Opening, in Larache, of the 10th International Equestrian Festival of Mata

For his part, the director of this edition, Omar Hajji, stressed that this three-day event is marked by the organization of an exhibition of local products and crafts and the official launch of the equestrian competition between riders and the participating equestrian teams, making it known that this competition will take place throughout the Festival, given that this sport constitutes a cultural heritage common to all of humanity.

The galleries of the festival will host an artistic evening presented by celebrities of ancestral popular music on October 1, as well as other activities which will consolidate this forum of heritage, noted Mr. Hajji, specifying that the festival will lower the curtain by revealing the winner of the Mata doll, a glorious moment of this diversified ancestral event, with all its cultural and social activities.

For his part, the president of the association Council of sub-Saharan migrants in Morocco (CMSM), Serge Aimé Guemou, said he was happy to participate in this festival, an opportunity to celebrate the close and deep ties between Morocco and the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, calling for the generalization of this type of initiative both in Morocco and in other African countries, in order to promote the exchange of experiences in the cultural field, particularly in the area of ​​heritage preservation.

Thousands of visitors and guests, from Morocco and abroad, flock to this forum to celebrate this popular legacy, around which many historical tales are woven and told by the women in their songs, with a reverberation of horsemen on their horse racing course.

This Festival also includes other spaces for children and the environment, as well as an exhibition of local products and crafts, an opportunity to highlight the assets of the Jbala region and its development potential.

This annual meeting celebrates an ancestral culture through which the rehabilitated sense of honor, rooted faith, and patriotism are expressed as a Sufi school, spiritual and universal value.

All around Jbel Allam, the peasants welcomed spring by playing this particularly original game which calls on the courage, the skill, the flexibility, the delicacy, the intelligence and the finesse of those who play it. indulge. It is a game where horse and rider, in perfect symbiosis, celebrate a legendary complicity and above all the ancestral culture of this extraordinary region.

Even today, and practically every year, the tradition is jealously preserved by the tribes of Bni Arous and the rules of the game scrupulously respected: following the screening of the wheat fields, first in the village of Aznid, then in d n other villages therefollowing, young girls and women of the tribe who are entrusted with this operation accompany it with their songs and their dinghies, to the sound of ghaitas and drums specific to the region.

According to oral tradition, the winner of the “MATA” game is the one who, using his skill and his boldness, will be able to snatch the doll from the other riders and take it away.