Page 233 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Six

2 The pearling communities
in the other Trucial States
The economic structure: interdependence and debts
Among the urbanised pearling communities of the Trucial States
many of the egalitarian aspects of the tribal society were replaced by
differentiation of social groups on the basis of a system of financial
ties. A unique type of community in the ports of the Trucial Stales
emerged in parallel with the growth of the pearling industry. It
should not, however, be forgotten that many aspects of these
communities were also found among the pearlers of the Persian
Coast. The way in which this predominant industry was organised
had an all-pervading influence on the structure of the society of the
coastal towns of Trucial Oman and even on external politics of these
shaikhdoms. It is significant that in a table in the Gazetteer listing the
taxes which were levied by the authorities in the ports of the Trucial
Stales, two local terms are used which denominate the two ways of
operating pearling boats: ikhluwi was the system in which the crew
and the nukhada shared all the net profit of the season, distributed
according to the recognised system depending on the type of work
each individual performed. 'Amll (or marbub) was the system in
which the boat was owned and fitted out by an entrepreneur who
received a large part of the take at the end of the season, leaving the
rest to be divided among the crew." 10
The 'amll type of arrangement developed because a large capital
outlay was required before the boat could be manned and sail. For
boats which were operated by a group of tribal men who were all
related to each other and which set out from a cove or port near to
their date gardens, much of the provisions, which consisted largely of
dates, were brought from these gardens. The group paid for rice and
other essentials out of the proceeds of the previous year. But there
were many divers and haulers who lived in the towns, who had no
date gardens, and an increasing number of them did not even belong
to a tribal group represented in the town. They were individuals who
presented themselves to a nukhada who engaged them as crew; the
crews of such boats often consisted of people of different tribal and
ethnic provenance who could not put up the money to fit out and
provision a boat between them. Others in town had enough cash in
hand to advance the necessary sums and thus obtained a share in the
proceeds from the season’s catch.

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