Focus on local oral folk tale tradition

The Qatari folk tale tradition has been given special focus by the Qatar Heritage and Identity Centre (QHIC) to preserve the heritage of the country.The QHIC presented recently its last public talk in the “My Identity, My Story” education project to save Qatar’s endangered folk tale tradition.A series of public talks and training sessions, the project runs from September 30 to November 18, bringing prominent local experts, storytellers, and scholars to present on topics about Qatar’s oral heritage, and teach aspiring researchers ways to preserve it.Speakers for the series include Qatar University professor of sociology Dr Kaltham al-Ghanim, who has conducted research and published widely on Qatar’s folklore.In addition to numerous scholarly articles and books, she is the author of Hamda and Fisaikra, an illustrated version of a popular Qatari folk tale.Dr al-Ghanim’s presentation described the important social role of Qatari folk tales, and shared advice for aspiring researchers when conducting interviews with storytellers.In her talk titled “Marriage, Memory, and Other Elder Lessons”, QHIC director of heritage and folklorist Sheikha Nora bin Jassim al-Thani shared photos from her years of field work and discussed Qatari family customs and traditions.Bringing lessons to life as well as a personal touch to the workshop, Sheikha Nora surprised the audience with gifts of tea and traditional oud perfume of her own personal mix.Dr Tarek Shamma of the Translating and Interpreting Institute (TII), who has published studies on translation and intercultural communication as well as literary translations in Arabic and English, led two sessions on transcribing and translating orally recorded Qatari dialect in written form.The participants worked with original material collected from a local storyteller, with much energetic discussion.Teaching for this project, Dr Shamma says, was a chance to get more acquainted with the heritage and traditions of the Gulf.The tradition of storytelling in Qatar has declined largely due to modernisation and the impact of globalisation on family pastimes.Consequently, increasingly fewer folk tales are being learned and passed down.The QHIC project thus aims to encourage oral storytelling in the younger generation, by bringing local storytellers to inspire and mentor their audience. Popular storytellers Um Khalaf and Khalifa al-Sayed performed retellings of folk stories and a few folk songs.The public talk closed with a storytelling performance by Dr Rodney Sharkey, TEDx speaker, theatrical director and performer, and a writing professor at Weill Cornell Medical College.The talks drew many national as well as expatriate guests, who came to learn more about Qatar’s traditions.An American lecturer attending the sessions said: “It’s a good venue for sharing in an exploration of local culture with local people.”The workshops have been fun and instructive for the aspiring researchers, most of whom now plan to continue the oral storytelling tradition themselves.Much of the researcher’s training focuses on sensitive, ethical methods that protect the rights of the storyteller, and explore the tale’s background.Although the public talks have ended, the young researchers will continue to meet twice a week with research mentors.The oral stories transcribed, translated, and introduced with a biography of each storyteller will be published by the QHIC as the first bilingual book of folk tales from Qatar.