published by / publie par Commission on Visual Anthropology Commission d'anthropologie visuellc Departement d'anthropologie Universite de Montreal

Note on the Screening of the Documentary Film Voice of the Whip at the Imbaba Camel Market, Cairo

Louis Werner; Producer and co-director

Voice of the Whip documents an 800 mile camel drive made from Kordofan Province in the west central Sudan to markets in Egypt, following the desert route used since pharaonic times (as noted in the tomb hieroglyphic of Harkouf, court official and expedition leader during the reign of Pepi II) and now known in Arabic as the way of the forty (Darb al-Arba 'een), named for the journey's average number of days.

This overland camel trade is controlled by urban Sudanese merchants whose purchasing agents in Kordofani market towns assemble trail herds and hire trail bosses and camel drivers, many from the Kababeesh (sing. Kabbaash) tribal federation . The area's traditional pastoralist economy has been disrupted by drought, resettlement, and adjacent civil wars (many marauding camel thieves are now armed with automatic weapons), which increasingly has forced subsistence farmers and herdsmen into refugee camps outside Umdurman or into the wage labor market as camel drivers for the export trade.

In February 1988, the three-person crew accompanied a group of three camel herds led by three trail bosses: Bilal, an old and grey 45 year veteran of the trail; KhairAllah, an experienced and widely respected camel man in his prime; and Yousif, an inexperienced 25 year old who was accompanying the other two for the first time as a trail boss. Each boss had three drivers under his command, so there were some I5 of us altogether on the trail.

I had accompanied KhairAllah on a similar drive in 1984 and had seen him once in the intervening years at the Cairo Market, when I had given him copies of a magazine article I had written about the journey featuring photos of him and our other companions. This previous experience enhanced the entire crew's credibility and eased our entry into the drivers' work routine. II also helped that the crew rode camels alongside the drivers, ate millet porridge ('asseeda) from the common bowl, and helped with the camp chores when possible.

Both trips were arranged by my friend of ten years, the Sudanese camel trader Bashir Abu Jaib, whose word and reputation in both desert and urban circles has more clout than even government documents. On one occasion, a rural police rejected the official permits and threatened to jail me but suddenly smiled broadly after reading Abu Jaib's letter of introduction. My social ties with the driven' employer naturally affected bow they viewed and treated me.

Without a specific shooting plan in mind beforehand, we decided to focus on what appeared to be key interpersonal relationships between the master trail boss Bilal, the teacher KhairAllah, and the young apprentice Yousif. At the midway point, however, Yousif need ahead with his herd in order to arrive at the market before the others, and the films emerging student-teacher theme was left without the student (i.e., Yousif) available to the camera.

The film then was refocused to the subtle discord and ill will that Yousif had caused among the others by his selfish behavior. It is a generally accepted social code to end a desert journey with whomever one had first set out, especially after having benefited from the collective protection of companions when crossing thief country. Parallel interviews on camera with KhairAllah and Yousif at the Egyptian market underline the issues at stake in the films conclusion.

Besides the interpersonal focus, the film provides a visual inventory of camel driving and trail chores such as grazing, hobbling, watering, vetting, and camp making. Folkloric elements include Bilal reciting campfire-side poetry, KhairAllah telling a humorous camel thief story, and various drivers singing improvised camel driving songs (classic Arabic, hudaa; Kabbaashi dialect, du' bayt). The film ends at the railway station In the market t town of Drau north of Aswan, as the camels are loaded for onward shipment to the Cairo market.

I had the opportunity to screen Voice of the Whip at the Imbaba Camel Market in Cairo on December 11, 1990, some thirty months after it was shot and eighteen months after it was edited. The lmbaba market was (it has since been moved to the city’s far outskirts) Cairo's gathering point for Sudanese camel drivers and functions as a social space analogous to that of the summer wells in Dar al-Kababeesh, when far-flung tribesmen gather in central locations to exchange news and commentary.

When I visited the market on Friday before the planned screening, I was surprised to learn that KhairAllah had just arrived from a drive. He and I had not seen each other since the last trip and had only been in touch indirectly through Aba Jaib's son Mahdi, who manages the family's business in Cairo. Also by coincidence, the trail boss Bilal and the young driver Hamid, the latter unnamed in the film but featured in one extended camel singing scene, had also just arrived with separate herds.

From a Kabbaashi point of view, unforeseen and unplanned encounters are not unusual in the desert, at wells, or at the market. In fact, it was by such a coincidence that KhairAllah became part of the film. Even though I had asked the camel trader Abu Jaib to send him as trail boss on the camel drive we planned to film, KhairAllah was still delayed in Khartoum on the day of our departure from the Kordofani town of al-Nahud. Another trail boss would be sent in his stead. An hour before setting out, however, KhairAllah arrived by overnight lorry and calmly took charge of the herd. I was greatly relieved to be accompanied by a person I knew would be of great help on a difficult film shoot.

Similarly, it was by chance that Bilal was chosen for our drive. Abu Jaib's purchasing agent in al-Nahud had been uncertain about sending Bilal or RahmatAllah as the third trail boss. Both were experienced but also quite infirm, Bilal from arthritis and RahmatAllah from near blinding trachoma. To settle the question, the agent wrote their names on two scraps of paper, crumpled them, and placed them on the sand before me to choose. Just then the wind moved one of the scraps a few inches, which I picked up, saying, "this one wants to travel." On it was written Bilal's name.

I was overjoyed to see KhairAllah, Bilal, and Hamid unexpectedly in Cairo and thrilled that they would be present for the film screening. It was fitting that the same element of chance which had first brought us together, and made the film possible, had reconvened us again two and a half years later and made it possible for them to see the finished product.

Khalrllah too seemed pleased, slightly giggly in a bemused sort of way, and eager lo talk in private . We went into his dark quarters at the edge of a camel paddock, a smokey room where a tea fire burned, and shared a Camel cigarette from a carton I brought him and viewed my snapshots of the 1988 trip.

I was glad that Bilal was present, for he and KhairAllah were old trail companions and in the film were both allies against and victims of Yousif's selfish conduct of running ahead of the others. After greeting me warily he became silent again, a trait that had prevented us from focusing on him and developing his film character in any significant way.

During the shoot, Hamid had been another story. As one of the youngest drivers, he was assigned the camp making chores which we often assisted him with and helped to draw us close . He was gregarious and worldly, having worked in Iraq for a time, and was proud lo think that we shared the common experience of travelling abroad by airplane. He was also patient in explaining things about camels, and helping with our film gear.

At the market, Hamid was dressed in western clothes and kept to a circle of friends, all camel drivers similarly attired. I barely recognized him, but we were quick to catch up on news about our respective colleagues. He seemed quite ill at ease, however, speaking nervously and under his breath, and he was reluctant to sit in the same circle as KhairAllah and Bilal, who barely acknowledged him. For whatever reason, my hope that .II the film subjects in the market would gather together to reminisce about the trip and accept public plaudits was not to be.

Yousif's absence was almost as strongly fell as his presence would have been, it seemed to me. although this may have been due to my insistent questioning of KhairAllah about their relations subsequent to the trail incldent. There had been no lasting fallout between them, he assured me, and the matter seemed to have been forgotten. ln retrospect, I began to wonder myself If perhaps I had overplayed' this incident in my follow up interviews as a way of creating some sense of film tension and drama in what otherwise had been, speaking honestly, a rather monotonous forty days.

It turned out that Yousif was still working as a trail boss, contrary to his intentions stated in the film, when he said he hoped to find employment overseas.and in fact was on the trail with a herd at that very moment. KhairAllah noted with satisfaction (lightly, not meanly) that this time he had arrived before Yousif, who therefore would miss seeing the film.

The American Cultural Center provided a 16mm projector, remote speakers, and a large screen which we erected in one of the empty paddocks. I arrived in late afternoon to pass the word and just after sunset prayer , with some 200 Sudanese drivers and a few Egyptian marketeers standing and sitting in wide rows (fairly orderly given that they arranged themselves), I screened the film.

This audience's response during the screening was much more animated than I had seen it for American, British, or Egyptian audiences. The Sudanese interjected and exhorted during KhairAllah's thief story and Bilal's poetry recitation, praised the meat eating scene, laughed during the camel foot pad patching sequence when the animal growled loudly, shouted out whenever they recognized people momentarily on screen. and whispered comments among themselves during the interview that examined the Yousif incident

Their behavior was somewhat contrary to what I had anticipated. I did not necessarily expect the same hushed, full attention and silent respect of a typical western film audience, but perhaps I did expect seeing some wide-eyed awe and amazement of an audience unaccustomed to watching film, certainly not in a camel market paddock and certainly not in their dialect, about individuals who most knew personally.

Instead the Sudanese reacted to the film as if it were not a film at all but rather a series of live events they were witnessing from the perimeter. They came alive to the screen, speaking to and interacting with the screen subjects as if they were flesh and blood. During Bilal 's poetry recitation and KhairAllah's camel thief story, for instance, they behaved as if they had been sitting beside them, reacting and interjecting just as the llsteners had on screen. KhairAllah was in fact so well known to most in attendance that responding to him on screen was perhaps like cheering for a local hero

During the screening, I walked back and forth between KhairAllah and Bilal, who stood together near the center, and Hamid, who was silently in the rear. These three were the most solemn of everyone in the audience. I wondered if they were perhaps nervous about how they would be made to “look" by the filmmakers before their fellows, or rather if they were simply curious about how the screen would make them really look. Either way, I suspect the high seriousness and slight apprehension are near universal reactions for subjects of a documentary film watching for the first time.

After the film, KhairAllah, Bilal, and Hamid were surrounded and questioned in a lively manner. To my surprise following a random questioning of the audience, Yousif's, conduct was not found to be a controversial issue for them. All agreed that he should not have done what he did, but all also agreed with his explanation in his final film interview. A camel driver's job is terrible, he said, and one wants to be done with it, (i.e., reach the end of the trail) as soon as one can.

l had feared that the film might tarnish Yousif's reputation, hurt his future employment prospects as a trail boss, or cause further unpleasantness between him and KhaiirAllah. But there was none of that . The audience saw the sound logic of his decision, what might be called his new style thinking , at the same time they saw his violation of accepted trail conduct, an example of old style thinking. The audience in fact did not even recognize what I thought had been posed as a rather neat dichotomy. So much for a film director’s precooked organizing principles.

The next day, the Economic Councillor at the Sudanese Embassy in Cairo, the man responsible for the camel trade protocol who had attended another screening, came lo the market and engaged KhairAllah in a long private conversation. From a distance I saw that they were smiling, and afterwards the Councillor wanted their picture taken together.

Early in the film, KhairAllah says, "Everyone in Umdurman knows me as a famous trail boss. I've traveled to El Fasher, Nyala, Mileet." While the film's lasting impact on KhairAllah and his tribal status is uncertain, I assume that his reputation at least has now reached even higher and wider circles than before.