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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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