Page 10 - DILMUN 9

There are eleven different types of songs in
F’jcri music. The naham, or singer, was backed
as he sang them, often alternating between
opposing groups. Sometimes, a seven-lined
verse, known as Zahcri, was used, in which
alternative rhyming was employed, thrown off
spontaneously by men without formal edu­
cational skills, but recognised and acclaimed for
the wit and precision in which they ex­
temporised in this demanding verse form.
Many of the old rhythms and melodies of the
pearl fishers are now lost, the last generation to
have followed this calling in anything like its
traditional style now being old. impoverished
or dead. Where they can be traced, their
songs and recollections are recorded. The
deep, groaning sea-shanties are like the sound
on the sea itself. The double rhythm of the
tabbuls, the criso finger tap of the mcruwas,
the sonorous counter-bass of the big earth­
enware water pots are the accompanying
sounds. The musician, wearing a heavy ring,
obtained the characteristic boom-tack sound of
the waterpots by alternating the thud of the
heel of his hand, the thumb inside the pot’s
rim, and the tap of his ring finger against its
side. The clinking of the metal slice comp­
leted the ensemble.
There is another music, also heard only in Sernai
the Gulf. It is the music of Africans from
Zanzibar and the East African coast and which negroes among them, completely Arab as far
has been disseminated throughout the area of as religion and language go but retaining a link
the Arabian Gulf. with their ancestral origins in their songs,
It is called Laywa and till today is much dances and customs.
practised by the poorer classes of the Muscati The music, the dances, the very words used
and Omani population, who provide the casual in the chants and songs, are largely understand­
labour force of the area. There are many pure able to the Arab. Swahili and other African
dialect words are jumbled together with Arabic,
incantations rather than communications as the
dancers shuffle and sway around the musicians,
anchored in a stationary group.
There are elements of magic and exorcism,
as well as entertainment, associated with this
music. Depressions can be eased. The period
immediately before sunset is peculiarly pro­
pitious for the casting out of the evil spirits
The hypnotic swaying, circling movement, the
wild sonorous notes of the zinzumari, or simai,
a long, trumpet-shaped wooden shawm, bound
and ornamented with metal, the frenzied beating
of the tall drums, the solid metallic crash of the
stick coming down, with monotonous regularity,
on a half-buried kerosene can, all contribute to
a total absorption in the movements of the
dance, which may well be theraputic in its out­
come. Shiverings, rolling eyeballs, sudden
falls, are manifestations of the efficacy of the
treatment, which is resorted .to not only by
those of African descent, but by Arabs as well.
The instruments used in Laywa are African
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