traditional Bedouin mourning poetry
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on February 24, 2000 at 01:05:56:
In Reply to: mourning patterns? :-( posted by Anne on February 23, 2000 at 23:33:03:
I have Yemini patterns, but I've got to go out to do lectures until
Sunday .... so I can't get them out to you until next week.....
Henna is, as far as I can tell, really not ever used in any tradition
in mourning. It's very closely connected with the celebration of
life, love, passion, joy .... and is used on all those occasions. I
read last night a specific note (Moroccan) on why henna is not used
all the time: being full of "Baraka" (blessedness), to use it all the
time is to waste your limited and finite resource of cosmic goodness
on times that are tedious .... and it can be truely an affront to the
source of blessedness to use it on occasions of grief or periods of
abstinance (like Ramadan or during a pilgrimage).
That's a traditional view .... not that I'm asking you to not honor
Ofra Haza's passing. If you wish to honor any occasion by hennaeing,
and tradition is not a concern ... that seems fine to me . I'll try
to work up some patterns for grieving, but it will take a bit of
doing. I think we have all her CD's and she was absolutely stunning!
It is very sad to hear she has passed.
Among the Bedouin, women are very fond of their special grieving
traditions .... it involves going home to visit relatives, hugging and
wailing .... and their word for it is "to share weeping". I really
like the idea of "shared weeping". They stop wearing red, or henna for
the grieving time, and wear instead white or black, as a sign of
withdrawal from the pleasures of life, as if they have temporarilly
lost interest in life. When the mourning period is over, everyone
hennaes again. If a woman's husband does not permit her to return to
her tribe when there has been a death, so she can "share weeping" with
her family, she has cause for a great deal of grumbling.
In Bedouin groups, language about feelings and sorrow is very
constricted by a sense that honor is upheld by control over one's
feelings .... so when the women have tremendous sorrow, they express
it by quoting poetry and bits of songs.
Some of their traditional poetry about grief, that would be apt to be
sung by women when they are full of emotion and sorrow are:
"Patience is my mourning for the loved one
and your job, oh eye, is to cry...."
on trying to not weep:
"Oh eyes be strong
you cherish people and then they're gone...."
"Memories stirred of the beloved
should I release, I'm flooded by them...."
"Terrible torment fills the heart
brought on by despair and no other ...
Forgotten not a single day
just a patient mastering of despair...."
on memories of people who have died
"Dear ones deprive me of sleep
just as I drift off, they come to mind..."
More? "Veiled Sentiments, Honor and Poetry in a Bedouin Society" by
Lila Abu-Lughod
It is, however sometimes appropriate to henna the deceased so they
will make a favorable impression arring at their new home.
- Re: traditional Bedouin mourning poetry Anne 22:29:26 2/24/00
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