Morocco Festivals and Celebrations

Morocco does not keep its festivals in a cultural quarter. The calendar is made of moussems, which are pilgrimages to a saint's shrine that became fairs, of harvests that became town festivals, and of an equestrian performance that is judged as seriously as any sport.

Tbourida

Tbourida is the one most visitors have seen a photograph of without knowing its name: a line of riders in matching dress charging together and discharging their muskets in a single volley, so that the sound arrives as one shot and the smoke closes over the field. It is inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List. It is performed at moussems and at dedicated festivals through the summer, and it is competitive: a troupe is judged on the discipline of the line and the unity of the volley rather than on speed.

Moussems and harvests

The Moussem of Tan-Tan, in the far south, is inscribed as a gathering of nomadic and Saharan communities, a meeting that was originally about trade, marriage, arbitration and pasture as much as about celebration. The cherry festival at Sefrou, near Fez, is inscribed too, and is what it sounds like: a town marking its harvest, with a procession, and with an economy behind it.

Elsewhere the pattern repeats without an inscription attached. There is a rose harvest in the Dades valley, a date harvest in the southern oases, and a great many local moussems that are not on any tourist calendar and are the better for it.