About the session: A series of Amazigh songs, including dance songs featuring bendir accompaniment as well as tamawayt (improvised solo vocal). Recorded on the roadside near the town of El Ksiba in the Middle Atlas Mountains, Tadla-Azilal region. The bulk of this session was not recorded specifically in El Ksiba, but en route there (see Lomax's explanation, T2097, track 3). Children reciting from the Qur'an at an unidentified mosque school in El Ksiba, in the Middle Atlas Mountains. Before the colonial period, religious schools were the main source of primary education in Morocco, and remain important in teaching basic literacy in Arabic, especially in remote areas. Students learn by memorization and mass recitation (in the rhythmic cadence heard here) of surat (chapters) of the Qur'an.