Siwa

Margaret M. Vale

Description

The timeless allure of Siwa through its traditional crafts, and the history and customs in which they are rooted
Siwa is a remote oasis deep in the heart of the Egyptian desert near the border with Libya. Until an asphalt road was built to the Mediterranean coast in the 1980s, its only links to the outside world were by arduous camel tracks. As a result of this isolation, Siwa developed a unique culture manifested in its crafts of basketry, pottery, and embroidery and in its styles of costume and silverwork. The most visible and celebrated example of this was the silver jewelery that was worn by women in abundance at weddings and other ceremonies.
Based on conversations with women and men in the oasis and with reference to old texts, this book describes the jewelery and costume at this highpoint of Siwan culture against the backdrop of its date gardens and springs, social life, and dramatic history. It places the women's jewelery, costume, and embroidery into social perspective, and describes how they were used in ceremonies and everyday life and how they were related to their beliefs and attitudes to the world.
The book also describes how, in the second half of the twentieth century, the arrival of the road and of television brought drastic change, and the oasis was exposed to the styles and fashions of the outside world and how the traditional silver ornaments were gradually replaced by gold.
Introduction
1. North African Jewelry and Textiles
The Oasis
2. History and Tradition
3. The Oasis of Siwa
4. Camels and Cargoes
5. Siwa Town
6. The World of Women
Yesterday
7. Motifs and Magic
8. Marriage Yesterday
9. The Jewelry of Siwa
10. Silver Ornaments and Colored Beads
11. The Silversmiths
12. From Silver to Gold
Today
13. Everyday and Festive Dress
14. Wedding Costumes
15. The Wedding: Betrothal, Trousseau, and Marriage Payment
16. The Wedding: Preparations
17. The Wedding: Ceremonies
18. Winds of Change
Glossary
Motifs and Meanings
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Loisirs
• Artisanat
• Middle East
• Travel
• Egypt

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781617976445
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Siwa
Siwa
Jewelry, Costume, and Life in an Egyptian Oasis
Margaret Vale
The American University in Cairo Press Cairo New York
This electronic edition published in 2015 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com
Copyright 2011, 2014 by Margaret Mary Vale
First published in paperback in 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978 977 416 681 5
eISBN 9781 61797 644 5
Version 1
For my family And in memory of my beloved parents and brother
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. North African Jewelry and Textiles
The Oasis
2. History and Tradition
3. The Oasis of Siwa
4. Camels and Cargoes
5. Siwa Town
6. The World of Women
Yesterday
7. Motifs and Magic
8. Marriage Yesterday
9. The Jewelry of Siwa
10. Silver Ornaments and Colored Beads
11. The Silversmiths
12. From Silver to Gold
Today
13. Everyday and Festive Dress
14. Wedding Costumes
15. The Wedding: Betrothal, Trousseau, and Marriage Payment
16. The Wedding: Preparations
17. The Wedding: Ceremonies
18. Winds of Change
Glossary
Motifs and Meanings
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
I have many people to thank for their help in writing this book, which came about through several years of visiting Siwa. My thanks go first and foremost to Asmaa who generously shared her knowledge of the Oasis. She also gave me friendship and wonderful hospitality. Ahmed Ali Heda taught me about Siwa and its history, and Mahdi Huweiti gave me constant help, patient support, and encouragement. Senoussi Abdallah Abdel-Magid, and his mother-granddaughter of the silversmith Senoussi Daddoum Aani (Gab Gab)-were always helpful, and enthusiastic about the project. I thank them all for their patience because this book was a long time in the making. I also very much appreciated the help, and the warm and generous hospitality given me by their families. I cannot thank them enough.
I also want to express my thanks to Abu Bakr Ismail, curator of the Siwa House Museum, and Hassan Muhammad Ahmed Jerry, who was then working there. I appreciated being allowed to photograph artefacts, and learn about them in such a welcoming and delightful environment. I owe a debt of gratitude to many people in Siwa who helped me in one way or another and I thank Dr. Abd El-Aziz Aldumairy, Abdallah Abu Bakr Twati, Muhammad Ibrahim Eissa, Abdallah Baghi, Muhammad Ibrahim Moussa, Muhammad Moussa, and Muhammad Zeit. Hadi Muhammad Hameyid and Hajj Mustapha, Mansour A. Gomaa, and Saleh Ibrahim Abdel-Salam gave me useful ideas during informal conversations. I also want to thank the two young Siwan women working for the Siwa and Tangier Project at the Siwa House Museum for the help they gave me.
In Alexandria I was so grateful to a neighbor of the silversmith Master Amin, who left his office to translate for me. In Kerdassa, Muhammad Said Eissa kindly showed me around his family s weaving workshop and introduced me to the weavers. In his shop, Mustapha Hudeib kindly answered my questions about the tarfutet.
I am most grateful to Mariam Rosser-Owen and Marianne Ellis at the Victoria and Albert Museum-Marianne Ellis kindly examined items of Siwan dress to tell me the names of the stitches that had been used. Thanks are due to Julie Hudson at the British Museum, and Amelia Maclellan and Kathie Way at the Natural History Museum in London. I also thank weaver Bobbie Kociejowski, Victoria Connolly, and Valerie Barkowski, who in separate conversations, gave me invaluable suggestions. I thank the reviewers for the American University in Cairo for their useful comments on a copy of the manuscript in 2006.
In the Anthropology Library of the British Museum the staff was of great help. I would also like to thank staff at the Royal Geographical Society for all their assistance; Joy Wheeler, of the Image Department, kindly responded to my requests for pictures
As I have been writing this book, friends and family have encouraged me, offered support, and made useful suggestions, and I particularly want to thank my friend Dr. Leila Chakravarti. My brother John, who did the skilful drawings, was always patient and understanding. And thanks are due to my husband Brian, for his help and support.
My deepest gratitude goes to the Siwan women who befriended me. I cannot thank them enough; they introduced me to their crafts, customs, and ceremonies, and showed me hospitality, generosity, and tolerance. I hope they will feel I did their handicrafts justice, and will excuse any inadequacies.
In the text, pseudonyms are used for women because of their protected status in the oasis, and for men when only a first name is given.
Introduction
S iwa is an isolated oasis in the heart of the Western Desert of Egypt, close to the Libyan border. It is a place of great natural beauty set among palm and olive groves, and inhabited by a people of Berber origin. My interest in Siwa began in the 1980s. At that time, the oasis was distant and inaccessible, cut off without rail or road links to the outside world. Historically, its connections with other places had been through camel caravans, seasonal labor migration, and its position on the annual pilgrimage route from the Maghreb to the Red Sea and thence to Mecca, but, in the mid-1980s, things were changing: electricity and television had already arrived, and a tarmac road from the coast was completed. My first visit to Siwa took place with a group of friends within months of the road opening, after we had obtained written permission from the authorities. It was only after hours of driving through empty desert on a long straight road that we caught our first glimpse of its date groves and olive trees, its springs and salt lakes, and its spectacular mud walls, towers, and houses.
It was inevitable that improved access by road would precipitate a radical change in a lifestyle that had developed for centuries in semiisolation. And when, in 1999, I returned for a stay of three months, the first of six visits (between 1999 and 2013), it was clear that this expectation was being fulfilled. Siwans were beginning to enjoy the new benefits of more modern forms of housing; jobs in tourism, hotels, shops, and government offices; income from the sale of their crafts to tourists; and the promise of an easier life. But there were concerns that their community was losing its unique character, customs, and values. There was a feeling of optimism for the future, but at the same time nostalgia for the Siwa of the past. People were beginning to wonder what the future would bring for their children. Conservationists were also worried by the construction of cement buildings, for it is the traditional mud architecture as well as the antiquities, the springs, the palm gardens, the lakes, and the surrounding desert landscape that give the place its character. There was even a fear that some of the palm or olive gardens might be cleared for development.
Tourism had begun to transform the Siwans colorful and distinctive crafts: pottery, baskets, silver jewelry, and embroidery had been produced for their own use for generations. The most significant-not to say famous-traditional feature of Siwa was the unique style of its silver jewelry. Developed over centuries of semi-isolation, its main attributes are a pendant disc which can reach the size of a saucer; a torque; long chains that fall from necklaces and head ornaments; bosses; and plaques engraved with astral, floral, and vegetal patterns.
My interest in Middle Eastern jewelry began in 1975 when my family and I went to live in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. The price of oil had gone up by four hundred percent only the year before, and the kingdom suddenly found itself rich. The traditional nature of Saudi society soon ensured that money percolated down into every nook and cranny, causing dramatic changes in the lives of the people. The desert Bedouin were probably affected the most, many exchanging their nomadic existence for a settled lifestyle and moving from black tents to houses built of clay bricks or cinder block. Some moved into towns and cities where they could earn a regular wage or drive taxis. Others worked for the oil companies, sending money back to their families, who were sometimes still living in tents, to pay for unprecedented luxuries such as refrigerators, stoves, and pick-up trucks. Mass-produced goods began to flood in from overseas, displacing the traditional products of local silversmiths, metal workers, weavers, and potters. And the souqs in the towns and cities were soon brimming with glittering machine-made gold and other fashionable items.
Foreigners in Riyadh were, however, still enthralled by the traditional crafts of the kingdom, especially the spectacular silver and base-metal jewelry. Visiting the corner of the souq in Riyadh where jewelry and fabrics were sold and meeting with the veiled women merchants who were selling embroidered Bedouin dresses and silver ornaments from metal bowls was always an enjoyable experience. That said, it was also somewhat frustrating because, in addition to its visual appeal, it was clear that the jewelry and embroideries contained intriguing forms and motifs whose meaning could only be discovered by understanding more about the social backgrounds and traditions of the women who wore them. Although I had a particular rapport with two of the women and learned as much as I could about the jewelry, I did not have the opportunity to look into it any further.
In the 1980s, I was able to continue my interest in traditional crafts when I spent four years in Egypt. The Souq al-Sagha of Cairo and the Souq al-Attarine in Alexan