Page 85 - Arabian Studies (I)

The Cultivation of Cereals in Mediaeval Yemen 71

164. The Tamil text reads, probably incorrectly, ‘from Abyssinia and
Barbarali (Bcrbcra)’, but the Cairo Ms. has ‘wa-bizru-hu kabTr, and its seed is
large.’
165. I have so far not traced this word, but it could also conceivably be from
a dialect of the Tihamah people of mixed African blood.
166. MM., 26a.
167. As I have seen on several occasions, it is actually tossed from behind to
underneath the plough. I was told that, whereas for wheat and barley the sower
can walk behind and scatter the seed, millet must be sown using the qasabah, a
pipe with a funnel at the top of it attached to the plough, so that the seed will
go down into the ground.
168. On the 21st September the Ta'izz almanac predicts rain in most districts.
169. Kahlf renders the ground suitably moist (rawiyah) for the crops (Qadf
Isma‘11). The Qadf did not understand exactly what is meant by ‘thorough-going
application (bi-'l-jumlah al-kafiyah)\ but the text may be slightly corrupt here.
170. Cairo Ms. margin notes that al-mantam in Tihamah dialect is al-matlam.
There may also be a form matmam. The Qadf says yatlimu meansyabdhurii, to
sow, and Gloss, dat., 235, states that talam is faire des sillons, labourer. Cf. note 116.
171. Receptacles are probably ghara’ir, woollen bags, but dukhn is covered in
dawbalf (tin — dust but I seem to have understood it as a sort of madfan — cf.
note 132) and stored in pottery jars (azyar) or barrels (baramlt) (Q. Isma‘fl).
172. The vocalisation of this name which I have so far found in no Arabic
source is doubtful.
173. Cf. al-‘Arshr, Buliigh al-maram ..., 429, al-sib al-badhr li-’l-zar', Gloss,
dat., 2159; Landberg, Arab ica IV(Leiden, 1897), 136.
174. Reading so for the text’s Haddan. Nashwan b. SaTd is buried in Haidan
(Q. Isma‘i1). Cf. Muh. b. Muh. Zabarah, al-Anba' \an dawlat Bilqls wa-Saba\
Cairo, 1372 H., 121. ’
175. The Ta‘izz almanac confirms these are the chosen dates for sowing in
Tihamah but does not mention rice.
176. ShaijF, op. cit., 133, the mountains of al-Lihb.
177. MM., 24a.
178. Qit'ah, a term also used in Ahnum and the western mountains of the
north of the Yemen. Synonyms are sabbah, pi. sibab, sibab, tubbah, pi. tubab,
salaq, pi. aslaq defined as a division of the jirbah (field), also qasam, pi. aqsam, a
small piece of ground similar to a hawd basin or plot.
179. Qadf lsma‘i1 gave a valuable definition of nabat as employed in the
Yemen — kull ma kharaj min al-turab yusamma nabat, anything that comes up
out of the earth is called nabat. It is applied then to a shoot of any of these
crops which has not grown above the level of the ridges of the furrow (film). See
figure below.
/\A/\

Fig. 8. Furrow
with a nabat shoot
in it.