Page 468 - Truncal States to UAE_Neat

Notes to Chapter Six

56 Dyeing cotton and wool is still an industry in which at least two families
are involved in Firq near Nizwa in Oman; in 1975 the author saw one
shop in the suq in 'Ibri where woven cloth was being dyed indigo.
57 A typical weaving frame from Buraimi is exhibited in the museum of al
'Ain. An identical one is still being used by the weaver in Firq who
makes lengths of material for the unsewn lungi or vvizfir which men
wear under their shirt (handurah).
58 See also for the following, Dostal, Beduinen, especially the photograph
of a saddle on Abb. 2 and 3 Dostal proposes the theory that only after
this type of saddle had been developed was full camel nomadism
possible.
59 The fish oil which was used to rub the bottom of the boats at frequent
intervals for impregnation could also be burnt, but it was not used for
cooking because of the amount of smoke it developed; the same applied
to animal fat.
60 Even nowadays charcoal is not always available in a market such as
'Ibri, for it is brought in on certain mornings by the beduin who still
manufacture it.
61 Lorimer, Geogr., p. 1440.

CHAPTER SIX
1 Examples of these types of social differentiation are to be found within
the context of the age-old confrontation of the desert and the sown in the
Middle East. See e.g. Nieuwenhuijze, C.A.O. Van, Sociology of the
Middle East Leiden 1971, Wilkinson, J.C., 1972 in Hopwood, ed. and in
some of the articles collected and edited by Louise E. Sweet, Peoples and
Cultures of the Middle East, 2 vols, New York 1970, particularly vol. I,
part III; Rural Peoples of the Middle East; Nomadic Pastoralists.
2 Many settled Dhawahir in the villages of the Buraimi oasis did not own
the date gardens they tended. Similarly, when an increasing number of
people were needed to man the many pearling boats sailing from the
Trucial Coast, beduin such as the Tanaij and the Bani Qitab par­
ticipated just for the season without really becoming members of the
social structure of the pearling communities.
3 There was the example of agriculture in Oman, which according to some
theories declined dramatically after the importation of slaves was
forbidden in 1845 and became increasingly risky.
4 Baharinah is a term which became practically a synonym for a Shi ah
Muslim whose mother tongue was Arabic; they had no coherent tribal
organisation, but some of the leading families were distinguished by
names such as Al Majid and Al Rahmah. See Lorimer, Geogr., pp. 207f.
5 See Lorimer, Geogr., p. 411.
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