THE HOUSE — THE AMAZIGH WORLD
Imazighen, the free people.
Amazigh — plural Imazighen — is the name the indigenous peoples of North Africa give themselves, from the Moroccan Atlas to the oases of Egypt. By the most widely held etymology, it means "free man". We chose it for what it stands for: a land, a language, and the gestures that still set the pace of the harvest in Tagzirt.
THE SIGN
ⵣ, the standing man.
The letter ⵣ — yaz — belongs to Tifinagh, the alphabet of Tamazight. It has become the emblem of Amazigh identity: many read in it the figure of a man standing, arms open to the sky. It sits at the heart of our brand.
Since 2011, Tamazight has been an official language of Morocco, alongside Arabic.
THE MOTIFS
The weavers' writing.
Lozenges, chevrons, sawtooth lines, chequerboards: Amazigh rugs, pottery and jewellery share one geometric vocabulary, handed down from hand to hand and valley to valley. Each region has its own grammar, and the readings given to it vary from one family to the next.
The friezes running through this site and across our labels borrow their shape, not their secret: we will not give each sign a meaning we have made up.
TIWIZI
Mutual aid, the way we harvest.
Amazigh means the free people. Tiwizi is the word those same people give to mutual aid: at harvest, hands move from plot to plot, and what is received is returned. It is not local colour — it is how the work is organised here, declared and paid, and the reason we pick by hand instead of chasing the machine.
In practice: the harvest is done by many hands, it is declared and paid, and nobody climbs a tree to beat it. It is slower than a vibrating comb, and that is exactly why we do it — a beaten tree gives less the following year.
YENNAYER
The calendar of the fields.
The Amazigh farming year opens with Yennayer, New Year's Day, celebrated around 13 January. In Morocco, Yennayer has been a national public holiday since 2024, on 14 January. The Amazigh year is counted by convention from 950 BCE: January 2027 will open the year 2977.
Above all, it is a calendar of work. It marks the time for ploughing, the time for sowing, and the time for the olive harvest, which closes the autumn — when the fruit is ready, and not before.
A SHORT GLOSSARY
The words of the olive grove.
A few words of Tamazight, as you hear them around the olive grove. Forms change from one valley to the next; we give the most common ones, in Latin letters.
- azul
- "hello" — the first word of welcome
- tamazirt
- the country, the homeland
- adrar
- the mountain
- asif
- the river
- aman
- water
- tafukt
- the sun
- tazemmurt
- the olive tree
- azemmur
- olives, the fruit
- tiwizi
- mutual aid, shared work
- Yennayer
- January, and New Year's Day