Nabaweya Moustafa With A Shamadan 1944

A clip from the 1944 film Ebnati (My Daugher) starring Aziza Amer and Mahmoud Zou el Fakar or "Zulfikar" The dancer is Nabaweya Moustafa. The plot of the movie goes like this: Two women have given birth to baby girls at the same hospital on the same day. One of them is a wealthy woman who's baby dies at birth. The other woman (played by Aziza Amer) is a poor woman who gives birth to a healthy baby girl. However, her husband has recently been sentenced to prison for having killed a man during the course of a robbery. She is left alone and pregnant. At the hospital, the nurse convinces her to exchange the babies and tells her that this will give her little girl the opportunity to be raised by a loving and wealthy family and not bear the stigma of being the poor daughter of a convicted felon. The mother agrees for the sake of her baby and the babies are switched, her child is given to the rich woman. The hospital nurse then recommends the biological mother as a wetnurse for the newborn and she is hired by the wealthy woman to care for the baby. In this scene the biological mother is the one holding the baby and the wealthy mother is standing directly behind her. During the Sebou, one of the women recognizes her as being the wife of the convicted murderer and she alerts the rest of the women. This is why they all look so upset. This party is called a Sebou. This is an old Egyptian tradition which is celebrated on the seventh day after a baby's birth. It's a baby welcoming party and it is celebrated in Egypt by Copts and Muslims alike and for both girl and boy babies. Some of the traditions of the Sebou include gently shaking and rolling the newborn in a flour sieve or flour sifter, and clanging a mortar and pestle loudly, or even pots and pans. The rolling of the baby reportedly dates back to pharaonic times when newborns were shaken and rolled to shake off any evil spirits and loud noises were made to scare bad spirits away. In the Sebou ceremony, the baby is given much advice (usually by the grandparents) and instructed to be a good child and to obey their parents always. Salt is scattered and thrown all around the house to ward off evil eye. There is much singing and dancing and happiness. Dancers were often hired to perform for the guests as can be seen in this video clip.