The Artisanal Trades of Fes

In a small, raised alcove that opens directly onto the narrow street, a cherubic grey-haired man in a striped caftan sits on a pillow and creates a comb.  With painstakingly deliberate movements, he draws a sharp saw through beige and grey fibres of a flattened cow horn, carving fanciful shapes – a chicken, a fish, a rabbit, an elephant.

From his perch, inches from the passing crowd, he has watched several generations stream by on their daily errands just has his father and grandfather had done before him.  Today, he is the last comb maker on this ancient city’s Street of Combs. 

To orient ourselves on our first day in Fez, Morocco, we are spending the morning on an artisanal tour created by Culture Vultures.  Specifically ‘non-shopping’, the focus is on meeting practitioners of these timeless trades face-to-face and on asking questions that will deepen our understanding of their lives and their work.  

Our ebullient ex-pat guide, Aisha leads the way and makes the introductions, tailoring the stops to our specific interests while Khalil serves as our translator.  He’s a tall, engaging young Moroccan – university-educated and world wise – the epitome of the generation that has moved this country away from the old ways we have set out to witness. 

Over the course of the morning, we glimpse not only the old skills of these professions, but just how interconnected they are.  

The barrel maker cinches his wooden staves together with iron rings forged by the metal worker.
  










The copper smith pounds out the rose water still that has become his signature piece using a wooden mallet made for him by the wood worker.  











The woodworker creates wooden forms for the shoemaker using a crude adze-like hand tool kept sharp by the knife sharpener.  

Each of the trades is dependent on the other and none have ever been more than a few crooked alleyways away.

And each has learned at the feet of another.  We meet the apprentice of the renowned copper smith – a serious young man with lean muscles selected from among the neighbourhood boys.  He sits on the street in front of the shop, bracing a copper plate with one foot, and pounds a copper sheet into a wooden mold.  

His master had himself worked under another for 46 years and uses a proverb to explain how it happens: “one does not choose his own mother".  It is fate. 

In the gloom of the dye shop, we meet another artisan and his master – and learn how the viscous concoction of steaming dye balanced over the tiny fire is the result of years of experience mixing chemical powders – how a single drop on the paving stones will tell him if more of any powder is needed.

And the toxins of the artisanal trades are never more apparent than in the fabled Chaouwara Tanneries of Fez.  In the lowest part of town, along a long buried river, are ancient concrete pits filled with vile concoctions.  

Fresh animal hides are first washed in giant waterwheels, then softened in white vats of cow urine and pigeon poop until they are soft.  

Then strong backed men drape them over wooden frames and lean onto knives with broad blades using the weight of their upper bodies to scrape the hairs off of the skins. 

Then the skins are moved to viscous vats if various shades of brown and red and stomped down into the liquid to absorb the desired colour.  

Every day, the tannery workers must haul the layer of skins lying at the bottom of each vat to  the top and stomped down on more recent layers of fresh skins.  

After the requisite days or weeks, the skins are hauled out and hung from the eaves of surrounding buildings to dry. 

Tourists aren't able to walk amongst the tannery vats, but Culture Vultures gets us onto a low rooftop where we step over saffron tinted goat skins (for slippers) drying on fresh straw and look down into the tanning vats.  

Both the sights and the distinct aromas are impactful. 

A recharge is needed after a tour like this. Steaming mint tea, fresh dates and sweet almond pastries on a roof top cafe give us a chance to warm up in the sun and reflect on the timeless trades of the Medina. 

Aisha and Khalil, our guide and translator, talk about the need to capture images of what may be dying trades.  Mechanization, foreign competition and a better educated Moroccan population anxious for the comforts of the global lifestyle mean that few apprentices are now sitting at the feet of these masters.  

We've been very lucky to spend a brief day learning what we can from them.

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