One of the heroes of resistance to Spanish and French colonial expansion in Morocco, Mohammed Ben Abdelkrim El Khattabi has become legendary for the local people in the Rif area of Morocco, within national history and at the transnational level. Since the 1920’s the narratives and stories revolving around Abdelkrim have metamorphosed in complex and multilayered ways revealing different forms of politics, interpretations and struggles that continue to manifest themselves even in the 21st century. In the more recent social uprisings in the Rif between between October 2016 and June 2017 and coomonly known as Hirak , the images and memory of Abdelkrim were ever present as symbols of contestation in the streets of Huceima and other towns in the area. The purpose of this paper is trace the different historical natives and conflicting interpretations that frame the story of Abdelkrim and to unravel the ways in which this history is evoked, marginalized, appropriated, instrumentalized or distorted. How did colonial and nationalist discourses represent Abdelkrim? How does he become the symbol of subaltern voices? How does his story take on a transnational dimension? What are the excesses or silences imbedded in the story about Abdelkrim? I will deal with these questions from an ethnohistorical perspective that takes into consideration not only the historical and political contexts of Abdelkrim’s story but also the discursive and symbolic dimensions through which it has been articulated.