Page 259 - UAE Truncal States

Chapter Six

climbed a palm tree without hesitation, just like their brothers or
cousins. If nobody else was there to do it the younger women would
even go up the trees with the rope around their waist for a secure
hold while both hands were used to cut off the branches and pul
them in a basket. But usually the dates were harvested by the boys
who were loo young to go diving or by beduin who converged on the
LTwa and other oases to help with the dale harvest and who were
paid in kind for their work. Often the women had to decide which
dates were ready to be picked; the many different kinds of dates
ripened at different limes between May and September and had to be
brought down when they were ready. Women often had to supervise
the work of the beduin helpers, pay them, deal with the tax collector,
and distribute the fresh dates to those to whom a share was due.70
The women cooked the thick date slew, which was stored in palm-
frond containers and was eaten as the staple food (lamr) throughout
the winter and also on the pearling boats during the summer.
While women might help with watering the camels when beduin
families were in the desert, milking the female camels was always the
duty of the men or the young boys. Women were in charge of the
sheep and goats. In some villages large herds of goal were taken out
by a person specially hired by the entire community; otherwise the
women or the children took the goats out in the morning to graze at
some distance from the camp or the family home if they lived in a
desert oasis; in the summer they would usually bring them back
before it became very hot, tether them or pul them in a pen and give
them leftovers from the family meal or greenery which had been
collected in the desert or the date garden. Everywhere women would
often be required to gather firewood, carrying the heavy bundles
home on their heads.
Fishing, too, was an economic activity in which women had a part
to play. Where the catch consisted of sardines and anchovies as on
the coast of Shamailiyah and in Umm al Qaiwain, the women and
children spread the still-quivering silvery catch on the beach and a
day or two later they collected the dried fish into baskets. The men, if
not out fishing, hauled the boats out of the water and repaired them
and their fishing gear. Women would also sometimes help to mend
the nets. Where fish were caught by hanging a net across a shallow
cove, husband and wife might share all the tasks involved.
Because the catch had to be disposed of quickly, fish was the most
common item which women sold in public in the suq, and some still

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