North Yemeni tribes perform an oral verse genre called the balah in their wedding ceremonies. It is argued that the selfofthe honorable tribesman emerges in the compositionalprocess, particularly in a routine of challenge-and-response carried out between competing poets. George Herbert Mead's model of symbolic interaction is used to bring out the idea of the self emerging in an artistic act. Implications for Middle Eastern research are considered.
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Steven C. Caton (1985) studied this question.