The Story - The Epic Love of Elmi Boodheri

[Saalax]

The Epic Love of Elmi Boodheri

 

 

“HE DIED OF LOVE”, “ the Somalis say “Absolutely nothing else.”

The minarets of the mosque stand thin and wax –white as candles in the burning air, and around them the town of Berbera swelters beside the murky, greenish blue of the Gulf of Aden. Inland, the scorched plains of the Guban lead to dark jaggedness of the Sheikh Hills, and beyond the hills stretches the harsh plateau of the Haud, the earth hard and unyielding as red granite, the high rust-coloured termite mounds like grotesque sculptures, the few twisted trees bearing always their spears of the thorn. Camel –herding nomads sometimes walk a hundred miles between one well and the next, and in the almost unen-durable drought of the jilaal season, tribal wars still flare, as they have countless centuries, over water. A man might easily die of a thirst here, or he might die in battle. But die of love? Here, where life is so elemental ? yet the story is true, as any Somali will tell you, indeed Elmi Boodheri’s way of death is the aspect of the tale that surprises them the most. The real strangeness is how such a man as Elmi Boodheri ever became a poet – not just any poet, either, but one of the most skilled, in a land that values it’s bards and judges them by strict literary standards.

 

 

A long tradition of poetry exists among the Somalis, but because their language has not, until recently, been a written one, poems are transmitted orally and their life is limited. Most poems fall like leaves , seasonally, and a new crop takes their place. Only the work of the best poets survives and is passed on, from generation to generation, with remarkable accuracy. The poems of Elmi Boodheeri seem likely to last, for it is nearly thirty years since the young poet’s death and his work is still very much alive in the Somali Republic. When a poem is recited the circumstances of the composition are always recounted, so the history of Elmi Boodheri goes on, as well, and people still ponder over the mystery that brought out such richness in the life of so unlikely man. He was not anyone you would have noticed if you had seen him in the days before his fate seized him. He was in his early thirties, an undistinguished man who did not have cleverness or good looks or wealth. He was unexpectional in every way. His name meant Elmii the borderman, for he had born near the Ethiopian border. As a young man, however, he had left the camel-herding life of the desert and gone to work in a teashop in Berbera. Somali teashops are centres of of social life. They are nothing much to look at – huts of mud bricks, or clay and wattle, roofed with corrugated tin. Inside are low wooden benchs and tables where mugs of sweet spiced tea are served. In the late afternoons and evenings, the teashops buzz with news and politics, argument and discussion, scandal and poetry. Here the Young men sing the love songs they have composed, and if a song catches the listening ears, soon everyone will be singing it.

 

 

“He who has lain between her breasts can call his life fulfilled. Oh god, may i never be denied The well of happiness. “ But when serious poems begin, the men are silence. Simple love are fine for those who are young in years and mentality, but the poems of the elders are the gabay, long and intricate, following complex rules of composition, full of theogical and genealogical allusions. There are the vehicles of political persuasions, personal invective, admonition, philosophical speculation. Through the gabay, a man can express what is closest to his heart and mind- his grief, his rage, his faith, his love, his resolution.

HEART OF A STRANGE

 

 

Elmii Bodheeri took no part in the acitivities of the teashop. He did his work, but that was all. He never composed his own songs, as so many of the young med did, and when the audience began making critical comments on the latest offering of a gabay-marker, he had nothing to say.No on remembers his having shown much interest in poetry or even in talk of any description, and this in itself is unusual among Somalis, who are nothing if not vociferious. All the same, he must have listened. Perhaps he heard some of the famous gabay –makers of that time chanting their own poems-Abdillahi Muuse, with his scatching Elder’s Reproof toHis Wife(“a fool’s mind is like a house” barred”) or even the great Salaan Arrabey, whose long anguished outery against a faithless friend is one of the classics of Somali literature.

“Furtune is my scource; Would ye have me keep my peace and make no cry? This is the way of life, this bitter way- Kind towards men begets their secret hate. “

Elmi must have heard, too, some impassioned reeiter changing the poems of the greatest gabay –maker of all. Sayyid Mahammed Abdille Hassan, the early nationalist leader of who was to known to the british as the Mad Mullah of Somaliland. War is one of the main themes of Somali gabay. And the war poetry of the sayyid is strong, blood, and uncompromising.

 

 

And when the bay horse wades through the sand and dust, On that day when men break their spears in chest and spine, when the vulctures falls upon the spewed-out meat....

The sheer force and sweep of it is sometimes reminiscent of Homer. Whose subject was also tribal war and who described it in similar in terms of elevated drama, grandeur, and gore. Eeven someone who took hardly any notice of the poems that went spinning like verbal spears around the teashop in the evenings couldn’t have ignored the war gabay of the Sayyid. If such poems had any effect on Elmi Boodheri, however , he never revealed it. No one would have said he had the possibility of poetry in him. But no man can avoid his fate, the Somalis believe, One day, in the streets of Berbera, Elmii caught a sight of a girl named Hodan. She was by no means the most beautiful girl in the land, nor in Bebera. In fact, she was rather plain.

But as soon as Elmii Boodheri saw her, he loved her absolutely and totally. He went to the girl’s family and begged to be allowed to marry her. But as he had virtually no money, they refused. “What if i earn enough to pay the yaraad, the bride-wealthy?” he aksed. “would you let me marry Hodan then?” They would consider it, the family replied. The girl was only fifteen years old, and they were in no hurry for her to marry. Elmi gave up his job at the teashop and departed for Djibouti, in French Somaliland, where wages were higher. For several years he worked on the docks as a labourer, and at last he saved enough for the bride-wealth. With his cash and his hopes he returned to Bebera. But he had stayed away too long. Hodan was already married, to a man whose ominous name was Mohammed Shabel- Mohammed the Leopard. For weeks Elmi walked around in a state of intense depression. Finally unable to free himself of his obsessive love for hodan, he fell ill. It was then that the inexplicable transformation took place. As though a piece of Haud rock had turned overnight into silver, in his illness Elmi Boodheri suddenly became a poet. Among Somalis, no one becomes a poet suddenly. Young poets go through a period of apprenticeship, composing short lyric songs, before tackling the long and difficult gabay. The status of a good poet is extremely high, but he is expected to produce something worth listening to, and his audience will deride him if they think his poetry is slapdash or not cleverly expressed.

 

 

 

 

Many words used in gabay are not part of the ordinary Somali speech, and a young poet has to master the use of this literary language before he tries to lunch himself as a gabay-maker. There is no more construction Many words used in gabay are not part of the ordinary Somali speech, and a young poet has to master the use of this literary language before he tries to lunch himself as a gabay-maker. There is no more construction, and the process of learning by doing usually takes years, even when a poet has considerable natural talent. Elmi Boodheri bypassed this arduous practice period. He began with the most complicated poetic form of all, and although the poems were chanted quite spontaneously- and indeed seemed to pour out of him- they fulfilled all the requirements of the gabay traditions: the tricky alliteration, the knowledge of Islamic law, the sonorous dignity, and sombre tone that typify the gabay. All his poems were about Hodan. One of theses was called Qaraami, which means “passionate” In it he describes her with great tenderness, speaking of her fine –shaped bones, her graceful bearing, features.

 

 

“A careless flickering of her eyes , begets a light clear as the white spring moon, My heart leaps when i see her walking by.”

He did not, of course , actually see her walking by. He could not see her at all, for now she led the protected and almost shut-away life of a married woman. The poem has quality of dream and fantasy. He imagines that he is married to her, and the has even divorced another wife in order to marry Hodan. He speaks touchingly of her household skills- “ Her strong hands weave the mats and tend the fire” – as though seeking to assure himself that she has attributes more lasting than physical beauty. With gentle irony the poem ends in an expression of sympathy for his audience:

When you behold my incomparable one, your own wives, in your eyes , will all be old. Alas, alas for ye who hear my song!

The friends who came to visit Elmi were impressed by this spate of poetry. As he recited, they memorized his gabay and then repeated them in the teashops of the town. Soon the poems of Elmi Boodheri and the story of his love had spread to the villages and encampments of nomads far across the desert. Within few months, he had achieved an enormous popularity. Many people who were unknown to him came to visit and had to pray for his recovery.

 

 

But Elmi showed no signs of recovering. The local doctor claimed there was nothing wrong with him, but Elmi though otherwise. Perhaps he had made up his mind to die, and was not to be deterred by pills or pleas or prayers. His weird intensity seemed like some kind of inertia, a force that, having begun, could not stop but had to keep on, on compulsively. Or had his sudden acclaim as the poet of epic love thrust him into a bizarre role from which there was no turning back? “Only Allah knows,” the Somali say, “and only Allah can judge”. His friends, understandably, became a little impatient with him. The whole thing had been fine for awhile. Very startling, and with some good gabay to show for it, God knows how. But wasn’t it time for the game to stop? Plenty of men fell in love and failed to get the girl. It wasn’t the end of the world. Couldn’t

Elmi be quiet about it for a change? He replied with a poem, addressed to Hodan, which said in part:

Oh daughter of a Sultan, when camels graze at night, And when the males cannot find the she-camels, They do not keep silent, but call through the darkness.

 

 

The crowds multiplied as Elmi grew sicker. Some came in the hope of hearing of the now-famous poems flowering mysteriously from the mouth of a man who still seemed nondescript. Some came to console himwith the wisdom of Qoaran. And some, naturally, came to inform him that he was faking his malady in order to get himself noticed, or that he was mad, or that he was possessed not by love but by a shaitan – a devil. To these, Elmi responded with some bitterness, but in a poem which is nonetheless a praise of love.

Long ago, God the just created woman for love. Love came to the lordly man, who shone with the radiance of God’s throne....... Mankind was divided into male and female so that they might be inspired with wonder at each other. If it had not been so, they would have not spread from a desolate place, And the somalis in their evil custom would not have mocked me.

 

 

Elmi be quiet about it for a change? He replied with a poem, addressed to Hodan, which said in part:

Oh daughter of a Sultan, when camels graze at night, And when the males cannot find the she-camels, They do not keep silent, but call through the darkness.

The crowds multiplied as Elmi grew sicker. Some came in the hope of hearing of the now-famous poems flowering mysteriously from the mouth of a man who still seemed nondescript. Some came to console himwith the wisdom of Qoaran. And some, naturally, came to inform him that he was faking his malady in order to get himself noticed, or that he was mad, or that he was possessed not by love but by a shaitan – a devil. To these, Elmi responded with some bitterness, but in a poem which is nonetheless a praise of love.

 

 

Long ago, God the just created woman for love. Love came to the lordly man, who shone with the radiance of God’s throne....... Mankind was divided into male and female so that they might be inspired with wonder at each other. If it had not been so, they would have not spread from a desolate place, And the somalis in their evil custom would not have mocked me.

Elmi’s friends now moved from half-sceptical to irritation to genuine dismay. They were after all. Fond of him, incomprehensible though he might be. The fool might actually die unless something were done, and done quickly. They sent out an appeal, asking the loveliest girls in the country to come and present themselves out of cocern for the poet. Surely some girl, somewhere, would pleace Elmi and ultimately take Hodan’s place in his heart. The response was staggering. From berbera to Hargeysa they came, from the dry plains of Haud and from the distant fishing villages around Zeilah, from j...y Mogadiscio and from the quiet hidden valleys of the hills.

 

 

There was even a small contingent from Ethiopia and another from Aden. All kinds of girls- girls tall, lithe, girls buxom and short, girls with copper skins and girls with skins as dark and soft as the night sky. Girls who walked stately as ancient Egyptians queens, girls who jostled and tittered, shy girls with the veil of purdah over their faces, bold girls with no headscarves, girls with eyes of gazelles and girls with the voices of vixens, girls who were there out of the compassion and girls who were there out of curiousity. The pare assembled outside Elmi boodheri’s hut on the appointed day. One by one, the girls were ushered into the presence of the poet. Some of them were so moved that they even bared their breasts, and considering the modest of the strict muslims, this speaks a good deal for Elmi’s appeal. Did any of them catch his eye? They most empathically did not. Out of love for Hodan. Or out of his sense of style, or perhaps both, Elmi Boodheri remained true to the classical plot of his own story.

 

 

“If one beholds beauty, if ever a human can be satisfied, I have seen Hodan. Oh girls, you have touched the wound i was trying to heal. Cover your breasts”

What about Hodan all this time? How did she feel? She had never exchanged more than few dozen words with Elmi. She had not even seen him more than a few times. And she certainly had never been in love with him. She was content to be the wife of Mohammed the Leopard. It came as a shocked to her to find herself in a public figure. And she was confused by the violent persistence of Elmi’s unaccountable love for her. She grew more and more troubled. And finally asked her husband if she might go and see Elmi, only once and only for a moment.The hope that this might console him. Mohamed shabel gave his consent. When Hodan arrived at the poet’s hut in the early afternoon, he had a high fever and had fallen asleep. She waited beside his bed to as long as she dared. But he did not waken. When Elmi woke up at last, she was gone. Ill –starred and evil it is, to sleep in the day! Do i bear a curse, that i should be denied the sight of her? He never saw Hodan again, for he died shortly afterward. He had known very little about her, and possibly that is just as well. What she may have been like, in reality does not matter so much. She was so the beloved person to Elmi Boodheri, the only one who enabled him to find within himself the poetry had nor known was there.

 

 

Elmi Boodher’s reputation is still so strong in his own land that people often refer to him as the Prophet of Love. And although they are not suppose to, for it is blashphemous to speak in this way except of the religious prophets, young Somalis who are in love themselves will sometimes give him a true Prophet’s status by adding, whenever they mention him, “On his name be Peace”

 

Note

Lines from the gabay by Elmi Boodheri were translated by B.W Andrzejecwski. School of Oriental and African studies, University of London. Lines by Salaan Arrabey are from a gabay translated by B.W Andrzejewski. Musa Galaal and Margaret Laurence. Lines by Mohammed Abdille Hassan and by Abdillahi Muuse were translated by B.W. Andrzejewski and I.M Lewis and are from their book Somali Poetry: An introduction, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.

[NGONGE]

Rubbish. He died of Tuberculosis.

[Juxa]

^^ yes aniguba maqlay

 

but i do like his gabayo, the man wax baa hayay apart from cudurka