African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 1037
WOMEN’S FOLKLORE: ERITREA
Eritrean women comprise approximately 50 percent of the total population. Before
independence, the society was quite different from what it is now economically,
politically and socioculturally. These changes started to appear before independence in
1991, as the area liberated during the war was already changing in many ways, due to the
inability of the enemy to interfere in these areas. The status of women and their rights in
the society was a prominent change. The main reason for this is that the Eritrean women
fought alongside the men for independence.
Before independence, Eritrean women were victims of cultural and colonial
oppression. The Italian, the British and Ethiopian colonial powers deprived them of their
rights in their own country. The only option offered to women was to serve the colonizers
as housemaids. The native patriarchal system of Eritrea also deprived them of equal
rights with men in political, social, cultural and economic life. Women could not receive
inheritances in a fashion equal to men, nor were they allowed to participate equally in
political affairs. They were considered socially and culturally inferior to men.
Today in post-independence Eritrea, women participate in many areas of society once
reserved exclusively for men. Eritrean women have made significant accomplishments
through their participation in the independence war, yet, equality with men at all levels of
the society calls for a continuous fight against oppressive institutions, such as arranged
and underage marriages and female genital operations.
Eritrean folklore affords an opportunity to examine the lives of Eritrean woman before
independence was gained, and patriarchal oppression was eased. Girls were not allowed
to choose their mate; parents arranged marriages. Women’s frustration at this state of
affairs is reflected in the songs girls traditionally sang when they saw off a friend after
her wedding day, as she moved to her husband’s house. One such song contains the
lyrics:
My friends are we like this?
Why do they give us away?
Like a goat’s baby,
Which is dragged away.
Another song, also sung by the bride’s friends, advise her to be wise and observant of
what the in-laws, might do to her:
Go with them,
But smile while at the same time
Observing what they do to you.