ABSTRACT
The origins of the word ḥakawātī حكواتي lie in the terms ḥikāya حكاية and the verb ḥakā حكى. In Arabic, ḥikāya means a “story,” and ḥakā refers to the act of storytelling. The ḥakawātī is the name given to both the professional storyteller and the oral narrative performance tradition itself. Therefore, in the manner of →al-ḥalqa الحلقة (the circle) tradition, the kernel of the ḥakawātī tradition revolves around storytelling. However similar they may seem on the surface, the modalities and formats of the ḥakawātī may vary at a deeper level from →al-ḥalqa. As a performance paradigm, the ḥakawātī may be performed in an open circle in a public square as well as in cafés wherein the narrator chooses to sit on a chair and deliver their story to the customers in that same space. It differs from stylized singing performed by poets and singers, such as šāʿir ar-rabāba شاعر الربابة (rebab poet/performer), and narrative acts weaving together the techniques of telling and showing stories from a highly venerated repertoire of oral epics, such as al-Sirah al-Hilaliyyah [as-Sīra al-hilāliyya] السيرة الهلالية (The Hilali Epic). As a narrative saga, the musical performance al-Sirah al-Hilaliyyah is another extended form of the ḥakawātī tradition. It is still prominent in Egypt and other parts of the Middle East today. The musical plunges its audience into a host of trials and tribulations related to the journey of the Bani Hilal [Banī Hilāl] بني هلال from the Arabian Peninsula to the Maghreb.
