of long-distance globalized trade. They indicate that the Semitic tribes of Magan were exchanging copper, and perhaps incense medicines or spices as well, for hundreds of tons of barley. Those enormous quantities of cereal grain traveled down the coast of the Persian Gulf southward past the Straits of Hormuz and along the shores of the Arabian Sea as far as Zhafar harbor.4
Minds were traveling as well. Perhaps the traders’ minds leapt to consider the possibility that asafetida from one land might be as valuable as their own fine zedoary, and so a complete alphabet of comparable values for totally dissimilar substances could potentially come into play.
Simply put, Semitic tribes from the driest of lands had learned how to trade the few precious metals, gems, and potent plant products they had—resins, seeds, cinnamon-like bark, colorful stigmas of flowers and their bracts or buds, aromatic herbs, gums—for the surpluses of staple foods produced in better-watered pockets of the world.
Let me speculate for a moment on the significance of the phrase “learned how to trade.” As spice traders gained rudimentary marketing skills, perhaps they came upon psychological strategies to convince a farmer that he needed a copper bell for his wife’s necklace or an anti-inflammatory for the pain in his back as much as he needed enough teff or millet to keep his family from starving during the coming season of hunger. Could it be that people became willing to imagine that someone in another part of the world had something as desirable, potent, and worthwhile as the finest product they could harvest or produce on their own home ground? Perhaps this was the first moment that they sought out staples that they themselves could not easily grow: sorghum, barley, wheat, and teff, as well as fava beans, garbanzo beans, and lentils. They found these grains and beans on islands of irrigated lands in the middle of a desert sea. There, oasis dwellers expressed a desire to acquire spices that might break up the monotony of consuming the same old staples every day and thus brighten an otherwise dull meal.
Dates and goat meat, goat meat and millet, millet and dates. Sorghum and goat meat, mutton and sorghum. Cracked wheat and quail meat, quail eggs and garbanzo bean stew. What might have a certain shadhan, that is, an irrepressible pungency or unforgettable flavor that could provide some pleasurable relief to an otherwise unrelenting sequence of staples? What could break up the dietary monotony and the drudgery of processing, preparing, and eating nearly the same stuff every day?
We can now imagine that there might be a psychological risk to asking such questions on a regular basis. Could it be that such questions made people more apt to be dissatisfied by what lay before them and prone to crave something that was almost out of reach? Semitic peoples, at least some of them, seem to have succumbed to a thirst that could never be quenched—the grass would always be greener on the other side of the desert. It could never be quenched because of one simple fact: they tended to create a psychological desert wherever they went and could therefore reach neither the “grass” nor the happiness.
Thus, like nomadic herders, the traders were motivated to travel far and wide, not only to bring in a larger set of foods to their larders but also to spice them up. As economic historians have recently confirmed, early Semitic traders did indeed find a marvelous way to adapt to the patchy distribution of agricultural and wild resources on the Arabian Peninsula. They became effective traders between or among the peoples living in dissimilar patches, redistributing diversity and wealth in the process.5 To succeed, they appear to have adopted not only a certain kind of mobility but also a mindset that was, until then, rather uncommon elsewhere in the world.
I did not fully fathom the significance of what these early traders had done until I left the Dhofar region to visit the souks of northern Oman, well beyond the range of frankincense itself. At that time, my wife, Laurie, and I were traveling with a brilliant agricultural scientist, Sulaiman Al-Khanjari, who, like many Omanis, had family ties and roots in Zanzibar. Once we had arrived in the coastal metropolis of Muscat, Sulaiman asked if we wouldn’t mind visiting yet another spice souk. “The products you’ll see will be much like those in Salalah, but there is someone who may be working in this souk today whom I particularly want you to meet.” Did I detect a certain twinkle in Sulaiman’s eye as he mentioned this?
Once in the souk, we wander down its narrow aisles, past groups of Arab youths looking to purchase cloth, jewelry, electronics, watches, slippers, shoes, and, of course, spices. Laurie and I try to keep up with Sulaiman, but crowds of Omanis press in on us, wedge in between us, and leave us yards behind our friend and guide. When at last we catch up to him, Sulaiman pulls us into a close huddle to explain the next step. “I want to take a moment to look for an acquaintance, one who has a shop just up at the top of that little stairway. . . . Do you see? There, yes, that one. If he is up there, I will have a word with him, then wave to you to come up to join us.”
I see Sulaiman wave to another man in a white kandora robe, white skull cap, and slipperlike shoes. Dressed identically, the two of them embrace for a moment and then speak quietly for a while. At last, Sulaiman waves for Laurie and me to come up to where they stand.
“Dr. Nabhan of Arizona in America, meet your long lost cousin, Mr. Nebhan, the frankincense trader of Muscat, Oman.” Sulaiman grins. He then translates his words in English back into Gulf Arabic to the middle-aged man standing next to him. This man is shorter than I am, with a full head of black hair and with bags under his eyes that remind me of some of my closest relatives. His skin, like my father’s, is olive colored.
“Al-hamdu lilah! [Praise be to God!]” The smiling spice and incense merchant hugs me, then grabs my hand and holds on to it. He beckons for Laurie to take a picture of us together. Then he offers us some of his frankincense as a gift. We begin to ask questions of each other, with Sulaiman kindly translating and adding his own commentaries to provide some context.
“Are there many of the Banu Nebhani clan here in Oman?” I ask.
The merchant nods. “Well, yes, he supposes so,” Sulaiman explains. The merchant continues nonstop in Arabic while Sulaiman tries to listen, then paraphrases, “Your namesakes have been here a long time . . . maybe fifteen hundred years, maybe two thousand years. So that makes a lot of Banu Nebhani who have lived here . . . in some villages nearby.” Sulaiman then adds some commentary that is clearly his own: “They are like the Smiths or Joneses in your country! They say that the Banu Nebhani came from Yemen with other al-Hadr tribes, I don’t know how long ago.”
My presumed distant cousin, the frankincense vendor, offers more commentary, which Sulaiman tries to translate a bit more literally: “Old tribe . . . clan of what do you call them? Big shots, you know? Many sheikhs.” Our host then asks if there are many Banu Nebhani in my country, and if there are, where they sailed from.
As I answer, Sulaiman translates back into Gulf Arabic: “My grandfather, grandmother, and aunts were born in Lebanon, near the border with Syria. They sailed to America about a century ago, from Beirut to Marseilles and then on to New York. Others went to Mexico or to Brazil.”
After Sulaiman finishes translating my answer, he and Mr. Nebhan banter back and forth for several more minutes. Sulaiman finally turns back toward Laurie and me and grins. “He wants to know what your family trades in your shops in America.”
As I think about how to answer Mr. Nebhan, this Omani merchant, I remember that when the first members of my family came through Ellis Island to New York, some of them worked peddling spices, packaging spices, and retailing spices in corner grocery stores on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
I have paid my dues as well, digging up sassafras roots when I was young, and later harvesting wild chiltepin chiles and wild Mexican oregano with Native American friends in Sonora, Mexico, then serving as a middleman to get them into retail outlets. And now I grow two dozen kinds of peppers, mints, and oreganos on a small farm in the desert highlands of Arizona.
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