Page 223 - UAE Truncal States_Neat
P. 223

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
                 198
   218   219   220   221   222   223   224   225   226   227   228