EL WAAHA
Bedouin music from the Bahariya Oasis

The population of Egypt is concentrated in the cities of the Nile Delta and Valley. Less than a tenth of the territory of Egypt, which covers approximately 1 million square kilometres, is populated. The rest is a vast desert, uninhabited save for a few oases. Among these, the Fayoum Oasis has its place in the spotlight thanks to the many prestigious portraits of the Ptolemaic era that were discovered there. Further west and less accessible, there is a string of as yet little-known oases that curve north to south, plunging into the Western Desert, also known as the Libyan Desert. These are Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga. As recently as the eighties, it took four or five days in a truck or a jeep to reach Bahariya by track from Fayoum. Since then, a tarmac road has been constructed to link the oases, and the journey now takes only five hours. As far as the Bahariya Oasis this road follows the rail tracks that carry iron ore from the Managum deposit to the great steelworks of Helwan, near Cairo.

In the sixties, the Egyptian government thought up a vast industrial and agricultural development project for the oasis region, the so-called New Valley project. The reserves of fossil water were overestimated, or proved to be inaccessible, the project was abandoned and with it the policy of settling the oases with unlanded peasants from the Nile Valley and Delta. Other more recent attempts to develop the oases, such as agricultural diversification, and rice growing in Bahariya, have also proved to be unachievable, mainly because the ground water is drying up abnormally quickly. Traditionally and since ancient times, the economy of the Western Desert oases rests mainly on the cultivation of date palms. Truly a nourishing tree, the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) reigns absolute. It is the economic lung of the region, giving life rhythm and shaping the landscape.

Since the recent opening of the oasis road to foreigners, these magnificent green palm groves melting into the immense expanses of desert have inevitably attracted the interest of the tourism industry. Moreover, archaeological discoveries are a reminder that the history of the oases is closely linked to that of the Nile Valley in Ancient Egyptian times, and this incites an economic redeployment, based on the model that has developed along the great river. Finally, the natural splendours of the desert such as the "black desert" or the incredible "white desert", with its masses of gigantic calcareous concretions resembling a sea of icebergs, also constitute a major asset for touristic development of the region. The inhabitants of the oases, who lived in almost total isolation and who had, without too much difficulty, integrated the settlements involved in the New Valley project – and, close on their heels, certain advances likened to "progress" – are today confronted with upheaval on a more cultural level, this time induced by the outside, western, world. Even though the numbers of visitors will probably remain marginal compared to those experienced in the Nile Valley, it is to be feared that rapid acculturation and resistance movements will result.

Paradoxically, the development of these fragile microcosms can also encourage and revive the protection of natural and cultural patrimonies.



The term "Bedouin" comes from the Arab badawi (badu in the plural), which designates the Arabs living in the desert, generally nomad cattle breeders. In Egypt, in the oases, these populations have long since been settled. Nevertheless, belonging to the Bedouin community distinguishes people from those who assert their Nile Delta or Valley identity. In this sense, "Bedouin" popular culture and tradition is naturally distinguished from city culture, but also from that of the Nile Valley, in this case the so-called Nubian, even though there are reciprocal rhythmical and instrumental influences. In fact, these oasis populations, especially those from Bahariya, are close to the Libyan Bedouins. Indeed, it is only since the end of the sixties that they are administratively attached to the governorate of Gizeh. Previously they depended on that of Marsa Ratrouah ("the far off page"), on the border with Libya. The Bedouin traditions of the oases have not been studied in depth because of the difficulty and above all, until recently, the prohibition of access, to the Western Desert.

As for the music of the nomadic Bedouins of the Near East or the Arabian Peninsula, the Bedouin music of Bahariya carries on the tradition of the poet (shaer) who sings his own poems and musical phrases, generally short and repetitive, with variations. The instrumental or sung repertory also bears similarities, such as the solo singing and the importance accorded to poetry, or the alternated singing (soloist and group) linked to collective dancing and the events of social life.

Among the most frequently played instruments in the oases and by the Western Desert Group (Ferqet Sahara Garbieh), are the simsimiyya, a pentatonic lyre with five strings stretched over a round resonance box, very common in Upper Egypt (1); the various sorts of double clarinets, arghûl, which are no less famous, with a melodic pipe and a drone pipe; the small Bedouin double flute, also called satawiyya (with five or six holes), and the inevitable percussion instruments or drums, tabla and dof.