- Delphine CAM
- Jun 30
- 3 min read
Singing is defined as a vocal production associated with musicality. But as my practice, which is also a research, progresses, I increasingly like to consider that it is not just a pretty composition of notes, rhythms, and words that are pleasing to the ear.
Musicality and harmony are possibilities of the voice that I love to explore and that make me feel good. I love expressing the beauty I feel through singing and sharing it in this form.
Yet our human life leads us to experience many other states, other emotions, it is a whole range of feelings that the voice can express, sublimate. As I get closer to my authenticity at each moment, my voice gets closer to me. Laughter, pain, beauty, ugliness, fear, love... I am all of that and my voice wants to sing it!
Can we call crying or screaming "singing"? Or how do they become so? Today, in our urbanized cultures, singing is most often associated with entertainment. We seek an expression that is pleasing to the ear, frequencies that are pleasant for the body and that do not stir us too much internally. But many traditional cultures have used it for more vital purposes, notably for funeral rites and mourning processes through the art of "lamentation."
Mourners, also known as "lamentatrices," are women hired to mourn and publicly express grief at funerals. They embody and externalize collective grief and enable the community to share and express the pain of loss. Their presence helps channel grief in a structured and ritualistic manner, thus facilitating the healing process. With their weeping, stories, and traditional songs, they play a crucial role in helping families express their grief and celebrate the life of their lost loved one, thus easing the emotional burden of separation.
This tradition, although less common today, has its roots in many cultures around the world, including ancient Greece and Egypt, Africa, Asia, and Europe.
In Eastern Europe, lamenters were an integral part of funeral rituals as well as wedding rituals, expressing the pain of the separation of the young bride from her natal family.
The lamentations noted by researchers are very varied, ranging from simple elementary exclamations in the form of interjections, to complex poetic systems with particular metaphors and symbolism, as in Russian lamentations.
In some cultures, mourners also play a spiritual role. In West Africa, for example, they are often seen as intermediaries between the world of the living and the dead. Their lamentation is not only a cry of pain, but also a prayer and a call to the ancestors to welcome the deceased.
Mourners in these roles anchored in social life still exist in China, India, and Africa.
On YouTube, I could only find mourners in Africa, particularly in Gabon among the Punu. I find it unfortunate that this is presented as a "commercialization" of crying and a way for these women who accompany mourners to earn money. A rather ironic and contemptuous look at such an ancient tradition, from an urban culture whose singing has almost disappeared from social life and is practically reduced to entertainment.
Personally, crying in a sonic way and also experiencing it physically has been very liberating. It is certainly not to victimize myself and remain "stuck" in an emotion of sadness, but on the contrary to live it fully and let life flow through me in an expressive way. It is like a heavy downpour that washes from head to toe so that I can remain open to what comes next, sometimes faster than I would have imagined... possibly the sun. Several of my songs were born during and after such showers, the emotion fully experienced, and why not vocally, opens the door to creativity!
Delphine Cam, 06/30/2025
Sources about mourners: