砂漠の民の伝統「サンドホッケー」　モロッコ

【ムハミドエルギズラン（モロッコ）ＡＦＰ＝時事】サハラ砂漠の西端にあるモロッコのオアシスの町で、ターバンを巻きチュニックを着た遊牧民たちが伝統的なスポーツ「サンドホッケー」に興じている。（写真はモロッコ・ムハミドエルギズランでサンドホッケーをする人）
　アラビア語のハッサニア方言で「ｍｏｋｈａｃｈａ」と呼ばれるサンドホッケーは古くに伝わったもので、芝の上で行うホッケーやアイスホッケーと多くの共通点がある。選手ははだしで、ヤシの木で作ったスティックを持ち、ラクダの毛を丸めたボールを追う。
　南部ムハミドエルギズランで５月１日、恒例の国際遊牧民フェスティバルが開催された。
　イベントの一環として行われたサンドホッケー大会に参加した男性は「私たちの先祖は遊牧民で、野営地を決めたらまず一休みし、それから暇つぶしに対戦した」「サンドホッケーはサハラの伝統の一部だ」と話した。
　試合の参加者は、砂漠の強い日差しから身を守るため、遊牧民たちが好むゆったりとしたチュニックを着用し、頭と顔にはターバンを巻いている。
　１チームには少なくとも７人の選手がいる。コートラインは砂に大ざっぱに手書きされる。
　「遊牧民のホッケー」とも呼ばれるサンドホッケーは、他の伝統的スポーツと同様、失われつつある。
　伝統スポーツの保存と振興を行う団体のトップは、「関心を持ってもらう」ために大会を企画し、試合への参加を呼び掛けていると話した。
　英国にある「世界初で唯一」のホッケー博物館によると、サンドホッケーは他のホッケーと同じくらい長い歴史がある。同館のウェブサイトには、エチオピアやチュニジアにもサンドホッケーがあると記されている。
　国際遊牧民フェスティバルの参加者は、アイスホッケーとサンドホッケーのどちらが古いかは分からないが、「西洋人も自分たちと同じようなスポーツをしていたとは、昔の遊牧民は当然ながら知らなかったはずだ」と言った。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/06/15-16:40）

In a Moroccan oasis town on the edge of the Sahara, nomads in turbans and tunics are thwacking a camel-wool ball across the desert in a traditional pastime: sand hockey.
Similar in many ways to field and ice hockey, but played barefoot and with palm wood sticks, the ancient game is called mokhacha in the local Hassani Arabic dialect.
We play mokhacha in our spare time, said one participant, Hamadi Boudani, at the recent International Nomads Festival in the southern town of M'hamid El Ghizlane.
Our ancestors were nomads and as soon as they pitched their camp somewhere they would first rest and then, to pass the time, they would start a game, he said.
This game is part of Saharan tradition.
The players were cheered on by enthusiastic fans as they churned up the sand in what was once a stop on the storied caravan route to Timbuktu.
They were wearing the daraa, an ample tunic favoured by nomadic tribes, and the cheche cloth turban to cover their heads and faces from the desert sun.
The two teams, one in white the other in blue, had a go at it on May 1, during the annual Nomads Festival which also celebrates song and dance and other desert traditions.
Each team is made up of at least seven players, the outline of the pitch is crudely traced by hand in the sand, and the referee is simply known as the sheikh.
- 'Ancestral heritage' -
Sand hockey is part of our ancestral heritage, said Rachid Laghouanm who heads an association that promotes traditional sports and games in M'hamid El Ghizlane.
It was handed down from father to son, and it is vital that it does not disappear, he said.
But like other popular or traditional games and sports, nomad hockey as it is often called, is fading into oblivion.
We are trying to create awareness about the game by organising competitions and encouraging players to join them, said Laghouanem.
According to the UK-based Hockey Museum, which says it is the first and only museum of hockey in the world, sand hockey has been around as long as any form of hockey has been in existence.
Forms of sand hockey are also enjoyed in Ethiopia, where it is called Genna, and in Tunisia under the name of Oggaf, the museum says on its website.
These and the Moroccan version, it says, date back over hundreds of years and a number of these games are still thriving, almost unchanged, to this day.
Other experts believe that hockey's precursor was a stick-and-ball game with origins as far back as ancient Greece and Egypt.
Boudani says he does not know which came first, sand, field or ice hockey. But what is clear to him is that the nomads had no means of knowing that Westerners had a similar game.