Bedouin Ethnobotany: Plant Concepts and Uses in a Desert Pastoral World

Plants for Use

chapter 4 Plants for Use . Plants for Livestock Grazing and Browse for the bedouns of Arabia, the use of wild plants as livestock forage, defining as it does their very subsistence mode and ruling virtually all aspects of their annual cycle of movements and activities, dominates their interest in desert plant life. During my data gathering, I did not follow grazing field activities per se at length or in great detail but had occasions for field observations of many aspects of grazing practice. These observations , in general, confirmed other observers’ descriptions (Musil 1928a; Cole 1975; Lancaster and Lancaster 1999). My consultants classified their livestock as indicated in the Venn diagram in figure 4.1. Bedouins that I worked with represented primarily camel-herding groups. A few of them kept some sheep and goats when camped for longer periods near Dhahran for part-time employment, and relatives in the hinterland cared for their camels. The favored breed of sheep in eastern Saudi Arabia is the all-black, fat-tailed ‘arabiyah (pl. ‘urb), which is said to provide the best wool for tents and cloaks as well as milk for household use. It has a reputation for requiring less attention because it tends to wander less than other breeds. More common in commerce as a meat animal, even in the east, is the najdiyah (pl. najad) sheep, black with white face, with less fat in the tail and with thinner wool (fig. CD.40). Another breed, the light-colored ‘usiyah (pl. ‘awasa) of southern Iraq, is seldom seen except in the far northern reaches near the Iraq border. Goats are of a long-eared variety with the straight black hair favored for use in the weaving of tent material as well as for wool. Such small household flocks of sheep and goats that I saw around the tents of some of my consultants were cared for largely by the children of the family under the direction of the mistress of the household. The area of their grazing was generally around the main camp area and seldom beyond sight range of the tent. Camels (dromedaries; the single-humped species), however, were by far the most important Bedouin grazing animal among my consultant groups. 80 plants for use 4.1.1 The Camel Aloys Sprenger called the Bedouin “a parasite of the camel” (1891, 361), although a biologist today would no doubt prefer to describe the relationship as one of mutualism or symbiosis. Given the significance of the camel in the Bedouin economy and in many aspects of everyday life, one is tempted to postulate a Bedouin “camel complex” parallel to the African cattle complex described by Melville Herskovits (1926). Herskovits himself suggested that the camel among some African groups outside the cattle regions carried some of the cultural attributes of the cow in his complex area (1926, 644–49). I found numerous ceramic camel figurines among surface artifacts at the Hellenistic–Sassanian period archaeological site at Thaj in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia (Mandaville 1963, 13). Alois Musil described circumcision customs among the Ruwalah that involved the slaughter of a camel (1928a, 245). Camels, among other livestock, are today slaughtered annually on the occasion of ‘I d al-Adha’ as part of fgure 4.1. Bedouin classification of livestock. All of the terms shown here are collectives without singular forms (like the word cattle in English). Words based on quite different roots (not shown) are used for the feminine and masculine individuals of each. plants for use 81 the annual Muslim pilgrimage ceremonies. A consultant of the Al Rashid tribe told me that among his group of the southern Rub‘ al-Khali a camel is slaughtered at a funeral feast by the relatives of the deceased and that a male camel calf is often killed for a feast at the birth of a boy. Camel breeds and varieties in Arabia vary as much as horse breeds do in Western countries, ranging from coarse baggage types to high milkyielding breeds and the fine-featured, thoroughbred riding animals called ‘Umaniyat because they originated largely in the region of Oman or its hinterland in southeastern Arabia. The most common type in the herds of my consultant groups was the all-black or dark brown mijhim (pl. majahim ). The name is basically a color term meaning “black” or “dark,” but it also identifies a recognized breed well known for its high milk...