African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African folklore 526
songs are sung in public on occasions of a folk nature by either a group or one individual
with a good voice. Particularly notable is the performance of funeral laments and dirges,
which are considered the province of women who excel as keeners.
The female poet-singer draws her poetical material from tradition and from a
repository of themes, idioms, and images, which she adapts to a given situation. The
same holds true for the music, which is always taken from the reserve of traditional
melodies.
Among the widespread female folk lyric genres are the ‘arubi, the mawwal, and the
swing songs; all of them are more or less associated with urban and semiurban life. The
Tunisian ‘arubi is a strophic quatrain song; the Moroccan and Algerian are more flexible
and have five to six lines in a strophe. The themes of both the ‘arubi and mawwal, whose
shorter strophe includes three to six lines, describe sorrow, loneliness, unsatisfied love,
betrayal, separation, and life and death in exile. The performers are usually gifted
nonprofessional women; sometimes two women compete, exchanging improvised verses
bound by strict rhythmic and melodic conventions.
Swing songs represent an important female repertory, which has existed in North
Africa for many centuries. These songs are performed in various local vernacular
languages on the occasion of magic, hagiographic, and games-playing rituals. In their
poetical structure close to the ‘arubi, the swing songs are performed collectively in an
alternating manner in a natural environment (meadow, waterfall, garden); their slow
rhythm is more or less molded to the range of the swaying human form. The form of the
swing songs is a good way of alleviating tension and bringing hearts together.
References
Crapanzano, Vincenzo. 1975. The Hamadsha: A Study in Moroccan Psychiatry. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Guettat, Mahmud. 1980. La musique classique du Maghreb. Paris: Sindbad Lièvre, Viviane:
Karthala. 1984. Danses du Maghreb d’une rive a l’autre. Paris.
Lachmann, Robert. 1940. Jewish Cantillation and Song in the Isle of Djerba. Jerusalem: Azriel
Press.
Lortat-Jacob, Bernard. 1980. Musique et fêtes au Haut-Atlas. Paris: Mouton/EBESS. Cahiers de
I’Homme.
Schuyler, Philip. 1974. Al-Milhun: The Fusion of Folk and Art Traditions in a Moroccan Song
Poem. Washington, D.C..
Schuyler, Philip. 1984. Berber Professional Musicians in Performance. In Performance Practice.
Ethnomusicological Perspectives, ed. G.Behague, London: Greenwood Press.
Shiloah, Amnon. 1992. Jewish Musical Traditions. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. [Reprint
in paperback 1995].
Shiloah, Amnon. 1995. Music in the World of Islam: A Socio-Cultural Study. London: Scolar Press
Yelles-Chaouche, Mourad. 1996. Les chants de Pescarpolette au Maghreb. Journal of
Mediterranean Studies, 6, no. 1:120–34.
AMNON SHILOAH
See also Maghrib; North Africa