Bujlood

What it is

Bujlood is a folk celebration kept by Amazigh, or Berber, communities in Morocco. It belongs to Eid al-Adha, the feast at which a sheep, a goat or other livestock is killed. Once the meat has been dealt with, the skin is put to a second use: someone pulls it over their body, adds a mask, and becomes a strange animal figure for the day. The name is usually explained as 'father of pelts', from the Arabic words for father and skins. In Tamazight the same figure is called Bilmawen, and ilmawn there means skins.

How it is kept

The celebration takes the form of a carnival, and it is usually held the day after the Eid. Young people, mostly, dress in the skins, masks and costumes and set off around their neighbourhood. Some carry legs or other parts of the animals killed for the feast, using them to touch the people they meet and chasing those who run. Bystanders are meant to laugh rather than take offence. The masked figure is wild on purpose, and the costume is worn to startle. The aim, as the sources put it, is laughter and high spirits.

Origins and debate

No one agrees on where the custom comes from, and the sources set out several readings. Two French ethnologists, Edmond Doutté and Émile Laoust, linked it to older Amazigh rites that marked the turning of the seasons and the idea of death followed by rebirth. The Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck saw a resemblance to the Roman festival of Saturnalia. The Moroccan anthropologist Abdellah Hammoudi rejected those readings. In his essay The Victim and Its Masks he argues that the practice belongs to Morocco and cannot be pulled apart from the Eid sacrifice. Hassan Rachik has also written about sacrifice among Amazigh mountain communities.

Comparison with Krampus

Writers on the subject often place Bujlood beside Krampus, the masked figure of the Advent season in Austria and South Tyrol, and call the two sister traditions. The beliefs behind each are not the same, yet the shape of the thing is alike: skins, masks and bells, a character who is wild and out of order, and a procession in which that character comes close to the crowd and gives them a fright. Both, according to this line of argument, are thought to reach back to pagan customs older than Christianity or Islam.

Music and objections

Not everyone welcomes the practice. Some local Islamic scholars have argued that it is not permissible, because it makes people resemble animals, because the pelt is unclean against the body, and because getting in and out of the costume takes time and breaks the rhythm of prayer. Conservative Sunni scholarship has gone further and called it a leftover of paganism. The custom has also found its way into music. The Master Musicians of Joujouka, a Sufi group, have made recordings about it, among them one titled Boujeloud.

How Bujlood is kept

After the Eid sacrifice, the skins are kept. A day later, or soon after, young people in the community put them on, add masks and costumes, and walk or dance through the streets in a group. Some of them carry the legs of the slaughtered animals and use them to touch passers-by, who dodge and laugh. The figure is meant to be unsettling and funny at once. The whole event is a procession rather than a staged show, and neighbours join in as it passes.

When and where

Bujlood is tied to Eid al-Adha rather than to a date of its own. The sources say the carnival usually happens the day after the feast, when the pelts of the sacrificed animals are still to hand.

It is kept in parts of Morocco among Amazigh, or Berber, communities. The sources do not give every region where it appears. Agadir is named as one place where people celebrate it. Wikidata records Morocco as its country of origin, and the article describes the custom as Moroccan.

What Bujlood means

For those who keep it, the mask turns the wearer into something wild and laughing, a figure that overturns ordinary behaviour for a day. The pelts come straight from the sacrifice, so the feast and the carnival are joined. Ethnologists have read the figure as a sign of the seasons turning and of death followed by rebirth. The anthropologist Abdellah Hammoudi, however, treats it as a Moroccan practice that cannot be separated from the sacrifice itself.

Days Bujlood is marked

Questions people ask about Bujlood

See also

MawlidAn annual festival marking the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, observed with poetry, feasts and processions across the MuTan-Tan MoussemAn annual gathering of Saharan nomadic tribes with music, trading and equestrian artsMimounaA Maghrebi Jewish celebration marking the end of Passover with sweets and open doorsZajalHalf-sung Arabic poetry in colloquial speech, traded as a duel between improvising poets

Good reading and sources

• Boujloud: Morocco’s unique HalloweenAl Jazeera, Article
• Boujloud: Morocco’s unique HalloweenAl Jazeera, Article

• Bujlood on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.