The Ait Atta () are a large Berber Sanhaja tribal confederation of south eastern Morocco. They are divided into "five fifths" (khams khmas), all said to descend from the forty sons of their common ancestor and founder . These fifths are the Ait Wallal, Ait Wahlim, Ait Isful-Ait Alwan, Ait Aizza Mzin and Ait Unibgi. They speak a dialect of Tamazight.
The Ait Atta first emerged in the Jbel Saghro which they consider their heartland and were originally nomadic but became semi-sedentary. Their quick expansion lead to conflict with other tribes causing some to form the Ait Yafelman confederation in response to their aggression. After the Ait Atta first encountered the French in 1899, they clashed continuously with the French until their surrender in the in 1933.
Origin
Dadda Atta and his 40 sons
A tradition of the Ait Atta says that they descend from the eponymous Berber ancestor who was from the Saghro region and had forty sons. He employed a shepherd from the neighbouring Ait Siddrat tribe. One day, while Atta oversaw the simultaneous marriage of all forty of his sons, the Ait Siddrat shepherd betrayed Atta leading to the death of all forty of his sons at the hands of the shepherd's fellow tribesmen of the Ait Siddrat. Atta's sons managed to have already impregnated their wives before the attack and they miraculously survived the attack and conceived. Together they produced 39 sons and 1 daughter. Atta lived on until his grandsons grew up and was henceforth known as Dadda Atta meaning Grandfather Atta. With their built-up anger, they declared war on the Ait Siddrat pursuing them right up to the Tizi n-l-'Azz Pass in the Central High Atlas where Atta's mare raised her right foreleg. The Ait Atta took this as a sign that they must return to their homes in the Saghro. The Ait Siddrat did the same.
Descent from Goliath A tradition of non-Atta origin claims that the Ait Atta descends from Goliath (Jalut) who left 4 sons that emigrated to North Africa from Palestine becoming the ancestors of the modern Moroccan Berbers. The oldest son Baibi was killed by Arabs while still a child hence the generalised Berber dislike of Arabs. There are 3 different traditions of the identity of the three other sons:
Amazigh, ancestor of the Tamazight speakers of the Middle and Central High Atlas, Asusi, ancestor of the Shilha or the Susis and Arifi, ancestor of the Riffians, Midul, ancestor of the Zenata, Zulit, ancestor of the Masmuda and 'Atta, ancestor of the Sanhaja, Midul ancestor of the Ait Yafelman, Malu, ancestor of the tribes of the Middle Atlas and 'Atta, ancestor of the Ait Atta.
According to the third tradition, 'Atta had 6 sons: Hlim, 'Azza, Khalifa, Khabbash, Sful, and Mtir, ancestors of the Ait Wahlim, Ait Yazza, Ait Unibgi, Ait Khalifa, Ait Isful and Ait Ndir respectively. These are the clans of the Ait Atta.
History
Establishment
The Ait Atta originated as a political entity in the Jbel Saghro region in the 16th century. The earliest mention of the Ait Atta by a European author was by Marmol Carvajal in 1571 where he referred to them as the "Ytata". They are of Sanhaja origin.
According to the anthropologist David Hart, the notion that the Ait Atta originated from the Sahara is unlikely even though some clans like the Ignaouen and Massufa are probably of Saharan origin. Ait Atta tradition asserts that their origin and heartland is from the Jbel Saghro. When the Ait Atta were first in the Saghro, all they knew was tents and a restricted form of sheep nomadism. They saw pastoralism and war as cardinal virtues looking down on agriculture which only became a part of their lives when they expanded and adopted the use of permanent housing from the sedentary Haratin who lived in the areas they conquered.
Expansion and conflict with other tribes Initially the Ait Atta moved north towards the Central Atlas across the Tizi Mqqurn Pass. When the Ait Atta established a foothold in the Central Atlas, they entrenched a contingent of the Ait Bu Iknifen clan at the Tizi n-Ilisi near Zawiya Ahansal and further contingents from the same clan and two other clans: Ait Yazza and Ait Unibgi at Msirmir and Usiskis. The next direction they went was to the west but they did not get far. Their expansion to the north was stopped by the formation of the Ait Yafelman by several Berber tribes like the Ait Haddidou who opposed the expansion of the Ait Atta. Raids, skirmishes and battles between the Ait Atta and Ait Yafelman went on for several centuries from the 17th to 20th centuries. For example, Charles de Foucauld while travelling through the region in 1884 heard reports of a bloody battle between 8,000 Ait Atta and 12,700 Ait Murghad (one of the tribes of the Ait Yafelman) where 1,600 Ait Atta and 400 Ait Murghad died.
In the south and east, subgroups of the Ait Atta established raaya (protection agreements) with the sedentary communities, who were mostly made up of Haratin and racially mixed cultivators, in the areas they conquered. They also had large raiding parties as late as the first decade of the 20th century who entered the Sahara and targeted the camel-herding tribes that lived there like the Berabish and Reguibat. During the 19th century, the region between the lower Ziz and Touat largely became part of the Ait Atta sphere of influence. This was mostly due to the Ait Khabbash sub tribe which belonged to the Ait Unibgi khoms. Unlike other subtribes of the Ait Atta, the Ait Khabbash was nomadic year round and they acquired a warlike reputation.
The expansion of the Ait Atta was often opposed not just by the Ait Yafelman but the Alaouite makhzen. Some authorities argued that the Ait Yafelman was formed by the makhzen to check Ait Atta power which caused the Ait Atta to be hostile to the Alaouites. Until their pacification by the French, the Ait Atta were an integral part of Bilad es-Siba. The first major clash between the Ait Atta and the forces of Moulay Ismail was in 1678 after several brothers and cousins of the sultan supported by the Ait Atta revolted against him. By the late 18th century, Ait Atta contingents were already in Tafilalt. Many more came throughout the 19th century when the continuous Ait Atta battles with the Ait Yafelman reached their peak. By the 19th century the Ait Atta's raids went as far as Touat (in modern-day Algeria).
Conflict with the French The Ait Atta expansion was mostly successful until 1899 to 1901 when the Ait Khabbash first encountered the French who occupied the oasis of Touat at the end of 1899. Because of French probing operations south of the Atlas, Moulay Hassan, sultan of Morocco, shifted the traditional policy of the makhzen from supporting the Ait Yafelman against the Ait Atta to reconciliation with the Ait Atta and especially the Ait Khabbash. During 1892, several delegations of Ait Atta nobles largely from the Ait Khabbash and shurfa visited the Royal Palace and Court in Fez. The Act of Algeciras in 1906 and rising French pressure in Morocco caused the alarm in the southeast and the Ait Khabbash sent a delegation to Fez in June 1911 with a letter directed at the British consul Sir James Macleod which sought the protection of the British government against the French. The delegation was turned down and the British eventually came to support the French.
One of the imgharen (plural of amghar meaning tribal chief) of the Ait Atta n-Umalu, Muha u-Sa'id l-'Attawi, started to lead one of the two intertribal harkas that formed in August 1910 and threatened the French rearguard at Dar Shafa'i. This harka was made up of the Beni Moussa (a tribe belonging to Tadla) and "Berber" tribesmen and they totalled 2,000 to 3,000 men on foot and 1,000 horsemen. l-Attawi unsuccessfully attempted to incorporate two other Tadla tribes, the Beni Zemmour and Sma'ala which caused the French to be concerned. The French attempted to buy off l-'Attawi but it failed. l-'Attawi, however, came into conflict with the Sid of Buj'ad over who should act as the mediator between the Tadla tribes with the French benefitted from this infighting.The Ait Atta's fierce resistance against the French entry into Morocco until 1933 was famous especially for the Ait Atta's valour during the under the forces of Assou Oubasslam. The Battle of Bougafer was the final battle that the Ait Atta fought and one of the hardest the French fought during their pacification of Morocco. The men who were prepared to stay resisting rallied at Taghya n-Ilimshan and they moved south into the Jbel Saghro. Assou Oubasslam's reputation for toughness, directness and truthfulness was already known to the French and the three French generals in charge of finally defeating the Ait Atta offered to give him what he wanted but he rejected their offers. The French used Ait Atta tribesmen who already submitted to fight against Oubasslam's forces which meant that there were low casualty figures for French officers. Eventually, people started to surrender and defect and after the third defection, Assou Oubasslam with his Ilimshan decided to negotiate. On March 25, they laid down their arms in front of General Antoine Huré, Georges Catroux and Henri Giraud and surrendered. In order to appease the Ait Atta, the French authorities allowed the villages and gardens the Ait Atta conquered from neighbouring groups to be legitimately granted to them by the protectorate.
The French colonial authorities instituted a policy of "Fixation" (sedentarization) against nomadic tribes of the Ait Atta like the Ait Khabbash forcing nomads to settle down in villages so men could be recruited into the French Army and work in lead mines owned by French companies. The lands of pastoral nomads were converted into military zones when the French colonial authorities redesigned administrative territories of south-eastern Morocco. Forcibly settling nomads not only made the collection of taxes easier but it restricted the movement of the Muqawama (armed resistance). The French called this policy "pacification of Berber tribes". After Morocco gained independence in 1956, the Moroccan government also implemented policies of sedentarization.
Population French author estimated the Ait Atta at a population of 38,000 in 1936. David Hart instead estimated them at double that putting them at 76,000 in 1939. He estimated the population to be about 125,000 to 135,000 in 1960. Ethnologist Claude Lefébure estimated their population in 2008 to be 400,000.
Socio-political organisation
Khams Khmas The Ait Atta was first divided into five fifths or khams khmas and each fifth or khums was subsequently divided into taqbilts (subtribes) which were divided into ighs amaggran (clans) then ighs ahzzan (lineages) and finally sublineages. These groups would claim descent from a common ancestor and would often be named after that ancestor who would fit somewhere in the family tree of Dadda Atta. An example is the Ait Khabbash whose name means "People of Khabbash" and who descend from the common ancestor Khabbashi or Khabbash who himself was a descendant of Dadda Atta. The khoms and taqbilts of the Ait Atta are:
Khoms I: Aït Wahlim: Aït Hassu Aït Bu Daud Aït Ali u Hassu Aït Attu Uššn Uzligen Aït Izzu Zemru: Ignaouen Ilemšan/Ilamshan Aït Aïssa u Brahim Aït Bu Iknifen
Khoms II:
Aït Wallal / Aït Ounir: Aït Uzzine Aït Reba Aït Mullah (Masufa) Aït Bu Beker Aït Unar
Khoms III: Aït Isful: Aït Ichou Aït Hammi Aït Brahim u Hammi Aït Bab Ighef Aït Alwan: Aït Ghenima Aït Unzar Aït Bu Messaud Aït Sidi
Khoms IV: Aït Unibgi: Aït Khabbash Aït Umnast Beni Mhamed (Arab tribe under the Ait Atta)
Khoms V: Aït Aïssa Mzim: Aït Yazza Aït Khalifa Aït el Fersi Aït Kherdi
Annual Rotation and Complementarity