Ouled Nail

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Dancer of the Ouled Nail

The Ouled Nail ( Arabic أولاد نايل, DMG Awlād Nāyil ) are a semi-nomadic Arab tribal confederation living in the Sahara Atlas in Algeria .

Life

The Ouled Nail live in the vicinity of the towns of El Djelfa , Chellala and Bou Saada in the Ouled Nail Mountains , part of the Sahara Atlas. Their tents are striped red and black. Unless they are sedentary, they make a living from raising cattle and making carpets. They originally come from a mountainous desert region and claim to be descended from the Prophet Mohammed .

Dances

An Ouled Nail man in Biskra . Studio portrait of the French photographer Auguste Maure around 1875

The Ouled Nail are famous for their dancers. Unlike in the Middle East, a woman who danced professionally had no problems with her reputation with them. On the contrary, dancing was seen as a respected profession that young girls could practice without disabilities. Most of the time they left their rural surroundings and settled in larger cities to dance. They were accompanied by grandmothers, mothers or aunts who also acted as " chaperones ". They invested their merits in necklaces, necklaces and jewelery with which they adorned themselves and which at the same time made their wealth and dowry visible. If this was high enough, they had no problem finding a husband and getting married. If they had a child beforehand, they could keep it.

The women mostly danced in pairs. Typical of her dance style are fluttering hand and finger movements, small grinding steps to the side and forwards and sliding her head.

Western Algeria visitors were fascinated by the jewelry and the self-confident demeanor of the Ouled Nail girls as dancers. In 1914, Frank Edward Johnson described it in National Geographic Magazine :

“The (woman of) Ouled Nail, with her gold embroidered robe made of bright purple, her soft silk scarf made of the most delicate blue, ... her wide golden belt with its countless chains and pendants, the necklace made of coins, the bangles made of silver and gold and the jewelry crowned hair is the embodiment of the dreamlike Orient (engl: is the personification of the gorgeous East ) "

- Frank Edward Johnson : The National Geographic Magazine, January 1914

Painters and photographers such as Rudolf Franz Lehnert , Auguste Maure and Nasreddine Dinet made numerous portraits of Ouled Nail girls.

Woman of the Ouled Nail in Algeria

During the French occupation, the dancers had many regular customers among the French military. After the colonial era , however, they were only allowed to appear at family celebrations and in local settings.

Today only a few girls are still active as dancers. Their clothing has also changed, although traditional costumes are still in use. Brocade fabric , silk , golden tiaras and coin garlands are used less often. Today the dancers usually wear several covers of translucent clothing, sometimes wrapped in a palla , and their turbans and headscarves are made of synthetic material. Some dancers also wear a transparent veil , others do not wear a headgear. Dancers who sing at the same time can charge higher fees and practice their profession for longer.

The most famous dancers and musicians of the Ouled Nail live in Bou Saada . Their performances often begin with a procession led by the musicians. The performance is heralded by the oboe-like ghaita and ululating of the women. On the stage, dancers and musicians sit together on a platform, while the soloists and dance groups step out individually. The men of the Ouled Nail also dance, they perform a dance with guns and cover the lower half of their face with their headgear.

The different tribes meet on holidays and festivals in Chellala and pitch their tents there together. During the "Carpet Festival" they perform their dances informally for carpet dealers and buyers. Each tent accommodates a group of musicians, dancers and singers, sometimes a crier standing in front of it advertises customers. The dancers are mostly women who perform belly dances and sometimes also try to find wealthy regular customers.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ouled Nails  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica, Ouled Nail
  2. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica: El-Djelfa
  3. ↑ Lazreg, Marnia. 1994. The Eloquence of Silence: Algerian Women in Question. New York: Routledge at: [1]
  4. ↑ Halima, Journal for Oriental Dance, Lexicon ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ↑ The Ouled Nail (Engl.)