themselves. Although such raids seldom took place in the late 1960s or early 1970s, except occasionally to punish someone for breaching the honor of a family member, the appropriate skills were carefully maintained. Similar skills were still employed, for example, in avoiding the harassment of border patrols of national governments that, for security reasons, urged the Bedouin to settle down and cease their nomadic way of life.
The Bedouin kept herds of sheep and goats, which they considered to be the foundation of their wealth and their major economic resource. They also kept camels and occasionally horses. The stately and dignified walk of the camel belies their temper. When the Bedouin were in residence, I sometimes used a camel to travel from one village to the next when carrying out my research. Camels know precisely how great a load they are meant to carry, and it is easy to offend them by overloading them. If the overload is minor they merely lie down, and once the insulting kilos are removed, they get up again and walk on as if nothing has happened. If seriously overloaded they bellowed with rage, refused to move, and spat on any person within range. Some become so deeply offended that even removing their entire load cannot mollify them. Mitigating the inflicted injustice is the only thing that will restore them to their usually tranquil nature. As they seem to equate any animate thing with its odor, a person can resolve the perceived injustice by removing his or her clothes and putting them on the ground in front of the enraged beast. The camel will kick them, urinate on them, defecate on them, and sometimes get down on their knees to rub their waste products into the clothing, and thus restore their equilibrium. The offender can then pick up the clothes, put them back on, reload or remount the camel, and continue the trip with a renewed degree of understanding, if not open friendship.
The Bedouin supplemented their income during their residency in the area by hiring out their camels as conveyers of goods. According to an informant, this custom began long ago when the local sheikhs had great power over the area and the people. The Bedouin were required to transport grain and goods for the sheikhs as a fee for using the marginal land around the marshes. After the sheikhs lost their power or had fled, the Bedouin continued the practice but now received a fee that nicely supplemented their ordinary income. In 1970 mostly tradesmen and descendants of the sheikhs who still maintained a resemblance of their original position in the community hired them. The usual freight consisted of grain, reeds, and reed mats.
For the Bedouin the camel was indispensable. It was the main form of transportation and cartage; it was the means for moving home and contents from place to place throughout the year. In addition, female camels supplied milk, an important part of a Bedouin’s diet. The milk was highly regarded in the villages as a health cure, and its value in trade or outright sale also produced a significant addition to the family’s income. Then, too, the dried dung of the camel produced appreciably less smoke than that of other animals, and was considered the best fuel for making bread in the tannur, the oven for baking bread and meat, and the most practical fuel for inside heating producing a comparatively smoke-free environment.
In the past, I was told, camels were bred mostly for speed and endurance so they could most productively carry their masters on pillaging raids or into intertribal warfare. In 1970, however, the ideal camel was heavier and therefore capable of carrying heavier loads albeit at a slower pace, and was also a prolific producer of milk. Camels live to be as old as 27 years, but their average life span is about 20 years. Naga (female camels) are kept only as long as they continue to give milk of good quality and quantity. Owning too many male camels can be troublesome at breeding time, so in those households where fee-transportation plays a minor role, the young males are often sold as meat for weddings and other big feasts. The camel intended for the feast is made to lie down, and its legs are firmly bound so that it can no longer rise. Even with the camel bound, it takes as many as three or four men to hold the camel’s neck back while the butcher thrusts his knife into the base of the neck and saws through the jugular vein.
Most of the time camels are kept tied by one foot and hobbled to prevent them from foraging in neighboring fields. They are fed on dried reed stalks and any kind of green grass or sedge that can be gathered or that grows near the area where the camel can be staked. Camels are usually walked to the marsh or canal for water once a day—twice a day when it is very hot. They need both the water and the exercise.
Females are bred every year or year and a half in order to provide her with a new calf about the time she ceases to nurse the old one. Pregnancy lasts for a year, and the mother will nourish the calf for up to a year and a half. Owners of camels usually allow the babies to nurse, since some mothers cease to give milk if their calf is taken from them. A cloth around the mother’s udder supported by a strap on her back keeps the calf from drinking all the milk. A camel is usually milked twice a day until it begins to give less milk after a year or more, when it is milked only once a day. Before the mother is milked, the calf is allowed to nurse, but is only allowed to drink as much as the owner thinks necessary. A good naga will give 2–3.5 liters of milk at each milking.
If a female camel loses her calf at birth and is the kind of mother who will dry up without a young camel to feed, the owner will try to buy a calf from someone who has a female camel that gives milk even without a baby at her side. To get the female to accept the new baby, the neck and head of the dead baby are cut off, mounted on a stick, and stuffed with straw. The mother is teased with this contraption while the new baby nurses the first few times. The smell of the dead baby’s head and neck encourages the mother to let the new baby nurse, and gradually she accepts the newcomer. Not all female camels, however, can be fooled in this way, and if their calf dies they may become useless as milk producers.
A few Bedouin keep a horse or two that are normally treated like members of the family. The horses are provided with winter blankets to protect against chill and lighter ones to ward off the summer sun. Always encouraged to walk into its master’s tent and lie down wherever it wishes to rest, a horse sometimes seems to enjoy more privileges than its owner’s wife or children.
Change
In 1968, the Beni Hasan, the Mi’dan, and the Bedouin lived on the countryside as they had for generations. For most of their needs they relied heavily on their individual and collective skills and on the resources of the area. Tribal, clan, village, and family organizations were strong enough to give life a meaning and purpose that were fully shared with other members of the community. From the archaeological point of view, the resources on which the villagers were dependent were often the same resources available to the Sumerians who lived on the same land thousands of years ago.
Changes, however, were beginning to take place as early as our first campaign. Inexpensive goods appearing in the markets of nearby towns were making inroads on the production of local households or craftspeople because of the strength, brilliant colors or decorative designs of the new items. Schools in the area were obligatory for the young. Although most would follow in the footsteps of their fathers, teachers were beginning to awaken the students’ curiosity about the cities and the outer world, to inspire some to try their hands at non-traditional endeavors, and even to challenge tradition. Battery-operated radios were ubiquitous, and news programs were listened to with great concentration. Interestingly, a program’s message was fairly well understood but often translated into the familiar local geographic setting and local technology with subtle changes. The election of a president in some distant country was thought to require some warfare between parties with guns, mugwars (clubs), and daggers as well as an appearance at the ballot box.
The disappearance of the sheikhs’ authority was beginning to be felt in inter-village and intragroup relations, but family and village life were still held together by a firm belief in the words of the Quran and the moral authority of village elders and craftspeople. Changes slowly occurred during the next few years, until by the middle of the 1970s some traditional crafts and practices had completely disappeared. With the onset of the war with Iran in the 1980s, the pace of change increased with electrifying speed. By 1990 the Mid’an and the Bedouin had completely disappeared from the area. Drying up the marshes had allowed the building of a road that gave direct
