Heroic Poets Poetic Heroes

Si rat Bani Hilal, the oral epic of the Bani Hilal tribe, recounts the 10th-cent ury migration of this Bedouin tribe from their homeland in the Arabian peninsula to North Africa, their conquest of the region of Ifri qiya, and their eventual defeat at the hands of the Moroccan Almohad dynasty in the mid-12th century. The se historical events have given rise to a folk narrative tradition found through out the Arab world. This dissertation focuses on the social life of this epic-si nging tradition within a single village, one which is home to the largest commun ity of hereditary epic poets known in the Arab world. The regional renown of thi s community of poets, and their social status as ghajar or Gypsies, sets into sh arp relief many of the social tensions which surround the role of epic poet in r ural Egyptian society. The dissertation is divided into three parts: (1) The Eth nography of a Poetic Tradition, (2) Composition, and (3) Textual and Performance Strategies. The first section presents a general ethnographic portrait of the v illage, followed by a detailed examination of the epic poet community and their relationship to the larger society in which they live. The implications of this relationship are then traced through various traditional contexts for epic-singi ng, the story of the epic itself, and recurring structures of social interaction observed in epic performances. The second section addresses the questions of ap prenticeship, transmission, and oral-formulaic composition; a several month peri od of apprenticeship was undertaken by the author in conducting this research. F inally, an examination of the epic as frame for social interaction and criticism is presented through the analysis of performance texts from a single context, t he sahra, or private evening gathering. The figures of (living) epic poets and ( fictional) epic heroes are presented as engaged in an on-going dialogue concerni ng honor, social status, and manhood, represented not only through the narrative of the epic, but also in the parallel 'ways of speaking' of poets and heroes.