Somali Songs, 1955-1991: The Maryan “Aryette” Omar Ali Collection

Maryan “Aryette” Omar Ali was born in Djibouti before its independence in 1977 and moved to Somali with her mother at a young age. She attended school in Hargeisa and briefly attended the Mennonite school in Jowhar. In Mogadishu, she was one of the first women to work at Somali Airlines, holding various positions including stewardess, cashier, and office manager. She briefly returned to her place of birth to work for Air Djibouti. In Djibouti, in 1989, she met historian, Lidwien Kapteijns, who was introduced to Maryan by Somali history and cultural expert, Maxamed Cabdillaahi Riraash, and political scientist, Cali Muuse Ciye. Maryan and Lidwien’s friendship and collaboration on Somali songs lasted until Maryan’s death. The two spent many months together listening to and transcribing songs. Once Maryan moved to Canada, first to Ottawa and then to Toronto, they continued to work on the collection together. This work included initial digitization. At Maryan’s death, she entrusted the music collection to Lidwien Kapteijns (Wellesley College) and Ahmed Samatar (Macalester College), who agreed to deposit it at Harvard University’s Music Library where the audiocassettes are being reformatted according to updated digitization standards. Eventually, the collection will be made freely available to a number of educational institutions in different parts of Somalia.

As a child, many of her neighbors and family friends were abwaans (poets) and fannaaniin (musical artists), including the famous playwright and poet, Hassan Sheikh Muumin. She regularly delivered refreshments to these artists during rehearsals and became part of the artists’ world. Maryan particularly admired the women singers, who, on the one hand, were loved by all Somali for their songs and, on the other hand, were looked down upon by many because, as female entertainers in a Muslim society, they exposed themselves to the public gaze and worked in close proximity to men of (sometimes) unconventional lifestyles and behavior. Collecting a wide range of Somali popular music throughout the course of her life, Maryan likened songs to historical documents, believing in their power and veracity as Somali voices about the Somali past and as a ledger of social change in crucial and largely hopeful period of Somali history. Maryan Omar Ali passed away on December 7, 2011 in the McCall Medical Center of Etobicoke, Canada. During her years battling breast cancer, she continued to focus her efforts on organizing, cataloguing, and documenting her vast collection of Somali music. She believed that this accomplishment was one of the most important of her life.