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Navel Jewels: a brief history of the belly button pasty

Writer's picture: Auntie Helen aka The Feral DancerAuntie Helen aka The Feral Dancer

“Your navel is a rounded goblet

    that never lacks blended wine.”  


Song of Songs 7:2


Whatever translation of the Old Testament you prefer (I am using New International Version® here), you have to agree that Solomon's Song of Songs is splendid in every word. It is a titillating celebration of the female body, among other things. So, how did we go from cheekily calling out the navel as something extraordinarily beautiful to navel jewels meant to cover up - specifically - female belly button?


Well, Dorothy - you know the drill. That seat belt ain’t going to buckle itself!


Context is everything, so here’s more than just one verse of the Song of Songs:


How beautiful your sandaled feet,

    O prince’s daughter!

Your graceful legs are like jewels,

    the work of an artist’s hands.

Your navel is a rounded goblet

    that never lacks blended wine.

Your waist is a mound of wheat

    encircled by lilies.

Your breasts are like two fawns,

    like twin fawns of a gazelle.


Song of Songs 7:1-3


The text continues by going up the human body and talking about neck, eyes, nose, head and hair.


Could the navel in this poem stand for something other than the umbilical cord connection point? It is very likely to be the case. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to assume that the poem is referring to female reproductive organs. However, this only applies to belly buttons of the female variety! Men can flaunt their innies or outies all they want (unless it’s Football though!).  Nobody will write a poem about them that would survive millennia, or think of them as something even remotely sensual and evoking. The fact that females of human species are placental mammals too is obviously a controversial topic, ‘cause ya know… a hole is a hole!


Now we shall take a journey backwards down this yellow brick road. You might be wondering what the heck navel jewels are and why I started this post with a screengrab from a 1967 British adventure rom-com called “Follow That Camel”. In one of the scenes of this movie, the heroine is distracting a bunch of officers with her supposedly seductive and exciting belly dance routine. Take a look at the screengrab below to get a better idea of her outfit. (The full movie is available on YouTube. I have to warn you that the belly dancing piece - starting at around the 29 minute mark - is hard to watch as the cringe factor is dialed to 11.)


 “‘Those were the times” you might say and I’d agree with you wholeheartedly. The key word here is “were” - may those times never return from the past tense into the present. You might also say something along the lines of: “That puritan West with its sanitized female body image!”. And you might be right. Especially if you evoke the Hays Code, which is the reason why actresses in Hollywood movies had to have their belly buttons hidden. The Hays Code governed the content of the motion pictures from 1930 to 1968 when it was replaced in the US by the rating system we are all familiar with today.  Foreign films imported into the USA during this time period were subject to the same rules.


However, if you go as far as to argue that this jeweled belly button pasty is a western creation and could only be seen in western movies, I’d have to strongly disagree with you.


Taking a few steps back again, we land in the early decades of the twentieth century. Ah, the times of progress, innovation and sharing of ideas! Also, colonialism, chemical warfare and Spanish flu. Egypt is about to become the Hollywood of the Arab world.  But with the great power of cinema to strike a chord with people’s emotions and embed ideas, comes the great responsibility. It is quite shortsighted to say that Egypt simply adopted Hollywood's model of censorship in movies to pander to its occupiers' sensibilities.


Egypt had a lot - and I mean a hell of a lot - going on in the early twentieth century. World War I had a tremendous effect on the quality of life of an average Egyptian, with economic uncertainty and rising inflation. Not surprisingly the growing dissatisfaction with the king and Britain's rule led to the 1919 Egyptian revolution. Political and economic turmoil weren’t the only concerns of the time.


“Taqâ‘ïq, ostensibly ‘light’ entertainment, in fact addressed such

serious themes as the reconstitution of family around the nuclear model,

the dangers of polygamy, the right to get acquainted to the bride or the

groom before marriage, the dangers of girls’ autonomy for a family’s

wealth, the minimum age of marriage, the way spouses should deal with

their husbands’ misconduct, working women and women in the police

and the army.” (Lagrange F. 2009. Women in the Singing Business, Women in Songs. History Compass)


As the world was changing at unprecedented rate, the highly patriarchal Egyptian society had to find its own vision for the arts and media.


Here I am quoting Dina Mansour-Ille’s article from December, 2012. I highly recommend reading it in full as it will provide greater understanding of the approach to what is acceptable and what is taboo in the arts and entertainment of Egypt and the Arab world in general:


Film censorship in Egypt, which was officially instituted in 1914 by the Palace and the English Embassy, while being administered by the Ministry of the Interior, was not entirely aimed at maintaining public norms and values, but was justified as a military and political necessity regarding matters of national security, which is why it was first administered by the Ministry of Interior. This continued until the establishment of the Ministry Of Social Affairs in 1938, which took over this role and added “safeguarding social order and public morals” to its aims.


Behold, Dorothy, here we swap the yellow brick road for the one made of screengrabs and good intentions of Egyptian Golden Era movies. Do not fool yourself by thinking that the primary market for these films was the western audience - thus the belly button pasties. These movies were made for Egypt and the neighboring Arab countries.


As a side note, the quality of the recordings and, subsequently, screenshots I was able to take, leaves a lot to be desired. However, it’s not hard to see the navel jewels when they’re reflecting light and shining like little belly stars. It is especially amusing to see them under a see-through belly cover or beaded fringe, almost as if the film producers thought “you can never be too careful” and went the extra mile not to upset the censors. Also note the sheer fabrics and the rather high slits of the skirts worn by performers.  

It would truly be a disservice to you if I did not include screengrabs from, perhaps, one of the most known non-Egyptian films starring the one and only Samia Gamal.  “Ali Baba et les 40 voleurs” (English: Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves ) had not only Samia Gamal bejewel her belly button but the other two bedlah-clad female characters as well.

One can never watch too much of Samia Gamal, so here’s another film starring the beloved queen of belly dance. Akher kedba was an Egyptian movie produced in 1950. In this originally black & white short clip of Farid Al-Atrash singing and Gamal dancing you can also observe a large group of dancers with all sorts of belly button covers!  This is about to change, as after the 1952 Revolution and creation of the Ministry of National Guidance, a unified standard for belly dancers and their navels was established. However, that is a story for another time.


In conclusion, I hope I have demonstrated that Egyptian society had a will of its own in regards to what kind of nakedness is acceptable on the silver screen without the Hays Code’s “guidance”. Censorship in arts, entertainment and broadcast remains one of the many issues plaguing the development and innovation in Egyptian movie industry.


This post was inspired by my latest experiences dealing with contentious topics of Egypt's orientalism-skewed heritage and how it affects current public views all across the world.


As recently as this year (2024) I found myself facing the navel jewel question. An acquaintance of mine asked whether or not I dance with “a sparkly gem in the belly button”. As some of you might know, I have no poker face: what you see is what you get. I was caught so off guard by that obsolete and loaded question that the “Auntie Helen” face came out and the person inquiring quickly moved on to a different subject. My partner, a witness to the whole conversation, later pondered why anyone would ask about something as private as body piercing out of the blue. I had to explain the difference between the navel piercing and the “a hole too close to the unmentionable” navel jewel while trying not to combust into flames. Telling a belly dancing friend this story while still fuming and showing some of the “gem-filled” footage from Egypt-made movies, I got the typical “Oh, self-orientalism!” comment. To me this sounds like “Egyptians had no self-awareness and no agency to conduct themselves in a way that would safeguard their own vision of the land, culture, history and heritage they belong to”. Lets stop stripping people of Egypt of any semblance of self-identity and free will in historical or any other context.



Have something to say? Get in touch askauntiehelen@gmail.com   

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