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The Tribal Structure of Society

        fishing, pearling, trade by camel and ship, and crafts which were
        associated with the requirements of the other economic activities and
        were limited by the nature of the raw materials available.
          The questions which arise out of the above are: which group did
        what? How did they come to do it—by choice and inclination or by
        force of circumstances?
          It is not too sweeping a statement to say that most of the history of
        south-east Arabia has consisted of solving these very questions.
        They presented themselves lime and again. Because of the shortage
        of arable land not everyone could lead a settled existence, nor could
        many people engage in a profitable trade. Throughout the history of
        the last two millennia in this area most tribes have for a period
        partaken of the beduin existence and at other times of the sedentary    i
        life in villages and towns. Fortunes have changed frequently, and so
        have the inclinations and desires of the tribes. Villagers have lived in
        fear of the incursions of the beduin raiding parties. Generations of
        nomadic tribes have scorned the sedentary life and preferred to live
        in fear of drought and persecution from the settled tribes on the
        fringes of the desert to which they had to resort when the rains failed.
        Time and again beduin tribes have taken possession of irrigated
        areas and eventually come to work the soil themselves. On the other
        hand, settlers of drought-stricken areas are known to have resorted
        to nomadism and eventually themselves become desert beduin. Thus,        ;
        very few groups remained in the same economic circumstances for
        countless generations.
          The above remarks on dispersal and dissemination of tribal
        groups have to be taken up again to point out another characteristic
        of the economic history. Conscious maintenance of strong kinship
        ties allowed quite often a sharing of economic activities between
        related or friendly groups. One tribal section would for instance take
        care of its own domestic animals as well as of those belonging to a
        related or friendly group, while the latter looked after its date
        gardens or went off for the pearling season.
          Scarcity of resources and, in relation to these resources, relative
        density of population have formed the most characteristic pheno­
        menon of the region’s age-old economic pattern: the versatile
        tribesman. He is to be found throughout the area and throughout the
        ages. He spends the winter with his livestock in the desert and comes
        to the coast to fish in the summer in order to supplement his own and
        his animals’ diet. He plants or harvests his dates and takes part in the

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