Riti femminili a Meknes. Le figlie e i "figli" di Lalla Malika

In Morocco the term m'allmat means “female craft masters”, but in Meknes it has come to indicate more specifically musical groups of women and sometimes effeminate men as well. They main role provide musical performances for the various rites practiced by women, and especially in the rites of female spirit evocation and possession. The main spirit is Lalla Malika (“lady queen”). In Meknes the cult devoted to her is particularly important, and special rituals are celebrated in her honor in which women and effeminate men play and dance. The m'allmat officiate these rituals. The inquiry draws on my fieldwork in the ritual context in Meknes, on musical practices, possession cults and daily life of both musicians and devotees. By first investigating the interaction between religious brotherhood and female practices, then analyzing in detail the musical and ritual tradition of m'allmat groups, I demonstrate how m'allmat are characterized by a complex relationship between marginality and centrality. They live and work as musicians – alongside the more famous religious confraternities – in the city of Meknes, where they have put down roots and share rites, repertoires, and musical instruments of their own. Lalla Malika, and her cult, play a central role both for women and effeminate men in Meknes and offer them a way to actively reshape gender and social relations. For female devotees, she represents an ideal model of femininity to which they can aspire; they also conceptualize and experience this relationship as a fundamental element of their identity, a way of thinking and positioning themselves in the world. Effeminate men possessed by Malika, find an organic place within in the system of female practices, often as an officiant of cults or musician in a m'allmat group.