CAIRO — Standing over a dead body, Fatimah was stunned when her relative told her to hold the shroud and bones of the dead person so that she might become pregnant. The gravedigger then told her to lay inside the tomb for a stronger effect.
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The 36-year-old Egyptian woman, whose name has been changed and who has unsuccessfully tried for 15 years to get pregnant, lives in the village of Hamdayat, in Luxor province. She is one of many women who still resort to ancient practices, still popular in the countryside, to become pregnant, and lose the label of “Umm Ghayyeb,” a nickname given to women who can’t have children.
Fatimah performed a practice called “digging the graves,” which is among the practices the 19th-century British orientalist Edward William Lane described in his book An Account of the Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians. But the practices date even farther back, to Pharaonic Egypt.
Ancient roots
Ancient Egyptians were preoccupied by reproduction and its value. Ancient manuscripts indicate that women resorted to doctors and magicians to treat infertility. A papyrus dating back to the New Kingdom, between 1500 and 1300 BC, shows that the ancient Egyptians believed that the urine of a pregnant woman carried creative elements that energized any creatures it came into contact with, so they sprinkled it on wheat, which represented men, and barley, which represented women. If the wheat grew faster, it meant the woman would give birth to a boy, and if the barley did, the baby would be a girl. If the crops failed to grow, it meant the woman was not pregnant.
In their book Motherhood and Childhood in Ancient Egypt, authors Mohammed Fayad and Samir Adeeb write that ancient Egyptians issued to preserve the milk of the woman who delivered a boy, and gave it to other women who wanted to give birth to boys.
Women who want to get pregnant resort to shrines and tombs of clerics.
The relationship between death and birth had deep roots rooted in ancient Egypt, Radall Clark wrote his classic study of the ancient Egyptian world, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptians viewed their ancestors as good spirits, or Ka, who were responsible for fertility, sexual power and good luck. That is why women turned to their tombs to become pregnant. They also believed in the return of the soul and its re-entry into the body.
In Egyptian mythology, one of the most important goddesses, Great Mother Isis, searched everywhere for her murdered husband Osiris, until she found his body, returned it to life to become pregnant and give birth to their son, Horus. Many women in modern Egypt follow that myth — although they are not aware of its details — and search for fertility in the dead world.
Rahma Khaled, who is in her late 20s and lives in Maghagha, in Suhag province, remembers that when her sister died, her aunt, who had no children, pulled out the body and stepped over it. “I was outraged. How could she not respect our feelings or the sanctity of our dead sister?” Khaled said.
In another practice, a thread, which corresponds to the height of the woman who wants to become pregnant, is put with the shroud and buried along with the body. This means that the woman “is buried as an infertile woman, and reborn as a healthy one,” researcher Muhammad Abd al-Salam explains in his paper Reproduction and Popular Customs.
Shrines, tombs and temples
“I tried everything possible,” Fatimah said of her long journey to become pregnant. In addition to “digging the graves,” she visited a senior monk in a monastery, who after reciting prayers gave her water to drink. She also visited ancient Pharaonic tombs in Luxor.
“I stepped over the baggage of people who had just returned from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia. I also stepped over the milk of a woman who just delivered her baby; stepped over a dead fetus, and over a woman’s placenta,” Fatima said, with a laugh.
They roll down three times, thinking that there is a hidden force pushing them.
In northern Egypt, people resort to clerics from a different religion to get rid of bad things and witchcraft — perhaps because they believe the cleric is “the devil’s ally” and has the ability to communicate with spirits and remove witchcraft.
It is the same belief that visits to tombs and Pharaonic places are based on believing in the dead’s relationship with a supreme power, the devil and witches. Women who want to get pregnant resort to shrines and tombs of clerics. They also go to a cemetery known as al-Kahreta, in Suhag, to visit shrines and lay on their backs in an open space in the cemetery and roll down from side to side. They roll down three times, thinking that there is a hidden force pushing them.
In the village of al-Raisiya in Nagaa Hammadi in the southern Qena province, many women visit the shrine of Sheikh Ibrahim bin Adham, one of the most prominent Sufi figures. Fawzia Hammad, the shrine’s guardian, has led women for years to pass over a stone next to the shrine seven times. The woman believe in the sheik’s “Karamat” or “magic:”
In the Monastery of Abu Shenouda in Sohag, women climb the “al-Qat’iya” mountain and roll back down several times in the hope of becoming pregnant. And in Minya, people visit the “Seven Girls” dome in the Bahnasa village. Resident Nashwa Adel, who lives close to the dome, said that the area is famous for its blessings, and that women used to visit the dome to become pregnant.
“Rolling on its sands makes women pregnant,” she said, exhaling that a woman lies on her right side with her hands behind her head. A maid then pushes her from the tip of the mountain three to seven times.
Variety of myths
In a field study, Zainab Abdel Wahab, a professor of population sociology at the Faculty of Arts, South Valley University, met many women, some of them university graduates, who practiced such myths. “This indicates the power of popular heritage that turns over time into an absolute truth that is not open to debate, and even tampering with it is a violation of the sanctity of its adherents,” she said.
Fatimah, who has a business degree, agrees with Abdel Wahab that education is not a barrier to such beliefs: “A relative, who holds a university degree, used to do these practices with me. Any woman who wanted to have children and get rid of social pressure, even if she was not convinced, would try these practices.”
The first time I saw a dead body, I collapsed to the ground and my head hit a stone — I almost died.
Abdel Wahab said that the new couples in Upper Egypt villages resort to such practices from day one of their marriage. They, she said, enter their new house or room using their right foot first, sometimes the husband carries his bride. They also sprinkle water and salt.
Two or three months into their marriage, women begin to visit doctors, in parallel with resorting to popular practices, she said. Perhaps this is due to the value of childbearing, and in some rural communities people view the woman who does not give birth as unworthy of married life.
Umm Ghayyeb
In Egypt, social customs and traditions blame women for the inability to conceive. This stigma pushes women to try things that could cost them their lives. “The first time I saw a dead body, I collapsed to the ground and my head hit a stone — I almost died. One day, I slept on the railway and when the train passed, I fainted. After that, I used to wake up terrified for many days,” Fatimah says.
The woman who can’t have children is like a bullet that doesn’t hit its target.
Israa Rady, who is in her early 30s, recalled a relative who lost her mind as a result of similar attempts: “It is true that the woman eventually gave birth to a boy, but she remained mentally ill until she died,” Rady said.
There is also Samia Hamdy’s aunt, who facilitated her husband’s second marriage, after the couple spent 18 years without children.
Traditional proverbs summed up the role of women. One proverb says, “The woman who can’t have children is like a bullet that doesn’t hit its target.” They also suggest that a woman without children is a “guest” in her own house.
In the first years after her marriage, Fatimah was called by her name. But as her attempts to get pregnant have failed, she has come to be called “Umm Ghayeb.”
“Every time, they remind me that I am not fertile, and that I lack something,” she said.
