Palestinian hikaye
As a hikaye ( Arabic حكاية' DMG ḥikāya ' story, narrative ') are folk tales handed down orally by the Palestinians , which are mainly told by illiterate older women in the presence of other women and children. They are used for entertainment and education and are usually performed in a domestic setting. The Hikaye narrative form has been listed by UNESCO as one of the masterpieces of the oral and intangible heritage of mankind since 2005 . As a result of changed social structures, wider access to school education and the spread of mass media, the tradition is slowly dying out.
Topics and narrative situation
The main characters of the stories are predominantly girls and women who can free themselves from the most difficult situations with wisdom, courage and skill. Since these situations often arise through their embedding in a patriarchal environment or through dominant and ruthless male antagonists , the stories can be understood as an implicit criticism of power structures that disadvantage women socially, economically and politically. The presence of adult men while the stories are being told is generally considered inappropriate and avoided; In contrast, epic poetry (sīra) and hero and adventure stories (qissa) are typically male narrative forms .
In preparation for the story of a hikaye , the light is usually dimmed and the audience is asked to recite the creed . Then the story begins, which thematically often deals with family relationships, married life, religion and supernatural phenomena.
Example: the burlap sack
The story The burlap sack is a variant of the Cinderella motif, which is popular around the world . In contrast to the fairy tale, which is mainly widespread in the European cultural area, the protagonist does not experience her salvation from her misery primarily thanks to the intervention of mysterious magical powers, but mostly brings them about herself through active action. In addition, the real cause of their misery is not the evil stepmother , but their own biological father.
action
A king who has no children except for a daughter becomes a widower. Since he cannot find a woman who surpasses his deceased wife in beauty, he wants to marry his own daughter. A legal scholar who is called in to examine the legitimacy of such an association bows to the will of the king. The daughter tries unsuccessfully to change his mind. When he bought her a wedding dress and jewels, she went to a sackcloth weaver and asked him to make a sackcloth that covered her body from head to toe, leaving only her face exposed. She hides it in the toilet, puts on the wedding dress, goes back to her father and asks him to use the toilet before the wedding. The father fears that she will try to escape, whereupon the girl offers to tie a rope to himself that he can pull to make sure she is still there. The man agrees.
In the lower house she attaches the rope to a heavy stone with her arm rings, puts on the sackcloth and disappears into the night. The father is reassured when he pulls on the rope, feels the resistance and hears the jingling of the bracelets, but after a long time he becomes suspicious, discovers the stone and rides after his daughter. He catches up with her, but does not recognize her in her disguise. She arrives in a strange city and sits down on the wall of a royal palace. When a slave comes and throws the leftover food on the street, she makes hungry about it. The slave tells her mistress about the wretched stranger who lets the girl, who is mistaken for a man, work in the kitchen, where she is known as the "burlap sack".
Some time later, a wedding lasting several days takes place in the royal palace. In order to be able to take part as a guest without being recognized, the girl puts on the dress that she had received from her father instead of her sackcloth and dances until she is tired of dancing and leaves the party. Back in her burlap sack, she learns from the returning slaves about the beautiful, mysterious woman who was seen at the party and who no one knows who she is or where she came from. The game repeats itself on the following and the following day, and the queen becomes aware of her. She tells her son, the prince, about her and explains that she would ask the stranger for her hand on his behalf if she only knew who she was.
The prince wants to get a picture of himself and disguises himself as a woman in order to be able to be with the ladies at the wedding celebrations. But again the girl disappears before she becomes tangible for those present. The next evening the prince hides behind the door. When he sees the girl rushing away from the wedding party, he secretly follows her home and discovers her secret. Amazed that the mysterious girl is serving as a slave in his own household, he decides to have her bring him the food the next day without telling anyone about his discovery. Reluctantly and ashamed, “Leinensack” follows the order and enters his room with the meal. When they are alone, he explains to her that he wants to eat with her and frees her from the linen. He notifies his mother, who has the wedding proclaimed. Forty days are celebrated and they live happily ever after.
Written collection
Ibrahim Muhawi and Sharif Kanaana collected a total of 45 stories told in the Gaza Strip , West Bank and Galilee , which were published in 1989 under the title Speak Bird, Speak Again in English translation and under the title Qūl yā tayr ( Arabic قول يا طير 'Sprich, Vogel') were published in Arabic in 2001. The anthology was then also translated into Spanish and French.
In 2007, the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Education, which is controlled by Hamas , had around 1,500 copies of the book confiscated from public school libraries on the grounds that the stories used a slang and sometimes suggestive choice of words that was unsuitable for teaching children. However, after a storm of public outrage, this decision was soon withdrawn.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Palestinian Hikaye , Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, accessed March 3, 2014.
- ^ Dwight F. Reynolds: Arab Folklore. A handbook . Greenwood Press, Westport 2007, p. 88.
- ↑ Susan Slyomovics: The Object of Memory. Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1998, p. 27 f.
- ↑ Compare this with Alan Dundes: Cinderella. A casebook . University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1988.
- ^ Dwight F. Reynolds: Arab Folklore , p. 89.
- ↑ After Ibrahim Muhawi, Sharif Kanaana: Speak Bird, Speak Again . University of California Press, Berkeley 1989, pp. 125-130.
- ↑ Literature by and about Ibrahim Muhawi in the bibliographic database WorldCat
- ↑ Hamas school book ban sparks anger . The Star, March 5, 2007, accessed March 3, 2014.
- ^ Hamas reverse on schoolbook ban . BBC News, March 13, 2007, accessed March 3, 2014.