By Fazeena Saleem
Folktales are part of oral literature. They are tales about people, told by the people, passed mouth-to-mouth from one generation to the next.
In Qatar, folktales are passed down within families, and reflect their ancestral past. Even when the same tales are told, details differ between families. Moreover, these stories are rich in tribal dialects, social wisdom, moral instruction and cultural knowledge. Common characters include donkeys, goats, and other animals, magic fish, jealous wives, wicked stepmothers, virtuous girls, sneaky thieves, sea monsters, djinn, and clever, old women.
Often, they have dark endings: dire cautions against lying, jealousy, betrayal, or irreligious behaviour. But folktales are often funny, too, and tailored to the age of the listener. They usually begin with a prayer and end with a ritual close.
However, the tradition of folk tales in Qatar, as elsewhere, is under threat as people embrace modernisation. Increasingly, storytelling has declined as a family pastime, and has been replaced by modern entertainments.
It’s for this reason that the Qatar Heritage and Identity Center (QHIC) has launched an innovative programme to keep the tradition alive. Called ‘My Identity, My Story,’ it’s an exciting new education and heritage project to save Qatar’s endangered folktale tradition.
It aims to raise awareness and increase appreciation for Qatar’s folktales, and to collect, preserve, and share them for future generations of storytellers. It plans to bring out a bilingual collection of Qatari folk tales to preserve the stories and the context of the telling.
“Right now there is no English language collection of Qatari folktales. Ours will be the first English and Arabic book of folktales from Qatar, and I believe the first to preserve the dialect and family history of each story, which is why we’re so excited about it,” says Autumn Watts, Project Manager. Autumn is an American writer with a background in cultural anthropology and has years of experience working with youth to collect Qatar’s oral narratives.
“I have learned how the folk tales are unique to each family, and often use older tribal words that are now disappearing. This is why we decided to transcribe the stories in the colloquial Arabic, and gather personal oral and family history of each storyteller,” explained Autumn, who first started collecting folktales in early 2010 on a grant from the Qatar National Research Fund, with two colleagues and nine students.
Tribal dialect is a critical part of Qatar’s heritage. However, changing lifestyles have also spurred certain linguistic changes. The eldest Qataris are often the keepers of the tales and dialects.
Very few collections of Qatari folk tales exist, and of these, the orality of the storyteller isn’t always preserved. With the passing away of each storyteller, the undocumented stories are lost forever.
These creative works are increasingly endangered as globalisation and rapid socio-economic change exert complex pressures on smaller communities, often eroding expressive diversity and transforming culture through assimilation to more dominant ways of life.
QHIC is working closely with the community by teaching youth, reaching out to elder storytellers as partners and collaborators to preserve their own oral heritage.
There have been a few regional collections of folk tales that include Qatar, among other Gulf countries, but the only truly comprehensive book of Qatari folk tales is in Arabic: al-Qaṣaṣ al-Sha bi fi Qaṭar by Dr Mohamed Taleb Salman Al-Duwayk, published in 1984. It’s a substantial two volume collection, but it’s hard to find now, and there’s no English translation.
The project runs workshops for students and consists of sequenced training sessions on folk tales, the art of storytelling, interview methods, research ethics, transcription and translation, followed by workshops for which the students will conduct their own fieldwork and work closely with research and translation mentors.
To train the students, QHIC brings together an interdisciplinary panel of experts from Qatar University, the Translating and Interpreting Institute, Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, and expert storytellers from the community. They include Sheikha Nora bint Nasser bin Jassim Al Thani, Director, and QHIC and folklore researcher, Dr Kaltham Al Ghanem, Professor, Sociology at Qatar University and Khalifa Al Sayed, a columnist and folk story teller.
“This project will also partner the students with animation experts to guide them through the process of interpreting their own family folk tales into short animated films. Through a two-phase initiative, QHIC aims to cultivate the ancient skills of oral storytelling and bring renewed energy to the tradition through creative, modern forms,” said Sheikha Nora speaking at a workshop held at the Katara.
Many female Qatari students show interest in learning about folk tales and the art of story telling. Muneera Al Sulaiti and Wafa Al Falasi, students of Mass Communication at the Qatar University, said that they have forgotten folk tales told by their grandmothers.
“Folk tales are about our culture and traditions, but we can hardly remember any story, have forgotten everything. We just listen and forget,” they said.
Muneera and Wafa could only remember name of a folk tale character ‘budariya’ who is believed to be haunting near the sea.
People of Qatar were pearl divers and fishermen, traders and merchants, bedouin nomads with complex tribal alliances and family connections. These diverse family and tribal histories are richly entwined in Qatar’s folklore. And there is a need to preserve them for posterity.The Peninsula
