Dancing in the Desert

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 30 November 1938, Page 3

Dancing in the Desert

By H. V. MORTON

INTO THE LAND OF EGYPT-- 39

Wlmmi I was looking out of ilie guestliouse window at Siwa one afternoon, I saw a group of men putting up what I thought was a gibbet. They told me that, as T was departing i i the morning, a dance had been arranged in my honour; and the “gibbet"’ was to hold an acetylene lamp. At about b p.iii., with a moon silvering the palm groves and lying like a green wash over the desert, the sheiks

and notables began to arrive on donkeys. I had sacked the guest-house for chairs, whi<h I arranged in a row, opposite the I ' gibbet.” I The largest chair had been reserved for | the Mamur and three next best chairs for ! the doctor, the oflicer of the-camel corps | and myself. On either side of us sat the ! sheiks and village notables. 1 had. in my innocence, ordered my cook to make green tea, which is the local drink. Hut 1 soon realised that I had made a bad social blunder. You cannot make tea in Siwa with such lack of ceremony. W henever Siwans are gathered together it is the custom to elect a tea-maker from among the most prominent people present. This is a long process, because it is also the custom for each candidate 1) refuse to make tea, giving the excuse that he is unworthy of the honour. Eventually the scruples of a candidate are overcome, and, having been loaded with compliments, lie is led to a charcoal brazier, where lie performs the ceremony, often tasting three or four brews ami pouring them away as unworthy of him. After this tedious and ridiculous farce, the tea was eventually prepared and we sat down to drink small steaming cups full of it as we waited for the dancers to approach from the distant town. V ¥ Coming nearer across the stretch of j sand we heard the sound of a tom-tom. Someone lit the acetylene lamp on the arm of the “gibbet” and this threw a circle of white light, brighter than the moonlight that lay all round. As the dancers drew nearer, we could hear a flute as well as the tom-tom, and every now and then the dancers gave a wild cry, a rhythmic repetition of the ; same sentence, a wailing, plaintive sound i that ceased as suddenly as it began. Into the circle of lamplight came a weird and barbaric gathering. The merry j throng was escorted by a gaflir with a long whip and hv a policeman with a rifle slung across his shoulders, strange guardians for a dance party! Before tile Siwans dance they drink ! deeply of “Lubki,” a potent drink made j from the sap of the date palm. The dancers were all men and boys. There were about fifty of them. They advanced clapping their hands and gyratj mg as they surrounded the drummer and the two flute players. * * * # I Having seated itself on the ground,

the band played a monotonous but at- j tractive air. I wish I bad possessed sufficient musical talent tn write it down, ’ for it would have made a wonderful j dance number, the kind of thing that is played everywhere from New York to Broadcasting I louse 3 I believe the right term for such music , is "hot jazz.” This, however, was several degrees hotter than anything 1 have ever heard, even down in Harlem. II had the pathos and savagery of the'

Libyan Desert in it, and also a plaintive beauty and hunger, which is the hunger and beauty of the desert. * * ¥ ' At a certain point in the tune the whirling dancers sang the same verse which we had heard as they approached over the sand. It was in the Siwan language, which the Egyptian doctor, who was sitting next to me, could not understand. I asked one of the shieks to tell me what it meant: "It is a love story,” he said. “The ' i dancers say that the beauty of the loved 1 ones is so great that their eyes do not I close at night . . .” j “Ah, yes, I understand,” interrupt- ' ■ ed the Egyptian doctor in careful Eng--1 lish. "In other words, they suffer from i insomnia.” ! The dance itself was the most bar- • baric posturing that can Vie imagined. 3 1 The men circled sunwise round the mui sicians, suddenly leaping in the air with j wild cries, or solemnly revolving in a . J curious crouching attitude. . i There was also a bounding forward ] ; step, which I should dearly like to see | transferred to the Western ballroom. Now and again the whole horde of dan- ' cers, as if animated by the Same insan-

leaps. * * * * j If. was done with a meticulous regard i for rhythm, and none of the steps was essentially more ridiculous than the j dance steps made popular in the last ! twenty years. I There was, in fad, during the War. ! unless my memory is working badly, a ! step which consisted of three quick runs ; and a dip that compares not unfavourably j with 1 he Siwan technique! j The awful thing about tin’s modern j dancing is its monotony : but monotony is the soul of rhythm. As the “Lubki” began to work, the dancers became absolutely tireless. I was told that they could keep it up all night. V began to talk to (lie young doctor. He* was an Egyptian who had spent many years in the desert and had come to Siwa from the oasis of Baliariva. where, lie told me, the women and' not the men I dance. They dance a peculiar and ancient 'dance. Standing with their hacks to

their audience they move their hips in time to drums and flutes. Like the women of Siwa, the Bahariya women arc kept in the strictest seclusion except on dance nights. “I remember once,” said tlie doctor, “that I had to go to a shirk and tell him that unless his wife saw me slit; would probably die. “ ‘All right,’ lie replied. ‘See her, blit as soon as she is well again 1 shall divorce her,’ and he did so.” “What impression have you formed of these desert people?” “They are Primitive Man, If the anthropologist wishes to study Primitive, Man, why should he dig up skulls that are thousands of years old when he can come out to the oases and study the living human being? “Customs and beliefs, which go back beyond Ancient Egypt into an unknown past, have been handed down in these places, and every doctor is up against witchcraft in some guise or other.’’ * * * * The dance continued for two hours. At the end of this time the dancers appeared as fresh as ever. L thought thc%t some of them had worked themselves into a state, of semi-consciousness as Moslems do at a zikrj but it may have oeen the effect of the drink. The sand flics were by this lime biting me without mercy. I endured it as long as I could and then suggested that perhaps the time had come to break up the party The policeman with the rifle and the man with the whip instantly flung themselves into the dance, hut the dancers declined to stop. They said that they would dance as long as the music went, on playing. The band said that they would play as long as anyone wanted to dance. 1 seemed to have heard these sentiments before far from these desert sands ! Eventually a happy compromise was reached. The band was persuaded to return, still playing, to the town. As they moved away the daneerfs clustered round them like a swarm of bees about the queen. The sound of the tom-tom and the monotonous chant faded in the distance; hut all that night the tom-toms boat in Siwa, and only in the hours before dawn, si 1 was told, did the dancers fall down exhausted. (To be continued. 1