In the first part of stambali, future adepts are identified during public rituals called tesmih. Their initiation takes place during the second cycle, through private rituals of a therapeutic nature: the arifa (seer and priestess) is usually then consulted to reveal the supernatural origin of the illness affecting the patient. In Israel, Tunisian Jews have maintained the role of 'arifa, even in absence of the Black Tunisian community. During the ceremony, possessed people may beat themselves with various implements, pass torches of burning grass under their arms, hold hot coals, tear at their clothes, throw themselves to the ground or at other people, and so on. The musicians keep watch to ensure they do not harm themselves or others while in trance. They do not feel pain in trance. Many do not remember what happened afterwards and describe their souls as leaving their bodies or say they are "emptied". The area where rituals take place is called a midan, and this word is also used in many zar groups for the same thing.
Incense is used heavily at stambeli rituals. Women often wear bright colors (the spirits like these), and red, white, and green are common. Silky fabrics and sequins also often appear on the clothes worn by attendees. Jewish stambeli participants may have a lead dancer, who must wear red and dance with a metal tray full of incense on her head. The atmosphere of rituals is happy, and attendees adorn themselves with henna the way they would for a wedding. Large amounts of food (candy, salads, spicy oils) are prepared. In Israel the ceremonies are
gender segregated; when the women dance the men must leave the room. Only the male musicians can stay. This is because entranced women may loosen their hair, tear at their clothes, have clothing ride up or come undone, or even undress, and this is considered something men should not witness.
Animal sacrifice is an important part of stambeli. It has been retained among Jewish Tunisians in Israel. There, the sacrifice (due to financial issues) is usually a
cockrel. Alongside the animal sacrifice, spirits may ask for certain clothes or jewelry that the possessed will wear. Music is used to structure the rituals in sense of time and space, while also healing. The structure of songs also sets the spirits in a hierarchy. The name of the nuba is often just the name of the spirit, and is how their potential presence is recognized. The nubas and spirits sit in networks with others, and are sorted into silsila (chains) dictating appropriate orders. Certain nubas can or can't be played after others. Usually, the oldest and most powerful spirits go first, and then the younger ones. However, there is room to improvise. Nubas can be repeated or skipped, and some non-normative ordering can occur. At private ceremonies, the host's nubas will be played the most. Certain nubas also must be played if one spirit's host is present, even if no hosts are present for the other spirit. Jewish stambeli was notable in that it used to use (when there was a significant Jewish community in Tunisia) 3 musical ensembles, who performed in different rooms. The stambeli group used a small gumbri (gumbri dha'if), shqāshiq, and kurkutuwat (small kettledrums played with sticks). The Jewish rbabiyya group used the rebab fiddle, tar (tambourine), and darbukka (clay goblet drum). Finally, the awled iz-zawiya (sons of zawiya) performed praise songs on the mizwid (bagpipes) or zukra (double reed aerophone), along with the bendir (frame drum with snares), and darbukka. Today Jewish Tunisians in Israel have bands that play
tomtom drums, tambourines, bagpipes, flutes, and cymbals. The gumbri is conspicuously absent. They no longer play in separate rooms. The lyrics are improvised, and supposedly the dance movements are too. The gumbri facilitates communication between the pantheon and humans. Because of this and how important it is, it can only be played by the yinna (also spelled yenna), who is the master musician and main ritual authority. He may also be called m'allim (master). He leads the troupe and mentors other musicians (sunna or shqāshiqiyya), who usually play the shqāshiq and serve as a response chorus. In the Dar Barnu tradition, the yinna sometimes diagnoses the afflicted, selects remedies, and determines the correct ritual procedures. The yinna structures the ceremony by selecting and ordering the nubas, marking their start and end, and responding to the behavior of dancers and spirits. Today there are only 5 known yinnas in Tunis. Stambeli has retained a stronger community and transmission further south in the country, near
Nefta, but participants there still feel their practices are endangered. During performances, the yinna is flanked by the sunna on his left and right. Within the sunna is an informal hierarchy; the musician on the yinna's right is usually the most accomplished, and he serves as lead singer (though sometimes the yinna will lead in singing). The rest of the sunna is the response chorus. The sunna also are responsible for preparing the ritual by lighting incense, retrieving props and clothes for dancers, and sometimes slaughtering animals. They are trained by the yinna, and at Dar Barnu are expected to call him baba (father). Other stambeli musicians who are not a part of a yinna's usual troupe instead call him khali (maternal uncle). The sunna are treated like family at Dar Barnu. They start acquiring stambeli knowledge by first attending rituals, with limited support roles. They imitate the shqāshiq playing and participate in the response chorus, gradually picking up and developing musical knowledge. They start to be asked to fill in for regular sunna players, and based on talent and reliability, may make the short list that the yinna chooses his sunna for ceremonies from. One of the older members of Dar Barnu in the 90s, Baba Majid, recalled that when he was young many stambeli musicians were possessive of their knowledge and reluctant to pass it on. He had to learn discreetly by paying close attention to the gumbri at rituals, and made himself a small gumbri to practice with. By contrast he was more open, but found himself frustrated by many of his apprentices not taking the time to do things properly. The yinna's skill is a product of their predecessors. They observe the older yinnas, observing their style and taking elements that appealed to create their own. The gumbri is a three stringed plucked
lute in the bass register. The body is usually made from multiple pieces of wood, and covered on the front with a piece of goatskin. They used to be carved from a single piece, but this is now rare. Round wooden boxes (former cookie containers) and tomtom drums are sometimes used to make the body, but the latter is not used for gumbris played in rituals. The body has a square hole cut into it on the side, facing upwards to the performer. This is used to access things played inside the gumbri, lika amulets, money, and spare instrument parts. The neck is a pole that is inserted fully through the body, and the string are attached to it with leather strips that can be loosened, moved, and retied for tuning. A small wooden bridge with grooves carved into it holds the strings above the goatskin on the body, and bevind it is a small metal resonating plate pierced by metal rings that may hold amulets. Between performances, the bridge and resonator are stored inside the gumbri. The strings, goatskin, and resonator work together to create the "buzz" of the gumbri. The left hand controls the strings from the neck, while the right strums and pucks strings, or strikes the goatskin. The body diameter is usually around 15 inches in diameter and 12 inches deep. The total length of the instrument averages 44 inches. The smaller gumbri dha'if used to be used at ceremonies and processions, but is now mostly a practice instrument. The gumbris are personalized and highly decorated. It is painted and adorned with
cowrie shells. The goatskin, which is replaced once a year, has patterns on it made using
henna, paint, and harqus (a black dye used to draw temporary tattoo-like patterns on the skin). They often have charms and amulets, such as fish and
hamsas. Gumbris were the main ritual instrument of Dar Kufa. In some of the earliest descriptions of stambeli, the gumbri is described as a sacred instrument that offerings were made to. It "speaks" to the spirits and "draws them in". The spirits do not appear in abscene of the gumbri, and the gumbri can communicate with spirits entirely by itself, but when used for possession rituals the spirits prefer the shqāshiq to also be played so they can dance. The shqāshiq (also called chkacheks) are clappers made from four identical metal plates (two for each hand). Iron is the preferred metal. Each plate is shaped like a figure 8 with two convex domes on the outer side. Leather straps attach them to the hand. One plate is fastened to the thumb and the other is fastened to the middle and ring finger. The minimum number of shqāshiq players for a ritual is two (two shqāshiq being played), but ideally there ahould be at least four players (eight shqāshiq being played). At pilgrimage ceremonies even more shqāshiq players are often present. Similar metal clappers called sambani were used in Hausaland for bori ceremonies, before being banned by the
Sokoto Caliphate. They re-emerged as a woman's instrument to accompany
Islamic music. They are also used (with the same name) in northern Ghana for blacksmith's dances. The first clappers of this type might have been bone or wood (an early stambeli account describes clappers made of ostrich bone). When transmitted to the Maghreb, they were brought to the blacksmiths to make better copies from iron. These blacksmiths were often Black Africans. From there, the instrument was transmitted back to West Africa and the Sahel. Similar clappers exist in Morocco, but are manufactured and played differently. Tunisian clappers are heavier and the plates can be misaligned and pulled apart quite a lot to get different sounds. The third instrument important to the Dar Barnu tradition is the tabla drum. It is a double headed
barrel drum played on one side of the instrument with an open hand and a straight drumstick. It is used in place of the gumbri for ceremonies that start before sunset; the gumbri is usually played in the evening and at night. Like the gumbri, the tabla speaks to the spirits, and the rhythms for playing it are based on the gumbri. It is accompanied by shqāshiq and singing. It is also used in place of the gumbri during street processions, now that the gumbri dha'if is no longer used for that purpose. It commonmy has a fabric or leather strap to hold it up while being played. It is the only instrument of these three that resembles Tunisian instruments not used for stambeli. However, it is played in a distinctive style recognized as Sahelian. A smaller barrel drum called a dundufa used to be used during processions as well. Other percussion instruments and styles of playing are used in an ensemble for pilgrimage, called debdabu: here, the yinna plays a tabla, but rotated 90 degrees, so that each hand can strike the drum head. It is played with one round and one flat stick. The sunna accompanies him with one gas'a (a drum shaped like an upside-down bowl), two kurkutuwat (small
kettledrums), and two bendir (
frame drums with snares). At Dar Bambara, a rectangular lute without a resonating plate was the main instrument. It was called the
gambara (the gumbri's little sister) and associated with Algeria. It is rarely played in Tunis. The fakrun (turtle) is very similar to the gumbri, being a
spike lute, but its body is made of a turtle shell. Soundholes are cut into the skin cover, and the neck touches the skin. It was likely brought to Tunis by enslaved people from further west than Bornu, from
Senegal,
Mali, and
Mauritania. The gugay is a 1-2 string spike lute played with a bow, sometimes described as a "fiddle". The body is made from half a gourd. It has the same round neck, leather tuning straps, and bridge as the other stringed instruments used in stambeli. It probably comes from the Hausa
goge, which is used in bori rituals. The goge was banned under the Sokoto Caliphate for this reason. Some Tunisian Jews in Israel use video or audio
cassettes of stambeli performances to hold private ceremonies without the presence of a band. The lyrics are considered du'a, invocations, that summon and welcome the spirits and saints. Stambeli songs are short and repetitive, compared to the longer and usually narrative Sufi songs. They repeat invitations to the spirits and saints to join the ceremony. Alongside praising the spirits and saints, the songs praise God and Muhammad. Some of the songs are fully in Arabic, and some have Hausa,
Kanuri, and
Zarma words. Some are almost entirely in Hausa. The lyrics can be changed and are less important than the instrumentation; in a strange way, that helped these linguistic influences survive. The delivery of vocals is more important than the words. The aesthetic of the singing should be
sudani. It should reflect the gumbri, being understated and flowing, and not clearly enunciated (in contrast the very enunciated Arabic style). The music increases in tempo and speed as one travels through the pantheon. The saints have slower starting rhythms than the spirits. The yinnas and 'arifas usually have the knowledge passed down through families, though sometimes spirits will choose an 'arifa (signified by illness). ==Demographics and perception==