Page 220 - UAE Truncal States
P. 220

The Traditional Economics

         door from I he old house. The doors arc usually made of l wo equal
         parts dividing vertically in the centre. A small door with an arched
         opening is often built into one part of the main door. On forts the
         doors arc particularly splendid, made of thick wood, studded with
         large iron spikes and fitted with intricate locking devices. A verse
         from the Koran may well be carved into a panel above the door.
         Weaving
         Very little cotton grew locally; the yarn, which was mostly imported
         from India, was dyed locally with indigo and other natural dyes.50 In
         Buraimi, Ra’s al Khaimah, and possibly some of the larger settle­
         ments, there used to be professional weavers. The weaver sal in a pit
         in the open air in a courtyard with a wooden weaving frame al a
         convenient level above the knees.57 The finished product was sold to
         customers in the vicinity and also found its way into the local suqs.
         As mentioned earlier, the other locally-woven items such as tents
         made of goat hair and sheep wool were not made by professional
         weavers and were not for sale but were woven by the women as
         required.
           According to the Gazetteer, an industry of weaving fine sheep wool
         'oba ah, presumably with gold braid, had been developed in Sharjah,
         but not enough were made to meet local demand so they were also
         imported from Bahrain and al Hasa. Most of the cloth used by the
         population of the Trucial States was not made locally but imported
         from India and elsewhere. As recently as the early 1920s there was no
         tailor in Abu Dhabi town; the women of each family made the clothes
         for everyone with the exception of the men’s faba’ah, while the
         shaikhly families and the well-to-do merchants had servants to do
         this work.

         Camel-trimmings
         On first sight it seems surprising that camel-saddles and camel-
         trimmings were not always made by the camel-breeders on the
         Trucial Coast themselves, because the locally used haivlani saddle is
         easily made; it requires very little wood, a small amount of woollen
         material and date palm fibres for stuffing.58 The descendants of the
         nomads who originally developed this type of camel-saddle are the
         full nomadic tribes roaming the areas to the west and south of 'Ibri
         and as far as Hadhramaul. Tbri was a centre for the trade in camel-
         saddles and trimmings made by these beduin, from whence the suq
         of Buraimi was supplied.
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