Page 149 - Arabian Studies (II)

Hunting Techniques and Practices in the A rabian Peninsula 141
135; Bayzarah, 144-45.
41. This point is mentioned by E. Daumas, The Horses of the Sahara (trans.
S. M. Ohlendorf), Texas, 1968, 71 and by Dickson, loc. cit. It is not specifically
mentioned in the Arabic written sources, but comes high in the lists supplied by
informants.
42. Cf. Jahiz, Ibn Qutaybah, Kushajim and Bayzarah, loc. cit., all mentioning
a ‘long thick neck’ — thick — ghalTf — well muscled? Daumas, loc. cit., says
‘muscular neck’.
43. This particular point is nowhere mentioned in the written sources at our
disposal. Cf. Jahiz, Ibn Qutaybah, Kushajim, Bayzarah, loc. cit., who all speak of
‘black [?] [azraq] eyes’, ‘long eyeballs’ (?), ‘the blacks of the eyes protruding’.
Jahiz, Hayawan, II, 201, talks of the sparkling of the saluki’s eyes when the
quarry is sighted. He quotes a poem: ‘Lop-eared hounds with collars decorated
with onyx; ’tis as if, when the hunter indicates the game, their eyes are snow’.
44. There is no mention of the croup in the written sources at our disposal,
nor indeed of the back. All the Arabic sources quoted above mention a long
body, this being necessary for speed.
45. Jahiz, Hayawan, II, 47; Ibn Qutaybah, *Uyun, 81; Kushajim, Masayid,
136 and Bayzarah, 145. All state ‘long in the thighs, thick [well muscled?], with
plenty of flesh’.
46. Hanak, used of the muzzle by an informant, means the part beneath the
chin, lower part of the mouth, beak of a bird, in classical Arabic; cf. E. W. Lane,
An Arabic-English Lexicon, London, 1865, 1.2, 659. Cf. also Dickson, Arab,
376; Daumas, Horses, 71; Jaljiz, Hayawan, II, 46; Ibn Qutaybah, Vyun, 81;
Kushajim, Masayid, 136; Bayzarah, 145.
47. Cf. Daumas, Horses, 71, ‘clean legs, tendons prominent’.
48. Jahiz, Ibn Qutaybah, Kushajim and the Bayzarah, loc. cit.
49. The measurement differs in the other sources; Dickson, Arab, 376, ‘at
least the width of a hand’; Daumas, Horses,! 1, ‘room for four fingers’.
50. There are photographs of salukis with cropped ears in Rafiq Shakir
al-Natshah, Rihlah ila’l-Rub' al-Khali, al-Dawhah, n.d., 73 and Waters, Saluki,
84. Ash, Dogs, I, 197, says the ears are cropped to prevent their being tom by
jackals! The cropping of the ears of guard dogs is not uncommon in the
Peninsula and is supposed to prevent their being tom in the event of a fight.
Guard dogs in the Yemen villages invariably have their ears cropped when small
puppies. This, one of the present writers was informed, makes them stronger and
keener as guard dogs.
51. Jahiz, Hayawan, II, 26.
52. Ob. ca. 194/810.
53. See below, Quarry, 5) The oryx and Hunt, 4) The oryx.
54. MufaddalTyat, IB, 873, line 40. ‘... wafiyani wa-ajda'u. The practice
must therefore have been an ancient one.
55. Jahiz, Hayawan, II, 363; Abu ‘Umar Ahmad b. Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd
Rabbih, al-Tqd al-Farld (ed. Ahmad Amin and others), Cairo, 1940,1, 180; a
garbled version of this story appears in Daumas,Horses, 129; it appears also in a
modem book on the Arab horse, ‘AIT al-BarazT, al-Jawad al-'ArabT, Beirut, 1972,
167.
56. The ‘Abbasid caliph, 198-218/813-33.