Page 223 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Six

The Social Aspects of the
Traditional Economy

1 The changing occupational and social
pattern of Abu Dhabi’s tribesmen

The traditional economic basis: desert and sea
When the Bani Yas moved into Dhafrah at least three centuries ago,
occupied LTwa and eventually spread to the adjacent coast, they did
not take over unoccupied land; there were tribes already there who
were, like them, nomads, and therefore easily assimilated. It was not
the classic situation of nomadic people competing with an estab­
lished village population1 for the use of land and water, as had been
the case in the mountainous parts of Eastern Arabia before the
advent of Islam and during the eviction of the Persians. One may
safely assume that the Bani Yas confederation of tribes and their
Manaslr and other associates were an egalitarian society at the time
when they started to create their own date gardens in the hollows
beneath the dunes of the LTwa and to settle there. Initially, cultivating
remained a sideline in a basically camel-oriented way of life.
Eventually almost all the Bani Yas families became semi-settled and
attached to certain places in the LTwa or on the coast. When many
members of this community took up pearl-diving as a regular
occupation, it was undertaken as a communal effort. At that time the
boats belonged to the community and the proceeds of a season’s
catch were distributed fairly among the crew: “fair" meaning that the
divers and the captain (nukhoda), who had the greatest responsi­
bility, got bigger shares than the haulers (saib).
Most Bani Yas tribesmen became of necessity versatile; they were
as good camel-breeders as any other nomadic Arabs of Eastern
Arabia; they grew date palms under very unfavourable conditions in
the Liwa and in various other parts of the desert; and they became
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