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How Rural Egyptian Women Spoke to the Dead Through Poetry

July 27, 2025
Courtesy of Getty Images.

Most of us go about our lives thinking that death is a stranger we will only encounter once in our lives, that it will not suddenly sneak into our homes and steal away our loved ones. But, through the poetry and mourning songs of rural Egyptian women (also known as al ‘adid), death exists outside of time and beyond the moment of loss.

It lives among us as though it had always been there, simply waiting to be noticed.

To reflect on death, and to connect with those who have already passed while still moving through the routines of everyday life, is an act that few can easily carry out. It is difficult, and maybe even unreasonable, to choose to understand what lies beneath the ground instead of what stands before you.

Yet for Egyptians, speaking to the dead can be as familiar as speaking to the living. Even in their deepest mourning, they reach into the underworld and draw life back out.

It has long been known throughout history that the ancient Egyptians never saw death as the end of life. Death was viewed as a journey, where individuals had to pass through different stages of judgment, with the ultimate aim of reaching paradise. Yet, art and death still entertained as professional female mourners were hired to mourn the deceased during the funerals, or processions to their tombs.

The perception of death has become so deeply rooted that it has even become a widely shared meme online, which goes: “The Egyptians believed the most important thing you could do in life was die.” To them, death marked the beginning of true life, and their entire life was built around the idea of coping with death.

Though what is less often talked about is how this ancient worldview also lives on in the poetry and mourning songs performed by Egyptian women in rural villages; a tradition that became part of the country’s folkloric heritage.

While the exact origin of these oral mourning songs remains unclear, the first documented mention of the tradition in Egypt dates back to the period between 1910 and 1914. During this time, French archaeologist Gaston Maspero recorded the songs in Arabic. Later, the tradition was revived by Egyptian researchers, who translated the commentary and republished the text.

The oral art practiced by rural Egyptian women was stigmatized, often dismissed, and at times even considered religiously forbidden. But, recent studies by researcher and professor Lamia Tewfik, along with others, have worked to bring renewed attention to this tradition, bringing a deeper understanding of its place within Egypt’s folkloric heritage.

Their research reveals how women have long used song and spoken word to honor life’s most significant moments, from marriage and childbirth to death. Poetry served as a gateway to the afterlife, a way to reach beyond the visible world and touch what exists on the other side of daily reality.

And in many ways, it was also a form of salvation, as each word wrapped around them like a protective veil, holding their grief in place.

The more you read the poetry, the deeper you are pulled into a space where the line between life and death, joy and sorrow, begins to blur. In that space, the only thing that feels real is the unreal; the imagined world our subconscious builds in dreams to soothe us when the weight of reality becomes too much to bear.

In one poem, for example, the grave is imagined as a house for a groom, which is a reflection of the deep-rooted ancient Egyptian belief that the tomb is a home for eternal life. The line reads: “I’ll go to the painter and tell him to decorate all of the groom’s house.”

As the women sing these poems, their mourning begins to shift shape, growing into a separate entity that is beyond them, a presence that drifts into another realm, far from the weight of their daily reality. Their words move like arrows through the shadows of sorrow, piercing the heart of grief in their journey for light and joy.

Repetition runs through these oral poems as a way of softening the edge of grief and gently shifting the subconscious. In another poem, the verse reads: “I’ll go to the gravedigger and tell him to gather the girl’s hair from the dust. I’ll go to the gravedigger and ask him to shield the girl’s face from the dust.”

By repeating each word until it clings to memory, the lines begin to sink into the skin, allowing the women to glimpse a different reality than the one they started with. The more they repeat the words, the more the words melt into each other, until they become a single, steady echo of emotion. And that emotion is joy, celebration, and defiance in the face of mourning and death.

Even after the dead have left the world we live in, the poems pull back them gently back into existence, making them feel more alive than ever, as if they are still going about their daily routines just as before.

The little, ordinary acts, such as drinking coffee, folding laundry, or sweeping the floor, become moments of connection, where the living and the dead meet, briefly, in the familiar routine of the everyday.

In one poem, the tenderness of everyday life lingers even after death, as a deceased son calls out to his mother, asking her to prepare lunch for him, just as she always did. The line reads: “Mother of the boy, your son is calling, he’s asking for lunch, made by your hands. Her son entered and said: Mother… prepare lunch, I have guests waiting outside.”

These poems do not dwell on death or the weight of loss, instead, they breathe life back into the person who has passed. Because over time, as memory stretches across absence, we come to see that these small details, the ones that once seemed insignificant, are all we have left to hold on to.

Another powerful poem turns the simple act of making coffee into a ritual of remembering the dead. The lines read: “His coffee boils and I remove it, and call on his son to take it to him. His coffee boils on the sand stove, spill the coffee, its master has gone.”

The simple act of drinking coffee becomes a symbol of the dead, and the spilling of it becomes an acknowledgment of their absence. Since coffee holds a special place in Egyptian culture, its presence here shows how even its bitter taste can bring someone back to the memory of those who are no longer with us; a reminder of how the line between life and death continues to blur in the everyday.

Mourning is often understood as a withdrawal from life and the inability to carry out daily tasks. It is commonly seen as a kind of dissociation from everyday routines. However, in these poems, Egyptian women offer a different perspective. They show how daily activities can still be a way to connect with those who have passed, and how, by continuing to live and move through the routines of the day, they are not leaving the dead behind, but bringing them back to life, making them present once more.

In many ways, these poems become a form of wisdom, a guide to return to when grief begins to take hold, proving that mourning does not have to pull us away from life. Through their poetry, we are shown how to keep honoring it, and how to celebrate life, again and again, even in the presence of loss.

 

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