Introduction

1Tebra‘ has typically been defined by scholars and literary critics as a brief, emotionally charged poetic genre composed and performed by Bidan (Hassaniya-speaking populations who define themselves as racially “white” or “Arab”) women across the Trab el-Bidan (the Hassaniya-speaking region that spans Mauritania, Western Sahara, southwestern Algeria, southern Morocco, and northeastern Mali). Circulated anonymously in matrilineal or peer-group contexts, tebra‘ addresses themes of longing, betrayal, and social standing. Earlier studies (e.g., Baba Miské 1970; Mint Mohamed Khaled 1985; Mint Gouffat 1989; Voisset 1989; Tauzin 1990; Fortier 2004; Taine-Cheikh 2020) have cast the genre as primarily romantic, feminine, and “authorless.” Yet tebra‘ has never been treated as a discrete corpus whose internal coherence, political dimensions, and transformations across time and media can be systematically traced and analyzed.

2Through five case studies, this article makes a three-fold argument. First, the politicization of cultural expression—both material and immaterial—disrupts organic modes of circulation and reception. Second, the gendered nature of tebra‘ renders it particularly vulnerable to appropriation. Third, these expressive practices are embedded in broader networks of resistance, solidarity, and transregional memory. The analysis then situates tebra‘ within wider structures of cultural extraction and state heritage-making, showing how patrimonial projects depoliticize colonized or colonizable voices—specifically the poetic labor of Bidan women. Such processes enact epistemic violence by erasing regional and historical specificities and blocking organic cultural translation. Against this backdrop, tebra‘ emerges as a living, adaptive corpus that asserts women’s moral and affective authority in interpreting historical events. Its circulation on digital platforms further reshapes older values of composition and appreciation, underscoring its role as a gendered practice of cultural memory, poetic resistance, and world-making.

3To substantiate this argument, the article proceeds through a chronological reading of five corpora of tebra‘ poetry. The first four—field and radio recordings from 1953 and 1968, and the contemporary Tebra‘-Corona (2020) and Tebra‘-Gaza (2023–24) cycles—are examined both for their literary and epistemic richness and for what they reveal about tebra‘ as a living repertoire shaped by political and social transformation. Each corpus marks a distinct moment in the evolving relationship between women’s oral creativity, gender politics, and modes of mediation. The fifth corpus, the 2020 Moroccan state-sponsored anthology (Tebraâ: la poésie féminine hassanie), concludes the sequence not chronologically but conceptually—as a case of heritage-making that seeks to fix, sanitize, and nationalize a form historically rooted in the moral authority of Bidan women. By placing this patrimonial project last, the article underscores its central claim: that tebra‘ cannot be reduced to a romanticized, authorless tradition, but must be understood as a dynamic, situated practice whose vitality resists appropriation even in the act of being archived.

Centuries of women’s creative labor and three generations of barra‘āt

Elles firent chanter leur griotte, elle tenoit une espèce de harpe... elle commença donc à entonner une chanson arabe assez mélodieuse, mais fort languissante... ce qu’il y avoit de plus agréable c’est qu’elle se passionnoit extrêmement… montrant les plus belles dents du monde. (De La Courbe, 1913: 172)

5These documents point to a longstanding tradition of female performance, including both musical and poetic forms. For tebra‘, we have trace for this genre from the 1950s onward, where it began attracting the attention of ethnographers and musicologists. Technological developments—such as the radio, and later cassette tapes in the 1970s—expanded the genre’s circulation for new generation of performers. These technological inventions have also allowed scholars to follow its evolution. My own fieldwork with family griots and genre specialists reveals that despite tebra‘’s intimate and feminine framing, it has long existed informally within azawan performances. Because of its personalized, often romantic or teasing nature, tebra‘ was traditionally excluded from formal public events. Nevertheless, early-generation griottes were admired for their tebra‘ creativity and often performed tebri‘at composed by their friends, clients, or themselves—usually addressing men they loved within or outside the griot caste. Otherwise, a generational map of the genre reveals at least three cohorts of griots and griottes associated with tebra‘ performance.

Generational mapping of tebra‘ performers:

First generation:
Nasirhalla Mint N’gaimich (1927–2009), Houriya Mint Abeid, the Teizigga family ensemble in Atar, Mounina Mint Eide (1936–1995), Mounina Mint Eleye (1921–1997), Sidi Ould Dendenni (b. 1941, a male griot who sang tebra‘), Ammach Mint Amar Tichit (1948–2002).

Third generation:
Gharmi Mint Abba (b. 1991), Mneytou Mint Nevrou (b. 1986).

• 7 Interview held with Neffisse Babe Cheyakh, June 2025.

Tebra‘ has always been seen as a female domain. In conservative circles—even among griots—performing it formally was frowned upon. Imagine a woman interjecting a tebra‘ in the middle of an official azawan event—it would be deemed improper. That’s why it rarely appears in traditional hewl performances. The major azawan schools have a formal repertoire and see no need to integrate something perceived as informal and youthful entertainment.7

8The same informant recounted a telling anecdote:

You wouldn’t expect Mounina Mint Eide to perform with Sidaty Ould Abba [1924–2019] in a formal azawan concert and suddenly launch into a tebra‘. Yet she composed a famous one for him:
Mānitkelem mānitkelem sābig mā jāni lim‘allem
[I want to speak, I want to speak, but the blacksmith is present]

9In this tebri‘a, the “blacksmith” (used teasingly) refers to her husband, Sidaty Ould Abba—a fellow griot. Though intimate and memorable, the piece was never officially recorded, emblematic of the exclusions that continue to shape the genre’s marginalization.

Tebra‘ collection I (1953). A foundational recording that documents first generation’s style, themes, and early mixed gender performance

11Below is a transcription and translation of the two rare and foundational collections.

1. Gūlū lil kānū yībghūna – ān men kānā yerhāmūnā	1. Tell those who once loved us — that the merciful are granted mercy (by Allah)
2. Yā sebyani yā sebyani – wasu l’aydi mā āmkānā	2. Oh, my lovers, my lovers — do everything you can to ask for my hand
3. Allah t’berred leyātū – hawwāt t’ghayar b’ilāyātū	3. Oh Allah, ease my torment — from a married fisherman who turned against me
4. S’biye mā jāni midi – ye khlāgī vi lhazm tzīdī	4. My lover did not show up at noon — oh, how my soul surges in pain
5. Llali mā bād māghāmā – er-rijli jana nādāmā	5. Oh Allah, how far is Maghama — men come back from there full of regret
6. Sāādāk yā ljāwāk sibyānāk – tigīd w t’kāmil wīyānāk	6. How lucky is the girl whose lover visits — she sits fully awakened with joy
7. Llali m’ābād thāk shi – k’alhāmd li lahi yimshi	7. Oh Allah, how far away is that torment — praise be to God, it shall pass
8. Leyām v sibit miqwasi – tūdāwālū beynā en nasi	8. Days of the cause of my sorrow — have moved from one person to another
9. Ezzit yānā hewn w’mariem – t’ban żreyk ella tīkhdim	9. My love story with Mariem — it seems, is now going very well
10. Raʿi dhouk ashāb sbiye – kānā llahū w’ baqiye	10. There are friends of my lover — there was Allah, and He still remains
11. W mshi ye sbiye la tāhsār – (missing hemistich)	11. Go away, my lover but you shall not last in my absence… (missing second hemistich)

12In terms of content, this preliminary 1953 collection reveals early stylistic features of the tebra‘ genre, generally marked by a moderate level of ingenuity in style compared to the more sophisticated second and third generation collections. The semantic field reflects a highly comprehensible register of pre-urban Hassaniya that closely resembles the language of the second generation and is only slightly different from that of the third. The general register is intimate, lyrical, and colloquial, shaped by the oral, female-centered traditions of the time. Emotionally, the collection draws heavily on a vocabulary of pain, longing, separation, the absence of the beloved, addresses to peers, and lovers’ stolen moments—all of which are typical motifs of the genre. A religious register is also strongly present through frequent supplications for divine assistance in navigating emotionally distressing situations caused by both practical and socio-cultural factors.

13Spatial and social references such as the town Maghama and “the fisherman” provide early evidence of internal mobilities linked to labor in both public and private sectors. Reference to the southern riverine town of Maghama is emblematic of a recurring trope in tebra‘—the naming of cities inside and outside Mauritania to which lovers have traveled for work, study, or marriage. This theme becomes especially consistent in second-generation collections. The fisherman mentioned in this collection, from whom the speaker asks God to ease her torment, likely refers to early periods of labor migration of men to coastal towns like Nouadhibou in the pre-independence era.

Gaṭ nwāḏību — ila gallaʿ min had hbibū	No longer a surprise when someone’s lover is taken by Nouadhibou
Bāli ṭabīb-u — məssadbi šawṛ nwāḏību	The doctor for my soul departs this afternoon for Nouadhibou
Nwāḏību ġāli — yā layta kulla al-layāli	Nouadhibou is dear—oh, if only every night were spent there

15Two remarkable features stand out in the early collection. First is the consistent use of the word “sbiye” for “lover” or “boyfriend,” a term that in third-generation tebra‘ is often considered too direct or crude, and has since been replaced by euphemistic expressions like lmejhud (“the secret”), a term emblematic of tebra‘’s hidden, often sacred, emotional worlds. This linguistic evolution suggests a broader cultural shift toward increasing social and moral conservatism over time.

18The circulation of tebra‘ on social media platforms like Facebook has opened new spaces for gendered experimentation and playful subversion of genre norms. One particularly striking example is a collection of twenty tebraʿāt composed by men, posted in November 2022 by a young woman who humorously captioned them “This is the new tebra‘ of our brothers.” Consider the following verse:

19Women, too, increasingly compose tebriʿāt addressing fellow women—whether playfully breaking genre norms, expressing feminine solidarity, or boosting morale. One example goes:

20Intertextuality, while a vast subject in its own right, is a defining feature of the tebra‘ tradition. The genre frequently draws upon metaphors, imagery, and thematic structures from other oral forms, religious texts, or earlier tebra‘. This intertextuality appears explicitly on two notable occasions. The first is in the foundational collection’s opening tebra‘, which references the Islamic concept of rahma (mercy). The second occurs in a more contemporary verse from the satirical collection of twenty male tebra‘ discussed above, where the poet pleads: “Be merciful to those on the earth, and the One in the heavens will have mercy upon you.” Both instances reveal how sacred discourse and emotional longing can coexist within the same poetic space, blurring the boundaries between devotion and desire. Another form of intertextual echo appears in the tenth tebriʿa of the foundational collection—“There are friends of my lover — there was Allah, and He still remains”—which finds a resonant response in a second-generation verse performed by Ebti Mint Choueikh:

Mīn meshyak ʿanni mata had msewel ʿanni

Since you left me, no one has asked after me.

21Both verses reference a common Bidan courtship practice in which the friends of lovers continue to meet and socialize even after the romantic relationship has ended. In this context, friendship serves as a vessel for preserving the intimate past, carrying its affective traces through oral memory. The motif of absent inquiry—no one asking after the speaker—transforms casual sociality into a melancholic archive, a reminder that in tebra‘, relational memory is never quite private but always shared, spoken, and retrievable through poetic form. Finally, the light-spirited ambiance of the recording—which breaks with the rigid formalities typically associated with azawan performance—reflects the more relaxed, intimate character of tebra‘ and is especially palpable at the end of Track B03. This contrast in tone and setting, characteristic of the Teiziga group’s flexible and theatrical performance style, likely contributed to making this the first documented audio recording of tebra‘. Unlike the formal structure of azawan, Teiziga’s hybrid approach embraced informality and spontaneity, making the recording of such a gendered and emotionally charged oral form more feasible. Compared to later generations’ tebra‘, this early collection displays a simpler poetic structure, a more limited metaphorical range, and only an emerging thematic complexity. These features make the collection foundational—not only in terms of chronology, but also for the cultural sediment it preserves regarding the evolution of tebra‘ as an expressive form and the gendered norms surrounding its authorship and performance.

Tebra‘ collection II (1968). A second traceable first generation’s recording that permits tracing stylistic, thematic and gender related developements

• 19 Interview with Sidi Ould Dendenni and his son Louleid, June 4, 2025.

The context of this recording is linked to the new value attributed to musical performance beyond its traditional elitist framework. In the early years of the newly independent state, music played a pivotal role in nation-building. It provided a new image for both the state and society. (…) People began to appreciate lighter modes, such as liyīn and tebraʿ. A new era had begun—even for forms traditionally associated with celebrations and marriage ceremonies. The recording was an act of fate—riyāḍīt mūlāna, [as Louleid described it, with a note of regret]. Sidi had a wonderful voice and was first invited to perform at the national radio station. All his friends and clients wanted him to perform their tebriʿāt—a rare opportunity that does not come often. For these baraʿāt, it was a voice that could publicize a genre usually reserved for secrecy and discretion. He had no reason to refuse. The fact that it was a female creation was not reason enough to stop him. He accepted—just as he had accepted invitations to perform elsewhere, inside or outside the country. He traveled to Algiers in 1969 with the Mauritanian delegation that participated in the Pan-African Cultural Festival.19

1. Ya bali getlāk – tetrāk ʿizza ma laqit lāk	1. Oh my soul, I warned you—let go of a love that was never yours
2. Nezzalī sāādī – yā muzālzīlā el-ārdī	2. Bring me down my fortune, O shaker of the earth!
3. Yā rūhi vīqī – ʿdti tewʿay ʿle riqī	3. Oh my soul, beware—you awaken only in vain
4. Yā el-loula Birrā — Mahjuba minnu tetberrā?	4. Oh El-Lula from Birra — may Mahjuba be protected?
5. Yā bouye w bouh – geʿdu tāhtū leyn tjībūh	5. Oh, my father and his kin—strive until you bring him to me

23Like the eleven poems in the 1953 collection, the five tebriʿāt in this series display a moderate level of ingenuity. The terms used to address the beloved are characteristic of tebraʿ’s euphemistic register, referring to the self with phrases such as bāli (“my attention”) and rūḥī (“my soul”). Unlike the 1953 collection, however, there is no overt address like ṣbīyē (“my boyfriend” or “my lover”), likely due to radio broadcast constraints and the accompanying self-censorship. Open declarations of romantic belonging are replaced by a more measured tone marked by dignified emotional restraint and cautionary advice against loving men who do not return one’s affection (tebriʿāt 1 and 3). In this shift, earlier poetic requests for dating or courtship give way to expressions of desire for marriage or formal union (tebriʿāt 2 and 5). This thematic transition resonates with a broader pattern in Bidan women’s literature and music, particularly in genres like the shweyrāt et-tihjāl (songs of single women) which form one of the richest reservoirs of emotional and social commentary in the Bidan cultural canon. Tebraʿ 4, the most cryptic of the group, appears to be a lament by a woman named Mahjuba addressed to another named El-Lula (or Loula), in which she recounts the emotional pain caused by someone named Birra—likely a lover who betrayed or abandoned her. If the name Loula refers to an identifiable historical figure, she may be Loula Mint Elve Ould Abba (1920–2019), the sister of Sidaty Ould Abba, or at least a member of an older generation of tebraʿ poeteses whose works have left no written or recorded trace.

Collection III: Tebra‘ Corona (2020). A contemporary third generation anthology that shows continuities/discontinuities and intertextuality in themes and style

26Unlike the two earlier anthologies—Collection I (1953) and Collection II (1968)—the Tebra‘ Corona series (Collection III, 2020) displays a remarkable evolution in linguistic creativity and stylistic complexity. This development is rooted in the aesthetic leap initiated by the second-generation tebra‘ poets of the 1970s, 1980s, and 2000s. While Collection I was marked by direct, foundational metaphors and Collection II by increasingly evolutive figurative language, Collection III achieves a highly developed metaphoric and lexical sophistication. One of the defining features of this pandemic-era anthology is its merging of two lexical fields: first, the classical tebra‘ language of emotional pain, isolation, longing, and confinement—traditional themes in women’s affective expression—and second, the emergent epidemiological lexicon of the COVID-19 pandemic: cases, PCR, variants, prognosis, social distancing, isolation fatigue, comorbidities, medical files, protocols, contacts, that are hinted by the pragmatics of the collection.

27The intensive integration of biomedical and public health terminologies reconfigures the collection as a paradigmatic “outbreak narrative,” in the sense used by Priscilla Wald, who describes such narratives as formulaic plots that trace the emergence, transmission, and containment of infectious disease while mapping its affective and geopolitical trajectories (Wald, 2008, p. 2). Among the various tebra‘ collections produced during the COVID-19 lockdown, this particular anthology stands out for its poignant and richly textured depiction of how confinement and closure—the hallmarks of pandemic life—disrupt social norms and reconfigure ordinary affective routines.

28Yet the Tebra‘ Corona collection goes beyond a mere documentation of crisis. It hijacks the bleakness of the global pandemic and transforms it into an intimate navigation of women’s emotional landscapes. Rather than reinforcing dominant narratives of biological catastrophe, this poetic corpus romanticizes and poetizes the epidemic, grounding it first in women’s experiences of longing, jealousy, and psychological dislocation. Second, it embeds these experiences within a classical ghne tradition in Bidan poetry, one that has long used illness as a metaphor for love. The incorporation of pathological and medical language is not new in Bidan poetic culture. Both women and men have historically drawn on a lexicon of illness to articulate romantic desire, emotional dependency, and social vulnerability. Ironically, the flu itself was once perceived as sexy by a second-generation tebra‘ poetess, as captured in the following verse:

29The following second-generation tebra‘ poems further demonstrate how love is framed through metaphors of physical and psychological ailment:

Ane tikhrasū – netrah w’ yaghbadni rasū	I, from gazing at him—have longing and a headache
La tirvid anni – hīmmīt tha sāqm l’ makinni	Do not take from me—the fever of the love that possesses me
Vi ṭrig eṭāb – edāweyt ane w’ lahu bi lḥab	In the hospital avenue – I recovered without having any pills

30This medicalized poetics is mirrored in male Bidan poetry (leghne) as well, where women and love are routinely depicted as afflictions: saqm (illness), miqwas (pain), sibbit ketli (cause of my death), tab leyaat (remedy for heartbreak), tab at-tulāḥ (remedy for longing), and tab sadme (remedy for shock). Fortier (2021, p. 778) observes, such tropes constitute a gendered poetic convention that sentimentalizes male vulnerability and victimhood. However, early feminist consciousness in Mauritania among leftist Kadihin women of the 1970s—challenged these tropes. They viewed this romantic language as a patriarchal trap designed to manipulate women through verbal seduction. A set of lullaby verses circulating within the Kadihin movement offered a biting critique of this tradition:

31Another striking feature of the Tebra‘ Corona collection is its culturally reimagined use of the modern epidemiological term “superspreader.” Here, the unnamed male addressee is likened to a romantic superspreader, circulating affective contagion rather than viral disease. This poetic adaptation reflects a sharp cultural insight: that men, in both romantic and social domains, are perceived as vectors of emotional instability. As Fortier (2021, p. 783) notes, among the Bidan, men’s extramarital activities are often tolerated, even normalized, while women’s fidelity is policed. In this context, men are likened to camels who eat from one tree while eyeing another—always on the move, always seeking new foliage.

Collection IV: Tebra‘ Gaza (2023–2024)

33This tebra‘ series retakes an earlier three-tebra‘ series published by a girl named Ķh Ä Dī Jä, posted on Facebook two weeks after the beginning of the genocide. She credits a group of barraʾat for the first three tebriʿāt and concludes with one she created herself:

Ṣābī vi bleydah – tejmaʿnī bʾ Abū ʿUbaydah	I wish to be in a place – together with Abu Ubeida
Mā yeswa l-ʿizzah–māhu rājil hūk f Ghazzah	No man deserves adoration–but a man there in Gaza
Tibrāʿī l-Ghazzah – mā kāvī minu w’ lā yizh	My tebra‘ for Gaza – won’t be enough nor sufficient
Imethelni tām – gewl es-seydāt ʿil l’qassām	Totally represents me – the creation of ladies on al-Qassam

34The three first tebriʿāt are parts of an earlier tebra‘ series that appeared in May 2021 as a response to the Israel–Palestine crisis that same month. All were inspired by the media appearances of Hamas spokesman Abu Ubeidah, also nicknamed Al-Mulatham or “the Masked”. This series is the first Gaza themed tebra‘ series. The May 2021 series was published by two female members of the Muslim Brotherhood: Leghniya Brahim, a well-known Islamist figure, and Mariem Kaylaniye, a barra’a, both from Nouadhibou. Leghniya’s series includes two tebriʿāt published on May 15, five days after the beginning of the Unity Intifada. The two poems are credited to Boushra Mohamed M’bareck, another known Muslim Brotherhood member and poetess. The poems translate:

W’mshaʿshaʿ w’ ḥrām – Mutḥadith b’ism l-qassām	Bright and seductive – a spokesperson of al-Qassam
W’ingīsū Ghazzah – W’inbūḥū b’ asrār il-’izzah	We go to Gaza – and reveal the secrets for love

36Collection IV consists of seventeen tebriʿāt and is also a collective series in the form of a poetic joust, usually a male poets’ practice. The collection translates:

1. Laʿād il mulhim – māhī ʿibrāh dha l-mulaththam	1. If he becomes an inspiration – it won’t be a surprise, the masked
2. Nikhtayr intem – nasmaʿ wi-nshūf l-mulathem	2. I would like to – hear and see the masked
3. Ili dhāk item – bāt ib kūfītū yitlatham	3. It is advised for men – at least to mask with a keffiyeh
4. Nihmid lū mīyah – fimnayn nshūf l-kūfīyah	4. I thank God a hundred – times when I see the keffiyeh
5. Eskī ya ṣaydāt – hādha huwa yem t-tilfāt	5. Dear me, oh ladies – what a supreme turning
6. Laʿidna kehlāt – w’tbarraʿna māhī tiftāt	6. Even if we grow old – and compose tebra‘, it will never be in vain
7. Lā lahgit fīyya – nār il lahgit dhī l-kūfīyah	7. I wish fire will not reach – in me the degree this keffiyeh reached
8. Mā shiftī gāʿ – yakhaytī maddit dhū laṣbāʿ	8. As if you didn’t see – my sister, the way he pointed with his fingers
9. Maddit dhū laṣbāʿ – sibbah litrātīm t-tibrāʿ	9. The way he points fingers – is a reason for accumulating tebra‘
10. Min maddit laṣbāʿ – kāridnī dhī n-nūbah tilīāʿ	10. From the way he points his finger – I’ve been afflicted lately with aches
12. Māt yazdafnī – māhu qassāmī mitmaghnī	12. Nobody affects me – except an angry al-Qassam member
13. Imnayn il yitmaghna – yawayl t-tibrāʿ ulighna	13. When he gets angry – how much leghne and tebra‘ will be created
14. Zidf l-qassām – bīh allī fī r-rūḥ ulaʿzām	14. The injury of al-Qassam – is as deep as soul and bones
15. Yā saʿd t-tibrāʿ – waktin māt yibghī shī gāʿ	15. How lucky is tebra‘ – it cannot get more honor
16. Maghlaʿ fi l-qassām – sibbah litfarfīr ulaṣghām	16. A figure in al-Qassam – a reason for revelation and pains
17. Yā ṣaydāt aqlām – saḥfaytū tibrāʿ l-qassām	17. Oh, creative ladies – you shall not fail the tebra‘ of al-Qassam

37Much like the Corona Tebra‘ series, the Gaza-themed Tebra‘ Collection IV moves beyond documenting the atrocities committed against Palestinians by poeticizing and humanizing a genocide broadcast live on television and social media. In this context, the romantic idealization of a male figure serves as a powerful aesthetic and political device, reconfiguring traditional metaphors and stylistic conventions of tebra‘ to channel longing and erotic fascination into a language of political solidarity. The male object of desire—often depicted as al-Mulatham (the Masked One)—emerges not merely as a romantic hero, but as a symbol of resistance, dignity, and struggle. In doing so, the poems weave together the military and the emotional, the dangerous and the intimate, producing a unique convergence of vulnerability and valor. The seventeen-poem corpus reveals the interplay between the gendered gaze and militarized symbolism. Lines such as “Nikhtayr intem – nasmaʿ wi-nshūf l-mulathem” (“I would like to hear and see the masked”) and “Maddit dhū laṣbāʿ – sibbah litrātīm t-tibrāʿ” (“The way he points fingers is a reason for accumulating tebra‘”) illustrate how visual and auditory cues—particularly gestures like pointing or turning—become triggers of both aesthetic delight and emotional intensity.

38A particular feature of the collection is its embrace of female poetic jousting—a subversive reclaiming of the traditionally male-centered practice of gta’a, itself steeped in Bidan ideals of knighthood and chivalry. Here, the female voice asserts voyeuristic and erotic pleasure within an intimate, performative community of women. Desire is neither suppressed nor disguised; it is shared and stylized through poetic code. Verses such as “Eskī ya ṣaydāt – hādha huwa yem t-tilfāt” (“Dear me, oh ladies—what a supreme turning”) invite collective witnessing and complicity, transforming the resistant male figure into one of collective female admiration. The collective spirit in creating and bear witnessing to both the erotic and heroic also evokes another Saharan practice known as twiza, a cross gender, class collective effort in which communal spirit of collaboration and teamwork is invited.

39Additionally, the creative imaginary in this collection draws upon two recurring motifs that underscore a vibrant re-signification of tebra‘ codes. First is the symbolic substitution of the hawli or litham (turban)—traditionally associated with Bidan male veiled seduction—with the Palestinian keffiyeh, thereby embedding global political solidarity within a localized aesthetic framework. Historically the wider Saharan region was named bilād el-mūlethemīn or “the land of the turbaned” which gave the turban a more symbolic and historical depth. Women are not merely composing romantic verses; they are archiving, mourning, and mythologizing resistance through a genre traditionally studied as a feminine space of desire and aesthetic play. In this corpus, the poetic gaze transforms grief into longing, and longing into a culturally specific aesthetic of resistance. This collection is both a continuation of the tebra‘ tradition and a bold departure from it—anchoring feminine expression in the violent geopolitics of our time while affirming the erotic and affective dimensions of revolutionary intimacy.

40The symbolic significance of the hawli or litham—as both a visual marker of male charisma and a vehicle of erotic fascination—has a longer genealogy within tebra‘ literature. The following five tebriʿāt illustrate the recurring use of turban imagery across multiple generations of Saharan women’s poetry.

Ye er-rājale temmū – b’hawale tūbit tʿammū	Shall all men – be masked with turbans of tubit
fayliḥ w’ qwāylī – sid ʿli lebbās l’ḥāwli	Seductive and beloved – Sid Ely the turbaned
men ṣabi hāwlīh – yemsāh biyya vuṃṃu w’eydīh	I wish I were his turban – I would wipe his face and eyes
Weyl l’bāl whāl – mīn deyrīt tha lhāwlī lekhāl	My spirit is in distress – because of the man in a black turban
Māhū kil l’gām – w’tlethem kīvāk ʿād ltthām	Not every man – who wears a turban looks like you

42Just as the hawli became a vehicle for idealized desire, so too did the figure of the soldier, especially during the rise of the second-generation tebra‘ in the 1980s, shaped by the political climate of the Western Sahara War. The following lines exemplify this trend:

Appropriation and rebranding women’s voices: the Moroccan state-sponsored anthology

43The rich, deeply situated knowledge embedded in the four previously analyzed collections appears to have been insufficient for Moroccan state agents to situate tebra‘ within its appropriate historical and socio-political context. The Moroccan state-sponsored anthology Tebra‘: la poésie féminine hassanie, framed as a seemingly benign act of cultural preservation, raises questions about cultural appropriation and geopolitical rebranding. Understanding the motivations behind this anthology requires attention to internal geopolitical dynamics that, on the surface, may seem detached from questions of poetic aesthetics or gendered authorship.

47The Moroccan state-sponsored 2020 anthology featured 101 poems allegedly collected by a Sahrawi professor, introduced by French scholar Catherine Taine-Cheikh, and translated by Mauritanian writer Aïchetou Mint Ahmedou under the coordination of Rahal Boubrik. The anthology’s methodological foundations are deeply questionable. According to multiple sources consulted during my research, the collector did not disclose the intended use of the material when contacting informants in Mauritania. Approximately 95% of the anthology’s content appears to originate from Mauritania, with nearly 90% traceable to what I identify as the second generation of tebra‘—a post-independence resurgence marked by more socially and emotionally complex themes—and the rest divided between earlier and later periods. This act of cultural extraction is symptomatic of a broader strategy to present tebra‘ as “anonymous” and “communal” heritage, enabling Moroccan state institutions to incorporate it into nationalist narratives while erasing its regional and gendered specificities. The intimate, embodied, and socially situated nature of tebra‘—rooted in the lifeworlds of Bidan women—has been rendered invisible through romanticized frameworks that facilitate state-sponsored appropriation. Importantly, women creators and performers of tebra‘ have long anticipated the possibility of such erasure. In an interview with Sektou Mint Hemmed Val, a regular performer and cultural animator of hewl gatherings in Oued Noun and the occupied Saharan territories, she offered a striking reflection:

Journalist:Tebra‘ is a ghariza—an instinct—for Mauritanian women.
Sektou: It is only us [Mauritanians] who create it, who taste it, and who value it. We are the original provenance of tebra‘. Tebra‘ is also the poor woman’s right. It’s her only way of expression—how she speaks about herself, her feelings. It’s an old tradition, but I find the newer tebra‘ more expressive than the earlier ones. It captures a woman’s feelings and condition better.
Journalist:What do you mean?
Sektou: I cannot say more.

48This knowing reluctance to speak reflects what Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (1988) has called “sanctioned ignorance”—the strategic refusal by dominant powers to recognize or listen to subaltern voices unless those voices can be appropriated for hegemonic projects. Similarly, Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s (1984) critique of “Western eyes” offers a similar framework to understand how women’s cultural production is often essentialized, depoliticized, and reinscribed within state or imperial ideologies. Judith Butler’s (1990) theory of gender performativity further underscores how the rhetorical anonymity of women’s creative labor enables its expropriation, effacing authorship and reassigning ownership. As if the subaltern can never truly speak: when she does find the courage to speak, she is ignored or erased. And when she says something of value, her words are selectively appropriated. Here, the subaltern is not only the individual tebra‘ poetess, but also the genre itself—a collective feminine voice that has been instrumentalized by various regimes of power, from patriarchy to settler-colonialism.

49Yet, this logic of “authorlessness” collapses under scrutiny. As this study shows, using rigorous ethnographic, ethnomusicological, and oral history methods, one can trace tebra‘ to identifiable poetesses, beloved figures (rasm), specific themes, stylistic movements, and distinct social formations—whether oasis-based families, urban clans, or refugee camp collectives (Ruano Posada 2019). The genre is not a disembodied “tradition” but carries contextual signatures—lexical, melodic, affective—that point to specific geographies, historical moments, and creative communities. The four foundational and contemporary collections analyzed in this article provide clear evidence of traceable authorship within a genre too often dismissed as folkloric or anonymous. Though often framed as spontaneous expressions of communal feeling, these works contain distinct poetic signatures and reference tangible historical and emotional landscapes. Their analysis disrupts the logic of appropriation that treats tebra‘ as a floating signifier of “heritage,” stripped of origin, specificity, and gendered authorship.

50A vivid example illustrates this dynamic. While I was conducting an interview with Mauritanian human rights activist Aminetou Mint El-Moctar, she was conversing via WhatsApp with Sahrawi activist Sultana Khaya—an outspoken advocate for Western Sahara’s independence. The topic was a poetic militant verse Khaya proudly quoted, believing it to be a new creation of Sahrawi resistance:

51Aminetou gently corrected her: the verse was not new but came from a rich tradition of militant poetry composed by Mauritanian Kadihin women and men involved in national and international liberation movements, including the early ranks of the Polisario, many of whose members were themselves Mauritanian. This moment underscores how cultural memory circulates across borders, even as state-sponsored narratives seek to localize and depoliticize it. Moroccan state framings of tebra‘ as a “shared” Hassaniya or Maghrebi heritage obscure clear geopolitical motives. The invocation of “anonymity” facilitates not only symbolic appropriation but also the erasure of feminine authorship within a settler-colonial logic of absorption and silencing. In sum, by exposing the gendered politics of authorlessness and the geopolitical mechanisms of cultural appropriation, this article reframes tebra‘ not as a neutral artifact of national heritage, but as a deeply situated form of poetic resistance, creative agency, and embodied memory—rooted in historically marginalized voices and irreducible to official narratives.

Conclusion

52This article has traced tebra‘’s transformation from a largely invisible oral practice to a multifaceted, politicized form that continues to defy the constraints of archive, authorship, and appropriation. Through close analysis of four collections it has shown how Bidan women’s poetry negotiates affective intimacy and historical rupture with formal elasticity and ethical clarity.

53The 1953 IFAN field recording, embedded in informal performance contexts and stylistic hybridity, offers the earliest sonic trace of tebra‘’s public emergence. Its informality—disrupting azawan’s canonical structure—enabled the genre’s entry into recorded history, revealing a living tradition previously occluded by the masculinist ethnographic gaze. The 1968 radio performance, voiced by a male griot, further complicates questions of gendered authorship and demonstrates early forms of internal appropriation that prefigure later state co-optation. The pandemic-era collection reactivates classical Bidan poetics of illness-as-love, reframing public crisis through the interior language of longing, jealousy, and emotional dislocation. The Gaza corpus extends this intimate mode of expression into the political sphere, transforming tebra‘ into a transnational idiom of feminist solidarity and poetic witnessing.

54In stark contrast, the 2020 Moroccan state-sponsored anthology enacts a different kind of violence—symbolic appropriation under the guise of heritage. By curating Mauritanian women’s voices as depoliticized patrimony, it severs the genre from its social and regional origins, aligning cultural production with a broader settler-colonial strategy. Here, tebra‘’s historical authorlessness—once a gendered mode of discretion—becomes a liability, repurposed to erase provenance, depoliticize critique, and obscure structures of domination. This instrumentalization exemplifies how the politicization of cultural expression—both material and immaterial—disrupts organic modes of circulation and reception, substituting relational authorship with institutional capture. The state’s heritage-making practices mirror its territorial tactics: the drone strike and the poetic archive emerge as parallel instruments of domination—one silencing bodies, the other voices. Yet tebra‘ resists containment. It remains a gendered archive in motion—adaptable, embodied, and politically astute. Its power lies not in institutional recognition, but in women’s ongoing acts of creation, circulation, and refusal.