical and Ritual Adaptations in Morocco.” Ethnomusicology Forum (2016), among others.
This week’s baraza with Dr. Christopher Witulski was on Innovation and Authenticity: Diatribes of Gnawa Heritage. In his talk, Dr. Witulski addressed how different artists take pathways as they decide how music maintains its integrity or strays from its identity. His focus was the gnawa tradition; a sacred healing possession and trance ceremony, in a pilgrimage town in Morocco called Sidi Ali. Dr. Witulski described gnawa as a syncretic fusion of Moroccan Sufism and sub-Saharan cultural practices. The talk was mainly about innovation and its influence within the gnawa tradition.
Until recently, according to the brief introduction, gnawa was associated with a marginalized population whose history in Morocco began with the trans-Saharan slave trade. Since the 1970s, gnawa music entered the popular music scene, inspiring many local (conservative genres like malhun) and international hip-hop, rock, blues, and jazz singers. Further, the government and the public promoted gnawa as an immutable national heritage that symbolizes the authentic relic of a sub-Saharan past and Moroccan diversity and inclusiveness.
Arguing against the above political narrative, Dr. Witulski stated, across time innovations in gnawa have been part of the ritual influencing and changing the gnawa practice. That was mainly due to commercial reasons—the gnawa artists’ attempt to fulfill audiences’ compelling demands. By sharing examples, Dr. Witulski illustrated innovations within gnawa through borrowing musical style, borrowing spirit, and borrowing songs and spirits from the other rituals and popular music and the impacts on the tradition.
In his talk, Dr. Witulski also noted the promotion of gnawa music as a public performance serving the commercial and political marketplace. While gnawa became part of the annual “modernized pilgrimages” to be visited by local and international tourists, it also is becoming part of the political narrative of a specific form of nationalism symbolizing diversity. He also referred briefly to the Moroccan government’s utilization of gnawa and other Sufi practices as counter- Islamist movements.
Nevertheless, gnawa is also a controversial matter that attracted contestation for varying communal and national heritage perspectives. Contrary to the contemporary political and commercial nationalist and marketing narratives, the nostalgia for several ritual leaders (m’allems) is different. It is emanated from the pre-commercial integrity, which is structured around religious, not nationalist markers. For m’allems, gnawa is part of the Muslim Morrocan society, not a symbol of Morocco’s acceptance and diversity. Regardless, those ritual leaders continue to willingly perform sacred “authentic” practices to the wider local and international public, teaching how authentic performance should be.
In a context where the reverence to the ritual and musical integrity of gnawa is (arguably) disappearing, Dr. Witulski claims, authenticity is negotiated and its verification depends on a sense of recognition and a nod of agreement from listeners as well—whether trancing or not. Whether in ritual or representative festivals, all gnawa performances evoke, although differing, a sense of memory and expectations to listeners. Dr. Witulski argued that a powerful sense of authenticity envelopes experiences when performance and listener concur.
As a recent phenomenon, Dr. Witulski noted a growing movement of reactionary performances mobilized by individuals concerned about degradation in gnawa practice, as it has been going through innovations and used for commercial and political consumption. They reclaimed the gnawa tradition heritage by refusing to include the borrowed music style, spirit, and songs in their performances, even in contemporary contexts—such as annual festivals. Instead, they used the opportunity to build a community of like-minded gnawa participants to redefine the proper gnawa ritual reverence and educate listeners on what it should look and sound like.
Before concluding his talk, Dr. Witulski provided an example to show that the complexities of the appropriateness of adaptations are related to the right to make those decisions or the capacity to persuade the community effectively.
In his concluding remarks, Dr. Witulski said the performance sites, rituals, and participants constantly negotiate ethics, efficacy, and value of the tradition as powerful transformative experiences and entertainment. The sites, for example, are the platforms where audiences compel artists to borrow and include various non-gnawa elements in their performances. In addition, the market puts additional pressure to navigate the aesthetic tastes of both spirit and audiences. Public in their nature, gnawa settings showcase how listeners individually navigate the relationship between everyday and sacred lives.
Recap written by Yekatit G. Tsehayu