Page 348 - A Hand book of Arabia Vol 1 (iii) Ch 6 -10

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SOCIAL

SOCIAL

A. Population
The total population may be estimated conjecturally at rather
over than under a quarter of a million. No account is here taken
of unsettled Bedouins, since there is only a very small nomadic
clement in Nejd—less than in any other Arabian region. All the
known unsettled Bedouin tribes, which owe fealty to the Emir of
9 m
Riyadh, range either outside the boundaries we have indicated, orfor
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••• a very short distance and very occasionally within them. Such are
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the Ahl Hurrah, B. Khalid, and cAjman on the east, the Qahtan on
the south and south-west, and the Sebei1 and Sahul on the west. Nor
do independent tribes, like the Muteir on the north-east, the Sham-
mar on the north, and the Ateibah on the north-west, penetrate
Nejd except on occasional raids. The settled folk are, however,
almost all of original Bedouin stocks—Beni Tainlm and Beni
Khalid in Qasim ; southern Anazah, Tamlm and Dawasir in Central
Nejd ; and Dawasir and Qahtan in the south-west. If other
tribesmen come in, it is to settle (see Chap. XVI, pp. 603 ff.) It
is to this constant homogeneity of its society that Nejd owes
its common adherence to Wahabism, its unification under one
sceptre, and its comparative stability and strength.

B. Domestic Apparatus and Manufactures
These are as simple and primitive throughout Nejd as in any
other Arabian region where there is settled life. At the top of the
very narrow scale stand the citizens of Aneizah in Qasim; at the
bottom, the Dawasir and Saleyyil villagers.
All buildings are of sun-dried clay, with walls thinning upwards,
except in the southernmost villages, where the construction material
is palm-branch. Roofs are flat, and made of clay laid on palm-
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••• fronds or tamarisk branches, which are supported by palm-beams.
Windows are represented only by triangular light- or smoke-holes.
Each house has a court or yard used for keeping domestic animals,
depositing dung, &c. Privies are very rare—the yard, roof’
street, or even a room being used. Two-storeyed houses are
exceptional. Furniture—even a fitted divan frame—is virtually
unknown. Men sit and sleep on palm-fibre mats, and half the floor
will be bare and deep in dust A shallow depression with a clay
lim serves as a hearth. For dishes and plates small palm-leaf mats
are used. No implements for carrying food to the mouth are known.

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