Ouled Naïl

The Ouled Nail (Arabic أولاد نايل ) are a semi-nomadic Arabian tribal confederation who lived in Algeria in Saharan Atlas.

Life

The Ouled Nail living in the vicinity of the cities of El Djelfa Chellala Bou Saada and the Ouled Nail Mountains, a part of the Saharan Atlas. Their tents are striped red and black. Unless they are sedentary, they live by animal husbandry and the production of carpets. They are originally from a mountainous desert region and claim descent from the Prophet Mohammed.

Dances

Famous are the Ouled Nail are known for their dancers. A woman who danced professionally, had with them, unlike in the Middle East usual, no problems with their reputation. Dancing was on the contrary as a respected profession, were able to exercise the young girls without disabilities. Most of them left their rural surroundings and settled in major cities to dance. They were accompanied by grandmothers, mothers or aunts who established as " chaperones " fungierten.Sie their merits in necklaces, Necklaces and Geschmeiden to with which they adorned themselves and at the same time made ​​their wealth and dowry visible. If this was sufficiently high, they had no trouble finding a man and get married. When they brought before a child into the world, they could keep it.

The women danced mostly in pairs. Typical of their style of dance are fluttering hand and finger movements, small grinding steps to the side and forward and sliding with his head.

The jewelry and the self-conscious appearance of the Ouled Nail- girls as dancers fascinated western Algeria visitors. 1914 Frank Edward Johnson described it in National Geographic Magazine as:

" The ( woman ) Ouled Nail, with its gold-embroidered robes of bright purple, her soft silk scarf from the most delicate blue, ... its broad golden belt with its innumerable chains and pendants, the necklace of coins, the bracelets of silver and gold and the schmuckbekrönten hair is the embodiment of dreamy Orient ( engl: is the personification of the gorgeous East) "

Painters and photographers such as Rudolf Franz Lehnert, Auguste Maure and Nasreddine Dinet made ​​numerous portraits of Ouled -Nail- girl.

During the French occupation of the dancers had many regular customers among the French military. After the colonial period, but their performances were only allowed at family celebrations and local frameworks.

Today, only a few girls go to work as a dancer. Their clothing has changed, although the traditional costumes are still used. Brocade, silk, golden diadems and Münzgirlanden be applied less frequently. Today, the dancers usually wear several coats of translucent clothes, sometimes surrounded by a palla, and their turbans and head scarves are made of synthetic material. Some dancers wear in addition a transparent veil, others do entirely without a head covering. Dancers who sing at the same time, may demand higher salaries and to practice their profession a long time.

The best-known dancers and musicians of the Ouled Nail live in Bou Saada. Their performances often begin with a procession led by the musicians. The performance will be announced by the oboe like Ghaita and Ululieren of women. On stage, dancers and musicians sit together on a platform while the soloists and dance groups stand out individually. The men of the Ouled Nail dance, they perform a dance on with guns and conceal it their lower face with their headgear.

The various tribes meet on holidays and festivals in Chellala and beat there together their tents. During the "carpet festival " they perform their dances informally for carpet dealers and buyers. Each tent houses a group of musicians, dancers and singers, sometimes advertises a crier standing in front of it to customers. The dancers are mostly women who perform belly dance and thereby sometimes try to apply affluent regular customers.