By Rebecca Haile

This StoryMap explores the role of women in preserving cultural memory and oral tradition across Morocco and Ethiopia. Focusing on Amazigh communities in the Atlas Mountains and Indigenous groups such as the Amhara, Oromo, and Beta Israel in Ethiopia, the project sheds light on how women serve as vital transmitters of identity, spirituality, and history.

Through song, storytelling, ritual practice, and community leadership, women maintain the threads of tradition that connect past to present. Whether it’s sung poetry performed by Amazigh women in the Anti-Atlas or the healing chants and oral genealogies passed down by Ethiopian women, these practices offer insight into how culture is preserved and adapted in response to political upheaval, migration, and modernization.

Spanning rural highlands and urban centers like Casablanca and Addis Ababa, the StoryMap draws from historical texts, ethnographic studies, and oral histories to show how women navigate changing social landscapes while keeping core cultural values alive. Their contributions often unfold beyond the reach of official institutions yet remain central to the life and identity of their communities. By highlighting these everyday acts of cultural care, the project encourages viewers to rethink whose voices we preserve and whose knowledge we value. It positions women not just as keepers of the past but as active participants in shaping cultural futures across two of Africa’s most complex and resilient regions.