Page 50 - UAE Truncal States

The Tribal Structure of Society

fishing, pearling, trade by camel and ship, and crafts which were
associated with the requirements of the other economic activities and
were limited by the nature of the raw materials available.
The questions which arise out of the above are: which group did
what? How did they come to do it—by choice and inclination or by
force of circumstances?
It is not too sweeping a statement to say that most of the history of
south-east Arabia has consisted of solving these very questions.
They presented themselves lime and again. Because of the shortage
of arable land not everyone could lead a settled existence, nor could
many people engage in a profitable trade. Throughout the history of
the last two millennia in this area most tribes have for a period
partaken of the beduin existence and at other times of the sedentary i
life in villages and towns. Fortunes have changed frequently, and so
have the inclinations and desires of the tribes. Villagers have lived in
fear of the incursions of the beduin raiding parties. Generations of
nomadic tribes have scorned the sedentary life and preferred to live
in fear of drought and persecution from the settled tribes on the
fringes of the desert to which they had to resort when the rains failed.
Time and again beduin tribes have taken possession of irrigated
areas and eventually come to work the soil themselves. On the other
hand, settlers of drought-stricken areas are known to have resorted
to nomadism and eventually themselves become desert beduin. Thus, ;
very few groups remained in the same economic circumstances for
countless generations.
The above remarks on dispersal and dissemination of tribal
groups have to be taken up again to point out another characteristic
of the economic history. Conscious maintenance of strong kinship
ties allowed quite often a sharing of economic activities between
related or friendly groups. One tribal section would for instance take
care of its own domestic animals as well as of those belonging to a
related or friendly group, while the latter looked after its date
gardens or went off for the pearling season.
Scarcity of resources and, in relation to these resources, relative
density of population have formed the most characteristic pheno­
menon of the region’s age-old economic pattern: the versatile
tribesman. He is to be found throughout the area and throughout the
ages. He spends the winter with his livestock in the desert and comes
to the coast to fish in the summer in order to supplement his own and
his animals’ diet. He plants or harvests his dates and takes part in the

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