Late July marks the commencement of the grand Sebeiba festival in the Algerian Sahara. Coinciding with the Ashura festivities in the Islamic calendar, the Tuareg people convene in Djanet for this celebration, which has been inscribed in UNESCO’s intangible heritage since 2014.
Its genesis fading into antiquity, the Sebeiba Festival dates back more than 3000 years. As the festival unfolds towards the end of July in the Algerian Sahara, thousands of Tuaregs gather for this grand occasion which spans ten days and draws a sizeable tourist crowd.
Men, bedecked in their finest attire, engage in a fervent dance that mimics conflict, while women, resplendent in stunning jewelry, contribute with their singing. The event overlaps with the Ashura festivities in the Islamic calendar, enlivening the city of Djanet and its 14,000 residents in southeast Algeria, where the preparations have been underway for a week.
“During the rehearsals, the children learn to dance, and everyone has the right to let loose,” shares Hassan Echeikh, 64, emphasizing that the festival site has been “there since our ancestors’ time.”
The celebration, registered in UNESCO’s intangible heritage since 2014 and the date of which is determined by the elders of the Djanet oasis, stages a mock battle between two Tuareg tribes: El Mihane and Zelouaz. As per tradition, the two tribes were embroiled in fraternal warfare until the news of Moses’s triumph over Pharaoh’s armies prompted them to forge a peace pact. “Our ancestors retained the date of Pharaoh’s drowning and celebrated his death.”
The women, tattooed with henna and adorned with hefty silver ornaments, sing to the rhythm of the guenga (a traditional drum) to spur on the friendly competition among the men. The jewelry “is meant to symbolize women’s beauty,” confides Douaa, 16, one of the singers who, like Sabrina, 29, was dressed by an “elderly woman versed in traditions.”
Sebeiba Dance and Its Etiquette
Men, their heads capped with hats boasting geometric patterns, feign combat, brandishing a sword in one hand and a peace-symbolizing scarf in the other. Despite the rising tension amid the war chants, their fight remains “bloodless.”
A selection process decides “who to feature, who should be in the middle, in the back,” explains Hassan Echeikh, “since in the Sebeiba dance, particularly among men, one must have the physique, the shoulders, be muscular.”
The festival also lures foreign tourists, many of whom flocked this year to discover the Algerian Sahara. Silke, a 55-year-old from Germany’s Black Forest region, expressed her fascination: “the beauty of the people, the dancers, the music, and its unique percussion – everything is so special and starkly different from where I hail from in Germany.”