Page 32 - The Tigris Expedition
P. 32

In Search of the Beginnings
         came silently in, saluted in the name of Allah and sat down in the
         shade by the reed columns.
           ‘The berdi has to be cut in August.’
           The old man broke the silence by repeating the sentence I had
         now heard everywhere in the marshes.
           ‘Why?’ I asked, repeating a question I had asked a hundred times.
         By now I knew the answer all too well: if cut in any other month the
         reeds would absorb water and lose buoyancy. Only if cut in August
         would berdi float for a long time. Some said for a year. Some said
         two, three, or even four years. Some said they did not know why
         they cut in August; it was the custom.
            ‘In August there is something inside the stalk that keeps water
         away,’ said the old man. ‘We have to harvest our reeds then and let
         them dry for two or three weeks before we use them.’
            The first time I had heard this statement was on the banks of
         Shatt-al-Arab at the village of Gurmat Ali, between the marshes
         and the gulf. It was my first visit to Iraq after my two experiments
         with Egyptian-type papyrus ships, and I had been quite astonished
         at seeing half a dozen huge reed rafts moored like floating wharfs
         along the river bank. I had measured one that was 112 feet long, 16.5
         feet wide and about 10 feet deep. One third of the depth was below
         the river surface. I jumped on board this raft and had tea with a
         marshman who lived on it in a tiny makeshift shelter, also made of
         reeds. A patch of mud on the reed floor prevented the huge raft
         from catching fire, as all he burned to heat his pot were short bits of
         the same dry reeds. I asked how long Matug had lived on his big
          reed-raft. Matug had lived on his gave for only two months so far.
          He had spent one of them floating it down from Sueb in the
          marshes. And how far had it sunk into the water in that time?
          Nothing, he said. Matug had cut his reeds in August. He had come
          here to sell the reeds of his gare to a small factory that made them
          into cardboard for modern building insulation.
            Two months! After one month on our papyrus ships our reeds
          were already completely waterlogged and for the rest of the voyage
          we had floated with our deck at surface level and the waves
          breaking over all cargo not kept high above the reed bundles.



          3.  The boat is still to the Marsh Arabs what the camel once was to
          their neighbours.
          4.  Old and new cultures meet at the edges of the marshes. Women
          bring berdi reeds for our reed-ship.
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