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Capturing History: Listening to Oral Narratives in Yemen |
| Section: CULTURE / FOLK WISDOM |
| Author: Thomas B. Stevenson |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 1/1/2002 |
| Size: 3,553 Words, 18,830 Characters |
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Oral histories are at least as much a matter of presentation as they are recitations of absolute truths. The presenter uses devices to add authenticity to his account, slant the circumstances to deliver a message, or invest events with renewed significance. I knew this intuitively but did not recognize the power of narrative performance until engaged in anthropological field research in 'Amran, Yemen.
Until the early 1970s virtually all houses, government offices, and mosques were inside the medina, the high-walled, gated city. Just outside the walls were a smaller enclosed village and the market. The 1962 revolution and ensuing eight-year civil war that brought an end to North Yemen's theocratic rule ushered in many changes. This was obvious in the brisk pace with which homes, shops, and mosques were being built to accommodate new settlers and those relocating outside the old city. By 1978, when I began a nineteen-month stay there, the town's prerevolution population had doubled to about six thousand. The socioeconomic and political impacts of these changes were the focus of my research project.
Traditional agriculture, modern commerce, and expatriate labor in the oil-rich Gulf states were the primary engines of the local economy. The workday was long and hard, but, as throughout the country, the grind of daily life was relieved by an afternoon break during which men gathered to chew qat. When chewed, the fresh, young, tender leaves of the qat shrub stimulate and depress, leaving the user with a sense of euphoria and a tendency toward introspection. Men spend three to four hours sitting, chewing, and chatting. The setting is ideal for recounting tales that contain, as do some styles of Yemeni poetry, commentaries on life. Rooms are often crowded with chewers, so it is easy for someone to take the stage and regale the assembly ...
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...ments were indeed deeds to the several properties Hajj Abdallah had purchased from departing Jews.
Guests never questioned this or his other stories, even when I thought they should have. The audience loved to hear these accounts that portrayed their lives. Like all successful tale tellers, Hajj Abdallah captured history, shaping it into what he and his listeners wished it to be.
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
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Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
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a new issue online each month. |
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