African Folklore: An Encyclopedia - Marshalls University

African Americans 829
A Narrative Genre: the Siyar
The genre is called siyar (biography). The term is used as a title of epic narratives: Sîrat
‘Antara, Sîrat Banî Hilâl, Sîrat al-Zîr Sâlim, Sîrat Sayfibn Dhî Yazan, and so on.
Interestingly enough, siyar, as derived from sarâ (to walk, or to behave) applies, in its
physical and moral senses, both to movement and behavior. Thus, the genre lends itself to
a biographical (or allegedly biographical) narrative about a distinguished figure of the
past. The narration follows the course of an entire life, or even of successive lives
through several generations within a family, extended sometimes to a whole people.
Perceived as biographical, a siyar represents, in the eyes of its most fervent devotees,
their true history. These are legendary biographies, in which history is reinterpreted for
the purposes of the genre.
Diffusion of the Siyar
These epic narratives have been spread through various modes of transmission, including
oral performances (with or without musical accompaniment), manuscript, and (at least
from the eighteenth century onwards) printed versions. Unlike the others, one siyar, the
story of the Banû Hilâl (the Sons of Hilal) is still a living oral tradition. In Upper Egypt,
the musician-poets sing versions entirely in verse, using the local dialect and
skillfully combining memory and improvisation (Canova 1996). In a village of the Nile
Delta, a hundred hours, on average, are needed for one of the fourteen “poets” to sing this
epic to an audience (Reynolds 1995). In Tunisia, the Hilalian oral tradition, which is no
longer musical, survives in the form of poetry or, more frequently, prose interspersed
with rhymed prose (saj’) and poetry. In Algeria and Morocco, the siyar is broken into
small tales centered on two main sequences that deal with antagonistic relationships, one
between the favorite hero, Dhyâb, and heroine, Jâzya (usually before they get married),
and one between father and son, Ghânim and Dhyâb (Nacib 1994; Galley and Iraqi-
Sinaceur 1994). In the societies south of the Sahara (e.g., Darfour, Kordofan, Bornou,
Chad, Mali) several episodes of the siyar have been popular (MacMichael 1912; Carbou
1913; Patterson 1930; Connelly 1973).
Sîrat Banî Hilâl: Its Historical Substratum
The most popular cycle of the Hilalian tale is the third and last part of the whole siyar,
known as the March Westwards (tagh-rîba). Historically, the Banû Hilâl constitute the
second wave of Arab conquerors who spread westwards and settled in northern Africa in
the fifth century of the Hegira. They were originally a nomadic people who, in the
previous century, had arrived in Egypt in great numbers, fleeing the deserts of Arabia
because of drought. There, they were exhorted by the Fatimid ruler of Cairo to head for
Ifrîqiyya (present-day Tunisia). Strikingly enough, the various sociopolitical reasons for
the event are completely absent from the narrative. Stress is laid, instead, on their living