What do I mean by scholarly research? I'm assuming here a category of information which has been researched in the field and carries with it a high degree of authority. The authority usually is derived from having lived among the Gnawa for many years or being a Moroccan a for example. I was told by a scholar who attended a conference on slavery held in Essaouira (during the Gnawa Festival) that not a single Gnawa was invited to the proceedings, though many of the papers presented were about them. This is not to undermine the insightful work offered by some of these scholars but to remind the CyberGnawa Surfer that one should awake when anyone claims to "represent" another. Truly this is where we encounter the profound limitations of intercultural communications as we know it. And yet, many of these sites reflect a vibrant and active engagement with the Gnawa. Do they bring us closer to "understanding" the world view of the Gnawa? Do they offer models of intercultural communication? Is having Gnawa music samples enough of a voice?

The Gnawa and their Lila: an Afro-Maghrebi Ritual Tradition by Dr. Tim Fulson. Fulson is a ethnomusicologist with UC Berkeley who is married to a Gnawa and has lived in Marrakech. He has been involved with Gnawa music for several years both through research in Morocco and by performing in the San Francisco area with the Moroccan ensemble Marhaba. This small article makes a couple of interesting points. It gives you a well rounded overview of the historic and linguistic origins of the Gnawa, and it discusses the recent revaluation of the status of the Gnawa's in Moroccan society. This last point is no not often found in most websites that I have visited. There's a lot about the Gnawa fusing their music elements with western forms but not about their Moroccan identity.

Gnawa: Moroccan Blues, an Historical Background by Chouki El Hamel. El Hamel is a Moroccan scholar based in in the US. This essay does two interesting things: it links American Blues to the Gnawa tradition and it presents a couple of songs in translation. This is rare in the Web.

University of Wisconsin at Madison: Small article on the Gnawa and Hassan Hakmoun. Putting the two together is interesting since it gives the impression that he is the best representative of the Gnawa tradition. Since he does not live in Morocco anymore this to me seems a provocative assumption.

Brittanica.com: Article about Hassan Hakmoun as the forefront innovator of Gnawa Music. Once again he is presented as the representative of Gnawa culture. Would all Gnawas agree?

Dar Gnawa Page: M'alem Abdellah Boulkhair El Gourd is a Master healer Gnawa musician born in 1947 in the Kasbah of Tangier, Morocco.This page is about him and his brotherhood who are primarily known for their association with Jazz legend Randy Weston. This site is full of photographs and cultural information. An essay written by Rober Palmer talks about the need of the Gnawa not just to communicate with the North but also to return to their African roots. This is a fascinating point for it puts in context a chain of relationships. The North looks toward the Gnawa as representatives of an "authentic" oral tradition which might bring them closer to their pre-modern days just as the Gnawa look toward their origins in Sub-Saharan Africa' as a source for their search for tradition, authenticity and connection. This idea demysitifies the Gnawa by showing them to have the simialar dilemnas as those living in the West. Displacement and Modernity in this context seem to be Universal traits.

Nathaniel E. Mackey: Professor of Literature at UC Santa Cruz who presents a small page about the Gnawa (without mentioning why) and a link to a Catholic University Project on Moroccan music which has minimal info and features Hassan Hakmoun.

Maroctunes: this page is part of larger site dedicated to Moroccan popular music. The information is in-depth with lots of Arabic terminologies which brings to the small essay a layer of authenticity and authority.

Lapassade: French Sociologist Georges Lapassade's introduction to an art book about Essaouira Artists in which he retells his travels in the late sixties and his encounters with the Gnawa.

UNESCO: On 18 March 2001, UNESCO for the first time awarded the title of "Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity" to 19 outstanding cultural spaces or forms of expression from the different regions of the world. One of them is the famous Jami'al-Fna square in Marrakech where the Gnawa and other cultures perform. In the introductory remarks to the 2001 UNESCO conference, Juan Goytisolo retells his encounter with these oral cultures more than a quarter century ago and points to the influence of radio in the acceleration of oral hybridity.

The Gnawa Language: Abstract from a paper dealing with the transcription and analysis of Gnawa lyrics by Jordi Aguade. The abstract reveals a different interpretation of the origins of the name "Gnawa"; it comes from the Berber term "ignawen" which means "the mutes". There is no further explanation.

Essaouira-online: Detailed essay on the different Gnawa families in Essaouira by Abdelkadir Namir. He also interprets the term Gnawa to come from the Berber language which refers to anyone they couldn't communicate with. The irony here is that the terms Berber comes from the Greek "Barbarians" (designating the other) by way of Arabic and finally French. It places the term Gnawa inside a larger colonial narrative.

Antonio Baldassare: Italian ethnomusicologist who has been studying and promoting Moroccan popular Sufi music since 1978 with an emphasis on the Gnawa and women. This detailed essay with mp3 music traces his collaboration with a group of women singers from Marrakech. Also you can read an excellent review of a 5 cd compilation of Gnawa Lilas that produced by Baldassare. The review by professor Phil Schuyler from the University of Maryland at Baltimore places these recording within the recent explosion of Gnawa recordings. He also points out that one of the CD's is entirely dedicated to female spirits: "The Yellow Suite--which might actually be termed polychrome, since it includes lavender, pink and other pastel colors--is devoted entirely to female spirits, whose personalities range from coquettish to terrifying." This is the first mention of "lavender" and "pink" colors in a Lila. This leads the reviewer to conclude that the Gnawa should not be referred to as a "brotherhood". Do the Gnawas refer themselves as "brotherhood"? The absence of Gnawa voices on the web makes this question difficult to answer.