Page 199 - UAE Truncal States
P. 199

Chapter Five

                        considerable distance inland and therefore people could not  engage
                        in agriculture and fishing at the same time. This was particularly true
                        in Abu Dhabi where the oases of Llwa and the Buraimi area are a long
                        way from the barren shores and islands, the homes of fishermen.
                        Fishing therefore became, together with pearling, the exclusive
                        occupation of a small group oT people in the sheikhdom of Abu
                        Dhabi.
                          Some of Abu Dhabi’s islands were permanently inhabited by
                        fishermen, mostly Rumaithal and also some Qubaisal, both subsec­
                        tions of the Bani Yas. Those people who lived on islands in the west
                        such as Sir Bani Yas had to fetch water from Dalma Island, where
                        there was a permanent source of fresh water. An alternative means of
                        obtaining water was to trap the occasional winter rain by support­
                        ing, on a number of poles, large sails with a hole in the middle, but the
                        winter rains were unreliable and the supply could not last for very
                        long. The Ghaghah group of islands also, in the west, had a village
                        with stone huts on one of the islands; the inhabitants built cairns on
                        the islands to guide their boats through the shallow channels. To the
                       east of Abu Dhabi Island, too, some of the neighbouring inshore
                       islands such as Sa'diyat had permanent fishing villages on them,
                       inhabited mostly by Rumaithat. Dalma, in the open sea in the west,
                       was the most important of the inhabited islands but was not used as
                       a base for fishing; some of its permanent inhabitants went to other
                       islands in the winter to fish from their more protected shores.
                         Fishing on the entire coast of Abu Dhabi and its islands was
                       undertaken on the strength of fishing rights which were rented from
                       the Ruler. For example, the area between Khaur al 'Udaid in the far
                       west up to just west of al Hamra\ about 100 kilometres of coast with
                       many islands and sandbanks, was at one time in about 1940 rented to
                       Darwfsh bin Haddad of the Rumaithat, who paid 350 Rupees per
                       year to the Ruler.10 Families who lived from fishing on the islands and
                       on the coasts paid one-fifth of the catch to the main holder of the
                       fishing rights. Such rights were held primarily by Rumaithal, but
                       were also held by some of the Qubaisat, Al Bu Falasah and Rawashid   «
                       sections of the Bani Yas. Inhabitants of the Llwa who went fishing
                       during the winter did not themselves obtain fishing rights but gave
                       the customary one-fifth of the catch to the holder. Many Bani Yas
                       from the Llwa left their pearling boats pulled up on the shore for the
                       winter months if not in use for fishing. No Manasir, 'Awamir or Al
                       Murrah tribesmen went fishing because few of them owned boats,
                       but some of them joined in the pearling dive as crew; they did not

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