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Historic Writings - The Egyptian Ghawazee

Here in Gainesville, Florida, we are lucky enough to have access to the extensive libraries of the University of Florida. One of my favorite pasttimes is spending time in the stacks, doing what feels a lot like treasure hunting -- the stuff they have in that place is extraordinary! Anybody can go in there and actually handle books that are over 100 years old. I've been hunting up 18th, 19th and early 20th century writings on the Middle East, specifically looking for descriptions and drawings of dancers. Below are a few excerpts and illustrations from my findings. You can download the full text of the citations; look for the link preceding the quote.

All of this stuff is over 75 years old and therefore in the public domain (the copyrights have expired), so feel free to use it as you like. If you do use it, a link back to our site would be great!

The excerpts on this page concern the ghawazee, the Egyptian dancing girls described by travellers beginning in the18th century (there may be earlier descriptions; haven't found them). Take these descriptions and the "facts" in the citations with a grain of salt; you may notice some contradictions concerning these "facts" from author to author.

For an updated explanation of the ghawazee, look for the book, Serpent of the Nile, by Wendy Buonoventura (Saqi Books, 1989, 1994). Although not precisely a bias-free or scholarly treatise, this is the most concise and readily available book on the background of Middle Eastern Dance that I've seen (try Chandra's Dance Extravaganza at www.chandras.com; if the book isn't listed in the on-line catalog, email Chandra and ask if she has it).

- Karolyne

The Ghawazee perform, unveiled, in the public streets, even to amuse the rabble. Their dancing has little of elegance; its chief peculiarity being a very rapid vibrating motion of the hips, from side to side. They commence with a degree of decorum; but soon, by more animated looks, by a more rapid collision of their castanets of brass, and by increased energy in every motion, they exhibit a spectacle exactly agreeing with the descriptions which Martialiiand Juvenal have given of the performances of the female dancers of Gades... The Ghawazee often perform in the court of a house, or in the street, before the door, on certain occasions of festivity in the hareem; as, for instance, on the occasion of a marriage, or the birth of a child. They are never admitted into a respectable hareem, but are not unfrequently hired to entertain a party of men in the house of some rake...

In many of the tombs of the ancient Egyptians we find representations of females dancing at private entertainments, to the sounds of various instruments, in a manner similar to the modern Ghawazee, but even more licentious; one or more of these performers being generally depicted in a state of perfect nudity, though in the presence of men and women of high stations. This mode of dancing we find, from the monuments here alluded to, most of which bear the names of kings, which prove their age, to have been common in Egypt in very remote times; even before the Exodus of the Israelites. It is probable, therefore, that it has continued without interruption; and perhaps the modern Ghawazee are descended from the class of female dancers who amused the Egyptians in the times of the early Pharaohs.

Present-Day Egypt. Frederick Courtland Penfield. The Century Co., New York, 1907.

To a tall and very black girl the music was impelling, and with a spring she cleared the smoking lamp footlights, and in a twinkling was in front of the musicians, her giant frame vibrating in the tumultuous undulations of a dance &endash; but not the dance the sheik wished his distinguished guests to witness. It was the dance of the Keneh Ghawazi, manifestly not on the program. Excitement rendered her deaf to the calls of friends, and blind to the sheik's frowns... A young girl advanced to the center of the platform, and the interloper was forgotten... The musicians ran rapidly through a prelude, and, stamping her slippered feet on the floor in the imperious manner of Otero, the popular Medina was ready. With her whole soul and body she appeared to keep time with the music, turning from right to left with gradually increasing rapidity, and bending backward until her spine was in danger of dislocation. She began then to turn with such amazing rapidity that to the onlookers she seemed a strange fantasy of whirling hair and inverted features.

Egypt and Nubia, Their Scenery and Their People. Being Incidents of History and Travel, from the Best and Most Recent Authorities, Including J.L. Buckhardt and Lord Lindsay. J. A. St. John. Chapman and Hall, London. (no date given, but St. John lived 1801-1875)

They twined round each other snake-like, with a suppleness and a grace, such as I had never seen before. Now, they let their arms drop, and their whole frames seemed to collapse in utter exhaustion; then might you see how a new thought arose within them, and strove to express itself in impassioned gestures. All this while, the music continued to play, and in its very simplicity was like a pale background to the picture, from which the glowing figures of the girls stood out in so much the stronger relief. Like the Spanish women, they wore a sort of silver castagnette on the thumb of each hand, with which they beat time to the music.

Travels in Egypt and the Holy Land; the Crescent and the Cross. Comprising the Romance and Realities of Eastern Travel. Eliot Warburton. H. C. Peck & Theo. Bliss, Philadelphia. 1859.

The dance is the same with which their predecessors entertained the Pharaohs four thousand years ago, and almost every attitude we see here now is found upon the ancient tombs. It is an exercise rather of posture and acting, than of agility, and requires long practice and considerable art to arrive at perfection. The professional dress is very picturesque and graceful, consisting of a short embroidered jacket fitting close, but open in front, long loose trousers of almost transparent silk, a cashmere shawl, wrapped round the loins, rather than the waist; and light elegant turbans of muslin, embroidered with gold. The hair flows in dark curls down the shoulders, and glitters with small gold coins; their eyes are deeply but delicately painted with kohl, which gives them a very languishing expression, and a profusion of showy ornaments glitter on their unveiled bosoms.

Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, in Company with Several Divisions of the French Army, During the Campaigns of General Bonaparte in that country. Volume I . Vivant Denon (translated by Arthur Aikin). Longman and Rees, London, 1803.

We requested of the sheiks a sight of the almes, a description of female dancers similar to those of India. These chiefs, a part of whose revenues they probably constituted, made some difficulty in allowing them to be brought into our presence. If polluted by the inspection of infidels, their reputation might suffer, and they might perhaps even be obliged to forfeit their condition in life.... The almes arrived; and we could not perceive that they participated in the slightest degree in the political considerations and religious scruples of the sheiks... They had brought with them two instruments, a pipe and tabour, and a kind of drum, made from an earthen pot, on which the musician beat with his hands. They were seven in number. Two of them began dancing, while the others sung, with an accompaniment of castanets, in the shape of cymbals, and of the size of a crown piece. The movement they displayed in striking them against each other gave infinite grace to their fingers and wrists. At the commencement the dance was voluptuous; it soon after became lascivious, and expressed, in the grossest and most indecent way, the giddy transports of the passions.

Journey to Central Africa; Life and Landscapes from Egypt to the Negro Kingdoms of the White Nile. Bayard Taylor. G. P. Putnam & Co., New York.1854.

Meanwhile, the voices of the women mingled with the shrill, barbaric tones of the violin, and the prelude passed into a measured song of long, unvarying cadences, which the drums and tambourine accompanied with rapid beats. The Orange-Blossom and one of her companions took the floor, after another glass of arakee and tightening the shawls around their hips. The dance commenced with a slow movement, both hands being lifted above the head, while the jingling bits of metal on their shawls and two miniature cymbals of brass, fastened to the thumb and middle finger, kept time to the music. As the dancers became animated, their motions were more rapid and violent, and the measure was marked, not in pirouettes and flying bounds, as on the boards of Frank theatres, but by a most wonderful command over the muscles of the chest and limbs. Their frames vibrated with the music like the strings of the violin, and as the song grew wild and stormy towards its close, the movements, had they not accorded with it, would have resembled those of a person seized with some violent nervous spasm. After this had continued for an incredible length of time, and I expected to see the Almehs fall exhausted to the earth, the music ceased, and they stood before us calm and cold, with their breathing not perceptibly hurried.

Upper Egypt: Its People and its Products. C. B. Klunzinger, M.D. Blackie & Son, London. 1878.

...At such moments rise the dancing-girls, the celebrated bayaderes of Egypt, commonly called ghawazi (not almeh, which means a singing-girl). Only a few of these form an artistic conception of their parts, and represent in pantomime the common history of a love affair - pursuit, coyness at first, victory, and lastly, entire self-abandonment. Their much-admired dances are, however, generally quite inartistic, having no regular figures, no keeping of time, no combined movements. In dancing the girl skips backwards and forwards before the spectators, raises the arms, clatters the inevitable castanets (like the crotali of the ancients), and casts around coquettish glances. Whatever of art is displayed consists in movements of the trunk and hips - impossible to imitate - the limbs being almost at rest.

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