Stambali

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The Stambali , also Stambeli , refers to a religious ceremony in Tunisia that belongs to an obsession cult and the style of music that goes with it. The mostly female dancers reach a ritualized trance state , which is mainly triggered by playing a plucking lute ( gimbri ) and several hand clasps ( qaraqib ). In doing so, the possessive spirits are evoked and appeased. The ghost show contains Arabic-popular Islamic and African elements. The cult goes back to black African slaves and is cultivated among their descendants, other immigrants from the countries south of the Sahara as well as among Arab Tunisians. Independently of this, Stambali music is also performed in concert form and has achieved a certain degree of fame beyond the country.

Cultural environment

In the Muslim society of Tunisia, which predominantly belongs to the Maliki school of law, the followers of the Stambali cult represent a small, underestimated fringe group. Orthodox Muslims disregard and discriminate against them as kuffār (infidels). Their group membership is based on an identification as "black" ( Soudanis ); a term that refers to a cultural tradition and not necessarily to skin color. At all times there were also Arab Tunisians among the Stambali members and, from the 1960s onwards, numerous Tunisian Jews until they emigrated to Israel. The various revered spirits are collectively called “the other people” ( in-nās il-ūkhrīn ). The term also expresses the self-perception of the Stambali followers in relation to the state and to society as a whole.

About a dozen Sufi brotherhoods ( ṭarīqa , Pl. Turuq ) are active in Tunisia. Most can be traced back to the influential Andalusian sufimystic Abū Madyan (1126–1198). There are, in some cases, great differences between them in religious practice and musical tradition. The spectrum ranges from the solemn , passionate chants in the Dhikr of the conservative Sulamiyya brotherhood to the popular Aissaoua (ʿIsāwīya), whose spectacular public performances are accompanied by the oboe instrument ghaita (similar to the Arabic mizmar ) and contain forcibly induced trance states. Its activities are rejected by the majority of Muslims.

In addition to the Islamic saints and founders of orders , saints who do not belong to the Sufism tradition are venerated in the countries of the Maghreb . It is only important that the saints or other otherworldly powers are believed to have an influence on the life of the individual. The helpful power of blessing ( baraka ) can be obtained from saints, while the Islamic jinn and the animistic spirits from sub- Saharan Africa have a negative influence . The basic assumption is that there is an interdependence between the invisible forces and humans and that humans can influence spirits in the same way as vice versa. The exchange (offerings against wish fulfillment) is based on the same unconditional requirements for gifts and counter-gifts as they are characteristic of the traditional social order of the Berbers .

Most of the “black” brotherhoods in the Maghreb trace their origins back to the spiritual founder Sidi Bilal . Bilal was a Christian African (Ethiopian) who lived as a slave in Mecca , converted to Islam and became the first muezzin of the Prophet Muhammad . The Gnawa are best known in Morocco for their music and dance performances . Her obsession therapy Derdeba is the counterpart to the Tunisian Stambali. At the center of the Moroccan Hamadscha Brotherhood is the cult of the spiritual being Aisha Qandisha . In Algeria , the corresponding therapeutic spirit cult is called Diwan . Other forms of obsession in an Islamic environment are predominantly women infesting spirits of the Tuareg , those with Tendering - is countered music that just such spirits of Bori - and Dodo -Kults in Hausa , the Tsar - cult in Egypt and Sudan, as well as the Pepo Cult on the East African coast. The Bori cult found its way into today's Turkey in the Ottoman period and the Tsar cult to Saudi Arabia. Obsession rituals found their way to the Iranian-Pakistani region of Balochistan , where the descendants of Baluch people from Africa call their nocturnal practices guati-damali and instead of the gimbri they accompany them with the string sorud and the plucked damburag . In Tanzania is Pepo- cult (also Shetani ) practiced. The obsession cults Mashawe in parts of Zambia and Zimbabwe and Vimbuza in Malawi and Zambia, organized under the umbrella of Christianity, show parallels as phenomena of marginalized lower classes and due to their mythological structure.

history

One of the first documented cases of slave trade to North Africa was around 5000 slaves from the Sudan region who were brought to what is now Tunisia around the year 800. The high point of the trade in mostly female slaves was the 18th and 19th centuries during the Husainid dynasty. With the signing of the French Protectorate Treaty in 1881, their influence and the slave trade declined. The slaves were used as security guards in the Ottoman palaces, on large building projects and as workers in the southern irrigation oases. As of the early 18th century, there are reports of public trance ceremonies held at the tombs of Muslim saints, in which slaves and Arabs alike participated. Merchants transported miracle medicine, cowrie snails and ostrich feathers to the north for the ritual needs of black Africans .

Even after their Islamization, the black African slaves were not considered full Muslims, but were valued in certain areas for their magical abilities. The presence of black women at weddings and births brought happiness. Black female slaves ( dada ) not only raised Arab children, but also nursed them so that they should grow particularly large and strong. Accusations against Stambali supporters of immorality, paganism and witchcraft have come down to us from 1808. In 1884 Tunisia officially became a French protectorate and Islam as a whole became a private matter. The French invented the racial category of "black Islam", which was considered primitive compared to Arab Islam. In the 1920s, Arab writers like al-Sadiq al-Rizgi raised the mood against the Stambali supporters and influenced social opinion. Nevertheless, at the time of the Husainid rulers, the cult was tolerated, if not supported at all. The main place of worship in Tunis was the Qubba (mausoleum) of Sidi Ali l-Azmar (Sidi Ali Lasmar), where a gathering was held every Friday and unmarried women sacrificed to find a husband.

After Tunisia gained independence in 1956, the situation changed. President Habib Bourguiba installed a nationalist regime geared towards secularism and modernity. He let radical Islamic forces fight, wanted as the “father of the nation” to forcibly free women from their veil and declared saints cults to be backward. The grave of Sidi Ali l-Azmar in the state capital had disappeared around 1960, pilgrimages to the graves of saints in villages in the area were still carried out. The state banned public performances of Stambali and other Sufi practices, and Stambali music was no longer played on radio or television. Tunisia should be unified culturally and linguistically and orient itself towards Europe. This is what Malouf stood for , a classical Tunisian music from Andalusia that was promoted as a national cultural asset. Cultural relations with sub-Saharan Africa seemed to stand in the way of the development of a modern nation. For a short time, Stambali music found a certain recognition in the mid-1960s when it was compared with popular American jazz, which is actually also a "slave music". There were therefore attempts to modernize the Stambali in a similar way. Jazz and Stambali musicians played together in Tunis for several years. After Ben Ali came to power in a coup in 1987 , the economic and political situation, threatened by Islamists , stabilized . In the 1990s, the public performance ban on Stambali music was abolished.

At the turn of the millennium, Moroccan Gnawa music entered the international world music market . A little attention was paid to the Tunisian Stambali, to which a proportion of “black culture” has been attributed to advertising in Europe. At state-organized music festivals in Tunisia, Stambali and other Sufi groups are now part of the concert program. At the same time as its internationalization, however, the African roots of music are gradually being lost.

mythology

The origin of the term ṣtambēlī is unclear. With the Songhai , sambeli is a disease caused by witches and spirits, with the Hausa the same word denotes a dance by boys and girls. It may have changed to ṣtambēlī for better pronunciation in Arabic . The more common derivation comes from Istanbul , which is pronounced istanbūlī in Arabic . Both may be true.

According to a legend, the black Africans were brought from their homeland to Tunisia by Bū Saʿdīyya. This mythical person is also the first Stambali musician. Bū Saʿdīyya once lived as a hunter in the African bush. One day he returned from the hunt and found that his only daughter Saʿdīyya was missing and had been taken to Tunis in a slave caravan. So he also set out for Tunis, where he arrived after a journey full of privation. Accompanied by his qaraqib , he began to recite his grief in songs. Although he never found his daughter, it is a symbol for the phase of uprooting and as a companion during the transition period until arriving at a new place. A mask parade is held in his memory, with dancers playing qaraqib , the double-headed barrel drum t'bol (also called ganga ) and a one or two-string fiddle ( gūgāy ). Among the figures venerated in the Stambali cult, Bū Saʿdīyya is the only one who does not influence the participants in the dance ritual and cannot be assigned to any of the following categories.

The sky of the revered Stambali beings consists of two sections, which are headed “white” and “black”. White are the Arabic Islamic saints, the Walis ( walī, Pl. Awliyā ), from whom Baraka proceeds. They are mostly historical personalities. Black are the spirits introduced from the south, who have always been mythical figures.

The 20 saints listed (male salutation Sīdī , female salutation Lalla ) have a chain of descent ( silsila ), which leads them back to the Prophet via the black muezzin Bilal . Many are worshiped in a religious center ( Zāwiya ) where a qubba has been built over the tomb . With the exception of Sīdī ʿAbd el-Qādir , who is known throughout the Islamic world, all the other saints worked only in Tunisia or the neighboring Maghreb countries and are of local importance. They are mostly visited by women. The two saints Sīdī Frej and Sīdī Sʿad come from the Sudan region. Sīdī Marzūq and Sīdī Manṣūr are visited on annual pilgrimages, the latter being worshiped by black African sailors in the coastal town of Sfax . Another prominent saint of the group is Sīdī Ben ʿĪsā (Muhammad Ben Aïssâ (1465–1526)), the founder of the popular Aissaoua Sufi order, whose public actions are carried out by men. Sīdī Frej, Sīdī Sʿad, Sīdī ʿAbd es-Salēm (16th century, founder of the Sulāmiyya order) and Sīdī ʿAbd el-Qādir form a particularly powerful group of sheikhs ( mashāyikh ). The list of Stambali saints is supplemented by a few other Sidis, which are only included in the ceremonies when necessary.

The spirits are collectively called il kḥūl, Sg. Ākḥal ("the blacks"), in-nās il-ūkhrīn ("the other people") or ṣāliḥ , Pl. Ṣālḥīn ("the saints"). They are not spirits of African ancestors, they are neither descended from humans, nor do they have a human appearance, nor are they related to the jinn known in Islam , which lack the necessary individual personality. Stambali members are equally afraid of the jinn and use protective measures against them, but they are considered ineffective in the possession ritual. The three names of the spirits are used to describe their three basic character traits. They behave like humans, can marry and produce offspring. The term ṣālḥīn makes them different from the jinn and the historical saints, but declares them to be equal partners of the two. The black spirits are classified according to their membership of a tribe ( Banū Kurī, they are Christians), the Bornu region ( Brāwna ), the nobles ( Bēyāt ), the water spirits ( Baḥriyya ) or as children ( Sghār ). In every group there is a hard core of spirits, who are always included, and other spirits, which, depending on the tradition of the individual Stambali branches, can also be sorted elsewhere. According to a possible assignment, there are 16 Banū Kurī members, 5 children and 9, 10 or 11 spirits of the other groups.

The water spirits can be found in every wet element, from lakes and rivers to sinks. Her guiding spirit is Mulai Ibrahim , also known as Dodo Ibrahim . Mulai is the address of a ruler in the Maghreb, dodo are called evil spirits in the local language . Spirits that live in the water below are common in much of Africa. In contrast, the Bēyāt, derived from the Ottoman title Bey , date from the time of Ottoman rule. Some members of this group of spirits originally had properties that they associate with the Bori cult. In the course of their integration in Tunisia, they were upgraded with emblems of the Islamic-Arab society. The spirit May Nasra now carries a wooden writing tablet ( lūḥa ) in his hand and a fez on his head instead of his former spear . The name Bēyāt expresses a nostalgic memory of the time of the Husainid Beys. Although they kept slaves, they supported their culture with the Stambali ritual.

Meeting houses and places of pilgrimage

Mausoleum of Sidi Ali l-Azmar in Tunis

Former slaves and other migrants from sub-Saharan Africa created a network of private meeting houses ( diar jama ' ), each of which served as a focal point for a particular newly arrived ethnic group. Here social and religious matters were discussed and Stambali cults were held. Dar Barnou (Dār Barnū) is a well-known venue, which is also the name of the Stambali music group performing there. It is located in a district of Tunis, the Bēb Sīdī ʿAbd es-Salēm, named after a former gate (Arabic al-Bāb ) of the city wall, which got its name from the saint. The possession rituals and animal sacrifices take place annually in the places of worship of saints and more often in the meeting houses of the devotees.

Every year pilgrimages ( mausim , Pl. Mawāsim ) lasting three to four days are organized to the patron saints or their places of pilgrimage are visited independently by small groups as ziyāra (Pl. Ziyārāt ). The Qubba of Sīdī Marzūq is located in the Djerid oasis of Tozeur in the south-west of the country. The same saint is venerated in the neighboring town of Nefta . In addition to Sidi Ali l-Azmar in Tunis, pilgrims venerate the tomb of Sidi Saâd a few kilometers southeast of the city in the Mornag region. There is also an annual pilgrimage to the black saint who came to Tunisia in the 16th century. About six kilometers north of the city center in the suburb of La Soukra is the inconspicuous white tomb of Sidi Frej on a side street. The miraculous saint came as a slave from the Bornu area , where most of the slaves in Tunisia came from. After his death he was assigned to the Stambali heavenly powers. A three-day pilgrimage festival is organized for him in July. A special percussion ensemble called debdabu appears.

Pilgrimage festivals and rituals of possession

The Stambali rituals have a therapeutic role and are also social encounters. The rituals take place on three days during the pilgrimage festivals. Similar to the Derdeba ceremony, there is a large street procession at the beginning to draw attention to the festival and to collect money. Dancers are accompanied by drums ( t'bol, also ganga ) and iron rattles ( qaraqib ). Secondly, animal sacrifices are made to the spirits (a black and white rooster, a goat), and further rituals take place at holy wells. In the afternoons there are performances of Stambali in which the saints are invoked. In the nights, the black spirits are invoked as part of the therapeutic sessions and, finally, on the third night, the patron saint is worshiped together in front of his shrine.

If the debdabu percussion orchestra performs, this also happens during the day. The musicians sit in a semicircle. Instead of the gimbri , the double-headed cylinder drum tabl ( ommelabla ), beaten with sticks, takes center stage. The iron hand rattles are replaced by three more drums : Kurkutū (Pl. Kurkutuwāt ) is a single-headed, narrow clay drum that is struck between the feet, standing and tilted slightly forwards with two thin sticks. Drums with this name are common in the Sudan region. The Tunisian kurkutū is similar to the naqqarāt in Andalusian-Arabic music. The gaṣʿa is an upside-down pot. Furthermore, the frame drum with snarling strings bendīr (Pl. Bnādir ) is used.

Music is the essential element in conducting an possession ceremony. Each spirit is identified with its own melody ( nūba, Pl. Nuwab , more rarely nūbēt ) that is characteristic of it. The ceremony is led by a healer or priestess ( ʿarifa, Pl. ʿArifat, "the one who knows "), who summons the spirits with burning incense sticks ( bkhūr ). She is responsible for finding the right music according to the particular preferences of the spirit or saint. The musicians must have a correspondingly large repertoire of songs. If the right pieces have not been selected or played incorrectly, the therapy will have no effect. The songs are sung in an Arabic dialect, which is understood as "non-Arabic" or "foreign" ( ʿajmī ) and contains many words from African languages. Understanding the texts is not required. The only melody instrument is the gimbri played by the orchestra leader ( maalem, maâllem ) . She speaks to the spirits and is rhythmically accompanied by the metallic, loud-sounding hand clatter qaraqib . The pentatonic melodies have a repeating cyclic form. They are sung antiphon alternately between the lead singer and the choir. The music is not actually there to accompany the dances melodically and rhythmically, it forms a conceptual system with which mythological stories are told and the course of the ritual is determined.

The exact sequence of the nuwab is essential for the success of the therapeutic event . At the beginning there are the melodies for the white spirits (the saints). According to the silsila, this section begins with the nuwab for the prophet, followed by the melody for Sidi Bilal. Bū Ḥijba is related to Bilal. Although hardly anything is known about this and only a few patients feel affected by it, its prominent position in third place makes it important for the ceremony. These first three nuwab are listed together, the following are delimited by pauses and dedicated to the respective saints. The patients wrap themselves in cloth cloaks ( kashabiya ), the colors of which correspond to the respective ghosts, and hold in their hands what these ghosts normally carry with them.

After the white, there is the group of black, obsession-inducing ghosts, which are also evoked by the music in the order of their silsila . It opens with the nūba called istiftāḥ il-kḥūl ("opening of the blacks", also māschī ), only then does the melody for Sārkin Kūfa, the first spirit of the Banū Kurī tribe, follow until all spirits have been worked through.

On the dance floor, male dancers initially form a circle and move their feet to the rhythm of the iron clatter. At the same time they form the choir that answers the lead singer. The musicians are wrapped in swaths of burning incense sticks. Then the ʿarifa as the leader of the ceremony begins to dance with some assistants and the afflicted women as well. All women dance themselves in a trance, mostly to the point of exhaustion, after all the ʿarifa orders the spirits to disappear to where they came from (many came from the sea). Thereafter, the patients should be protected from further ghost attacks for a year.

literature

  • Richard C. Jankowsky: Stambeli: Music, Trance, and Alterity in Tunisia. University of Chicago Press, London 2010
  • Richard C. Jankowsky: Black Spirits, White Saints: Music, Spirit Possession, and Sub-Saharans in Tunisia. Ethnomusicology, Vol. 50, No. 3, Fall 2006, pp. 373-410
  • Viviane Lièvre: The Dances of the Maghreb. Morocco - Algeria - Tunisia. (Translated by Renate Behrens. French original edition: Éditions Karthala, Paris 1987) Otto Lembeck, Frankfurt am Main 2008, pp. 177f, ISBN 978-3-87476-563-3

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Chaitali B. Roy: Dar brings Baluchi music to Kuwait. Arab Times
  2. ↑ Steven Friedson: Tumbuka Healing. In: Ruth M. Stone (Ed.): The Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Vol. 1. Africa. Garland Publishing, New York / London 1998, pp. 271-274; Jankowsky 2010, p. 17f
  3. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, pp. 43, 50, 53
  4. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, pp. 16-18, 89
  5. ↑ Irmhild Richter-Dridi: Women's Liberation in an Islamic Country - A Contradiction? The example of Tunisia. Fischer, Frankfurt / Main 1981, p. 126
  6. ^ Wolfgang Laade: Tunisia, Vol. 2: Religious Songs and Cantillations from Tunisia. (PDF; 5.5 MB) CD booklet, Smithsonian Folkways, 1962, p. 4
  7. ↑ Alyson E. Jones, Playing out: Women instrumentalists and women's ensembles in contemporary Tunisia. (PDF file; 2.47 MB) Diss., University of Michigan 2010, p. 89
  8. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, pp. 19-21
  9. ^ Tunisian popular heritage opens the International Carthage Festival. Magharebia, Tunis, July 16, 2007
  10. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, pp. 78-83
  11. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, pp. 83-89
  12. ^ Lièvre, p. 177
  13. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, p. 3; Jankowsky, PDF
  14. ↑ a b Wolfgang Laade, p. 5
  15. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, p. 173: List of saints and spirits invoked
  16. ↑ Jankowsky, p. 165
  17. ↑ In Arabic-Andalusian music , the term nūba denotes a large musical form that consists of five (Morocco) to ten movements (Tunisia).
  18. ↑ Jankowsky 2010, pp. 83-86