Page 18 - Arabian Studies (II)

8 Arabian Studies II
encourage the unfriendly group to send the kind of person not
specified to kill the unwary traveller from ambush.
Thus a Mehri will demand safety:

... men sox we-kennawn,
men hexer w e-sab,
men ber helol we-ber lierom,
men tet we-kennawn,
men gor we-geret,
men hayy w e-may yet,
men nekay we-men 'ayeb . . .
. . . from great and from small,
from old man and youth,
from legitimate son and bastard,
from woman and child,
from slave male or female
from living and dead,
from blameless and disgraced one . . .

Despite the dire consequences, oath-breaking is not unknown, and
certain of the people of Dhofar are feared for the falseness of their
oaths and the freedom with which they break, or are reputed to
break, the rules of hospitality and truce which are important to the
social fabric of the area, fragile though that is. Young Mehri boys are
warned that they must not rely too heavily on the sworn oath of any
but their noblest enemies.
An oath giving safe conduct must also carefully specify the time
the oath is to remain binding, for the safe conduct will not last a
moment longer than that time. Thus (say), for a truce lasting three
months:

salh gori satayt wawrex, hawelhem men yemoh arba*taler tenen, ta
arba ‘taler xamsah.1
, \ truce mnn*ng f°r three months, the first of them from today
rcL ®urteej^ second [month] up to the fourteenth of the
fifth [month].’
In the Jiddat al-HarasTs the Harsusls have a mass of folk memories
rom the not too distant past when raiding was still prevalent, but
though o!d likes and dislikes persist, a strong central government has
eP nt>al feuding to a minimum for at least the last thirty years. It
may be of some interest, however, to examine an account of feuding
as it is remembered, and in particular the role of oaths in truce

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