Nubia

I am Shoukri. I am Nubian and my people come from a long time ago, from a time when the great river was young and when the kings were just beginning to think. I am a captain- I sail the Nile on a felucca and my brother Jimmy also sails a felucca. Feluccas are the traditional boats of the Nile- with large sails and flat decks to transport people and things.Feluccas have been like this since the beginning. We carry people on my felucca – westerners who come, lily white, on board to sail from Aswan to Luxor and experience the great Nile and its temples. We sail the boat downriver . We also cook for the westerners, our traditional food with lashings of chillie and garlic. We even find them beer and brandy, though the brandy is more like lighter fluid than brandy.

At night on small islands, we light fires and play the drums and sing songs- the songs of our people, which are not egyptian.Then when we have sung and danced we sleep on flat mats on the felucca which we tie together so that they float along the slow current of this great river. Sometimes we have to tie the boats to shore as the modern river boats, floating hotels, chug along the river. One westerner asked me if I had any irish friends. I asked why and he said it was that our drum was like the Irish Boran and that it was played in the same way. Perhaps, it is ,that the Irish have Nubian friends for this drum goes back to the dawn of time , when my ancestors ruled this land and were admired for their skill in all manner of making things including music.

My house, where my wife and children live is traditional nubian- with a domed roof, and whitewashed walls and brightly painted doors and shutter. My wife chose blue because she says it keeps away the flies. Our house is not big but my wife decorates it with the things she makes- she is a fine crocheter, she makes special crocheted caps to sell in the Aswan bazaar- in traditional colours- orange and green or orange and white with triangular shapes or zig zag shapes.She has crocheted many cloths for our house.
I am a happy man. I work with my brother who is my best friend, we like to make music and we like to sing and dance and to laugh and joke- our language is our own. My wife is my equal and all that I earn is for our children. I live the river- which has been the river of my people since the beginning of time. We wait on our feluccas as the westerners travel by calesh to visit the temples at Komombo and Edfu the temple dedicated to Horus the Falcon God and his wife Hathor ( goddess of child birth and love). The gods of my ancestors are different, though in all reality they have many similarities.

My people visited the great templeof Ramses at Abu Simbel ebfore Nasser of Egypt had moved for the building of the Aswan High Dam.

In spell 1,130, the “Lord of All” gives us his final monologue from his barque:

WORDS SPOKEN BY HIM WHOSE NAMES ARE HIDDEN.
The Lord to the Limit speaks
before those who still the storm, at the sailing of the entourage:

‘Proceed in peace!
I shall repeat to you four good deeds
that my own heart made for me
within the serpent’s coils, for love of stilling evil.
I did four good deeds within the portals of the horizon:

I made the four winds that every man might breathe in his place.
This is one deed thereof.
I made the great inundation, that the wretched should have power over it like the great.
This is one deed thereof.
I made every man like his fellow;
I did not ordain them to do evil, (but) it was their own hearts which destroyed that which I pronounced. *
This is one deed thereof.
I made that their hearts should refrain from ignoring the west,
for love of making offerings to the gods of the nomes.
This is one deed thereof.
I created the gods from my sweat.
Man is from the tears of my eye.

I shine, and am seen every day
in this authority of the Lord to the Limit.
I made the night for the Weary-hearted. **
I will sail aright in my bark;
I am the lord of the waters, crossing heaven.
I do not suffer for any of my limbs.
Utterance together with Magic
are felling for me that evil being.
I shall see the horizon and dwell within it.
I shall judge the wretch from the powerful,
and do likewise against the evildoers.
Life is mine; I am its lord.
The sceptre shall not be taken from my hand.
I have placed millions of years
between me and that Weary-hearted one, the son of Geb;
then I shall dwell with him in one place.
Mounds will be towns.
Towns will be mounds.
Mansion will destroy mansion.’

I am the lord of fire who lives on truth,
the lord of eternity, maker of joy, against whom the otherworldly serpents have not rebelled.
I am the god in his shrine, the lord of slaughter, who calms the storm,
who drives off the serpents, the many-named who comes forth from his shrine,
the lord of winds who foretells the northwind,
many-named in the mouth of the ennead,
lord of the horizon, creator of light,
who illumines heaven with his own beauty.
I am he! Make way for me
so that I shall see Niu and Amen.
For I am a blessed spirit, equipped with otherworldly knowledge;
I shall pass by the fearful ones –
They cannot speak (the spell) which is on the end of the book-roll;
they cannot speak for fear of him whose name is concealed, who is eithin my body.
I know him; I am not ignorant of him.
I am equipped, excellent in opening portals.

As for any man who knows this spell,
he shall be like Re in the east of heaven,
like Osiris within the Netherworld;
he descends into the entourage of fire,
without there being a flame being against him, for all time and eternity!