Page 210 - UAE Truncal States

The Traditional Economics

The diver sped his descent by attaching a heavy stone to his foot,
which was pulled up on a rope by the attendant saib as soon as the
diver reached the bottom. With his nose plugged by a peg made of
bone (faldm) his ears protected with wax and his fingers capped with
leather lips he would quickly gather shells into a basket (diyyln)
which he carried attached to his waist. When he could no longer hold
his breath he gave a lug on the rope tied to his belt and the saib
hauled him up as fast as possible. The contents of the diyyln were
taken aboard, while the diver rested in the water holding on to a rope,
and after a few minutes he descended again. The accumulated heap
of oysters was opened in the very early morning under the
supervision of the nukhada, who immediately registered in a book
any particularly good pearl which might be sold individually, and
he weighed and registered at intervals the collection of smaller
pearls.
All the boats belonging to the same port under the authority of one
shaikh departed to the pearl banks as one fleet. One of the
nawakhidah was formally appointed leader of the fleet; he co­
ordinated mutual assistance if a boat was in trouble, and he decided
upon a date for the return of the entire fleet; no boat was allowed to
return before all the others were ready to set sail for home. If someone
was taken ill he was sent to Dalma Island or to the nearest port on
one of the small craft used by the visiting pearl dealers.
The diving season lasted for about 120 days, from early June to the
end of September. During that time most boats returned only for one
or two brief visits to their home ports but would put in a number of
times at Dalma, where drinking water was available free of charge to
all pearling boats and where supplies of rice, dates, coffee and
tobacco could be bought in a seasonal suq. Apart from this ghaus al
kablr, many boats used to pul to sea earlier for a forty-day period
called ghaus al barid, the cold dive, because the waters of the Gulf
were still cold. The exact date of the beginning and the end of each
season was not the same each year, especially if the fasting month of
Ramadan, when diving is not permitted, occurred during the summer
months.39 Each shaikhdom set different dates for the departure to
and the return from the pearl banks.
In certain places, for instance, in the far west of Abu Dhabi, pearls
were obtained by wading (mujannah), and during the winter all
along the coast people would search for oysters in the shallow
waters.

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