Changing Nomads in a Changing World

[Front Matter]

Titles of Interest From Sussex Academic Press

Spain has witnessed the most remarkable economic, social and political transformation of an/ West European country over the past 25 years. This volume, the first book on the human geography of the “new Spain,” traces Spain’s own political evolution from dictatorship to democracy, to the autonomous regions. Subsequent chapters deal with demography, the agricultural crisis, industrial restructuring, the growth of the service economy, mass tourism, the welfare state, transport and urban systems. The book concludes with an integrated summary of the constituent elements of the new geography of Spain, set within the context of continuing and emerging regional disequilibria in Spain and with reference to Spain’s position on the dynamic semi-periphery of Europe.

300 pages Publication: Summer 1999
Hardcover ISBN: I 898723 91 5 £45 $65
Paperback ISBN: I 898 723 92 3 £1695 $29.95

This book explores the many geographies of the Mediterranean Basin with chapters on the Mediterranean environment, geopolitics, economic development, trade, demography, migration, cities, tourism, landscapes, mountains and islands. Written by an international team of geographers, the book offers a carefully integrated and up-to-date treatment of the contemporary human geography of one of the world’s most fascinating and significant regions.

300 pages Publication: Autumn 1998
Hardcover ISBN: I 898723 89 3 £45 $65
Paperback ISBN: I 898723 90 7 £14.95 $24 95

“Deserves to be read by all those who take a serious interest in the construction of identity.” David Lehmann, Director of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge

“An exceptional book which decodes the battles fought between imagination and reality in the construction of Latin America’s collective identities.” Tomas Eloy Martinez, Rutgers University

This book shows how different collective identities in Latin America shape the access to, and participation in, the ptsfeSic domain. It significantly enhances our understanding of the historical experience of societies marked by social, politics and intellectual struggles as each shapes a collective identity according to competing visions of modernity.

Hardcover ISBN: I 898723 77 X £45 $65

[Title Page]

[Copyright]

Contents

Acknowledgments

Great Scholar, Great Man, Great Friend
(Remembering Ernest Gellner)

Anatoly M. Khazanov

Introduction

Joseph Ginat and Anatoly M. Khazanov

1. Pastoralists in the Contemporary World: The Problem of Survival

Anatoly M. Khazanov

2. Who are these Nomads? What do they do? Continuous Change or Changing Continuities?

William Lancaster and Fidelity Lancaster

3. Being Bedouin: Nomads and Tribes in the Arab Social Imagination

Dale F. Eickelman

4. Coping with Change in Arabia: The Bedouin Community and the Idea of Development

Ugo Fabietti

5. Bedouin Settlement Policy in Israel, 1964–1996

Arnon Medzini

6. Continuing Education and Community Development for Bedouin

Helmut Danner and Malta El-Rashidi

7 The joz musarrib: An Unusual Form of Marriage 78 among the Arabs

Frank H. Stewart

8. The Segmentary Lineage System: A Reappraisal

Sharon Ba$tug

9 The Cactus Was Our Kin: Pastoralism in the Spiny 124

Desert of Southern Madagascar

Jeffrey C. Kaufmann

10. The Role of Triabal Groups in State Expansion and Consolidation: The Northern Arabian Peninsula during and after the First World War

Joseph Kostiner

11. The Missing Link: “Badu” and “Tribal” Honor as Components in the Iraqi Decision to Invade Kuwait

Amatzia Baram

12 Preservation and Change in Bedouin Societies in Israel

Joseph Ginat

13 Contemporary Mongol Concepts on Being a Pastoralist: Institutional Continuity, Change and Substitutes

Slawoj Szynkiewicz

14 Understanding Reindeer Pastoralism in Modern Siberia: Ecological Continuity versus State Engineering

Igor I. Krupnik

List of Contributors 243

Index

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to a number of people and institutes who have helped us with the preparation and production of this book. Both the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung and the Bertha von Sutner Research Program, from Germany, provided financial assistance. A special word of thanks goes to Sara Tamir, Zvia Haimovitz, and Rivka Fadder of the Jewish-Arab Center for their assistance. We also extend our thanks to the University of Haifa Research Authorities whose support made it possible to undertake this project. We are also indebted to the staff at Sussex Academic Press; their assistance and advice is much appreciated.

One important paper is missing in this volume, that of Ernest Gellner. He was going to submit it on the editors’ request; however the paper remained unwritten because of his sudden and premature death. Gellner’s contribution to the study of pastoralism is well known and does not need any reminding. The least that we can do to commemorate this great scholar is to dedicate this volume to his memory.

Great Scholar, Great Man, Great Friend (Remembering Ernest Gellner)

Anatoly M. Khazanov

There is a saying in the Talmud that a man should not refuse to do what he believes he must do, even if he is not destined to reap the fruits of his labor. If this is the case, Ernest Gellner should be considered a happy man. All his life he was an indefatigable disseminator of knowledge, of new ideas and new approaches. He has opened new fields of study, new horizons of scholarship; he challenged many dogmas. And yet, well deserved and world-wide recognition and fame came early in his scholarly life. He liked to claim that his prime interest was in intellectual history, the development of human thought and ideas. Well, his own ideas occupy and for a very long time will continue to occupy an important place in this history. All his works were extensively researched, written with vigor, invariably analytically acute and penetrating far beyond surface events. They will endure, unlike the ephemeral excursions into fanciful pseudo-theoretical ideas so popular and faddish especially today. One might agree or disagree with some of his theories and concepts, but almost everybody recognized him as a great scholar and thinker.

Everybody, except Ernest himself. His modesty and unpretentiousness were extraordinary. Once, only once, in a private conversation with him I mentioned the position that, in my opinion, he was occupying in contemporary social science. It was a matter-of-fact statement, made in a specific context, without any desire to flatter him (nor would he ever tolerate any flattering). Ernest smiled and replied that we certainly had many more interesting subjects to talk about. Apparently the Scotch that I had imbibed that evening made me persistent, forcing Ernest to argue that he was no better than at least two dozen other social scientists. It is my deep conviction that on this matter I was absolutely right and he was wrong. But it is also true that to Ernest the excitement and pleasure of intellectual research and intercourse were always much more important than all the rewards and recognition they might bring. Maybe this was one of the reasons why, contrary to some other great scholars who had peaked and became pundits long before they passed away, Ernest’s peak was always ahead of him. The tempo of his life and productivity and quality of his scholarship remained astonishing to his very last day. His letters to me always began with the words: “Life is hectic at the moment,” or “The pace of life is faster than ever before.” Many times, anxious about this incredible pace and, to tell the truth a little envious of his ability to keep up with it, I told him that he was literally burning himself out, that although younger than he, I would not be able to maintain such a strenuous life for a long time. I am afraid that my pleas to slow down sometimes irritated Ernest a little and he called me a nagging mama; on other occasions, he explained to me that he was simply afraid of getting old. Well, he has escaped that fate. He has passed away at the height of his intellectual powers and old age is the last thing that could be associated with him.

A lot has been said and will be said and written about Ernest Gellner as a great scholar, and with every year to come we will comprehend better his greatness. But he was not only a great scholar; he was also a great man. Unfortunately, this century has provided us with more than enough proof that professional greatness is not always accompanied by high ethical standards or even by elementary human honesty. I am not speaking about people like Martin Heidegger whom Gellner despised so much — with them everything is more or less clear. I am speaking about those gurus of Western Leftist intellectualism who for the sake of their ambitions, illusions, vanity, or for personal reasons, refused to face the truth, or even worse, tried to distort or to suppress the truth. I am speaking about people like Sartre who tried to suppress the truth about the Soviet hard-labor camps because this might disillusion the French working class, or Hannah Arendt who did her best to exonerate Heidegger’s involvement with Nazism, or Derrida who was so angry with those who exposed the collaborationist past of his idol, Paul de Mann.

Ernest was different, very different. His personal integrity and his integrity as a scholar were never in conflict, they were inseparable from each other. I never heard him repeating “Amicus Plato, sed magis arnica veritas,” but this was the principle he unflinchingly followed all his life.

Ernest always spoke his mind and stuck to his principles and conviction even at the risk of losing some popularity in certain circles and countries. I remember how much he angered some radical feminists at the American Anthropological Association meeting in 1990 when, responding to their questions, he stated that there was no male history and no female history, just universal human history. A very prominent American anthropologist who was sitting near me at that moment turned to me and said, “I’m so glad that there is somebody brave enough to tell the truth.” I asked him why he was not following Ernest’s example. His reply was precise and sincere: “Because I am no Ernest Gellner.”

Although Ernest never abandoned his principles, I do not know any other scholar, anyone at all, who was as patient and tolerant to any criticism, and to his critics, as he was, even when these people trespassed the norms of scholarly polemics and attacked him personally. His firm stand against ideas that he considered false and parochial never extended to their proponents; the latter sometimes were much less generous and less impartial. But this is the difference between a great man and those of smaller stature. As Chekhov once remarked, the most intolerable people are provincial celebrities.

Many of us remember the polemics between Ernest Gellner and Edward Said, in which Said, apparently for the lack of convincing arguments, preferred to resort to insults. Still, Ernest did not hesitate to invite him to participate in a conference he was requested by UNESCO to organize, pointing out in his personal letter to Said that scholarly disagreement should not preclude but stimulate a fruitful dialogue. The rude reply of that literary critic should remain on his conscience.

Contrary to many of us, Ernest simply could not comprehend, nor accept the fact that scholarly disagreement too often affects human relations. For many years he considered one famous American scholar to be his friend, and he always told me that their different vision of Social Science would never have an impact on their friendship. I remember how disappointed, even wounded, he became when he discovered that for reasons that I prefer not to speculate upon, this man failed to meet some important criteria of friendship. Still, Ernest continued to hold him in high esteem as a brilliant scholar. Recently, Ernest was planning to pubhsh a special volume devoted entirely to the criticism of Ernest Gellner in which all of his opponents would be invited to participate. This would be quite a unique volume in the history of scholarship, almost as unique as Ernest himself was.

He was much needed by very many people, and it was extremely difficult for him to deny his expertise and assistance to anybody. In June 1995, having been involved in organizing a conference on changing patterns of nomads in a contemporary world at Haifa, I asked Ernest to attend, or, at least, to open the conference. At that time he was very busy with something in London, but still he responded that if I considered his presence necessary, he would take a night flight to Israel, open the conference, and return to London the next night. Thank God, I decided that under the circumstances it would be too cruel to insist on his participation; but now I ask myself how often did I unnecessarily encroach upon Ernest’s time and strength, how many times did I approach him with requests that he did not deny even once, but that were not so crucial and important to me?

Ernest was a man of great intellectual courage and of personal courage as well. This was clear to everybody who was but slightly acquainted with him. Once, when I was traveling in Europe with a group of friends, Ernest invited us to spend a couple of days in his Italian house. When we came to the nearby village, the road from this village to the house turned out to be too difficult for one woman in our group. She asked a villager how Ernest managed to traverse it. The answer was: “He is a man with weak legs, but with a strong spirit and with an iron will.” He never complained about his health problems. On many occasions he managed to hide even from his closest friends that he had to live, work, and travel under severe pain that he had endured for many years.

There is another reason why it is impossible to separate Gellner the thinker from Gellner the man. He never lived and never strove to live in an ivory tower. He enjoyed living in this real, though imperfect, world and the problems and troubles of this world were the matter of his constant concern. He fought in the Second World War, and he volunteered to fight in the Israeli War for Independence; only the 1949 armistice prevented his participation in that new war.

Even his house in Fontanily which, in the Russian fashion he liked to call a dacha, a summer house, was to him not a refuge from the world, but a place where he could do his research and writing about the acute contemporary problems without being beset by a wide variety of administrative burdens and without being interrupted by the nuisances of everyday life in which everyone and his grandmother seemed to have some matter for which Ernest’s presence, participation, or attention were requested.

Karl Marx would certainly be disappointed with Ernest Gellner, and not only because he was never lured to Marxism. Ernest was striving to understand our world and to explain it, but was never actively involved in practical attempts to change it, if this involvement is merely conceived as membership in a political party, or participation in a political movement. Nevertheless, the very fact that at a crucial moment in Czech history he returned to Prague, the city he always loved so much and considered the most beautiful in Europe, proved that he did not shun activism in a broader sense when he thought that he could contribute something feasible in practical terms.

To the extent that thought influences behavior and actions, Ernest was certainly deeply involved in the process of ongoing change in our world. I hope that among other things his strong though sober argumentation on behalf of liberal democracy, his merciless analysis of logical inconsistencies and fallacies in the Marxist theory of historical process, his contempt for the attempts at advocating moral equity in the name of cultural relativism have made an impact, and will continue to make an impact on a significant number of intellectuals in the West and will help them to escape the temptation of worshipping false idols. I do not wish to make an icon of Ernest Gellner. He would be the first to be angry with me for this. Nor does he need canonization. He was a cosmopolitan in the best meaning of this much used and abused word. No one country, no one culture, no one people can claim an exclusive monopoly on him. He was everywhere at home, except among his own home and his family: Susan, David, Debora, Sarah, and Ben, and his grandchildren, all of whom he loved so much. Still, just as a leopard cannot change its spots, Ernest could not avoid the impact that his origin, background, and the circumstances of his life had made upon his thinking and writing. Nor did he wish to escape this impact. When he gave me his book Nations and Nationalism he told me: “This is my autobiography.” I spent the whole night reading it and the next day I asked him: “When you told me that this book was your autobiography, did you mean the chapter on Ruritania (read Czechoslovakia)?” He answered, “No, the whole book, from the first chapter to the last one.”

He cared not only for theoretical concepts but for countries and nations as well. So sensitive to the problems of the contemporary world, he was not devoid of contradictions. But these were the contradictions of a great scholar and a great man who explained phenomena but was unable to change or to prevent their negative consequences. Somewhere in 1989, I told Ernest that the Soviet Union should collapse and soon would collapse. I said, “This is a very positive development and this is inevitable. Why? Read Ernest Gellner. ” To my great surprise Ernest was by no means happy with my forecast, or with my reference to his book on nationalism. At the moment when I was still longing for the destruction of the totalitarian empire, he had already started to think about its negative collateral consequences.

Afterwards we returned to these problems many times. He who explained why nationalism is inevitable in the modem world was very depressed by the rising tide of nationalism in the Middle East as well as in the ex-Soviet Union, Balkans and East Central Europe. This problem was literally torturing Ernest during his last years. Several times he told me, half in jest, about his concept of nationalism: “I wish I were wrong.” This is why he suddenly began to talk in positive terms about empires, about the Austro-Hungarian empire, and even about the Russian and Soviet empires as political bodies capable of preventing, or, at least reducing, ethnic strife.

And still Ernest was cautiously optimistic in his world view and in his hopes for the future. Although he used to point out that there were problems that do not have an immediate and easy solution, he always hoped that sooner or later conditions would emerge for the solution of current problems. He understood the complications of the Israeli-Arab conflict better than many experts and politicians. He wholeheartedly welcomed the Oslo agreement, but immediately pointed out the difficulties that the peace process would inevitably meet. Unfortunately, this prediction, just like his many others, has turned out to be correct. Gellner’s keen interest in the Soviet Union was connected not only with his deep aversion to all forms of totalitarianism. Simply to condemn was not enough for him. In comparison to Raymond Pearson, who was very skeptical about the Soviet Union’s ability to transform itself into a Western-type liberal democracy, Ernest was much more optimistic, and during his numerous visits to Moscow he was trying to discover the inner force capable of gradually reforming the country. He pinned his hopes on a need for security and a regard for efficiency and integrity of the educated middle class, including technocrats and administrators. Later, Ernest admitted that he was wrong, but his approach and attitude are very indicative, indeed.

He cared for concepts, for countries, and for nations. But he also cared for individuals. This brings me to the third side of Ernest’s personality: a more intimate one, but to me at least as precious as the first two. He was not only a great scholar, and a great man, he was also a great friend: absolutely loyal and faithful, sympathetic, indulgent to his friends’ weaknesses, always understanding, always eager to help and to support. He was always making good to his friends, and to many other people, and he was always extremely reluctant to talk about it.

Nobody influenced me intellectually as much as Ernest did, and nobody did me as much good as he did. In his presence I was always becoming more clever, and was vainly trying to become better. When I was a refusenik in the Soviet Union Ernest was one of the most active participants amongst those who literally saved me from imprisonment. Unfortunately, I know much less than I would like to know about his tireless activities on my behalf, because, in Ernest’s opinion, friendship does not need gratitude.

He understood how the Soviet system, and the communist system in general, operated much better than many other people in the West and he used his knowledge not only in his research but also in assisting many people who were in trouble. Once he told me about Dr. Bromley, at that time the head of the Soviet anthropologists: “Bromley would be most happy if he could scratch off your skin but since this is beyond his capability, I am trying to persuade him that he should be satisfied with a little less. He should suggest to the Soviet authorities to punish you in a different way, by letting you out of the country and, thus, by getting you out of his hair.” To tell the truth, I was rather skeptical with this idea, but eventually Ernest succeeded. After his death several dozen letters that he wrote on my behalf urging other scholars to support my plight were discovered in his archives. I had known about a few of them from other people, but never from Ernest himself.

Please, excuse me for these incoherent thoughts and reminiscences. The shock is still too great and the pain is still too acute to arrange them in a more systematic way. From November 1995 Ernest continues to live only in his works, and in his family, and also in us: his friends, his students, his colleagues, in what we are thinking and doing, and in what we are refusing to do.

Still, I know for sure and I already feel that my life will never be the same without Ernest, without our meetings and conversations, without playing chess with him, without his letters and telephone calls from the most unexpected places, without knowing that Ernest simply exists in this world. It has already become colder, duller, more colorless, less exciting. So, allow me to conclude my reminiscences about Ernest Gellner, great scholar, great man, great friend with a traditional saying: zihrono livraha, may his memory be blessed.

Note

This essay was first presented as a talk given at the Ernest Gellner Memorial Conference in Prague, December 1995.

Introduction

Joseph Ginat and Anatoly M. Khazanov

This volume consists of the revised texts that were originally submitted to the Conference “Changing Patterns of Nomads in Changing Societies,” which took place at the Jewish-Arab Center, The Gustav Heinemann Institute of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Haifa, in June 1995. The chapters by Kaufmann, Krupnik, and Szynkiewicz were specially written for the volume at the editor’s request. Although the chapters of this book deal with different geographic areas and with different issues, they are united by a general theme: socioeconomic and cultural changes in contemporary pastoralist societies and groups. In most, if not all the cases, these changes are far from being spontaneous. They result from the painful adaptation of the mobile and extensive pastoralists to the modern (some scholars would argue already post-modern) world, in which, as a rule, the pastoralists are occupying only a marginal and inferior economic and social position (see the chapter by Khazanov). As the chapters by Eickelman, Fabietti and Danner, and El-Rashidi demonstrate, this is true even with regard to the Middle Eastern countries, although in some of them a social prestige connected with pastoralism is still quite high. William and Fidelity Lancaster claim in their chapter that the pastoralists in some Middle Eastern countries are unable to avoid the governments, but have learned how to exploit them. Still, one may wonder whether this situation is permanent or even optimal for the pastoralists’ development. As Fabietti points out, in Saudi Arabia Bedouin stand for ancestors but also for “backward people” or even “savages.”

A worldwide deterioration of the socio-political and economic standing of the pastoralist began in early modern times, continued during the colonial period (see the chapters by Kostiner and Kaufmann), and often was strengthened by the decolonization process. This situation is directly connected with the ongoing changes taking place in those modernizing sedentary societies into which the pastoralists were incorporated, not infrequently by force.

Thus, the main problem discussed in this volume is the modernization that the pastoralists are undergoing, or have to undergo, in order to survive as valuable contributors to national and international economies. In order to make our own position clear, we should stress at the outset that we conceive modernization as economic growth based on technological innovations, which implies corresponding cultural changes and changes in the socio-political organization. We are obliged to provide this explanation because nowadays the very term “modernization” is considered by some scholars as outdated and even “politically incorrect,” and is often substituted by much broader but vague terms, such as “change” and “development.” As the Lancasters point out, change in nomadic societies is inevitable, continual and expected, due to the very nature of their way of life. However, change is by no means always synonymous with modernization.

Well-known deficiencies of modernization theory, as it was advanced in the 1950s and 1960s, have discredited not the concept itself, but only its specific approaches (i.e., the belief that every country should and will follow the Western model of socio-economic and political development). Still, this concept needs some elaboration with regard to specific types of economic activity and social settings. In this respect, mobile pastorahsm serves as a good example. On the one hand, the extensive and mobile pastoralism still remains as a viable economic alternative in many arid and semi-arid zones of the world. On the other hand, its dependence on natural pastures hinders steady economic growth. Even technological improvements in pastorahst systems aimed at their intensification may have but a limited effect and sometimes even negative collateral consequences (i.e., when they lead to overgrazing and deterioration of natural pastures).

It is obvious that one must speak about modernization of the extensive and mobile pastoralism not in isolation, but only in broader terms, when this type of economic activity is incorporated into modernizing national economies as a specialized but integral sector, and when the pastoralists benefit from their membership in the society at large. Accordingly, the pastoralists should become and must be accepted as full-fledged citizens of these modernizing states. However, this is not always the case. The mutual distrust of the modernizing states and the pastoralists is evident in many countries. Thus, the chapter by Ginat provides examples of the Bedouin desire to escape the authorities and to solve their problems without the latter’s interference.

Furthermore, membership in modernizing societies imphes specific economic policies and stimuli with regard to the pastoralists, such as favorable taxation and price policies, and the development and expansion of modem infrastructure, transport facilities and services, veterinary care, education, investments, and even subsidies. However, the pastoralists in the Third World countries are too often considered as donors of the modernization process, rather than as its beneficiaries.

The problem of subsidies is, apparently, the most controversial one. The current mood of many international agencies which deal with the development of Third World countries is negative as far as subsidizing agricultural production. This attitude raises many doubts since agricultural production remains subsidized, in one way or another, even in the countries of Western Europe, the USA, Japan, and Israel, where agriculture, including stock-breeding, is the most developed. The poor developing countries certainly lack the necessary financial resources for further modernization in this area. The problem, as we see it, is not whether subsidies are needed for modernization of mobile pastoralism, but how to gain access to them and how to use them in the most efficient way.

The chapters by Szynkiewicz and Krupnik demonstrate, through the examples of Mongolia and the Russian Far North, that some ex-Communist countries are facing a similar problem. A sudden withdrawal or reduction of subsidies and services, such as water supply or fodder provisions, as well as of state-regulated marketing channels, which in the recent past were provided by the communist state, have made a negative impact upon the pastoralism in these countries. One may observe similar consequences of this situation in such Central Asian countries as Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, where the number of livestock has drastically decreased during the last few years.

On the other hand, an overdependence on subsidies may also be detrimental to modernization of mobile pastoralism. In some oil-rich Arab countries, for example, the pastoralists enjoy artificially favorable conditions. However, one may wonder if this makes their economy efficient and capable of withstanding competition from international producers of meat, dairy products, and wool. Subsidies and other assistance are needed as incentives for development, not as compensation for a lack of proper development. Danner and El-Rashidi point out that in Egypt, the solution of Bedouin problems is too often left to government authorities, even if a problem could be taken care of by the Bedouin themselves. Likewise, Fabietti notes in his chapter that government investments in the pastoralist sector have not achieved the desired results because the Bedouin were not involved in the operations that concerned them. One general conclusion is that while the paternalistic policies toward the pastoralists turned out to be inadequate for, and even detrimental to, their development, dooming them to a role of passive recipients of the “development package,” without a voice in the decision-making, the traditional pastoralists can hardly be left alone with no assistance at all. Their own resources are too meager to be sufficient for spontaneous modernization.

The old debate on whether modernization of the mobile pastoralists should better proceed along the socialist or capitalist lines seems to have come to an end. The Soviet experiment with collectivization and forced sedentarization of the pastoralists, which, to some extent, was followed by several other countries, turned out to be a failure in an economic respect and was ruinous to the pastoralist way of hfe. In the late Soviet period, a relatively high number of livestock in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, or Kalmykia, was maintained by artificial measures: large subsidies, a total disregard of the production costs and rapidly deteriorating natural environment, and strict everyday control and supervision by appointed managerial staff, which denied any initiative on the part of the pastoralists themselves. As soon as the policy was changed, the crises of pastoralism followed immediately.

Still, it is worth noting that the Soviet experiment was wrong not because sedentarization was its primary component, but because of the ways in which sedentarization was imposed upon the pastoralists. In principle, sedentarization of at least a part of the mobile pastoralists is inevitable and even desirable under modern conditions, if it channels the surplus labor in the pastoralist sector into other occupational activities. It may even increase economic efficiency among those who remain involved in mobile pastoralism. Although this process may be spontaneous, it may be facilitated or hindered by different governmental policies (cf. “the stick and the carrot” policy practiced by the Israeli government, which is described in the chapter by Medzini, or the discriminatory policy of land allocation and long-term land distribution practiced by the Saudi Arabian government, which is mentioned in the chapter by Fabietti).

It is obvious that in order to survive, mobile pastoralism should adjust to the contemporary economic climate. In particular, it should undergo a certain commercialization and a market-oriented transformation. A mere conservation of its subsistence-oriented forms is neither desirable nor feasible and would only relegate it to a reservation-like way of life.

However, the ways and models of incorporation of mobile pastoralism into the contemporary economic order remain unclear. Some experts on economic development have advocated its transformation into the capitalist ranch system based on individual land-tenure. The recommendation, when it was implemented in practice, turned out to be inadequate for environmental and social reasons. Ranch forms that emerged in some countries in the nineteenth century were by no means a result of the spontaneous transformation of the traditional pastoralist economies. Rather, they were created and introduced anew. In economic and social respects, they were capitalist from the very beginning, even in their initial forms.

One may wonder whether individual entrepreneurship and land ownership are optimal solutions for modernization of extensive pastoralism in any country. In some Third World countries, the situation is quite different from that which existed in the USA or Australia. Pastors Urn in Third World countries retains many traditional characteristics and in some, it is still, to a large extent, non market-oriented, and continues to be connected with the communal forms of land tenure, and with kinship and descent-based forms of social organization. Sharon Ba§tug dwells on the latter issue in her discussion. Several chapters in the volume also demonstrate the resilience and continuing importance of many traditional forms of social organization, even under conditions of rapid socio-economic change (see the chapters by Ginat, Kostiner, the Lancasters, Medzini, and Stewart). Szynkiewicz points out that kinship and neighborhood-based communities became important factors in restructuring social relations in post-Communist Mongolia. One may observe a similar tendency in Kazakhstan.

Nevertheless, the continuing changes in technology, markets, information, and governmental control, as well as new opportunities in other sectors of national economies, are undermining traditional social norms and bonds. Modernization brings not only economic and technological changes, but social and cultural changes as well. This may increase the tension within pastoralist groups. At the same time, the problem of their integration into nationalizing states is further exacerbated when the pastoralists have to integrate into societies which are alien to them in cultural and ethnolinguistic respects. Ginat demonstrates this through the Israeli Bedouin and Krupnik with an example of the Northern pastoralists in Russia.

On the pohtical level, tribalism, which is embodied by the pastoralists, although it is not coterminous with them, still affects the process of nation-state building not only in the Middle East, as demonstrated by Eickelman, but even in some central Asian countries. In his analysis, Baram shows the importance of “honor” in the political structure of Iraq and emphasizes that the phenomenon is related to tribal organization. Kostiner’s chapter points to the important role played by the Bedouin in shaping the modern political configuration of the Middle East. However, as a rule, the contemporary nationalizing and developing states in this region have little experience with any politically autonomous bodies on their territory; hence, their attempts at detribalization (see the chapter by Fabietti).

Under these circumstances, the transformation of mobile pastoralism and its adjustment to or incorporation into modern economic systems and nationalizing states can be only gradual. In this case, the mere destruction of the traditional forms of social organization will not bring positive results. It is impossible to predict what exact forms the transformation of traditional mobile pastoralism into a market-oriented one will eventually take. It is obvious, however, that there will be various forms, and that they may be quite different from each other in terms of land tenure, degree of cooperation between the pastoralists, and many other parameters.

Only a few things seem to be more or less clear at the moment. Assistance to the mobile pastoralists is desirable, if its goal is modernization of their economy and traditional way of life. However, this assistance should stimulate self-development, rather than serve as a substitute for it. In other words, the worst that can happen (and sometimes has already happened) to the mobile pastoralists is to take their destiny away from them.

1. Pastoralists in the Contemporary World: The Problem of Survival

Anatoly M. Khazanov

Recent failures and shortcomings of modernization attempts in many Third World countries have proved that modernization is not just tantamount to industrialization and urbanization. It also involves a deep transformation, or even destruction, of many traditional social, economic, and cultural institutions (Eisenstadt, 1973). Some scholars consider this inevitable. “In the footsteps of modernization a disruption of old systems of social control and their economic base is inevitable” (Back, 1993: 79). However, the mere destruction of traditional forms of social organization may result not in the emergence of a vital new system, but in disorganization, chaos, and social dislocations. As an example of the negative effects of modernization, imposed from the outside and not connected with spontaneous development, I will refer to extensive pastoralists. These are the groups whose subsistence mainly depends on a mobile way of life and the maintenance of herds all year round on a system of free-range pastures, and who practise agriculture only as a supplementary and secondary activity or, like pure pastoral nomads, even do not practise it at all.

Were this chapter devoted to the general question of the change in relations of pastoral nomads and mobile pastoralists in general with various sedentary societies, I would sum up my ideas in the following way: Their past was unique considering their former role in world history, their present is precarious, and as for their future — it seems dubious at the moment, if present tendencies continue. There are more than enough people who assume that pastoralists simply do not have any future at all.

Still, there are about 30 to 40 million of these people mainly in the Middle East, Central and Inner Asia, Africa, and the Far North. In such African countries as Niger, Djibouti, Somalia, and Mauritania the pastoralists constitute the majority of the population. To all of them modernization has become an acute and yet unsolved problem. It also became a hot political, economic, environmental and humanitarian issue for national governments and various international agencies involved in development, as well as for anthropologists along with sociologists, economists, planners, experts in development, and many others. At present they all are trying to solve the problem. So far the results are poor, sometimes even disastrous for the pastoralists themselves. Baxter (n.d.: i) barely exaggerated when he stated: “Almost all, indeed maybe all, the development interventions to date had not helped the impoverished pastoralists at all, nor had they added a cent to the wealth of any nation. Pastoralists had survived despite development schemes, not because of them.”

It might seem that the most simple and obvious alternative would be to leave the pastoralists alone and allow them to maintain their traditional way of life. This is hardly feasible, however, in the current global situation. It is true that for a very long time, extensive and mobile pastoralism was, even in ecological respects, the most suitable form of economic activity in several climatic zones. This is true despite the insufficiently substantiated claims that “nomadic pastoralism is inherently self-destructive, since systems of management are based on the short-term objective of keeping as many animals as possible alive, without regard to the long-term conservation of land resources” (Allan, 1976: 321); or that, “the nomad ... has no vested interest in the land his flocks graze. He is not even interested in conservation. Traditionally he would scorn the idea that his flocks were overgrazing his territory. If the pasture deteriorated he would move on into fresh pastures” (Spooner, 1973: 37). The ecological, economic and social foundations of traditional mobile pastoralism made it incapable of any long-term economic growth based on increases in productivity and livestock reproduction on an expanded scale. Moreover, they implied its constant instability. At the same time, this very instability prevented overgrazing from becoming a permanent problem. Although stock numbers sometimes outgrew the carrying capacities of utilized pastures, ecology and biology made periodic losses of livestock inevitable because of various natural calamities.

It was just such cyclical fluctuations that maintained a long-term balance in the pastoral economy, however ruinous they might be in the short run. Thus, a correlation between overstocking and overgrazing in traditional pastoral economies is much more complicated than it is sometimes assumed by ecologists and development experts. Besides, a growing body of data indicates that often pastoralists developed quite efficient folk conservation systems (Hobbs, 1992: 109 ff).

Specialization means dependency. The location of pastoralists in arid or semi-arid geographical zones and their mobile way of life left little room for agriculture and crafts, not to mention industries. The more specialized mobile pastoralists were, the more dependent they became, in turn, on the outside, non-pastoralist, mainly sedentary world. Written sources, since the very first mention of nomads, make it clear that agricultural products formed an important part of their dietary systems. These sources, as well as numerous archaeological data, also demonstrate beyond doubt that nomads procured a substantial part of their material culture from the sedentaries, as well as other aspects of culture and even ideologies. As the nomadic economy needed to be supplemented with agricultural products and crafts from external sources, so nomadic culture needed sedentary culture as a source, a component, and a model for comparison, imitation, or rejection. To a lesser degree the same applied to semi-nomads. Therefore, pastoralists had to adapt not only to specific natural environments but also to external socio-political and cultural environments.

In the past, particularly in the medieval period, their military superiority and undeveloped social division of labor often allowed the pastoralists to overcome the deficiencies of their specialized but subsistence-oriented economy by acquiring the necessary products of agriculture and crafts by non-economic measures such as using force or threatening to resort to it. That was particularly true for the Great Nomads of the Near and Middle East and the Eurasian Steppes who were capable of numerous intrusions and conquests in ancient and medieval history. Their relative economic and social undevelopment turned out to confer a military and political advantage (Khazanov, 1994).

This situation began to change in the early modem period, when sedentary states achieved significant progress in transportation and warfare. Caravels, and then steamboats and railroads, proved to be more efficient than caravans, and regular armies of centralized states became stronger than irregular cavalries of the pastoralists. First, the pastoralists lost their military superiority, then their political independence; afterwards they had to adjust to forces beyond their control, including the economies of the modem or modernizing sedentary world. The increasing dependence of the pastoralists on colonial powers, and then on national governments which favored agriculture and industries and often pursued deliberately anti-pastoralist policies, had several detrimental effects. It contributed to the further marginalization of the pastoralists, decreased the size of the territory occupied by them, undermined their subsistence-oriented economy, and eroded the stability of their society. New political maps of the world also seriously hindered the pastoralists. The stable but sometimes artificial boundaries of the new states often spht the grazing areas that in the past had been utilized by the nomads and negatively restricted their migratory routes and patterns.

In many countries the expansion of urbanization and industrialization, and the intrusion of farmers and peasants into pastoral areas especially, was due to the growth in sedentary populations, the development of national economies, and deliberate policies of colonial powers and national governments. This happened in Central and Inner Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in other parts of the world. Thus, the governments declared the whole uncultivated steppe and desert areas in Central Asia, Iran, and Syria to be state or public property and brought agriculture into areas occupied by the pastoralists (Demko, 1969; Lewis, 1987; Shoup, 1990). In Israel, most of the land in the Negev which is now held by the Lands Administration had previously belonged to the Bedouin (Abu-Rabi‘a, 1994: 15). In Inner Mongolia, the Chinese population increased from 1.2 million in 1912 to 17.3 million in 1990 (Ma, 1993: 173). The Chinese peasant colonization pushed the nomads to marginal lands and eventually made them an ethnic minority in what had been their own country (Sheehy, 1993: 17—30). The Land Use Act of 1978 in Nigeria provided the state with ownership of all land in the country. In 1957, about 67 percent of Nigeria’s land had been available for grazing livestock; by 1986, this territory was reduced to 39 percent (Gefu and Gilles, 1990: 39, 40). By 1987, pastoralists in Nigeria controlled over 90 percent of the total national herd but had no right to land (Awogbade, 1987: 19). Governments in other African countries also alienated many grazing lands traditionally utilized by pastoralists and put a brake on their movements (Bovin and Manger, 1990; Silitshena, 1990; Galaty and Bonte, 1991; Smith, 1992). Thus, in Mali, the government declared all noncultivated land to be open to grazing by the animals of any citizen, including rich urban businessmen, politicians and local farmers (Grayzel, 1990: 63). In India, the Raika pastoralists were denied the right to be eligible for receiving any land during the land reforms of the 1950s in Rajasthan (Kohler-Rollefson, 1992: 80—1). On the other side of the world, in the Scandinavian Arctic and Siberia, the reindeer pastoralists suffer because many pastures were lost to hydroelectric development, extractive industries, and other projects (Paine, 1982; Savoskul and Karlov, 1988; Morris, 1990; Forsyth, 1992: 402—3; see also the chapter by Krupnik in this volume).

After large gas and oil deposits were discovered in the Yamal Peninsula, the Soviet government decided to start rapid exploration and development of the area, although some experts had warned that it would not be profitable even from a purely economic point of view. As usual, the rights and needs of the native reindeer pastoralists were not taken into account at all. The machines moving north destroyed the tundra so that in a few years the reindeer farms in the Yamal-Nenets District lost 594,699 hectares of pasture and more than 24,000 reindeer. Each oil bore-test leaves 4 to 9 hectares of spoiled land. By the year 2000, the pastureland in the Yamal may shrink by half, at a minimum. The same happened in other regions of Siberia. Between 1970 and 1987, the reindeer herd decreased by 15 percent in the Magadan Region, by 30—40 percent in the Krasnoiarsk Territory, and almost ceased to exist on Sakhalin island (Leibzon, 1992: 4; Vakhtin, 1992: 24). When Mr Zoteev, in the 1980s the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Russian Federation, was asked why the plans for industrial development of Siberia did not take into consideration the interests of the indigenous population, he answered without hesitation: “The interests of the State go first, the interests of the people are subordinate” (Vakhtin, 1992: 26).

While the territories occupied by pastoralists in different parts of the world are decreasing, nowadays they are sometimes required to produce more, although this often results in serious overgrazing and advancing desertification (see, for example, Tserendash and Erdenebaatar, 1993 on Mongolia; Hogg, 1992 on East Africa). The pastoralists not only have to purchase on the market the necessary agricultural and industrial products, they also have to pay taxes to subsidize bureaucracies that are alien to them, and/or the development biased in favor of other branches of the national economies. They are increasingly being drawn into national, regional and international systems based on a monetary economy and regular surplus production. However, subsistence-oriented economies, even specialized ones, are easily overstressed when they become dependent on market transactions and have to produce in accordance with market demands. Stress is even greater if the subsistence-oriented economies undergo some kind of modernization but continue to operate within the framework of traditional social organization and communal land tenure. As Gorse and Steeds (1987: 10) noted: “Planners have often misunderstood the logic of traditional production systems, and have thereby overestimated the ease with which improvements could be introduced and underestimated the negative consequences of intended improvements.” In many countries, the over-exploitation of productive ecosystems in the arid zones through attempts at intensifying extensive pastoralism by implying modem technologies gave rise to desertification and degradation of vegetation, soil and water (Reining, 1978). The steppes of Kalmykia and the North Caucasian piedmont are rapidly deteriorating because their seasonal pastures at present are used all year round (Kotliakov, Zonn, and Chemychev, 1988: 62—3, 89). In Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, vast areas of fertile pastures have turned into sand deserts due to overgrazing without a seasonal rotation of pastures and a trend away from multispecies toward monospecies herd composition (Wolfson, 1990: 41—2).

Some African governments, who were advised and assisted by foreign donors and experts, initiated various water development programs including the drilling of boreholes and the installation of mechanical pumping stations to improve pastures and increase the beef production at the expense of traditional dairy-oriented pastoralism. Wells were often opened to everybody, sometimes even to pastoralists from all the neighboring tribes (Bernus, 1990: 124), while in the past access to water resources usually was controlled by certain segments of the local pastoral society. As a result, pastures around new wells soon became overgrazed (Goldschmidt, 1981: 104 ff; Horowitz, 1981: 61–88;; Bemus, 1990: 166–7). When drought struck, many animals perished from the lack of fodder (Leya, 1975). In Somalia, the result of water development without an accompanying grazing management program also caused the overconcentration of livestock in proximity to wells with great damage to the vegetation and soil. In the late 1970s, degradation of the grazing resources in Somalia was perceived to be widespread (Handulle and Gay, 1987). Recent Sahelian history also provides us with many examples of how hasty attempts at modernization led to overgrazing and, thus, along with droughts, contributed to the deterioration of pastures and the decay of traditional pastoralism (Gorse and Steeds, 1987).

It is difficult, in principle, to maintain traditional mobile pastoralism within the current economic and political climate. Those who are involved in it face two main options. They must modernize it by making it even more specialized, but along the fines of commercial production, in other words, by producing mainly for the market; or, on the contrary, by supplementing pastoralism with some modern economic activities. Actually, one option does not exclude the other. Otherwise, pastoralists face the risk of being further marginalized and encapsulated, or of becoming zoo groups, the exotics for urban romantics and tourists for whom the sight of black tents represents a living museum’s inventory. Episodic revivals of more or less traditional pastoralism, in one country or another, are more connected with temporary factors, such as the weakening of central power, than with longstanding trends in modem development.

The problem as it has been formulated by different governments and implemented by various development agencies is what kind of modernization is the most suitable for the pastorahsts? The very formulation of the problem in these terms is dubious because it assigns to the pastoralists a role of passive recipient. Before any developmental policy is implemented there should at least be dialogue and negotiation with the population that will be affected. The problem is not so much what to do with the pastoralists, but what the pastoralists have to do to adjust to the demands of modernity. Unfortunately, their opinion is very seldom taken into account. National governments and international agencies often prefer to talk and decide among themselves, without listening to those who are supposed to benefit from their decisions. No wonder, in most cases, that they remain external and alien powers to the pastorahsts. Even such liberal governments as in Norway, which, in principle, maintains that the Saami pastoralists themselves must make their own decisions, in practice they systematically take decisionmaking responsibilities away from them (Paine, 1994: 191).

The underlying reasons of the decision makers, even when they are not connected with specific political interests, are invariably the same, and are based on two main assumptions. First, in our modem times, the pastoralists simply can no longer maintain their traditional way of fife and subsistence-oriented economy. Second, the pastoralists themselves are incapable of developing viable adjustment strategies; therefore, they have to be paternalized and guided. The first assumption is correct, the second is not.

So far, only two main solutions have been suggested, experimented with, and, in many cases, have resulted in disappointment. The first one is advocated mainly by experts from Western countries. Its declared goal is to transform traditional pastoralists into commercial stock producers, assuming there is a fully-developed market structure (Ingold, 1978: 121), or into a highly regulated and restricted form of pastoralism, with its economy, like in Sweden, being dependent on the state welfare system (Hjort af Ornas, 1992). Some experts even recommend turning traditional pastoralists into capitalist-type ranch-owners.

For the last thirty or so years, attitudes of many governments and aid agencies, such as USAID, FAO, and the World Bank, were bolstered by the “tragedy of the commons” hypothesis suggested by the American ecologist Garret Hardin (Hardin, 1968: 1243—8; Hardin and Baden, 1977). It is claimed that the lands held in common, rather than those that are privately-owned, inevitably suffer from overgrazing and environmental degradation, since each pastoralist strives to maximize returns by increasing his herds. This hypothesis is based on insufficient knowledge of traditional pastoralism, and has already been disputed by a number of scholars (see, for example, McCay and Acheson, 1987; Paine, 1994: 187—8).

The adherents of the “tragedy of the commons” concept confuse common property on pastures and other resources with open access to them. In fact, common property among extensive pastoralists is a rather institutionalized, communal one which is based on an elaborate system of checks and balances, on overlapping temporal and spatial rights and constraints which regulate access to pastures. In many cases, traditional land-tenure systems are the best guarantee of optimal resource exploitation (Sanford, 1983; Swift, 1988; Meams, 1993). Attempts to intensify the pastoralist production in the arid environment through privatization of grazing territories often result in overgrazing, deterioration of pastureland, and increased ecological and economic instability.

With few and incomplete exceptions, different ranching schemes and the privatization of grazing lands undertaken in several African countries, like Kenya and Tanzania, or in the Middle Eastern ones, turned out to be inadequate for environmental, social, and other reasons. In many desert and semidesert areas precipitation is unpredictable, most of the pastures are seasonal, and their productivity is low and considerably variable from year to year. In some arid zones a pastoralist needs to have access to 100,000—300,000 hectares to ensure the survival of livestock over time (Gefu and Gilles, 1990: 37). In this situation, the pastoralists should have the freedom to move with their stock over a large territory. Moreover, to overcome the negative effects of destocking during the dry years they must keep more animals than are needed for subsistence, even at the risk of temporary overgrazing. In West Africa, many development schemes turned out to be inappropriate and destructive because they encouraged pastoralists to increase herd numbers in order to ensure a surplus for the beef market. However, the pastoralists welcomed the larger herds that provided them more security within their traditional survival strategy (Mamham, 1979: 12). East African range areas are littered with the carcasses of failed livestock projects, some of which merely hastened overgrazing and land degeneration (Raikes, 1981: 3).

Besides, administrators and planners who tried to turn traditional pastoralists into commercial livestock producers have not realized that production is not only an economic activity, it is also a socially and culturally constructed activity. Thus, many pastoralist groups, especially in Africa, are reluctant to produce meat for the market because stock for them is not only a means of subsistence, but also a form of wealth, a social capital, and a source of prestige and esteem connected with specific cultural values. It is very difficult, in many cases almost impossible, to turn traditional pastoralists into capitalist ranch-owners without drastic changes in their social organization, without destroying their communal forms of land tenure and depriving a large number of people free access to pastures. Even the advocates of ranch schemes admit that allocation of large tracks of land to a few individuals will alienate the other pastoralists and that, in the long run, this policy will legitimize the concentration of land in the hands of only a few individuals, thereby creating a new set of social and political problems (Awogbade, 1987: 25—6). In many such cases the social cost may be too great, since it inevitably leads to an increasing number of displaced and unemployed persons who, in the currently prevailing conditions in many Third World countries, are denied viable possibilities for readjustment and alternative employment. Most jobs held by pastoralists in East Africa, especially those who are forced to work to provide for their families’ subsistence, allow few prospects for social and economic advancement (Sperling and Galaty, 1990: 89).

Furthermore, traditional pastoralists usually lack both the experience and the necessary capital to start market-oriented ranch enterprises. Thus, in Turkey, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, some West African countries, and nowadays in Mongolia and Central Asia, it is not the pastoralists but sedentary businessmen with managerial experience and people with good connections in the government who have estabhshed commercial livestock enterprises. They rent pastures, negotiate transportation, and organize the delivery of stock, meat and dairy products to the markets. The pastoralists have at best been hired as shepherds, but even this is not always the case. It is not surprising that the development of capital-intensive livestock production usually leads to a concentration of benefits in only a few hands (Waters-Bayer and Bayer, 1992: 4). In Kenya, thousands of hectares of Maasai pastures have been skimmed off by corrupt officials and local bigwigs. In some places the entire savanna has been divided among politicians and their friends. Some of the best lands belong to President Moi, the second best to the Vice-President, and the inferior places to their cronies (Ellwood, 1995: 9). Overall, 40 percent of the privatized land has been appropriated by non-Maasai and is used mainly for speculation (Hjort af Omas, 1990; Galaty, 1992; see also Arhem, 1985 on Tanzania; Maliki, 1986 on Niger; Hinderink and Sterkenburg, 1987 on Botswana; Mohamed Salih, 1990 on Sudan; and Waters-Bayer, 1988 on Nigeria).

Hollywood images of the cowboy should not distort the truth. The open range system, that developed in the United States and in some other countries during the second half of the nineteenth and in the first half of the twentieth centuries, was from the outset very different from the traditional pastoral economies, both in its land-tenure system and its operation within a capitalist profit-oriented economy. In the beginning, the availability of free range and rapid growth of the East coast and European beef markets guaranteed cattlemen high prices and profits, especially after the introduction of refrigerator cars in 1869 and refrigerated ships in 1875. Later on, the open-range system was rapidly replaced by the intensive system of fenced ranching with irrigated pastures, machinery, motorized transport, tame-seed forage plants, breeding, shelters for brood cows and calves in the winter, and so on (Dale, 1960; Atherton, 1961; Bennett, 1985; Barsh, 1990). Still, it is remarkable that even in the United States the ranchers have to rely on government subsidies and supports (Gilles and Gefu, 1990: 110—11). It would be unrealistic to expect similar developments in many Third World countries, at any rate in the short run.

The second solution to the problems connected with traditional mobile pastoralists was advocated particularly strongly by governments and governmental experts from the communist countries, and from many developing countries as well. The suggested solution is the sedentarization of pastoralists which, in the opinion of the communist experts, should be accompanied by their collectivization. Very often, these people consider the pastoralists as an obstacle in the path of progress and are inspired by the desire to impose upon them the power of central governments.

Thus, in 1973, when the Sahel was affected by a severe drought and many pastorahsts there lost their stock, Ebrahim Konate, the Secretary of the Permanent African Interstate Committee for Drought Control, expressed his satisfaction with the situation with remarkably cynical frankness. He stated: “We have to discipline these people, and to control their grazing and their movements. Their liberty is too expensive for us. Their disaster is our opportunity” (Mamham, 1979: 9).

The results of the policy of sedentarization, however, are not infrequently disastrous to the pastorahsts and dissatisfactory to national economies of the countries in which this policy had been pursued. The forced sedentarization of the Kazakh pastorahsts initiated by the Soviet government in 1931–2 cost those people about two million lives and literahy decimated their herds (Khazanov, 1990: 90—1). It took more than forty years for the stock population in Kazakhstan to regain the numbers of the late 1920s. However, in the 1970s, the state’s demand to increase the number of stock resulted in the serious deterioration of the diminishing territory still allocated for pastorahsm. At present, 55 million hectares of pastureland, about one-third of ah productive lands in Kazakhstan, are virtually destroyed (Masanov, 1995: 41).

Likewise, in Iran, during the reign of Reza Shah, the government forced the pastorahsts to settle, which soon resulted in their impoverishment. About 75 percent of their stock perished because of the epidemics and the lack of sufficient pasturage (Irons, 1975: Tapper, 1979: 22; Beck, 1986: 129 ff.; Black-Michaud, 1986: 83 ff.).

Unfortunately, the lesson of these failed attempts at sedentarization is not sufficiently taken into account. After the drought of 1974, the Somah government, inspired by the Soviet cohectivist model, decided to move 120,000 camel herders from the north into four villages on the Indian Ocean coast to force them to become fishermen and small farmers (Ellwood, 1995: 8).

I can only agree with Salzman (1980: vii): “Sedentarization, viewed as an inevitable and necessary step in furthering progress and advancing civilization, and pressed upon nomadic peoples by external forces, can have detrimental consequences not only for the nomadic peoples themselves but for the large societies of which they are part.”

It is true that sedentarization of the mobile pastoralists due to their impoverishment, migrations, or some other factors is by no means a new phenomenon. However, in the past, successful sedentarization usually occurred when the pastoralists migrated into areas favorable for agriculture and often seized by force arable lands in oases or in zones of dry agriculture. Nowadays, this opportunity does not exist anymore and the pastoralists who are forced or have to settle face additional difficulties connected with the shortage of land suitable for cultivation, competition with the agriculturalists for a diminishing resource base, unfavorable climatic change, and so on. It seems that nature lends a helping hand to anti-pastoralist policies in some countries. The recent droughts in Africa deprived many pastoralists of their animals and forced them to move to the slums of nearby towns and cities, or to start to cultivate marginal lands that agriculturalists themselves consider of little use, since agriculture there is risky and results are unpredictable. Not infrequently, these lands soon become degraded. “It is obvious that an outright acceptance of pastoral settlement programmes in the arid and semiarid zones of Africa amounts to suicide in an ecology characterized by erratic and sharp seasonal variations in rainfall and pasture” (Mohamed Salih, 1992: 5). It is also obvious that in order to be successful, sedentarization programs among other things should be accompanied by extensive irrigation projects and other large-scale capital investments. With few exceptions, neither national governments nor international agencies seem ready or able to make such investments. When the projects are undertaken, the pastoralists are sometimes excluded from their benefits. In the 1950s, the Soviet government initiated the so-called “virgin lands campaign” aimed at sowing wheat on huge tracts of land in the northern Kazakhstan steppes. This development was clearly at the expense of Kazakh pastoralists. Their stock-raising state and collective farms were closed but Kazakh employees were prevented from becoming involved in grain production. Likewise, the Sudanese government stated, in 1962, that for a very long time nomads could not make us of irrigation lands (Mohamed Salih, 1990: 71).

The example of some Arab countries, in particular the oil-producing ones, which for some specific historical and social reasons are investing part of their financial resources in improving the economic and living conditions of the Bedouin in the form of money payments, land distribution, job offers in the military and administration, development of education, medical care and infrastructure (see, for example, Katakura, 1977; Cole, 1981; Fabietti, 1982; Lancaster, 1986 on Saudi Arabia; Scholz, 1981; Jansen, 1986 on Oman; Behnke, 1980 on Libya), can not be followed by other developing countries. Besides, the negative consequences of this policy are also evident. There are very few ranch and stock enterprises in existence, and those that do exist are not able to satisfy their countries’ needs. The sad fact is that the region where pastoralism flourished for millennia, at present has to rely upon imported meat and even dairy products. One may also wonder what will happen to pastoralists and former pastoralists in these countries if governmental subsidies are withdrawn or reduced due to fluctuating oil prices on the world market or other reasons. How many stock enterprises will go bankrupt without the government assistance that heavily subsidizes pastoral production?

It seems that it is still premature to dismiss mobile pastoralism as a viable food-producing economy in many arid areas. It is worth keeping in mind that pastoralism was originally developed as an alternative to agriculture in just those regions where the latter was impossible, or economically less profitable. In many of those areas the situation remains basically the same. In many countries, the complete transformation of their pastoralists into sedentary cultivators would mean that vast desert and semi-desert territories unsuitable for cultivation would cease to be used for food production and would be left to he as waste land.

One may agree with Raikes (1981: 250) that the most productive (or least destructive) way to incorporate mobile pastoralists into national economies is “through developing the production and productivity of existing herding systems rather than through their replacement by ‘modern’ systems.” The problem is not how to substitute extensive pastoralism with other types of economic activities but rather how to make it more efficient, and at the same time how to lessen the pain in the inevitable transformation of the social organization of pastoralists. There is no single recipe, and there can not be one for all countries and all groups of pastoralists all over the world.

One lesson from the recent failures to modernize mobile pastoralist economies in different countries, however, seems clear enough. The simplistic view that an increase in hvestock production and productivity is tantamount to the social development of pastoralists, is false (Mohamed Salih, 1990: 75). The concept of modernization is applicable to pastoralists only if they become an integrated part of a modem society; having not only a stake in the wider distribution of its benefits, but also a voice in decision making. Excessive paternalism, even a benevolent one, will not help as long as pastoralists continue to be treated as mere recipients of the “modernization package.” One may agree with those scholars who insist that attempts at transforming extensive pastoralism “from above,” initiated, designed and implemented by the state through purely administrative measures, are counterproductive. These bureaucratic actions are based on the false assumption that “whereas these people own livestock, they know very little about them and, therefore, have to be taught how to care for them” (Ndagala, 1990: 61; see also Hurskainen, 1990: 80).

Any development project should not be enforced but, at least, accepted by those to whom it is addressed. Pastoralists are quite capable of appreciating those innovations which they consider beneficial. The spread of trucks among the Bedouin of the Middle East or snowmobiles among the Saami of Scandinavia are only one of many indications of this. The pastoralists also usually welcome the introduction of improved veterinary and stock vaccinations. This proves the point: we will not have economic development until we permit, stimulate and encourage self-development.

During the last decades of the twentieth century we have witnessed how often development projects, sometimes advertised with great pomp, eventually turned out to be inadequate and ill-devised. In most development programs operations continued only for as long as donor funds were sustained (Oba, 1992: 69). However, as subsidies and support were provided, reduced, and finally withdrawn, governmental policies and priorities changed. In all such cases the ones at the losing end were almost invariably not the planners and bureaucrats but the pastoralists. They alone were left facing their deteriorating natural environment and had to pay the social cost for all decisions made without their consent. Therefore, without much hope that this will happen, I still hold that only when the views and expertise of the pastoralists themselves are taken into account and their own participation in the decision-making process is secured, may we expect any real success in their modernization.

In 1979, Gudrun Dahl (1979: 264) concluded her book on the Waso Borana pastoralists with the following words: “Will there still be resilience in the suffering grass? I would hope so, but can see no clear answer.” The question is still valid, and the answer is still unclear.

References

2. Who are these Nomads? What do they do? Continuous Change or Changing Continuities?

William Lancaster and Fidelity Lancaster

It might be a good idea to make clear what groups we are talking about. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary (1968 edition) defines “nomad” as “one ... (who) moves from place to place to find pasture; hence, one who lives a wandering life.” It is derived from the Greek — (VOfXOc8, VOfICcQ — which ultimately has to do with “pasture and pasturing.” In anthropological literature “nomad” is often used in the derived sense and includes anyone who moves in pursuit of a livelihood. Rao (1987) and Casimir and Rao (1992) follow nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholars in widening this category to include hunters, gatherers, traders, smiths, entertainers, fishermen, etc. as well as providers of services.

The Arabic rahhdl only has implications of traveling and journeying, presumably for a purpose, but has none of the overtones of doing so for a living per sc (Lane, 1984; Wehr, 1961). So the common equation of “nomad = pastoralist = tribal” comes from a confusion of categories and does not stand up to scrutiny. Such an equation confuses three separate and distinct factors (as Tapper noted for Iran — St Antony’s College, Oxford and The Oriental Institute, Oxford Joint Seminars, 1992); the three factors of movement, economic pursuit and socio-political system may coincide, but equally they may not — and they do not in the Arab world where the term “hedu” complicates the issue further. For the purposes of this chapter we concentrate on Arab nomads who have the following factors in common:

First, they regard their varied environments as incapable of providing a certain living over the seasons and/or the years, so mobility is essential;

Second, all nomads work within a multi-resource economy, i.e., no one natural or external resource is used exclusively;

Third, all nomads are multi-occupational, i.e., they work part-time, have shares in several enterprises and switch from activity to activity as the need or preference arises;

Fourth, they work within and through a wider domestic group identity and thus access to the processes of sponsorship, guarantee, restitution, contracts, etc., comes from membership of a tribe or family.[1]

These four factors point to the importance of flexibility, resilience and a willingness to react to changing situations, whether these be influenced by shifting markets, demands, technology, etc.[2] The limits of flexibility, however, are determined by the moral values of the group so to go against family or tribal norms can lead, if unchecked, to loss of identity and a diminution of that access mediated by the group.

There is another major common factor and this is that the decisions and choices are made by the actor guided by the needs of the family group. Essentially, each individual is living from his own skills, his own management of his own capital (whether that be perceived as money, goods or information) or his own markets. He gets access to his capital and his markets through his reputation as “a good man” (however that may be defined by his particular group) and his social identity as a tribe or group member (Lancaster, 1981; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992b). This is explicitly made clear by, for example, the Rwala and other tribes in the north as well as by tribes in south-east Oman (Lancaster and Lancaster, 1990; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992a). In The World o/Pastoralism (1990) we show that the Rwala do not regard having animals as imposing a nomadic life, rather they see the choice of a nomadic life as imposing animals because animals are the best subsistence option. This inversion of what are usually thought of as cause and effect applies equally to other tribes such as the Ahl al-Jabal or the Azazme as well as to trading and craft families, i.e., non-pastoral nomads.[3] We have never heard anyone claim that nomadism was forced on them as the only option available: on the contrary, all the nomads we have come across regard nomadism as the preferred choice. Indeed, we have come across two traditionally agricultural “peasant” families (one Palestinian, one Christian) who have deliberately decided to become nomadic pastoralists as their preferred choice; there are also examples of this in Doughty (1926).

Within the multi-resource economy of nomads in the Arab region all their activities had, and have, both subsistence and surplus aspects. Thus there are, and always have been, various processes whereby surplus is distributed; as well as the normal channel of trade there are also gifts, exchange, hospitality and taxation. It should also be remembered that within the wider domestic group surplus and subsistence are not necessarily distinct categories — one member’s surplus may represent part of another’s subsistence. Subsistence is assured by an emphasis on access to resources, just as there is preferential control or access to the surplus of others. This emphasis on favored access and control over resources rather than outright ownership as such (e.g., Schilcher, 1991; Khalidi, 1984) is consonant with the local view of the availability of land and sea resources although such resources may vary over the seasons and between years. Similar views are held concerning markets and services which are, too, dependent on variable external factors. The preferred pattern of extending access by share partnerships and subcontracting rather than by wages is consistent with both the ideas of access (as opposed to ownership) as well as with the moral premises of individual autonomy and equality before God (e.g., Musil, 1927; Goitein, 1978; Firestone, 1973; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992b).[4]

Thus there has always been (as far as records exist) intermeshing between nomad populations and between them and the settled populations of cities and administrations (e.g., Luke, 1965; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992b; Shahid, 1984, 1990; Isaac, 1990; Bowersock, 1983; Kennedy, 1986; Bakhit, 1982; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992c; Owen, 1987; Lewis, 1987; Abujabr, 1989; etc.). These intermeshings[5] may be economic by way of trade, markets or services; they may be political in that they provide services to governments or administrations; or they may be social by means of the wider domestic group linkages, but whatever the interaction each party maintains its own separate identity according to the context.

All these factors combine to accord a high degree of flexibility in response to others, circumstances, weather, markets, etc. The strategy that this flexibility represents is consonant (we are being cautiously non-deterministic here) with the unpredictability of the total environment of the Middle East. The variations in the climatic regime, especially rainfall, are well known and any student of history is aware of swings in world trade and political overlordship, often far removed from the immediate area, which have repercussions on local trade, trade routes, markets and, by extension, local politics.[6]

Under such circumstances “change” is inevitable, continual and expected; it is part and parcel of the environment and nomadism, in its various forms, is one way of coping with it.

Under modern conditions the greatest change has been technological. The camel as motive power whether for freight or work, e.g., water raising, has been almost entirely replaced by engines; buses, cars, pick-ups and lorries have replaced camel caravans and made modem road networks necessary. Aeroplanes, too, play their role. The speed of information dissemination has increased dramatically while at the same time access to the means of dissemination has been restricted. Telephones and fax machines are fairly readily available but other means of communication — telegraph, radio, television, newspapers, etc. — has been entirely controlled by governments, with the proviso that it must not be forgotten that the operators are drawn from the local population, often nomads. While the incorporation of the region into the economic and political orbit of the West is nothing new, the degree of control enjoyed by the West has been largely the result of technological superiority. The same holds good for the local wealth creation brought about by oil. Nothing similar to this explosion of wealth has been seen in the region since the Middle Ages when the Arab world played a key role in the lucrative luxury trade with the Far East or, in the Roman period, when it provided the frankincense and spice trade (Groom, 1981).

Because nomads see their way of life constructed around contextual variations on a common moral theme — individual autonomy[7] — changes from outside in technology, markets, governments, etc., can be accommodated as long as they can be made compatible with that moral premise. There are always alternative accommodations available within the consensus (Lancaster, 1981) — consensus often being merely an agreement to hold certain alternatives in abeyance.

These alternatives may be chosen in the future, they cannot be totally discarded, because the tribal system concerns itself with the future and any abrogation of future choice is morally indefensible. So there is always an active interest in managing the alternatives presented by the natural or political environment as it changes. This applies to all resources including governments and government actions as well as new technologies. Nomads deliberately exapt to changing conditions.[8]

So far we have been able to speak of “nomads” in general terms without any economic distinctions — i.e., camel-herder, sheep-herder, hunter,[9] agricultural worker, craftsman, fisherman, trader etc. — and without any political or social distinction (real or imagined) — i.e., tribal, non-tribal, bedu, fellah, hteym, assil, solubba, gypsy, slave, etc. How are we sure that all these categories do respond in similar ways? Because, with the possible exception of gypsies, all Arab nomads in our experience see themselves as more or less constrained by the same fundamental moral premises, by the same religious principles and by similar processes based on individual autonomy and reputation vis-cl-vis people identified by tribe and/or family, i.e., there is an underlying common theme.

In the areas which we know best — southern Syria, Jordan, northern Saudi Arabia and south-east Oman — not all nomadic groups have the same types of intermeshing relationships with the settled populations or governments. Some, like slaves, hteym or solubba, depend on implicit contracts with other groups, e.g., the bedu tribes (bedu here being a political description), to deal with central government on their behalf. Such tribes see themselves as capable of “ruling,” i.e., of keeping the peace so that all are able to pursue their livelihoods without interference. (Keeping the peace means, in this context, not an absence of dispute but the provision of mediatory processes so that dispute does not degenerate into actual conflict.) Much of the political history of the region has been concerned with defining and implementing the relationships between central and tribal government;[10] on the other hand, tribal history, where the relationship with central government is defined and/or assumed, concerns itself far more with the maintenance or re-establishment of the moral order (Lancaster and Lancaster, 1995b).

A considerable amount of work has been carried out by many scholars of different disciplines on analyzing the changing functions, composition and institutions of government in different states in the region from the time of Islam onwards. In some particular tribes or tribal families, individuals from a tribal background have, traditionally, been central to government and continue to be so; this is true of the Gulf area, Oman, Yemen and what is now Saudi Arabia. In the north, for much of the time government exercised control over rural and desert areas by agents who were either from nomadic tribes or village families themselves or who actively cooperated with them. In the Islamic Middle Ages government was associated with urban areas and the countryside was seen as “outside” (Ibn Khaldun, 1967; Goitein, 1967). Central government needed tribal participation in the countryside in order to carry on effective trade and the distribution of goods and services. In other words nomads had something to offer in the way of animals for transport, meat, skins, dairy products, protection and guiding of trade caravans, access to routes or markets, military service, labor, taxes, etc. Government could offer nomads physical markets in which to trade, a demand for animals and some employment.

What happens now when any balance appears to be overwhelmingly on the side of government? When the basis for recruitment is no longer fighting ability or tribal identity but education and citizenship? When government service is no longer confined to the armed forces and security but also in administrative and technical fields?

One important factor is the difference between “state” (dowlat) and government (hukuma). In the eyes of all nomads, government (hukuma) is something that can be achieved by their actions. This view reflects the Arabic root, h-k—m, which can mean “to arbitrate” as well as “to rule.” The nomadic emphasis on dispute resolution and mediation so that people can get on with making a living can be subsumed under “government” in general terms. In fact many nomads use the word hukuma of central governments with whom they can cooperate; dowlat, on the other hand, receives less approval. For most nomads dowlat has overtones of the nation state, the state vis-d-vis other nation states, also as the “state” in the sense of bureaucracy, taking over the responsibilities that were formerly those of individuals. Dowlat imposes new conditions for participation. In general conversation hukuma and dowlat overlap, but the distinction just made holds good when the conversation demands a greater degree of analysis. A second important aspect is that “government,” in the sense of controlling access to or distribution of surplus or economic opportunities, “owes” its supporters. In nomadic eyes it is the duty of the ruler to provide for those under his rule; traditional nomadic peace-keeping and mediating provides the conditions under which an individual can make a living, and the latter can use the mediation process for his own ends or take advantage of the peace the ruler maintains. For those not ruhng, the ruler or government is a resource to be managed hke any other. This attitude is as clear in, say, the method of supplying the Hajj caravan in Turkish Ottoman times as it is now, for example, in Jordan and may be shown in the actions of tribes or individuals (Barbir, 1980; Doughty, 1926; Bakhit, 1982).

People use the new criteria of education and citizenship to enter desired occupations such as the armed forces, security services, local government or ministries. These are desired (a) because such employment is seen as service (and therefore as acceptable within the moral premises), a contribution to the king and country; (b) because the information and contacts made enable the undertaking of future enterprises, either part-time or in retirement; and (c) because such employment pays a pension which, in part at least, funds much of the rural economy. So while citizenship is now an accepted fact (Bocco, 1986; Layne, 1987), it is also an additional route to resources, a route moreover which need not conflict with tribal identity.

To return to government as such, a further point is that it (usually) depends on the support and participation of the majority of its population. To gain this support and participation government has to deliver. We have heard many discussions in rural Jordan about the extension and role of government. These discussions are usually realistic and linked to Jordan’s position in regional security — but the main reason for accepting further extension of government control is that the presence of aid money ensures jobs and incomes.

So far we have presented a relatively benign picture[11] of the nomads in the Arab Middle East in a changing environment. Is this warranted by the evidence of the lives of individuals? Or is it only benign in relation to ideas of social processes? We can find very few individual nomads who see their lives as having been seriously or irremediably affected in an adverse manner by change. Many have suffered in the short and long term to some degree in that they have been unable to engage in their preferred economic option, but they have in the end managed to achieve what they wanted.

Conventionally modern herding is seen as increasingly market dominated while traditional herding is seen as subsistence dominated. In our view, whatever type of herding was practised, there was always a strong market component. The obvious change is from camels to sheep, although there were always sheep-herding groups. This change was quite early as the decrease of camels and the increase in sheep as herd animals appears to have started during the 1860s, a change usually associated with the move from camel transport by land to steamship. Lady Anne Blunt (1879) comments that, in the 1870s, sheep-herding was superseding camel-herding to some degree in the hamad of southern Syria and eastern Jordan, and points out the suitability of the badia environment for sheep-herding together with the demand of Damascus for meat and dairy products. Because of the accelerating decline of the camel market in the 1920s and 1930s as a result of modem transport, the introduction of modern machinery, and the general depression in world trade, camel numbers built up, initially, until herds of two or three hundred for one nuclear family were common. (Base numbers for a subsistence herd are 15–20 animals.) Reports in the early 1950s on resource conservation in southern Jordan remark on the numbers of camels and the destruction they caused. Droughts in the 1930s, 1940s and late 1950s—early 1960s affected different groups in various ways, but the main components were wider political or economic changes that did not allow the exercise of usual drought insurance strategies (Lancaster and Lancaster, 1993). Despite this, herds today are economically successful and widely popular.

The other obvious change in land use is the expansion of agriculture. The traditional forms of agriculture — orchard and arable — have expanded with the expansion of the population. Commercial irrigated vegetable production for export was a new development in the 1970s. There was always opportunistic farming in the badia in suitable patches in suitable years well into what is now regarded commercially as “marginal” land. This was associated with animal production rather than grain production as such and this attitude persists even though modem agriculture has expanded into the entire marginal zone.

Perhaps most of the irritants come from bureaucratic impositions such as border controls, identity documents, currency control, customs restrictions, land registration, controls on the movements of people, animals and goods, regulations for entrance requirements into employment, etc. However, although most of these can be circumvented or alternatives found, it is probably true to say that most nomads most of the time see such irritants as opportunities for exploitation in one way or another. Governments may regard these as illegal. Smuggling is an obvious example but, from the nomadic perspective, it is a form of honorable and more exciting trade made necessary by governmental actions: if governments do not Hke it that is their problem — they imposed the conditions in the first place.

Non-tribal nomads, such as the surma’, solubba, gypsies, village or small urban traders and craftsmen often, in our experience, use tribal nomads with political linkages as a resource for their own livelihoods — just as they did in the past. In Ruweishid shop-keepers are frequently the descendants of traders who used to supply the tribes, garage mechanics and other skilled workers: e.g., gunsmiths are often surma’, solubba or gypsies; hired herders are nearly always from Syrian tribes close to the Rwala or other major tribes in the area.

There are more deep-seated concerns about the actions of governments which seem to offend morality — but while the ability of government to be tyrannical and corrupt is often seen as being the result of too much material wealth coming into the country, accusations of tyranny are hardly new.

This association of material wealth with immorality is of crucial importance to Arab nomads (with the possible exception of gypsies). It is not material wealth as such but the manner of its acquisition which gives rise to doubts; this applies to aid money as it has political strings attached and is not earned — it is therefore “dirty” money. This arises because, within nomadic morality, the maintenance of social relationships, upon which depends the reputation of “the good man,” is of far greater importance than mere wealth. Arab nomads of whatever political or economic persuasion see social relationships as the practical base of their flexibility and they understand that their flexibility and resilience is the key to their survival. This they see as conferring on them a greater survivability than any state government because their social processes, based on the moral premises, are consistent with the capacity of their landscapes to support them, a capacity independent of external factors. In more fashionable words, Arab nomads see their socioeconomic system as sustainable in a way that state systems are not because their system is based on a strict morality.

It may have been evident that we have had difficulty in sticking to “nomadism” rather than “tribalism.” And we wonder if we are really talking about nomads exclusively — could we be talking about Arab culture in general? If what the Rwala, recognized as a nomadic camel-herding tribe par excellence, say is compared with what the Hashid of North Yemen, who are long-settled agriculturalists, say about themselves (Dresch, 1989) there are very many fundamental similarities in attitudes, processes and premises. Our forthcoming paper (JRAS) on “Some Thoughts on Arab Tribal Migrations” makes the point that many of the apparent migrations of tribes may be a byproduct of shifts in the political or economic focus — tribe A is recorded at point X; three hundred years later it is recorded at point Y which has succeeded X in importance. Have they migrated or were they in both places all the time? One aspect of multi-resource economics is agricultural management — arable, date-groves or fruits — and nomads participate as owners, workers and distributors (see Wustenfeld, 1993; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1995b; Doughty, 1926; Lewis, 1987; Tristram, 1873; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992a).

A second aspect is that many productive enterprises require routine movements. Even what we think of as that most sedentary of occupations, agriculture, involves considerable movement. In the first place the self-sufficient “peasant” producer is rare. More usually the land is owned by someone else and worked by a sharecropper. The land owner has other enterprises and also has to arrange marketing, storage or distribution, i.e., movement. The sharecropper is the active partner on a contract basis; he, too, has other enterprises during the less active periods of farming — he may well have land of his own elsewhere — and rarely stays with the same land owner for more that two or three years at a time, i.e., he, too, is involved in considerable movement. The difficulty of describing a multi-resource person is remarkable. How does one describe a Rweli who has a house and business in Amman, a farm in Syria and sheep flocks in Saudi Arabia?

He certainly moves between Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia on a more or less seasonal basis — is he a nomad or not? When asked, he says that he rahals, he journeys. We come back to the same problem which confronted us at the beginning — there is no indigenous Arab word which means “nomad.” We are trying to attach a European concept to certain aspects of Arab culture and it will not fit.

We have tried to confine ourselves to using the word “nomad” as a descriptive term only and to limit its meaning to “those who move in order to gain an economic livelihood.” The stereotype of “nomad = pastoralist = tribal” is unjustified. These different descriptions may coincide, but equally they may not.

Perhaps we could avoid the stereotype by using “peripatetics” or, even worse, “mobiles.” We hope not. From the foregoing the only conclusion that can be drawn is that “Yes, there has been massive change”;[12] “Yes, nomads have responded to that change”; and “Yes, nomads continue to exist and even flourish.”

The root reasons are that nomadism with its flexible multi-resource economic strategy is ideally suited to the unpredictable environment, that the use of such an environment demands vast networks of information which can only realistically be supplied by the wider domestic group and that therefore social relationships, which need to be based on a strict moral code, must take primacy over other considerations. External factors such as trade routes, governments or states are grist to the mill; they are the necessary substrate. They change because the economic and political climate changes and nomadism is still the best method of exapting and surviving.

Notes

References

3. Being Bedouin: Nomads and Tribes in the Arab Social Imagination

Dale F. Eickelman

When bedouin and tribespeople read and prepare written accounts of their own past, what becomes of their sense of history and ideas of person, self and community? This chapter traces the interplay between oral and written traditions in establishing “authoritative” notions of tribal and social identity in the past, and their conjuncture in the present context of mass education, print and the mass media.

In a generic sense, the question is not new: Jack Goody’s edited Literacy in Traditional Societies (1968; see also Goody, 1977, 1986) was a significant step toward recognizing the political implications of the written and spoken word, and Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities (1983) marked the point at which the transformative value of writing and printing for national and religious identities became a central focus. The intellectual technologies of writing and printing create new forms of communication. These, in turn, facilitate new forms of community and personal identity.

More recent studies deal with the impact of mass education and mass communications (Eickelman, 1992; Bowen, 1993). Their effects since the mid-twentieth century are especially salient in the Arab world. Mass education, especially mass higher education, has rendered more explicit the intricate, yet shifting, relationship between the “imagined” communities encouraged by the print and broadcast media and other, alternative shared senses of collective and personal identity.

The tensions between these different senses of identity are especially manifest now that written accounts of “being badu” are becoming common and — contested. In Jordan, such accounts began to be produced in the 1970s (Shryock, 1997; see also Shryock, 1995); in Oman, an administrative handbook of tribal and place names with a traditional rhymed title, al-Murshid al’am li-l-wilayat wa-l-qabaHlft Sultanat ‘Uman [The General Guide to Provinces and Tribes in the Sultanate of Oman] (Oman, 1986) — the first of its kind produced by Sultanate authorities — had to be withdrawn soon after publication because of protests from tribal notables of prolific “errors” in representing tribes and tribal relationships.

Likewise, tribal and tribe-like collective histories in Oman are unlikely to get printed soon. One example is the manuscript of Jawad al-Khaburi (Khaburi, c.1971), which claimed that the Sindi-speaking Liwatiyya, known as Hyderabadis until the early 1950s, originated in the vicinity of Rustaq in Oman, but “lost” their Arabic when they migrated to India and only rediscovered their identity in recent decades. The quest for “rediscovery” gained impetus when Hyderabadis were obliged to choose between Indian and Omani citizenship at the time of India’s partition. Khaburi, a Liwati who studied and taught in Karachi from 1954 to 1971, began writing the manuscript with the encouragement of the Isma”ili community, with whom some Omani Liwati claim historical finks. After Khaburi returned to Oman in 1971, leaders of the Liwati community repeatedly requested permission to publish the manuscript in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Publication has not taken place because the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture and the Ministry of the Interior claim that they still have the matter “under study.”

Bedouin and Tribe: Imputed Cultural Identities

Bedouin occupy a place in the social and moral imagination of Middle Easterners far beyond their numbers. They have also occupied a major place in the anthropological and Western imaginations, and these perceptions are no longer compartmentalized and set apart from those of Middle Easterners themselves. As a consequence, any discussion of the role that bedouin and tribespeople play in the Arab and Middle Eastern social and moral imagination is necessarily complex. Thus, it may be that pastoral nomads constituted only slightly more than one percent of the population of the Middle East in 1970 (Eickelman, 1989a: 75), but “being bedouin” is not coterminous with pastoral nomadism.

In an ironic convergence of perceptions, many Westerners and urban . Arabs today think of the badu primarily as camel-herders. In fact, their identity is significantly more complicated. For medieval Arab writers, significant social forms in the region were thought of not so much in terms of socioeconomic categories but rather in terms of a dichotomy between city and country, or between civilization and its presumed absence. In this view, the pinnacle of civilization is the great city with its mosques, markets, schools, and, not least, its seat of government. The town-dweller (Arabic, hadari) occupies this conceptual space. The opposite extreme, lacking all these things, is that of the presumed “fringe” of culture represented by the camel pastoralist (Ar. badawi). (I do not capitalize the term because it does not refer to a specific ethnic group or people.) Other languages in the region have the equivalent of the urban/nomad contrast, such as shahri and dashti in Persian. These terms are deeply engrained ideal types, even though they leave the bulk of the population, the nontribal peasants ( fallahun) and settled or urban tribespeople, as an incomplete realization of one or the other of the badawi/hadari ideal types.

This dichotomy also figures in Ibn Khaldun’s influential discussion of royal authority. At its inception, a dynasty must possess “cohesiveness” (‘asabiya), a tenn which also carries a sense of irreducible partisan feeling or rivalry. ‘Asabiya implies acting as if compelling ties of obligation bind members of a group together (Ibn Khaldun, 1957: 249–355). He argued that such compelling notions of cohesiveness are more likely to be found in rural or tribal contexts. Cohesiveness need not depend on blood relationships existing between those persons who share it, but the bonds of solidarity must be such that they take precedence over all other bonds of association, so that persons act together in a common interest over extended periods of time.

As Abd al-‘Aziz al-Duri (1983: 60, 136) suggests, there is an inherent tension between the Islamic and tribal perspectives in the writing of early Islamic history, and the same tendency can be seen in the histories for subsequent periods. As Dresch (1989: 176—7) has suggested for historical writing in Yemen, there were efforts to establish a “unified vision” of Islamic history in which genealogical and chronological history coincided, an alignment which he considers an irreducible contradiction. In general, tribes, and the tribal view of history and events, were relegated to the “moral margin” of events as narrated from the vantage of the Imamate (Dresch, 1989: 188; see also Dresch, 1990).

In many contemporary Middle Eastern contexts tribal identity can be a matter of pride, but “bedouin” identity is more often a term imputed by others, and labeling someone as “bedouin” is often disparaging. I learned this the hard way when interviewing a “bedouin” member of Oman’s State Consultative Council in 1982. My interviewee was the tribal leader of a group which had only recently settled. Missing the irony of Omanis in Muscat who referred to him as a badawi, I used the term to his face. His two younger relatives who were with us immediately left the room, although my host had the grace to continue the conversation and, perhaps, to attribute my ill manners to an imperfect command of Arabic. In northern Israel, villagers of “bedouin” origin consider themselves ‘arab, and refer to themselves as ‘arab among themselves, but accept being categorized as “bedouin” by the Israeli state because it and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) distinguish between “bedouin” — who can volunteer for the IDF — and other Arabs, who can not (interviews, 14 June 1995).

Likewise, few bedouin in Jordan are pastoralists or nomads. Most have long been cultivators, some are engaged in agribusiness and, if prosperous, live in houses flanked by “neatly manicured flower beds and grape arbors” (Shryock, 1997: 45), just as the Rwala tribal leadership double as multinational entrepreneurs (Lancaster, 1981: 89–90, 93, 116, 130, 146), operating out of offices and with staff support. They bear little resemblance to the images associated with the earlier tribal leaders depicted by T. E. Lawrence and Alois Musil.

Government attitudes toward tribal nomads and pastoralists in the Middle East have wildly fluctuated. In Egypt, Muhammad ‘Ali (r. 1805–1848) sought to settle the bedouin to increase tax revenues, and did so by giving land grants to tribal leaders. In twentieth-century Iran, Reza Shah Pahlevi (r. 1924—1941) saw nomadic tribes both as a political threat and a cultural anachronism. Fie “pacified” the tribes soon after he came to power and forced them to settle in the 1930s. The result was a huge loss of livestock and an impoverishment of tribespeople, and no increase in agricultural production. His sedentarization programs were relaxed after his abdication, but in the 1950s through the 1970s Mohammad Reza Pahlevi renewed attacks on nomadic tribes and traditional pastoralism (Tapper, 1994: 191—2). By the mid-1970s, “pastoral nomads were marginalized to the extent that they could be regarded as colourful, folkloric relics from the past, a tourist attraction” (Tapper, 1994: 192). After the 1978–79 Iranian revolution, nomadic tribes were officially rehabilitated, labeled by Ayatollah Khomeini as “Treasures of the Revolution” (zakhayer-e enqelab) because of their supposedly vital historical role in protecting Iran’s territorial integrity (Tapper, 1994: 193). Iranian tribespeople are not badu, of course, but the interplay between the ideology of the state and the self-identity of pastoral nomads — whether they seek to de-emphasize their tribal identity and stress instead their economic role as pastoralists or citizens — has its counterpart elsewhere in the Middle East.

Oman

In 1959, soon after the reintegration of the northern interior into the domain of effective Sultanate rule, Shaykh Ibrahim Sa’id al-‘Abri (d. 1975) compiled a manuscript history of the ‘Abriyin, Kitab tabsirat al-mulabirin fi-tankh al-Abriyin. Several manuscript copies exist, but their private owners generally withheld them from public view. I was permitted to make a copy and offered one to John Wilkinson, who incorporated long extracts into his book on the imamate tradition in Oman (Wilkinson, 1987). Here I describe briefly the contents of the manuscript, but my main point is to discuss tribespeople’s reaction in the late 1970s to the writing of “their” history.

Some necessary background: Shaykh Ibrahim was a religious scholar and tribal leader who divided his time beginning in 1939 between Muscat, the northern capital of what was until 1970 the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman, and the tribal capital of Hamra al-‘Abriyin, an oasis in the northern Omani interior of 4,000 persons as of 1994. Most ‘Abriyin live in the region of al-Hamra, although there are major clusters of’Abriyin elsewhere in the interior and in Oman’s capital area. Ownership of land and water resources, even for the outlying regions, is concentrated in the hands of a few members of the shaykhly lineage. Thus, over half the irrigated gardens of Hamra and roughly the same proportion of lands used for seasonal crops are owned by four or five households of the shaykhly lineage. The remaining land and water rights are divided among the balance of the tribe, a significant number of whom own very little. A few tribal subgroups associated with the ‘Abriyin are pastoralists, such as the Hatatla, but none are bedouin.

Shaykh Ibrahim became Oman’s first mufti in 1970. A judge in the Ibadi imamate of the northern Omani interior, one of the world’s last theocracies (1913—55), Shaykh Ibrahim in 1937 became one of the first imamate leaders to shift his allegiances to Sultan Sa’id bin Taimur (r. 1932–70). Because his relations were correct with both the Imam, who resided in the interior, and the Sultan, who resided on the coast and ventured inland only once, in 1955, Shaykh Ibrahim divided his time between the two towns. In 1955, the northern Omani interior came under the effective rule of Shaykh Sa’id and imamate rule collapsed.

Shaykh Ibrahim’s manuscript spans four hundred years of tribal history, although he offers genealogies, derived from other sources, which trace the ‘Abnyin back to Adam. The sections of the manuscript dealing with the earliest period — from the time of Adam to the arrival of the ‘Abnyin to the northern Omani interior — are taken from other manuscripts (Eickelman, 1991), but Shaykh Ibrahim is responsible for collecting much of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century material. Although his manuscript is loosely in chronological order, his nanative is often interrupted by the incorporation of letters and documents which came to hand only after he has discussed an event or epoch at length. Similarly, the mention of a place associated with an early tribal migration prompts the inclusion of a famous poem related to it.

The more distant past is accommodated by accounts of migrations, the substance of which Shaykh Ibrahim says he confirmed by asking “knowledgeable Omani notables” (‘Abri, 1959: 10), thus establishing a history of the past through authoritative contemporary inquiries. For example, the Sharamhat ‘Aziz, a subdivision of the ‘Abri tribe, is said to have come to Wadi Nakhur “after the Persians had left Oman.” Shaykh Ibrahim then adds a poem which he heard recited there as a youth, mentions that the Sharamhat ‘Aziz then migrated again to Misfa, a mountainous village near Hamra, and then passes to another subject (‘Abri, 1959: 12). As he approaches the present, however, his account becomes both intricate — exploring the complex links of descent and alliance both within and between tribes — and complex, describing tribal and religious leaders and the roles they played in intra- and inter-tribal conflict. He becomes more circumspect when he discusses the key political events of his life. Thus a revolt (jitna) against imamate rule in the interior occurred in 1357/1938 in Balad Stal — a settlement near Hamra — and a second one in ‘Awabi in the following year. Because these occurred shortly after he joined the sultan in Muscat, he writes that many Omanis assumed that he had betrayed the Imam and instigated the revolt, thus “betraying” his oath of allegiance to the Imam. He vigorously defends himself against the charge fAbri, 1959:128—32). He avoids later topics — Saudi efforts to subvert the tribal leaders and men of learning of the interior in the early 1950s and the 1957 rebellion against sultanate rule. In a brief passage, Shaykh Ibrahim drily writes that “hearts changed” and the Omani interior “all” went to the sultan: “There is no need for me to say what happened next” (1959: 134).

One reason why there was no need for Shaykh Ibrahim to say what happened next is that his intended audience knew. As in the pre-print era in Europe, only a coterie of religious scholars in Oman were likely to have direct access to the book. In Hamra itself in the pre-1970 era, no more than five individuals had the capacity to read a manuscript of the complexity of Kitab. In some circumstances, a manuscript such as Kitab would be read aloud at semi-public gatherings in a shaykhly sabla, or guest house. Common for such readings, a younger scholar would recite the book, while the senior person of learning present would occasionally interrupt and comment on events, often “translating” the formal Arabic of the text to a more comprehensible Omani colloquial.

In my efforts during my stay of a year and a half in Hamra to comprehend how the ‘Abriyin understood their own history, I had an experience common to many other anthropologists in contemporary tribal settings. Recollections of the past were politically volatile, as much so as genealogies, so that my efforts to ask “ordinary” tribesmen to narrate events of the past, or to explain the alignment of the various factions, patronymic associations, and client groups with one another often met with silence, or the suggestion that I speak with someone “knowledgeable,” usually the tribal leader or one of his close relatives. Thus there was an implicit “authoritative” structure to narratives of past events and tribal relations. Initially having the idea that there was a “core” narrative to be elicited after hard work, I was delighted when various tribal leaders invoked Shaykh Ibrahim’s manuscript as the ultimate authority on past events. Promises to the contrary, it was never produced when I asked to see it, and one or two “subversives” in the shaykhly descent group gleefully laughed each time I told them that Shaykh So-and-So, having promised to loan me a copy, once again failed to do so.

Finally, after a year, a young shaykh, not of the tribal leadership but whose education straddled the pre-1970 era and the modern state schooling which became available thereafter, unexpectedly loaned me a copy and allowed me to photocopy it, but he sternly warned me not to let it out of my hands. I agreed, and spent several weeks slowly going through the manuscript.

Soon word got out that I had seen the manuscript. Some of the leading members of the tribe noted that my questions on tribal history suddenly became more precise and pointed. Even where my questions were off the mark, I was imputed with more knowledge than I actually had. Those who were earlier reticent to share with me a knowledge of the past began to open up — not much, but sufficiently to try to persuade me that Shaykh Ibrahim, with due respect, was a partisan witness, if they were not of his faction, or an authoritative one, if they were close to his descent group.

Knowledge that I had seen the manuscript made a difference, and suddenly I found myself in the center of a difficult situation. My Omani trainee and I privately called the night of 31 May 1980 Laylat al-nusur, “the Night of the Vultures.” Beginning at five that evening, we had a succession of three unusual visitors. The first, the elder brother of the tribal leader, had never visited me before. He asked me point blank for the manuscript and I refused, citing my agreement with its owner. He remained the bare minimum of time and took his leave. The second visitor, a nephew of the tribal leader, was a more familiar visitor. His father had been tribal leader in the 1930s, but he was living on an inheritance of date palms. He tried to persuade my trainee that it would be best to “loan” the manuscript, but he got nowhere. At least he left with good humor.

The third visitor was the religious judge for a neighboring province and the leading religious figure among the Abriyin. We had, of course, met, but he was politely insistent. I brought out the manuscript, which I had not at that point photocopied, and explained why I had to keep it in my possession. My field notes indicate what transpired next:

Qadi Muhammad then insisted that the manuscript wasn’t the property ofjabir Musa anyway, but was prepared at the expense of waqf, a pious endowment, and to waqf, of which he was custodian, it should return. I replied that I could not judge matters of ownership, only the assurances I gave Jabir Musa, so I had to respect his wishes. Qadi Muhammad then proceeded to chant from the manuscript for no less than two hours, in which he was joined by one of our two prior visitors. The chanting stopped only when I went briefly out of the room, when it was replaced with heated discussions with my trainee.

In later weeks, many people referred to the incident, as word spread around the tribal elite. Later, in mentioning the incident to the young official who initially lent me the manuscript, he became animated, not wanting to cede even a copy to the faction of the tribe more directly related to Shaykh Ibrahim than he was. Only with great reluctance did he subsequently agree with my proposal to provide a second photocopy to the other faction once I had left Oman. Likewise, he stalled every time I raised the idea of having the manuscript published by the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture. “It would never be permitted to be published,” he said. Of course he was right.

Only years later, in writing on mass higher education and the “objectification” of religious tradition in Oman (Eickelman, 1989b), did the reason for this reluctance become clear. Shaykh Ibrahim’s manuscript itself represented the objectification of the tribal tradition. It fixed distances between various tribal groupings and offered a monolithic perspective on events. When circulated among a tribal elite — and each copy of the manuscript had a definite owner and a limited trajectory of circulation — it was read primarily by partisans of a particular tribal position. Although it had the general feel of a classical Islamic text, quoting authorities and prior manuscripts, it fixed oral tradition. In the years since its creation, it rarely was direcdy invoked in public. My access to it was not a direct threat, but the idea that it might be published and taken by outsiders as an “authoritative” representation of the ‘Abri past was a direct challenge to the more flexible notion of tribal identity and the fluctuating identity of groups that went along with it. An ex-slave of the ‘Abri tribe provided a further explanation:

Today I’m a senior police official. That’s because I joined the police soon after 1970, when the shaykhs thought it was demeaning to accept orders. The police trained me, taught me to read and write. Now I’m an officer. Before 1970, I had a passport, but it identified me as khadim al-Abriyin (a slave of the ‘Abriyin). A few years ago, when I was promoted to captain, my family made up a banner to hang across the street, just like the shaykhs did at the other end of town. It read, “The children of Fulan bin Fulan al-‘Abri greet the people of Hamra on this blessed holiday.” People spoke, saying “Who is this slave, to say that he’s an ‘Abri?” But no one said anything to my face. How could they? I’m a captain. I never saw this book of Shaykh Ibrahim’s, but it would fix everyone in their place. But people’s status change; the book does not. So which is more true, the book or the people?

In light of this observation, the subsequent furor caused when the Ministry of the Interior sought to publish a handbook of tribal and place names becomes more clear. Although intended merely for administrative convenience, it threatened the negotiated reality and ambiguity of the tribal understanding of social relations.

Jordan

In Jordan, as in several other Middle Eastern countries, including Saudi Arabia, one has the seeming contradiction — to Westerners and to some Middle Easterners — of bedouin tribal identity without a direct tie to pastoralism, sustained by a certain style of “genealogical discourse” (Bocco, 1989: 271—3). In Jordan as elsewhere, tribal divisions are also fixed by administrative notions, but there has been a strong and continued resistance to incorporating tribal senses of relationships and the past to “official” histories because of the issue’s political sensitivities. In spite of the efforts of some Jordanians to portray tribalism as an impediment to national unity and to “progress,” suitable only to attract tourists (Layne, 1994: 91—3), tribal and bedouin identity remain dynamic and paramount, central to the identity of 40 to 50 percent of the country’s population of some 4 million. As Shryock (1997) writes, written accounts of tribal tradition are inherently contested, parochial, and antagonistic, as a member of the Jordanian parliament, himself an anthropologist, discovered when he sought to publish an account of tribal history. As in Oman, many tribespeople and bedouin refuse to relate tribal history for fear of discord, and regard other people’s histories as kizb, or falsehoods (Shryock, 1997: 11). One writer of tribal history has even had death threats; others feared legal action, despite the fact that, with mass education, the demand for a textualized past continues to grow. In the words of one writer of tribal history (cited in Shryock, 1997: 109—10), the “true history” cannot be written, but must be kept on the bookshelf. Tribal genealogies and narratives are necessarily partial narratives, not “imagined” in isolation, but a response to other “imagined communities.” Hence tribal space is both territorial and rhetorical.

Shryock (1997: 212) notes that tribal historical discourse, like the tribal system itself, is a structure of power and pervasive inequality. “It is not simply an ideal image of lineage structure projected backward in time. It is just the opposite: an ideal image of the past, of an ‘age of shaykhs,’ told in the face of a world that is rapidly changing.” The advent of textuality allows for a dramatic, but inherently contested, reconstruction of the past. In the end, however, the truth is said to lie in secret histories which are hidden away, lost, or suppressed, or to a truth which cannot openly be retold.

Shryock argues that a “genealogical nationalism” is emerging. State-sponsored nationalism homogenizes the social landscape, turning tribes into equal and anonymous members of a Jordanian community that is almost unimaginable. In contrast, there is a genealogical imagination of a strong national identity in Jordan, but it is not anonymous or uniform. Just as there is no uniform master historical narrative, so there is not an anonymous nationalism in Jordan or elsewhere in the Middle East. Shryock’s argument is rich and complex, but suggests that genealogical thought is not being eclipsed by the conventions of written national history. Instead genealogical histories support structures of historical knowledge and scholarly authority which cannot be supported by writing alone (Shryock, 1993: 323; cf. Messick, 1993: 252). The result is a “specifically genealogical Jordan,” which, of course, freezes out those who cannot claim a similar identity. Rather than work in antithesis to nationalist discourse, Shryock (1995: 326–7) argues that the genealogical paradigm is now being imposed on nationalist discourse. Genealogies are not anti- or a-national. Instead they are specifically Jordanian, opposed to the official nationalism of the textbooks, which rarely mention tribal identities, but not to the idea of Jordan.

Conclusion

“Being badu” and tribal notions of the past are not disappearing. In the Waldorf-Astoria in the mid-1980s, the minister of foreign affairs of an Arab Gulf state told me with pride that his nation was composed of tribal peoples, a claim that would be almost unimaginable in a sub-Saharan African context. But in the subsequent discussion, it became clear that his notion of tribal was highly stylized, postulating a pastoral nomadic origin for all, or almost all, the people of his country. Other tribal histories suggest a highly sophisticated politics of memory, such as A1 Rasheed’s (1991) fascinating effort to integrate the oral history of the A1 Rashid with European anthropological and historical forms. But perhaps the most interesting exploration of identity of all concerns the making, and remaking, of a sense of self and community when “authoritative” genealogical histories, previously related principally in oral narrative, compete for social space with the objectifications of print and the mass-communicated word.

References

4. Coping with Change in Arabia: The Bedouin Community and the Idea of Development

Ugo Fabietti

Recently, turning over the pages of a classic on nomads, I was struck by the title of one chapter, “Une theocratie bedouine” (a Bedouin theocracy). The author was Robert Montagne, the book La civilisation du desert (1947), and the chapter dealt with the story of the two Wahhabi emirates of the A1 Sa‘ud.

That title was a sort of revelation to me. It was evidence that even scholars had been entangled in the image that the new (at that time) Saudi power was already giving of itself: the image of a power that was in line with the tradition of the country — a country of nomads — but had been able to cement by means of religion the unstable and unreliable relationships upon which the desert civilization was founded.

It is a commonplace today, both for the westerners and the Saudis, to think of Saudi Arabia as an ancient land of nomads. The representations of the country — in the West and in Saudi Arabia itself — emphasize this aspect of the cultural history of the country, hiding many of the processes that have characterized the story of the conflictual relationships between the state and the Bedouin. At the same time such representations, in that they ignore the story of the relationships between the nomads and the Saudi state, fortify the idea of Saudi Arabia as a country that progressed from nomadism to sedentarism, in which sedentarism is the result of a wise policy of development, and where the Bedouin stand for the “ancestors” of the actual population of the country. But as it often happens to many ancestors when a particular idea of progress and development dominates (nineteenth-century Europeans were specialists in this), ancestors become necessarily “primitives.” In Saudi Arabia the Bedouin stand for ancestors but also for “backward people,” “primitive” or even “savage” and the space they occupy is now more and more restricted to the folklore.

A recent article written by two French colleagues shows in a brilliant way how the image of the Bedouin is manipulated in the official iconography of Saudi Arabia (Pouillon et Mauger, 1995). In such an iconography Bedouin dresses, postures and ornaments are hidden and/or manipulated in order to “modernize” them and “expunge” any element which impinges on their “nationalization” according to an idea of progress (as igal made by rope, tattoos, variegated kefyyeh, etc.). In this way the Bedouin seem to be between two fires: their ennobling as the ancestors of the country, and their “debedouinization” in the name of their “backwardness” and national development.

Much has been already written and said about the different attitudes which marked, at different times, the polities of the Saudi government toward the nomads (Farra, 1973). If we resume the story of such attitudes in only one sentence it would be: “the Developer State against the Backward Bedouin.”

It seems to me that among the various phases marking the policy of intervention by the state in the nomadic sector, there is a guiding thread that corresponds to a series of measures taken toward the nomads, measures that have been more or less directly responsible for a decline of the group (you could call it “tribe,” if you want) as a unit in charge of common resources (Fabietti, 1982, 1993). It is therefore safe to assert, I believe, that these measures came under the state’s plan to detribalize the Bedouin, an objective that has more or less explicitly and more or less consciously been pursued by the A1 Sa’ud since the second decade of this century.

This policy reflects the struggle between two worlds, that of the nomads and that of the sedentary. By this I do not want to restore the trite stereotype of the struggle between the “desert and the sown” that is unproductive in our understanding of the social history of these regions. I want simply to stress the fact that the constitution of centralized states is in contradiction with the presence of any social body autonomous in political matters, when such an autonomy is fundamental to the whole process of reproduction of the nomadic sector of the population. It is not for me to pass judgment on the policies of the Saudi government toward the Bedouin. But let me say that these policies have been carried on, at least in the last decades, according to an idea of development which is directly imported from the West, an idea, as somebody has already pointed out, that has little or nothing to do with the expectations of the Bedouin in welfare matters.

Western researchers, I believe, have had great responsibilities in fortifying the image of the Bedouin as backward and unproductive (and by this means in reinforcing a particular idea of development among the authorities). The import of such an idea of development from outside, and the adhesion to this same idea by the local authorities, can be explained by what Talal Asad, in a work of some years ago dedicated to the concept of cultural translation, called the “the inequality of languages,” or the unequal relationship inherent in any process of cultural translation (Asad, 1986). Every process of translation of one language into another contains an element of distortion. This element of distortion has, especially in the ethnographic context, the peculiarity of reproducing the relationship of force that exists between the languages involved in the process of translation. “The reason for this is,” as Asad says, “first that in their political-economic relation with Third World countries Western nations have the greater ability to manipulate the latter. And, second, Western languages produce and deploy desired knowledge more readily than Third World languages do” (Asad, 1986: 158). Here Asad alludes to the fact that, in the framework of domination by one culture over another, the language of the stronger culture has the power to influence the contents of the weaker culture. This is precisely the risk of surveys like those which have been carried out on the so-called “needs” of the Bedouin of Saudi Arabia. Most of the time they have been conducted on the basis of typically Western evaluation parameters which are used as a point of reference for schemes implemented by the authorities in the nomad sector. These works, like all ethnographic works for that matter, can thus contribute to the foundation of a knowledge considered “objective” by those who commission them, without the people directly concerned having any possibility of verifying them. And they can also, with time, be instrumental in forming the historical memory which the people of a country have of themselves. This is the point I want to stress — the function such an idea of development can have in selecting the historical memory upon which the image of the Bedouin as an ancestor both ennobled and primitive can be built up.

As far as the idea of the Bedouin as backward is concerned, its roots are to be found, I believe, in the theory of the domestic group economy as “underproductive” (Fabietti, 1990). This idea can be traced back to Marshall Sahlins’ theory of the domestic mode of production as typical of a “primitive” society, as Sahlins himself defines it, and refers to a context of non-market-oriented production. In such a situation “intensity of labor in a system of domestic production for use varies inversely with the relative working capacity of the producing unit” (Sahlins, 1972).

Now this idea has been transplanted in the analysis of the economy of the Bedouin of Saudi Arabia (Cole, 1981). The qualification “underproductive” gives the notion a very strong ideological flavour: it is “as if’ all societies whose economies are essentially founded on domestic production were implicitly defective, and lacking, in other words, that “extraordinary” capacity — which is instead a characteristic of all societies whose economies are market oriented — to gear production to the satisfaction of “unlimited human needs.” As a consequence, it is only a short step from the fact of characterizing as “primitive” all those societies dominated by the domestic mode of production to the fact of qualifying as “underproductive” the economies of those groups not having the requisites for inclusion in the market economy.

I will focus on the way this notion may have contributed to the building of an image of the Bedouin community as a social entity historically marked by a chronic underproductivity and, as such, the necessarily passive object of provisions taken by the authorities in matters of “development.”

Two main points seem to support the idea according to which the Bedouin would be underproductive: (1) the Bedouin domestic group is conceived of as an isolated and autarchic unit, and (2) it produces surplus of labor as far as herding activities are concerned.

In anthropological literature on the Bedouin there is indeed a predominant idea that the intensity with which members of the group are mobilized in sectors different to that of pastoral activities depends on the greater or lesser demand for labor in this sector. This may be true. Some experts, however, have emphasized this aspect of Bedouin economy to argue in favor of a chronic underproductivity of the Bedouin. Such an emphasis on the surplus labor in respect of the necessities of pastoral activities fortifies, as a matter of fact, the idea according to which today the majority of Bedouin households would be capable of surviving thanks to the policy of public subsidies pursued by the government, and reinforces the notion of the domestic groups as an underproductive structure, incapable of sustaining its members on the basis of its pastoral activities alone.

This sounds quite funny to me, as the whole argument consists of an idea of the Bedouin as being exclusively pastoral people, compelled by necessity to fall back on other sources of subsistence. This argument is paradoxical in that it does not take into account that the Bedouin economy has always consisted of an adaptation to a “complex” social and economic context.

The methodological and logical premises on which the idea of an alleged underproductivity of the Bedouin household is founded are incorrect. In fact the image of the Bedouin domestic group as an isolated and autarchic unit is a variant of the well-rooted image of the nomads as juxtaposed to the sedentary. This is by no means true of the herders who have, since their appearance on the fringes of the Fertile Crescent, been included within a “pluri-economic” system, where mobility between productive sectors and the activity of exchange have always played an essential role. It is nowadays fully recognized that pastoral nomadism is only a variable of a complex economic system that developed in this area (Khazanov, 1994; Lancaster, 1995; Marx, 1995). The fact that Bedouin households are unable to subsist on herding alone cannot, consequently, be assumed as a demonstration of the underproductivity of the Bedouin household. Otherwise we would be compelled to admit that the Bedouin community is based on a pure and exclusive form of exploitation of pastoral resources alone, to the exclusion of all other possible resources — an eventuality that it has never been possible to demonstrate. To conceive of the Bedouin domestic group as based on the exploitation of pastoral resources only, corresponds to a radical dehistoricization of the context in which the Bedouin domestic group operated in the past and continues to do so today. How, indeed, can it be supposed that this group has always managed only and solely pastoral resources, whereas it has been known by now for some time that the economy of the Bedouin communities has never been founded solely and exclusively on the exploitation of animal resources? Moreover it is known that the actual definition of Bedouin by the Bedouin themselves or even by settled populations is absolutely not founded on the sole criterion of pastoral activities. On the basis of these considerations, the image of the Bedouin domestic group could, in a sense, be seen as the reverse of the current one: the group would no longer be conceived of as isolated, static and autonomous (but self-insufficient), but rather as a dynamic unit which converges resources originating from a variety of sectors, procured and organized by mobile individuals belonging to a parental group whose dimensions and composition is not definable a priori.

To sum up, the idea of an “underproductivity” of the Bedouin household does not seem to make much sense, unless that group is associated with an idea of a closed and isolated “social body” tending to be autonomous in terms of the division of work, corresponding exactly to the image given of the “primitive household.”

At the same time, the image of the Bedouin as a pure pastoral nomad corresponds to those ideas of “ancestral origin,” “purity” and “nobility” in virtue of which it is possible to elaborate an irrational but in a certain way “persuasive” idea of continuity between the present and the past. This is a seductive idea. However, it does not impinge on the general conviction that the Bedouin are a hostile element to the constitution of a modem state. State politics toward nomads have been always carried out in the name of the development of the country, a particular interpretation of the religious faith, and the unquestionable leadership of the al Sa’ud. This has always meant that the Bedouin, in the history of the Kingdom and with a different emphasis at different times, have been the target of economic interventions, religious proselytism and political measures (as they were backward, misbelievers and disloyal). On the whole, all this simply meant that pastoral nomadism could not cope with the new trend of an oil-based economy of the country; that Bedouin were not particularly keen on wahhabism, and, the most important of all, that the Saudi power had to be built against the majority of the Bedouin tribes of the Peninsula.

I am convinced that many measures taken toward the Bedouin by the state in the name of their development were aimed to “detribalize” them. The detribalization of the Bedouin was in fact an objective that has more or less explicitly and more or less consciously been pursued by the A1 Sa’ud since the second decade of this century (Fabietti, 1986, 1994).

The story of the state intervention in the nomadic sector has been characterized, on the whole, by the will to undermine the cohesion of the Bedouin communities and this capacity of managing the resources of their dirah. As an example, I remind the reader that the main effect of the politics of land distribution, which started in 1968 (Hajrah, 1982), was the introduction of the principle of allocation of land on a personal basis. Such a pattern was previously unknown to the Bedouin. Furthermore there were some groups that benefited by the law, while others did not — the latter being, for the most part, those groups against which the Saudi power fought in the years of its consolidation.

This pattern of land allocation created deep differences between groups and individuals as well. Those who were able to benefit from long-term loans could buy agricultural equipment, drill wells and start a market-oriented agricultural activity. The others could not. Other groups were involved in rural development schemes but their unwillingness to participate on an individual basis, rather then according to the traditional pattern that involved entire factions of the community, led to the failure of these projects. The bad outcome of these development schemes has been exhibited as the evidence that Bedouin are unable to carry on agricultural production on a regular basis, and that they cannot manage without the subsidies of the state (Helaissi, 1959; Ibrahim and Cole, 1978).

Such a conclusion — which is expressed by researchers and experts — seems to forget that those groups that have been enabled to start a market-oriented production, both in the agricultural and pastoral sector by integrating the two forms of economy, are quite well off (even if this process is at the origin of deep differences between the Bedouin who “have” and those who “have not”). Any allusion to the possibility of developing a pastoral sector based on a direct and active involvement of the Bedouin is discarded. It is true that the Saudi government has invested a remarkable amount of money in the nomadic sector. But such an investment has not brought the desired results for the very reason that the people concerned — the Bedouin — were not involved in the operation that concerned them. In the eyes of the Saudi authorities this failure confirmed the “unproductivity” of the Bedouin, so that it seems preferable to put an end conclusively to nomadic fife, when it is maintained that non-utilization of Bedouin as manpower constitutes a problem in a country (like Saudi Arabia) that is experiencing a great labor shortage (Ibrahim and Cole, 1978).

In justification of the experts who carry on this kind of research it must be said that it is not always easy to avoid the institutional pressures represented by the expectations of clients. Nevertheless it is a fact that the research is very often followed up by practical measures commissioned with intent to lend “objective” basis to the policies of intervention in the nomad sector. Those policies are often guided by erroneous ideas that are a mixture of the authorities’ wills and the experts’ desire to please their clients. The fact that such conclusions are expressed by local researchers or planners, rather than by Western experts, only makes matters worse.

The ahistorical image of the Bedouin domestic group as an underproductive unit is not a creation designed to favor a policy of change in the nomad sector. However, it does tend to justify this type of policy, by allowing a semblance of scientific method to be attributed to it. The case of the Bedouin of Arabia is actually only one among many where, in the name of productivity, governments strive to justify their control by promoting the banishment and extinction of communities that have developed other forms of adaptation.

It is therefore worthwhile stressing that many surveys and the method by which they are conducted bestow an academic respectability on the preconceptions of those who believe in a particular type of development pattern, and also help to transplant among those responsible for policy in the nomad sector, a type of knowledge that is often far removed from the expectations of those who ought to benefit from it. The consequence is that the weaker culture finds itself paradoxically adopting precisely those errors of evaluation, if not actually the prejudices, which the dominant culture harbors against it.

References

5. Bedouin Settlement Policy in Israel, 1964–1996

Amon Medzini

Thirty years have elapsed since the Israeli government initiated a Bedouin settlement policy. The Bedouin were to be transferred from spontaneous settlements to planned, permanent settlements. This chapter evaluates the degree of success of the program over the past 30 years.

Bedouin settlements in Israel are divided into two main groups: spontaneous setdements and planned setdements.

Spontaneous Settlements result from a slow, gradual process of transition from the tent to permanent dwellings such as tin shacks, wooden shacks and stone houses. These settlements are typically tribal, unplanned and without any public services. They are dispersed over large areas, including areas where the state of Israel would prefer not to have permanent settlements. Planned Settlements are set up for the Bedouin by the Planning Authority of the State of Israel. This group is further divided into post factum legalized spontaneous settlements where the government provides basic community services, and planned Bedouin settlements set up in an attempt to attract this population away from their spontaneous settlements. These planned settlements are modem. In most cases the land on which they are established is state land; housing density is fixed, and the government provides all basic services.

The goal of the Bedouin settlement policy was defined by the Government of Israel early in the 1960s. Instead of the creation of hundreds of unplanned and unrecognized hamlets, a limited number of large settlements was to be established to which the Bedouin would move. The state would provide all the usual basic services such as water, electricity, education, health, sanitation and roads, on the usual level of services provided to settlements in Israel (Medzini, 1984: 41). The 1962 master plan for the Negev called for the establishment of three settlements and the approval of additional settlements in 1963 (State of Israel, 16 August 1964). So far, seven settlements have been established in the Negev, including Rahat which currently has a population of30,000. The explanation offered for the increase in the number of settlements is the dispersal of the Bedouin over a large area, and the complex relations between the tribes and the families of subtribes (State of Israel, 30 May 1973).

Currently,, the problems involving the relations between the Bedouin in the Negev and the government are centered in four main areas: land ownership, illegal hamlets, the continuation of traditional grazing practices, and creation of employment opportunities in the planned settlements. Out of 3 million dunams in the northern Negev, the Bedouin claim approx. 759,000 dunams (Kliot and Medzini, 1985: 431). To back up their claims they set up spontaneous settlements which they refuse to leave, at least until the question of land ownership is settled. The Bedouin demand that the spontaneous settlements should ultimately receive the status of recognized permanent settlements. The planned settlements attracted mainly Bedouin of fellaheen origin and subtribes who owned no land (Ben-David, 1982: 262), so that the extended geographic distribution of the spontaneous settlements in the Negev did not significantly change.

Today, 30 years after the process of concentration in recognized settlements began, there are still hundreds of hamlets dispersed over 1.5 million dunams in the Negev for which the present government policy has found no adequate solution. Failure to find solutions over such a long period of time has exacerbated the situation due to the rapid population increase of the Bedouin, which is estimated at 5 percent per year, that is, a 100 percent increase every 13 years. Today, the Bedouin population in the Negev has risen to 95,000 of which no more than 50,000 are living in recognized settlements. By the year 2005 the population will rise to 120,000.

The question is: can the seven planned settlements which exist solve the problem of the Bedouin dwelling in spontaneous settlements or, alternatively, how many recognized Bedouin settlements in the Negev are needed to solve the problem of a population dwelling in hundreds of unrecognized hamlets?

A partial answer to the question can be given by means of an analysis of Israeli policy toward the Bedouin in the Galilee (northern Israel). The process of spontaneous settlement in northern Israel preceded the settlement process in southern Israel by many years. Four groups of factors affected the process: political factors, factors of the geographical environment, sociological and economic factors. These factors are combined, and their impact and level of influence varies and is dependent on time and space.

Political factors. Under Ottoman rule, the laws of the state did not apply to the Bedouin. They did not serve in the Turkish Army, they were allowed to carry firearms, and they had their own law courts. For long periods of time the Bedouin virtually controlled large stretches of land in the Galilee, collected taxes from small tribes and fellaheen villages, robbed and plundered, and in general contributed to instability in the area. The Ottomans only started establishing a firm government at the end of the nineteenth century in order to increase safety and protect pilgrims (Ashkenazi, 1939: 8). During the British Mandate, Bedouin movement was restricted due to the new frontier separating French and British Mandatory territory in the area. The British kept a close watch on the movements of the Bedouin tribes who were living in the proximity of the frontier to prevent smuggling, the transmission of disease and border incidents. For the first time the Bedouin had to carry passports and mark their livestock. At the same time the British Mandatory Government was well-disposed toward the Bedouin, granting them political and social autonomy, helping them in times of drought, and intervening in disputes. On the other hand, the Bedouin were no longer permitted to carry firearms and engage in robbery, pillage and raids. In 1942, the British passed regulations to tighten control over the Bedouin tribes and induce sedentarization (Falah, 1983b: 38). The boundaries of the tribal territories were demarcated, which restricted the range of movements with their herds and reduced their size. Improved security and higher incomes under the British Mandate enabled the Bedouin to start construction of stone houses and sedentarization.

The geographical environment. In the Galilee, the Bedouin penetrated uninhabited areas or sparsely populated areas, swampy ground, natural forests unfit for agriculture but suitable for grazing, and topographically difficult rocky areas in the mountains (Golani, 1966: 12). The analysis of a distribution map of Bedouin tribes in 1930 indicates that most tribes preferred humid areas to semi-arid areas..

The Mediterranean chmate in Northern Israel creates an area of greater carrying capacity which reduces the fixed range of movement of the herds and accelerates sedentarization. As the Bedouin penetrated the Galilee, which was populated by Arab villagers, close contact with the local population was estabhshed, and emulation and learning processes began. The proximity to industrial centers in Haifa Bay also accelerated sedentarization.

Sociological factors. More than half of the Bedouin tribes in the Galilee come from the Hauran and the Golan Heights, though some tribes are from Egypt, or are of Kurdish or Turkmenistan descent; some tribes were created in Galilee when families united. Most tribes in Galilee are the descendants of clans or individuals who had to leave their natural environment due to blood feuds, raids, disputes or the need for new grazing areas. A census conducted by the British in 1931 indicates that there were over one hundred tribes in the Galilee, including many small tribes. The largest tribe in 1931 comprised 1000 persons. The number of tribes in southern Israel was smaller, although each tribe had a larger membership. The largest tribe in southern Israel in 1931 had a membership of over 16,000 (Ashkenazi, 1939: 41). The tribes in the Galilee were small and territorially segregated and hence militarily and politically weak, and this accelerated sedentarization. The transition to permanent settlement enabled mixed marriages of Bedouin and fellaheen, and emulation of the fellaheen and their customs made the Bedouin increasingly similar to peasants working the land.

Economic factors. Following the 1858 Ottoman legislation enabling the classification of land and land ownership, a process of change began in the settlement patterns of the Bedouin. When the laws were passed, the Ottomans began confiscating land which had not been under cultivation for three years as well as land of tribes who had not paid their taxes. In the late nineteenth century, the impact of these laws on the Bedouin was marginal, because their sources of income were livestock and robbery. However, the legislation affected the quantity of land registered in their name at a later point of time when they moved to permanent settlements (Medzini, 1984: 29). As the security in the area improved — especially under the British Mandate — the villagers started cultivating land faraway from their village. Moreover, massive land purchases were made by Jewish settlers. The rise in population in the Galilee, both Jewish and Arab, changed grazing land into farm land, urban settlements and industrial areas (Falah, 1983a: 29). These factors reduced the range of movement with the herds, and consequently the size of the herds had to be reduced. As the government was in firm control, the Bedouin could no longer engage in robbery and trespassing, and had to find alternative occupations (Ashkenazi, 1939: 37). The alternative was the transition to wage labor, a process which started during British mandatory rule. It did not take the Bedouin long to discover that wage labor pays better than herds, and they gradually abandoned their traditional employment and moved to permanent settlements. They constructed shanties, shacks and stone houses to replace traditional tent dwellings, because they no longer moved with the herds, and because shanties and shacks are much cheaper to build and maintain than traditional tent dwellings (Medzini, 1984: 39).

The transition from tents to tin huts and shacks created a very large number of spontaneous hamlets with no infrastructure which were often dispersed over hundreds of thousands of dunams. Examples are the Arab El-Suwaid tribe: late in the 1960s this tribe lived in 400 structures dispersed over 25,000 dunams, 200 of which were illegally constructed on state land; the dwellings of the 800 members of the Arab El-Zabidat tribe were distributed over 6,000 dunams (State of Israel, 1973). In 1973, the Adviser to the Prime Minister on Arab affairs established that 20,000 Bedouin in Galilee were in control of tens of thousands of dunams of state land, and had constructed hundreds of illegal stone houses and approximately 3,000 tin huts and shacks on both state land and privately owned land (State of Israel, 7 March 1973). The process continued mainly after the State of Israel was established, especially in the first years after the War of Independence (State of Israel, 22 March 1962). The authorities should have been alert to what was happening, and the creation of spontaneous settlements should have been prevented in the early stages.

That so many spontaneous settlements were set up indicates that building control and protection of state land were not enforced. The Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Israel Lands Administration, the Ministry of Defence, the Jewish National Fund, etc. should have taken responsibility. Indirectly, the legal system of the 1950s also contributed to the process, since the judges hardly ever decided to demolish buildings that had been constructed without a license, imposing a fine which the Bedouin regarded as part of the cost of construction anyway (State of Israel, 21 November 1976). Hence, the courts did not stop the illegal building activity.

As illegal construction continued, the Israel Land Administration had to find a solution to the problem of unrecognized Bedouin settlements, a solution which would serve as a reaction to the spontaneous process. It was decided to construct planned settlements for the Bedouin sited as close as possible to the area of existing spontaneous settlement whilst preserving tribal frameworks. The advantages of the proposed plan would be explained, especially to assure them that they would not be “put into a ghetto,” as some feared.

The Bedouin raised a number of objections: some thought that moving to recognized settlements would affect their rights to land on which they had ownership claims. Again, they felt that concentrating them in permanent settlements would mean that they would be controlled and forced to pay taxes. They argued that the area of planned settlements was short of grazing land, and they feared renting land for 49 years (as is the custom for Israeli citizens who use state land), because they did not know what would happen when the lease expired. The Bedouin objected to the small size of the plots and space restriction, which were obviously unfamiliar to them. They argued that they would lose money because they would have to pay rates and pay for services such as water, electricity, and telephone. Again, they would have to fiquidate their livestock because there would be no room to accommodate the animals in the planned settlement. The Bedouin also objected to the price differential between the cost of a plot in the planned settlement and the value of their own land (which they exchanged for a plot in a planned settlement) as assessed by government assessors. Another objection centered on the absence of a master plan for all the Bedouin tribes in the Galilee; no attention was paid to permanent sub-tribal and tribal conflict which made it impossible for certain tribes to live together. Also, some tribal leaders feared that their influence over the tribe would diminish after sedentarization in planned settlements. It is noteworthy that the Bedouin never objected to receiving services provided by the state to improve their quality of life. From the beginning, they demanded the conversion of their spontaneous settlements into recognized settlements, including land ownership.

The objections to the plan and the demand for conversion from spontaneous settlement to recognized permanent settlement resulted in repeated changes of government policy toward the Bedouin.

The first proposal early in the 1960s was the following: “Let us construct three to four planned, recognized settlements in the geographical centers of spontaneous Bedouin settlements. All the Galilee Bedouin will move there” (State of Israel, 3 April 1963). It is important to note that no serious, comprehensive plan was ever developed for the settlement of all Galilee Bedouin. In fact it would appear that the people in charge of Bedouin settlement adopted their policies on impulse and failed to study the social, economic and cultural needs of this population.

In 1963 it was decided to establish four settlements for the Bedouin: Bosmat Tivon, Wadi Hamam, Bir El-Maksur, Ibbitin. They were planned on the level of urban centers and may be compared to the communal settlements set up 20 years later. The state provided all the services, but no non-agricultural employment was available, and the settlements became dormitories from which the Bedouin commuted to their workplaces. At the same time the establishment of these settlements enabled the government to allocate budgets for the development of public services. The establishment of these settlements partially solved the problems of four tribes, but did not prevent illegal construction in the remaining spontaneous settlements.

When it became clear that the planned settlements did not solve the problem of spontaneous settlement it was decided in 1970 to recognize five spontaneous settlements, Zarzir, Ka’abiyya, Wadi Salame, Aramshe and Tuba Zangariyya. No research was done, and no criteria whatsoever were established to define the status of spontaneous settlements (size, number of inhabitants, land ownership, type of construction, distribution, etc.).

In 1970 a commission was set up. It was headed by the adviser on Arab affairs, and was composed of representation from the Land Administration of the State of Israel, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Construction and Housing, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education. The commission was required to make recommendations in respect of the location and number of Bedouin settlements in the Galilee, to set them up and to make the existing settlements economically viable.

The commission started its work in 1973. An executive committee was appointed to carry out its decisions and propose a policy toward the Bedouin. As a result of the work of the committee the government decided to increase the number of settlements to 11 (State of Israel (b), 30 May 1973). Pursuant to this decision the commission decided in 1981 that “additional spontaneous settlements will not be granted the status of permanent settlements, the state will not provide services to spontaneous settlements, and all new illegal constructions will be demolished at once” (State of Israel, 10 May 1981). As the government offices were unable to carry out this unequivocal decision, the number of recognized settlements finally rose to 14 in 1983, and to 17 in 1995. Over the years, additional spontaneous Bedouin settlements were recognized, though not as independent settlements, but as neighborhoods of larger settlements, or by “stretching” the boundaries of existing Bedouin settlements. A survey of the legalized settlements shows that spontaneous settlements with over 400 inhabitants with a suitable density of construction and private land ownership were recognized by the state.

A number of factors account for the non-implementation of the government policy toward the Bedouin. Intervention by politicians from parties ranging from the right-wing religious Mafdal to the Alignment and Likud, by army personnel and by human rights’ organizations contributed to the (justified) feeling on the part of the Bedouin that finally things would right themselves and sometime in the future the settlements would be legalized. Intervention prevented the state from reducing the distribution of Bedouin settlements in the Galilee. Currently, water can be piped to unrecognized settlements on humanitarian grounds. The Minister of Communication ordered that unrecognized settlements should be connected to the telephone system so the villagers would not be cut off in case of need (despite the fact that the 1981 Law of Planning and Building prohibits servicing illegal construction). The Bedouin use generators to supply their own power and make their own access roads. Buildings constructed without a permit are hardly ever demolished, because the issue is linked to the Arab Jewish territorial conflict in the Galilee, and even if the courts issue a demolition order it is usually not carried out because the issue is politically sensitive. It seems that the erection of observation points in the Galilee is closely linked with decisions made by the Bedouin inhabiting spontaneous settlements not to respond to the proposed evacuation as they know that ultimately the spontaneous settlements will be recognized by the state. The argument put forward by the government that small groups of buildings cannot be serviced is no longer accepted by the Bedouin, because they discovered that the observation points constructed in the Galilee in the 1980s were provided with the necessary infrastructure regardless of their small size. A study indicates, moreover, that setting up the observation points speeded up illegal construction in a number of areas (Sofer and Finkel, 1988: 26).

In furthering the construction of spontaneous settlements, the Bedouin take advantage of religious holidays when inspectors do not work, and of election years when the government takes care not to demolish illegal structures. These considerations, as well as the facts of fast construction techniques, night construction, construction of concrete walls inside tin and wooden shacks, mean that inspectors are faced with faits accomplis.

An investigation of the socioeconomic structure of the Bedouin settlement in the Galilee indicates that most Bedouin are employed either as construction workers, factory workers or unskilled laborers. Compared with fellaheen villages in the Galilee the Bedouin settlements own less agricultural land; this is due to the differential in traditional occupations — raising livestock versus cultivating the soil. On the other hand, more Bedouin serve in the Israel Defense Forces, and more families raise livestock — a leftover of traditional occupations (Medzini, 1984: 59). The size of the Bedouin family equals that of the fellaheen family — seven persons on average (State of Israel, Central Bureau of Statistics, 1993). But density of construction in the planned settlements is higher than in the Arab village, and in the spontaneous settlements density is significantly lower than in the Arab villages.

Summary

The process of Bedouin settlement in the Galilee started under Ottoman rule. The reasons accounting for the process are the geography of the Galilee as well as socioeconomic and political factors. The process fits the model of adaptation and response described by Salzman (Salzman, 1980: 11—14). The process created an extremely large number of spontaneous settlements characterized by the lack of any plan and the absence of infrastructure, frequently on locations where the State of Israel does not want settlements. As a result of the reality the state decided to move the Bedouin to planned settlements and provide services at the usual level in Israel. The plan proposed by the government of Israel lacked insight into the cultural and socioeconomic needs of the Bedouin, and hence it failed. As a result, a policy of post factum recognition of larger spontaneous settlements was adopted. This is an ongoing process.

If we define the policy of the government of Israel as a combination of the “carrot and the stick,” the stick has never been a real threat, and the carrot has never been sufficiently attractive to induce the Bedouin to destroy their spontaneous settlements and move to planned settlements.

Consequently, the geographical distribution of the Bedouin in the Galilee has remained unchanged over the past 30 years of government policy toward the Bedouin, and rethinking is therefore mandatory. If the four settlements proposed early in the 1960s failed, and 17 settlements do not solve the problem of40,000 Bedouin in the Galilee, a different policy must be adopted toward the few large concentrations which have not yet been recognized. If it is obvious that the 60 families of the Arab El-Naim tribe will never voluntarily relinquish their present location, they must be offered a more substantial sum of money — the kind of compensation paid to the Bedouin in the Tel Melhate area. The Bedouin townlets in the Negev, Keseifa and Aro’er, were planned to evacuate the Bedouin from the Tel Melhate area in order to construct an airfield when the Peace Treaty with Egypt was signed and Israel returned Sinai. In this case, a precedent was created of compensation based not on assessment of the land by government assessors, but on the level of compensation paid to evacuees from Yamit. The precedent may be applied again to enable adequate compensation to additional Bedouin tribes moving to planned settlements. There is no reason why the large spontaneous settlements should suffer any longer, especially now that illegal construction is limited due to more strict law enforcement.

The analysis of the processes involving the construction of Bedouin settlements in the Galilee and the change of status from unrecognized to recognized settlements shows that the State of Israel is currently unable to cope with the problem of dozens of spontaneous settlements in the Negev, let alone the problem of the larger settlements. The number of illegal structures rose to approximately 6,000 in 1986, of which 5,800 were tin shacks and wooden shacks (State of Israel, 1986: 29). Failure to solve the problem of land ownership in the Negev further contributes to the determination of the Bedouin to hold on to their present settlements. In contrast with the Bedouin in the Galilee, the Bedouin in the Negev constructed their spontaneous settlements to back up their claim to land ownership. The planners must therefore face the fact that the number of recognized Bedouin settlements in the Negev will rise significantly, and now is the time for them to take this into account.

References

6. Continuing Education and Community Development for Bedouin

Helmut Danner and Maha El-Rashidi

This contribution is not an anthropological one. However, it has a common context with some anthropological approaches to the frame topic — “Changing patterns of nomads in changing societies” — and this is development. We shall report about adult education in the context of development, specifically of community development. The relationship to anthropological contributions is somehow contradictory, for anthropologists tend to protect traditional societies; and they may blame developmental work for destroying them.

We will concentrate on a specific developmental work for and with Bedouin in Egypt. The question is whether in this case it is really destructive, whether development necessarily destroys a traditional society.

The Bedouin of Egypt can be considered as a society in transition, on the one hand bound to a traditional and independent life-style, and on the other hand adopting a modem way of life — either deliberately or forced by the overall change of the Egyptian society. Symbolic for this “being in between” is the pick-up truck which the Bedouin use beside the camel, parking it in front of a group of tents or simple huts. Another, deeper example for transition, may be seen in a Bedouin family of Marsa Matrouh: The illiterate father cared for the education of his two daughters (!) — one became an engineer, the other a physician — with the effect that both refused to marry their illiterate cousins. In this example, quite a few breaches with tradition are included: modem education (this even for girls); breaking the rule of marrying a cousin, which is decided by the girls and the acceptance of the situation by their father. Another, more pictoresque example of transition may be seen in the sheep and goat herds which move through the pulsing, dense traffic of the city of Gizah, accompanied by Bedouin women and children, both riding on donkeys, searching for garbage places to feed their animals.

As the majority of the Egyptians are not Bedouin, these are outsiders of society. Although Egyptians, they are called “Arabs;” they are recognizable by their features and (mainly women) by their traditional dress. They are not fully integrated. It is not astonishing that their sense of belonging is directed to the tribe; the tribal interest and discipline come first — they consider it higher than national interest. In spite of that, Egyptian officials seek the support of the sheikh when it comes to elections and to the implementation of projects. In Sinai, in addition, the aspect of security is important for the officials, who try to get the support of the Bedouin tribes in that, too.[13]

The specific situation of the Bedouin in Egyptian society and the ongoing processes of modernization may be the reasons for the quite different lifestyles of the Bedouin. There are great differences among them in wealth, education, ownership of land, health care, food supply, and the situation and recognition of women. Bedouin five as an integrated part of the Greater Cairo community and, for example, rent horses for riding or run tourist shops; others five in remote desert areas, deeply rooted in their nomadic tradition, breeding sheep, goats and camels. Other Bedouin try to cope with the intruding tourism business, for example at the Gulf of Aqaba, by offering camel or jeep tours to tourists or selling crafts, thereby preserving traditional designs. Again other Bedouin experience alienation where the “development” by the government has established new cities, such as El-Tur, where “foreigners” from Cairo or the Delta — and not Bedouin — are employed as administrators.

On this general background of the Bedouin, we see the work of the Nile Centers as being part of the governmental modernization process and, on the other hand, giving a hand to the Bedouin to help them integrate by offering them a chance to participate actively. Common to the Bedouin in Sinai and Marsa Matrouh is their independence in solving social problems. There is hardly any governmental interference in dissolving disputes; even in cases of murder the sheikh may solve the problem. What he and a committee decide will be accepted, and the whole community may help the guilty one to settle his debt. Only when a Bedouin himself seeks the help of government authorities are they involved, and even then the local traditional laws may be applied when the judge is a Bedouin, too.[14]

This is true for problems which occur in the Bedouin society itself. But how does the same society react when a governmental institution — Nile Centers — offers help in more technical problems which concern the whole tribe? Is the style of the goverment institution changed when it encounters a society which is used to ruling itself?

Continuing Education for Community Development in the Nile Centers

The Nile Centers are educational centers, present in almost all 26 governorates of Egypt. They have been established in cooperation between the Egyptian Ministry of Information and the German Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung. Their main task is community development; they promote this by giving seminars on local problems. They gather people who are involved in problems, either sufferers or those who have solutions.[15]

An example: In August 1993, the Nile Center in El-Tur, South Sinai, conducted a four-day seminar on “Camel breeding in desert areas.” Among the identified problems were the following: shortage in fodder; shortage in water resources; increase in death rate of camels; deficiency in veterinary care. In order to discuss these problems, the Nile Center invited camel breeders, veterinarians, farmers and executives from the local council — altogether 27 participants. The seminar consisted of lectures, workshops with small groups, and a field visit. Contrary to other forms of seminars and of continuing education, the Nile Center seminars aim to bring about real action in order to change the community for the better. In this case, the camels of the govemorate were listed in order to support programs for improving camel raising; to introduce training seminars for the breeders, Bedouin and local administrators; and to increase awareness and solutions not to slaughter female camels as well as small males under three years of age.

Nile Centers with Bedouin Societies

The above example demonstrates the concept of Nile Center work, albeit that this is a special Nile Center, namely from one within Bedouin society. There are two more Nile Centers with Bedouin in Egypt: El-Arish in North Sinai and Marsa Matrouh in the far west of Egypt. The question to be addressed is: Does the work of the Nile Centers with Bedouin differ from other centers? What is the special situation of Bedouin? We can make these questions concrete by focusing on the topics of the seminars for Bedouin, as well as on the way they participate in the seminars.

But before doing this, it might be helpful to provide some characteristics of these Bedouin societies.

In North Sinai, to which the El-Arish belongs, about two-thirds of the population are Bedouin. There are 27 tribes. On the north coast they are settled (Bir El’Abd, Balousa) and depend on agriculture and fishing; toward the east, agriculture prevails because of the rain. In the middle of Sinai (El-Hassana, Nakhl) wheat, com and water melon are grown in winter time; there, the Bedouin depend on water tanks and have to buy sweet water for 3 LE per cubic meter;[16] they have also constructed a cement tank to preserve water for summer use. El-Arish is a city of settled Bedouin who live between stable tribal and changing traditions; for example, they live in brick houses, but still have an extra coffee room for sitting on the floor, the so-called “Arab sitting room.” Compared to the nomads, the income of the settled Bedouin is high; during the last 20 years they progressed fast with the qualitatively negative effect that they decreased manual weaving and now use machines.

One problem of the settled Bedouin is the increase of prices for seed (which they have to buy from Israel and which is very expensive). Another problem comes from the governmental administration; agricultural engineers are considered by the Bedouin to be ignorant with respect to desert cultivation; they lack experience and just copy traditional ways of cultivation and solving problems, i.e., according to the Nile valley. Nomads, who are a minority, suffer from a low standard of living; their problems are lack of water and facilities of all kinds, such as education and health care for children. Another problem is the feeding of the animals.[17]

The situation for the Bedouin in South Sinai — to which the capital El-Tur belongs — is in some aspects different to that in North Sinai. Eighty percent of the population are Bedouin; the number of the whole, scattered population is only 30,000. The Bedouin live in 13 tribes. Their main income stems from raising animals or — like in Wadi Feiran — from growing date palm trees. As far as they are settled, they live in villages or are spread over wadis. The Bedouin of the cities live from fishing and agriculture; only a few are employees. The nomads live from crafts, such as carpets and embroidery, as well as from camel and sheep raising; they also produce charcoal and collect herbs. A problem of the city Bedouin is that often they do not own the land they cultivate. As El-Tur is an artificial, newly-established city, the settled Bedouin do not have work — neither crafts nor fishery. The Bedouin in the wadis lack facilities, housing and transportation.

What are the features of the Bedouin in the west, belonging to Marsa Matrouh? Eighty-seven percent of the population are Bedouin, five tribes are Arabs,[18] one tribe belongs to the Siwa Oasis and has Berber origin. All tribes are considered to be setded, but still some Bedouin are nomads. The settled Bedouin have houses, and depend on trade and agriculture, which of course relies on rain (not on the Nile water like in the Delta). They grow wheat, barley, figs and olives. In Siwa the cultivation of palm trees is important, too; there, the water comes from wells.

The settled Bedouin have an average income. Their basic problem is — as in Sinai — to acquire the ownership of their property; they do not receive registration of the land they use. They are caught in an administrative vicious circle: To register their land they need an identity card; issuing an identity card demands the proof of identity through ownership of land. This situation makes them fear that the government might decide to take their land. The nomads have hardly anything; they live from sheep and rely on the rain. Therefore, their main problem is water, but they also lack facilities such as health units, schools, etc.

The situation and the need of the Bedouin are the background of their cooperation with the Nile Centers, from where they get support.

Specific Seminar Topics for and with Bedouin

The Nile Centers concentrate on continuing education for community development. In this context, they conduct seminars. In 1994, the five most common topics in all the Nile Centers were:[19] Agriculture (33%), Health (13%), Environment (11%), Social Topics (9%), Education (9%), and Others (25%).

In 1994, seminar agricultural topics increased from 25% percent to 33%. This can be interpreted as a step to more concreteness in the Nile Center work because dealing with agricultural topics usually has to be very specific, more than other topics such as social or political ones, which can often be vague.

Some examples of topics in the Nile Centers with Bedouin societies show that the trend toward concreteness is even stronger:

El-Tur.

“Protection of crops in South Sinai” (October 1994)

“Promotion of poultry in South Sinai” (March 1994)

“Problems of animal products” (December 1994)

El-Arish:

“Local traditional crafts” (May 1993)

“Fighting moving sand dunes in North Sinai”

Atarsa Matrouh:

“Problems of agricultural drainage in Siwa” (September 1994) “Problems of growing wheat in desert areas: Sidi Barani”

(November 1994)

“Production of figs” (May 1995)

Beside other agricultural topics, seminars for Bedouin focus on problems such as drinking water, wells, housing, education and health, garbage and sewage — all crucial topics based on real needs of the people. In other words: The seminar topics reflect the situation of the Bedouin society.

Nile Center seminars do not end with the seminar itself, but produce realistic recommendations which can be implemented. Usually such recommendations are handed over to the authorities or to the governor himself for implementation. At a later stage the Nile Center follows-up the recommendations made at the time of the seminar. The following are examples of recommendations which were formulated in seminars for Bedouin:

Marsa Matrouh seminar: “Problems of growing wheat in desert areas: Sidi Barani.” The following recommendations were made: (1) The responsible authority for providing seeds is the Ministry of Agriculture, which was requested to reconsider the price of seeds because a sudden price increase of LE 12 had discouraged the Bedouin to grow wheat. As a result the price increase was cancelled. (2) The Ministry of Agriculture should establish a stock of agricultural machinery for growing and harvesting in Sidi Barani, to be rented out for a small fee. This recommendation was not fulfilled.[20]

El-Tur seminar. “The problem of sewage and health. ” The following recommendations were made: (1) The community should get rid of plants and mosquitos around a polluted lake because they were the causes of diseases. This recommendation was fulfilled by the city with the help of private individuals, i.e., Bedouin. (2) Samples of the water from the lake and from the water treatment station should be regularly analysed. This recommendation was fulfilled.

El-Arish seminar: “Local traditional crafts in Northern Sinai” (May 1993).[21] The following recommendations were made: (1) A seminar should be conducted for 20 Bedouin women who teach in a school for deaf and dumb girls and in an industrial girls’ school. This was done by the Nile Center in cooperation with other institutions as well as concerned private individuals; each woman received LE 50 to buy materials and a sewing machine from the Social Fund.

These examples demonstrate that the Nile Center recommendations follow a certain pattern, which is to address government authorities; this is also true for recommendations which result from seminars for Bedouin. Many recommendations require action by the state authorities, such as the correction of the state-controlled price for seeds; however, other recommendations could be addressed to the beneficiaries themselves, e.g., to create a stock of machinery in the form of a (non-governmental) cooperative. The cleaning of the polluted lake shows that it is possible that private individuals can become active in solving problems. Sometimes recommendations create problems, for they confront the authorities with problems for which they have to find solutions.

Bedouin Participation in Seminars on Community Development

The normal way to get individuals to attend the seminars is for the Nile Center staff to inform the authorities concerned with the topic to send responsible persons. These individuals then deal with the problem as a public concern; usually they are not touched by it personally.

In which way are Bedouin involved in seminars that tackle their problems? There are three phases to each seminar: (1) the preparation, (2) the seminar itself, and (3) the follow-up phase.

(1) The preparation phase. In Marsa Matrouh the Nile Center contacts the chiefs of the tribes, there called the “omad,” and makes up a “need analysis” together with them. At the same time they contact the head of the city council and other authorities and ask for help to solve a specific problem. The Bedouin act in a democratic way to identify the problems they face, and collect relevant information before attending the Nile Center seminar.

In principle, it is the Nile Center which chooses the topic for the seminars. For example, the seminar on “wheat” was a choice of the Nile Center Marsa Matrouh; the staff saw the possibility of growing wheat in Siwa, but found that the Bedouin were reluctant and preferred to grow barley. The identified problems were irrigation, price for seeds and machinery. Flowever, even when the topic is chosen by the Nile Center, it has to be treated in such a way that meets Bedouin needs, otherwise they lose trust and do not come again. In other words, the Nile Center staff has to be very close to the real needs of the Bedouin; they have to meet their way of tackling a problem. Thus, directly or indirectly, the Bedouin have a stronger influence on the Nile Center seminars than other groups in Egyptian society may have.

Therefore a seminar with Bedouin demands careful preparation — it usually takes about two months, while seminars for others can sometimes be organized within one to two weeks. For the Bedouin, the head of the tribe or village wants to know the objective of the seminar and the possible benefit for the Bedouin. The Nile Center staff may have to go three times to the chief personally; and with him they decide upon the participants. Although the Bedouin want to be informed about all details, they do not actively get involved in the preparation. For example, the seminar on “Shallow wells” was from the beginning a cooperation between the Nile Center El-Arish, the local Bureau of Irrigation and the sheikh. Bedouin are also involved in the preparation insofar as a person with a public function, like the head of the village council or the director of the Nile Center, can be a Bedouin.

(2) At the seminar itself. The participation of Bedouin is usually very high, this is also true for seminars which are not specifically meant for Bedouin. In El-Tur the participants are settled Bedouin as well as nomads and other people.

The participating Bedouin are not easily impressed by the seminar. They often question the purpose and the aim of the meeting, and want to know how it will benefit them. When the seminar does not convince them, they simply disappear, saying “mafi wakt” — “no time.” Bedouin are fairly conservative and they do not easily accept new methods or techniques; they prefer to stick to what they are used to.

Although all Bedouin are equal in participation, the participation of women depends on whether they are settled or nomads. Nomad women do not participate in normal Nile Center seminars, but they do attend literacy courses or in seminars of the “Productive Families” project, which are only for women. On the other hand, settled Bedouin women can play an important role. Galila Gomaa Awed, from El-Tur, is a member of the parliament and representative of women at the level of the govemorate; as such she protects women and actively provides them with small projects and with facilities, e.g., for knitting and sewing.

An important feature of Nile Center seminars for Bedouin is the closeness to the place of the problem. Many seminars take place in the village of the Bedouin, not in the Nile Center which is in the capital of the governorate. For example, the Marsa Matrouh center often goes to Siwa as well as to other places. As far as it makes sense, the seminar is then conducted amidst the place of the problem — the palm tree seminars in El-Arish took place among palm trees, not in a closed room.[22] At the very least, the seminar program will include a field visit to the place of the problem, and Bedouin favor this approach.

(3) Bedouin participate in solving their own problems. When there is a clearly proposed solution, Bedouin take care that it will be realized. For this reason Bedouin get involved in following-up Nile Center recommendations. This starts as soon as the seminar is over. In seminars with other populations, this would not easily be the case. Often it is the chief of the tribe who stays in contact with the Nile Center and the authorities until the recommendations are implemented. In El-Tur there exists a committee of Bedouin which does the follow up; if something is not done they then go to the authority to ask why. Sometimes recommendations are very specific for Bedouin; for example, the Nile Center of El-Arish can facilitate the granting of credits, for Bedouin often do not have the necessary documents to obtain credit at a bank.

Conclusions

These few observations demonstrate that Bedouin society is different from the rest of Egyptian society, and this is what influences the character and the seriousness of seminars. Bedouin are more concerned about their own affairs; they are ready to participate, but they are more self-conscious and more independent. They play a role in their own modernization, and for them this is their “destiny.” We can summarize our observations as follows:

1. Bedouin solve their social problems independently of state authorities. Other Egyptian populations wait for authorities to take care of them.

2. For economic and technical problems they accept the support of the institution for continuing education; in this way, the Bedouin recognize its performance and success.

3. Seminars for Bedouin must tackle real problems. Bedouin want to solve problems they encounter in their daily life. They are not interested in and will not accept general, empty, ideological talks.

4. The problem to be solved has to be demonstrated as concretely as possible by conducting a seminar on the spot.

5. Bedouin show active interest in the problems they face; they are cautious in their preparation for participation in seminars; they actively participate in seminars or they leave; they follow up the results.

6. The potential of engagement for Bedouin solving problems is not fully used by the Nile Centers; the solutions of problems are mainly directed to government authorities, even if a problem could be taken care of by the Bedouin themselves. The Nile Centers do not fully meet the specific character of the Bedouin society; they are too much caught up in their attitude to take much care, and neglect the initiative of the beneficiaries.

7. This method of problem solving brings with it the danger that it might alienate the Bedouin from their traditional independence.

8. The positive aspect of the support of the Nile Centers is that they provide know-how and show new possibilities for better life conditions.

9. The active interest of the Bedouin could be a model for the Nile Centers to prepare, to conduct and to follow-up seminars with other populations in a more fruitful way. As far as the Nile Centers have the aim to educate for democracy in Egypt, the Bedouin demonstrate a more democratic attitude than the average institution in Egyptian society.

10. The Bedouin participation could show a way to better citizen participation in social and political affairs in general.

The encounter of the Bedouin with an institution of developmental education lies in the chance for mutual benefit for a state institution and for the Bedouin. However, the approach to the Bedouin society has to be sensitive; in other words thay have to be taken seriously and their real needs and their style of dealing with problems have to be respected. On the one hand, the Bedouin are supported in solving their daily problems; and on the other hand, a state institution is challenged by a lively society.

This is the question we posed at the beginning — whether developmental work and anthropological interest have to be contradictory (in other words, whether the practical work with Bedouin and the theoretical research are a dialectical contradiction). This can be solved as a “synthesis” by recognizing that both anthropology and developmental practice can benefit from each other when they “listen” to each other. The side of development may better understand the Bedouin society because of anthropological descriptions; and anthropologists may become more aware of the ongoing, even necessary changes which are accompanied by developmental support. Thus, the scheme of their relationship is a circle rather than an opposition — a circle from anthropology to developmental practice, and from practice to anthropology. Their ideal common interest would be constructive and protective development.

Notes

7. The joz musarrib: An Unusual Form of Marriage among the Arabs

Frank H. Stewart

I

In 1910 Father Antonin Jaussen, one of the most distinguished of the European ethnographers who have studied Bedouin society, published a short article describing a type of marriage strikingly different from the ordinary Bedouin marriage. He found this institution among the Fuqara’, Wild ‘Ali,[23] Bily and Juhayna tribes in the Northern Hijaz, and among the ‘Adwan and Bani Sakhr tribes in Transjordania. In what follows I shall try to show that this type of marriage — the marriage to a joz musarrib, a ‘visiting husband’[24] — is not really as odd as it looks. But first something must be said about the ordinary kind of Bedouin marriage.[25]

In the normal Bedouin marriage husband and wife maintain a joint household. The husband is obliged to provide for his wife, and the wife must do the work normally expected of a woman, for instance, cook, look after the children, and in some but not all tribes, take care of the family’s goats and sheep.[26]

One of the most striking features of the marital tie is that even after her wedding, authority over the woman rests primarily not with her husband but with her guardian (waliy), i.e., her closest adult male agnate (her father, brother, paternal uncle or whoever it may be). A woman’s guardian literally has power of life or death over her, and if he orders her to leave her husband she will do so (though the guardian will have to compensate the husband if, without good reason, he deprives him of his wife’s presence). The guardian remains legally responsible for his ward (waliyya) even after marriage. If an offense is committed against her, it is her guardian who will sue the offender or take whatever other steps the law permits to deal with the situation; and if she commits an offense, it is he, and not the husband (or the woman herself), who is legally liable. If the woman’s husband dies, she inherits nothing; and if the widow has no children, she will always return to her guardian, and will remain with him until she remarries.

The special type of marriage that interests us here is confined to widows who have minor children. Now a mother and her agnates[27] have no rights in her children: these belong exclusively to their father and his agnates. If she is widowed, then roughly speaking the husband’s rights in the children will be inherited by his closest surviving adult male agnate — as it might be, his father, his brother, or his son (who may or may not also be her son).

There are now two main possibilities. One is that the widow returns to five with her guardian. If her children are still young, and in particular if they have not yet been weaned (i.e., are below the age of about three), then her husband’s agnates have a duty to contribute to their, and her, support as long as the children remain in her custody and she does not remarry. If she remarries, and the new husband is not a close agnate of the father of her children, then her late husband’s closest adult male agnate will take custody of the children; and he will normally do this in any event within a few years of the children having been weaned.

The other possibility is that the widow may go to five — or continue to five — with her late husband’s agnates, who include, of course, her own children.[28] The guardian must give his consent to this arrangement, and it cannot be taken for granted that he will do so: he may want to benefit from his ward’s labor and insist on her living with him,[29] or he may want to marry her to someone outside her late husband’s agnatic group. Assuming that he does agree to her living with her children’s agnates, she will then be able to do so in one of three statuses. She may (a) remain unmarried, at least for the time being, or (b) marry one of those agnates — for instance, her late husband’s brother (again, with the consent of her guardian), or (c) take a joz musarrib.

A marriage to 3. joz musarrib is not usually celebrated with the same eclat as an ordinary marriage,[30] but in other respects it is carried out like any other: the woman’s guardian must consent, and he will receive a bride-price.[31] As in an ordinary marriage, the husband has the right to divorce the wife, but the wife cannot divorce the husband. Children bom of the marriage are legitimate, and the parents have the same rights and duties toward them as they would if the marriage were of the normal type. In particular, the father must support them and (as long as the marriage endures) the mother must look after them.

What distinguishes this marriage is the distribution of rights and duties between husband and wife. The wife continues to live with the children and other agnates of her first husband. The joz musarrib has no duty to support her, and she has no duty to work for him. He maintains a separate household — if he has another wife, then with her, and if not, then with his agnates. He merely visits the wife to whom he is a joz musarrib in the evening and departs again in the morning.

Jaussen’s account of this institution, though not quite exhaustive, is full and clear. I never heard mention of the joz musarrib in central Sinai, and since the institution is also not mentioned in the literature on the Sinai Bedouin, I think it unlikely that it ever existed there; but I have no doubt as to the accuracy of what Jaussen says on the subject. Jaussen devotes a substantial part of his article to an attempt to link this type of marriage to forms of marriage assumed to have existed in pre-Islamic Arabia and even in Old Testament times. I think it can be shown, however, that the arrangement makes excellent sense in terms of contemporaneous Bedouin social structure.

In the joz musarrib marriage one might say that the rights enjoyed by an ordinary husband have been divided between the dead husband and the live one. The dead husband’s agnates, representing the dead husband, enjoy (as did the late husband) the right to the widow’s labor, while the new husband receives exclusive rights to sexual access and to any children that he may beget. If such children are born, then the joz musarrib will also benefit from a portion of his wife’s labor, since she will look after them as long as they are small. The new husband, however, pays for their support, and when they are older, they go to live with him.[32]

The arrangement satisfies to a large degree the interests of all concerned. The dead husband’s agnates lose nothing, and may gain a more contented woman in their midst. The new husband, to be sure, does not have all the rights of a normal husband, but by the same token he does not have all the duties. The guardian is clearly better off than if the woman lives with her late husband’s agnates as a widow: he receives a bride-price, and the likelihood of his being dishonored as a result of sexual misbehavior by the widow is sharply reduced. And as for the wife of a joz musarrib, not only is she better off than she would be as a widow, she is probably even better off than she would be in a normal marriage, for she has the right at any time to refuse her husband access to her home and to her self.

In a normal marriage the wife has no such right, and its existence in this type of marriage may seem to contradict the theory that I have proposed, to wit, that the rights and duties in this type of marriage are essentially the same as those in an ordinary marriage, but distributed, as it were, between two husbands. It appears to me, however, that the right to refuse the husband access is no more than the functional equivalent of a right that the woman has in an ordinary marriage — the right to flee from her husband. Such flight, though it indicates that the wife is seriously upset, is not necessarily a sign that she wants to divorce her husband. In Sinai and the Negev, if she wants to divorce her husband she will take refuge with her guardian, whereas if she merely wants to indicate to her spouse that he has misbehaved, she will take refuge with someone else, usually someone in the same camp (and she will avoid her guardian’s home even if it is the one nearest to her own).

Now the wife in an ordinary marriage is fleeing from a home that is as much her husband’s as it is hers; but it would be absurd if, in the marriage to the joz musarrib, she were to flee from a home which is not his at all. Hence the right to bar him access.

Jaussen records one other feature not found in an ordinary marriage: the joz musarrib normally brings his wife a gift every time that he spends the night with her.[33] In the one specific case of such gift-giving that he describes, he notes that the wife prepared dinner for the husband;[34] and I assume both that this was not uncommon and that a joz musarrib was not usually forced to depart in the morning on an entirely empty stomach. I suggest, then, that the gift mentioned by Jaussen is generally a contribution to, or in reciprocation for, the food and drink that the man receives from his wife.

I mentioned above that a Bedouin woman cannot divorce her husband; but it must be added that she can force her husband to divorce her by repeatedly fleeing from him. Law and custom will not allow the marriage to continue in such a case. In an ordinary marriage (at any rate, in the Sinai and the Negev) the wife will normally need the support of her guardian to achieve a divorce,[35] but it is clear that if she has a joz musarrib she does not. Though Jaussen does not say so, I have little doubt that if a wife refuses access to a joz musarrib for long enough, he will be forced to give her her freedom. This reflects the fact that she has a place in the world that is independent both of her guardian and of the joz musarrib: the home of her late husband.

Jaussen’s account is somewhat vague about a question that is of great importance in judging the degree of independence that the wife enjoys. She administers an estate that includes the tent in which she lives, domestic property, stock, perhaps land: does she actually own any of this property? Certain expressions used by Jaussen can easily lead one to believe that she does. Thus he writes that when she marries the joz musarrib, “elle se reserve expressement l’administration de ses biens pour les laisser ensuite entre les mains de ses enfants a l’exclusion du musarrib.”[36] What does Jaussen mean by “ses biens”? Among the Sinai Bedouin the woman would not, strictly speaking, own any property at all; but her sons would inherit from their late father, and she might well administer their estate until they came of age.[37] If she had only daughters, her late husband’s heir (or heirs) might, if she were living with them, nevertheless allow her the use of some or all of the property that he left. Jaussen does not discuss the property rights of women in his article on the joz musarrib, but he does note elsewhere, referring to the tribes of Transjordania, “un autre principe incontestable: les filles n’heritent pas. Elies n’ont droit a aucune part, si minime soit-elle, des biens paternels.”[38] He says the same of the Fuqara’ of the Hijaz.[39] In both accounts he talks of sons alone inheriting, implicitly excluding the widow; this too corresponds to what I observed in Sinai. I am therefore inclined to believe that the phrases “ses biens” refers to property which the widow indeed controls, but which actually belongs to male agnates of her late husband. This fits what Jaussen says elsewhere: that the widow with children who does not return to her guardian “vit avec ses enfants, surveille leur education, administre leurs biens et travaille pour eux.”[40] He also notes that if the wife of a joz musarrib dies, “tous les biens, terres cultivables ou troupeaux, ainsi que les premiers enfants, passeront entre les mains des parents du mari de la femme,”[41] i.e., the estate does not go to her agnates (as it surely would if it were truly her property), but to those of her original husband. In sum, the estate that the wife administers is not strictly speaking her own property; but it is implied that she could often behave as if it were. Th e peculium in Roman law is an obvious parallel.

II

The distinguished Finnish ethnographer Hilma Granqvist discovered in the 1920s that the peasants of Palestine[42] also have a similar form of marriage. Her report relates to the villages of Artas and el-Khadr, both near Bethlehem.[43] Here too we find a society in which the relationship of a woman with her guardian is in many respects more important than her relationship with her husband. The term used among the villagers for the visiting husband is joz mitsarreb. Marriage to such a husband was rare in the area, and Granqvist only knew of three relevant cases. She is less inclined to generalize than is Jaussen; instead she gives all the information she can about her three examples of a marriage (actual or planned) that the villagers described as being to a jdz mitsarreb.

Case 1: Zhur was a young unmarried woman when her father died. She had no brothers, and seems in fact to have been her father’s only (surviving) child. Salem ‘Ethman, her FFBS,[44] “laid legal claim” to Zhur’s father’s property and married Zhur. This is a normal occurrence in cases where a man dies leaving a daughter but no sons: “her cousin takes her to wife without a bride price — for to whom should it be given? And it appears that through the marriage his right to the dead man’s property is recognised.”[45] The couple lived in what had been Zhur’s father’s home, and with them lived another wife of Salem’s.

The marriage to Zhur was fruitful (four sons are recorded), but came to an abrupt end when Salem ‘Ethman was murdered. Zhur remained in her marital home. On the one hand, “a widow with sons knows that on their account she can never be driven away from the husband’s home.”[46] And on the other hand, she belonged to the same agnatic group as her late husband, so that there was no question of her guardian demanding that she go to live elsewhere.

Zhur’s second marriage was to a certain Sheikh Salem from a village far away, near Hebron. He continued to live in his own village, where he had two wives, and “she remained in her house which was also her first husband’s house.” Zhur’s co-wife from her first marriage, who had no sons, was now forced to “leave the house, which Zhur now considered as her own, seeing that it was inherited from her father.” (While Salem ‘Ethman was alive she presumably viewed the house as belonging partly to her husband.)

In due course Zhur had a son by Sheikh Salem; he was called Ahmad. Sheikh Salem then apparently tried to move in with Zhur, bringing with him one of his two wives from his home village. She turned him away, and after Ahmad was weaned “the sheikh ceased to come.”

Ahmad remained with his mother until her death, at which time he seems to have been an adult. His father then demanded that he join him, threatening otherwise to disinherit him. Ahmad went to live with his father, who found him a wife. Ahmad appears to have inherited property from his father after the latter’s death; he also tried to make good a claim to property that his mother had controlled in Artas, but in this he failed. The property went to one or more of his mother’s sons by her first marriage. Ahmad and his wife were living an unsettled life at the time that Granqvist collected her information, sometimes residing in Artas and sometimes in Ahmad’s father’s village.

Zhur’s relationship with Sheikh Salem was in essence of the type described by Jaussen. Zhur at the time of her second marriage was a young widow with children.[47] Her second husband never established a joint household with her, and “only came for occasional visits.” Given the distance between her village and his, it seems likely, however, that these visits were not just a matter of arriving in the evening and leaving in the morning. Zhur never visited her husband in his own village. Though there is no explicit statement to that effect, the whole account strongly suggests that Sheikh Salem contributed nothing significant to the support of Zhur or of her children by her first marriage. There is no mention of his bringing her gifts, but it is easier to imagine him doing so than to imagine him arriving empty-handed when he visited. It is also not explicitly stated that Zhur had the right to turn Sheikh Salem away if she felt like it, but this is clearly implied by various details of the account: “she was mistress in her own house and he was merely a guest.”

Case 2\ Sara originated from Bethlehem, and was married to a man in Artis. Her husband died, leaving her with four young daughters. Sara’s father wanted her to return to Bethlehem, to live with him until he should give her again in marriage. But Rashid, her late husband’s brother, wanted her to stay in Artas. He told his wife that he was considering becoming a joz mitsarreb to Sara so that she could remain in his late brother’s house and bring up her daughters. Rashid’s wife objected strongly. This occurred in 1931, just as Granqvist was about to leave Palestine, and she did not learn how the story ended. (In what follows I shall, for simplicity of exposition, generally refer to this case as if the marriage did actually take place.)

It is not clear from Granqvist’s account why Rashid proposed becoming a joz mitsarreb rather than an ordinary husband. There is a hint that it may have been because of his wife’s jealousy: Granqvist’s informant suggested that Rashid, if he were to marry Sara, would only visit her when his other wife was away, and then in secret. Rashid may also have had reason to believe that Sara would not have accepted him as an ordinary husband.

Sara, we may assume, wanted to stay with her children in her home in Artas. Since she had no sons, it seems that in the long term she could only do so by marrying one of her late husband’s agnates;[48] assuming that her husband’s death left her in control of sufficient property to provide for herself and her children, it is easy to understand why she might be attracted by the special freedom she would enjoy if her new husband were a joz mitsarreb.

Case 3: The last case comes from the village of el-Khadr. Khalilye’s husband died, leaving her with minor children (two sons and a daughter). Ehsen, her late husband’s brother’s son, became her joz mitsarreb. (We are not told whether her late husband was survived by any brothers, and if he was, why she did not marry one of them.) Khalilye had a daughter and a son by Ehsen. She continued to live in the house that had belonged to her first husband until her oldest boy married. She then moved to Ehsen’s home, bringing with her her children by him.

As in case 2, it is not clear why the man was willing to be a joz mitsarreb rather than an ordinary husband. In all likelihood, however, he was already married at the time when became Khalilye’s husband (we hear of his other wife subsequently), and Khalilye may have given him no other option. Khalilye’s own interest in the matter is clear: Granqvist’s informant said that “if she had not stayed in her first husband’s house after the new marriage, the second husband would have seized the property (kan hu itmallak) and it would not have been kept for the children of the first marriage.” (This may also have been a factor in Case 2.)

Both in Case 2 and in Case 3 the relations between husband and wife were apparently much the same as those described by Jaussen; but the contexts in which the marriages occur are markedly different from the one Jaussen presents. Jaussen describes the Joe musarrib marriage as an alternative to the levirate;[49] in these two cases it occurs in conjunction with a levirate marriage (Case 2) or the functional equivalent thereof (Case 3).

Oddly enough Jaussen himself reports a levirate joz musarrib from Transjordania. A sheikh of the Bani Sakhr becomes the joz musarrib of his late brother’s relict, since the widow, who wanted to remain in her late husband’s tent in order to rear their children, refuses to take an ordinary husband.[50] Jaussen’s account is sketchy, and once again it is not clear why the man agreed to be merely a joz musarrib. Are we to take it that the sheikh would have preferred to be an ordinary husband? If so, then why did he not simply say to her, “Either agree to become my wife in an ordinary marriage, or else go back to your guardian and leave your children with me”? Did she perhaps reply, “If you don’t want to become my joz musarrib, then I will indeed go back to my guardian”? Or was she perhaps protected by other close agnates (say brothers) of her late husband, who would not allow the sheikh to apply this kind of pressure to her? Jaussen also says nothing about the living arrangements of the couple: did the sheikh normally live in the same camp as his wife? If so, and if he acted as guardian of her young children, then the marriage could hardly have been much different from an ordinary one.

III

In all cases the wife of a visiting husband is a widow with small children, she remains with them in the home of their late father, and she manages their property. In the Northern Hijaz (we are told) the circumstances are always such that if the woman were to contract an ordinary marriage with the man who becomes her joz musarrib, then she would have to leave her children. In Palestine it is otherwise. We have altogether five cases from this area (three reported by Granqvist, two by Jaussen). In three of the five the visiting husband was a close agnate of the late husband, to all appearances a man whom the young widow could have had as a normal husband without parting from her children. In none of these cases do we really know why the special type of marriage was made (or at least planned). In Granqvist’s Case 3 the widow had sons, and so could not be removed from her marital home; here we can imagine her refusing to accept the new husband in an ordinary marriage. In Case 2, however, Sara had only daughters, so her bargaining position was not strong. In the case described by Jaussen, the widow of the Bani Sakhr sheikh was evidently in a strong bargaining position, but we do not know why.

The other two Palestinian cases are those in which the second husband is not a close agnate of the first. One of them is the case of Zhur (Case 1 above). In Artas it was difficult for a young widow to remain unmarried, not least because she was in continual danger of being accused of unchastity. Zhur could have entered into the functional equivalent of a levirate marriage, i.e., she could have taken a close agnate of her late husband as an ordinary husband: after her first husband died, his BSS (who was her FFBSSS), a man called Jibrin, wanted to marry her. Fie “had already brought to the house the things necessary for the betrothal feast, when she suddenly upset his plans and married the sheikh [ ... ] Evidently Zhur did this to obtain freedom of action [... ] Zhur’s first husband’s relatives, who were at the same time her relatives (qardyeb) ,[51] had not the same control over her, as she was not bound to them by the new marriage.” The agnates opposed the marriage to Sheikh Salem, but it appears that she was able to marry without the consent of any one of them.

Apart from wanting independence, Zhur, like Khalilye in Case 3, may have wished to guard the interests of her children. If she had married Jibrin, then he would have gained control of the property, and she may well have feared that this would be to the disadvantage of her offspring from her first marriage. As it was, it was apparently said of Zhur “She has given her wealth to strangers.” This I take it was because of the fear that Ahmad, the son from the second marriage, would gain some of the property that Zhur controlled; as we have seen, he indeed tried to do so after her death, but failed.

Zhur’s case therefore resembles in an important way the three in which the joz musarrib is a close agnate of the late husband: the reason for her taking a joz musarrib was not simply that an ordinary marriage would have meant leaving her children, or that she had a marked preference for a man who was not a close agnate of her late husband. She evidently used the institution to gain for herself the greatest possible degree of independence: the report strongly suggests that her reason for choosing Sheikh Salem rather than her agnate Jibrin had little or nothing to do with romantic preferences, and a great deal to do with ensuring that she would not be under the thumbs of her male agnates for the rest of her days.

The other Palestinian case in which the second husband is not a close agnate of the first comes from the Bedouin. Jaussen tells of the beautiful Nura, who was married to the sheikh of the ‘Adwan tribe. The sheikh died when she was about thirty years old, leaving her with two sons and a daughter. Instead of returning to her native tribe[52] she remained with her children, refusing many offers of marriage from sheikhs both of the ‘Adwan and of other tribes. But after two years she agreed to accept an important man from the ‘Adwan as a joz musarrib. Her agnates demanded a huge bride-price, which he paid, and the marriage was celebrated with great pomp. Nura continued to manage her affairs as before: sending her shepherds to take the animals to pasture, directing the black servants to work her land in the Jordan valley, and entertaining her guests with notable generosity. In due course she had a son and a daughter by her new husband.

We do not know whether Nura had the option of marrying a close agnate of her first husband, but the whole tone ofjaussen’s report implies that this is not a choice that would have attracted her: she was evidently keen to run her own life, and therefore willing to accept any future husband only as a joz musarrib. Nura, though much courted, does not appear to have been subject to the kind of pressure to remarry that the young village widows faced; and when she did finally remarry, it seems to have been because of her special feeling for her new husband.

Nura’s is the only Palestinian case that fits well into Jaussen’s account of the institution as it existed in the Northern Hijaz. Nura’s new husband would evidently have been glad to be an ordinary husband rather than a visiting one; her reason for accepting him only as a joz musarrib was that she wanted to remain with her children. In the other four Palestinian cases — most clearly in the three where the visiting husband is a close agnate of the dead husband — the widow is using the institution not in order to permit her to remain with her children when she remarries, but rather as a device to give her more independence than she would enjoy in an ordinary marriage.

IV

The difference between Palestine and the Northern Hijaz that has just been mentioned can best be viewed in the context of two other differences between the these regions.

Visiting husband marriages were much less common in Palestine and neighboring areas than they were in the Hijaz. There are many indications to this effect. Jaussen describes the practice as “courante” among the Fuqara’, as “tres commun” among the Wild ‘All, and as being as “vivant” among the Bily andjuhayna as it was among the Fuqara’.[53] In Transjordania, by contrast, he calls it merely “pas inconnu.”[54] When Jaussen published his magnum opus on the tribes of Transjordania in 1908, he knew nothing of the practice, and to the best of my knowledge no subsequent author has ever mentioned it, although the tribes of the area are exceptionally well documented.[55] The joz musarrib was evidently rare in the Balqa’. Jaussen tells us that he first leamt of the existence of the institution in the Hijaz the year before he wrote his article on the subject (i.e., in 1909 or 1908), and then began looking for it in the north.[56] As we have seen, he describes two Transjordanian instances in some detail, and there is no reason to believe that he knew of others. In the Negev and in Sinai visiting husband marriages were apparently unknown,[57] and Granqvist emphasizes that they were very rare among the Palestinian villagers whom she studied. She seems in fact to have been the only ethnographer to have noted their existence.

The second difference between the regions relates to the status of women. Customary law in the Negev and Sinai ruthlessly deprives women of all legal personality,[58] whereas the Bedouin of the Hijaz, in general similar to those of the Sinai and the Negev in their social structure, were somewhat more liberal in this respect. Doughty, for instance, who lived among the Fuqara’ some thirty years before they were studied by Jaussen, mentions a woman, apparently unmarried at the time, who inherited some camels from her father, and another woman, in a neighboring tribe, a sub-group of the Bily, whose brother gave her the camel which he received as her bride-price.[59] In both cases the animals probably belonged de jure to the women’s respective guardians, but it is evident that de facto they belonged to the women. Among the Bedouin of central Sinai, in contrast, one would never find any woman, let alone an unmarried one, being looked on as more or less the owner of camels, though women might indeed have certain limited rights in small stock.

Another sign of the somewhat superior position of women in the Hijaz is that a woman never before married could reject any suitor who did not please her, regardless of her father’s wishes.[60] This is in sharp contrast to the Bedouin of central Sinai: among them a girl would not normally be consulted when ir came to choosing her first husband.[61]

The status of Bedouin women in Transjordania does not seem to have been much higher than in Sinai and the Negev: Jaussen in fact remarks that young women enjoy more independence among the Fuqara’ than in Moab.[62] The women of Artas and the surrounding villages were also clearly less free than those in the Northern Hijaz.

In sum, visiting husbands were common in an area where the status of women was relatively high, and rare or nonexistent in the regions were the status of women was substantially lower.

We can now make some guesses as to how the differences between our two regions came about. It looks as if the visiting husband was an institution that originated among Bedouin who, like those of the Northern Hijaz, allowed women a relatively large amount of independence. It provided an excellent solution to the problem of the widow with small children who wants to marry a man other than a close agnate of her late husband. The institution became known to Bedouin and villagers in areas where the status of women was substantially lower. In the Hijaz the degree of independence enjoyed by the wife of a joz musarrib was not markedly different from that enjoyed by other women.

But in the Negev, the Sinai or Palestine the wife of such a husband would enjoy a most unusual degree of autonomy. This, I suggest, had two effects. First, the men in these areas were reluctant to accept the institution. They did not want a woman to enjoy so much freedom. Second, to the limited extent that the institution did penetrate Palestine, its raison d’etre changed: it was mostly used, not to allow the widow to remain with her children when she remarried, but rather to give her, when she remarried, more independence than she would have enjoyed as the spouse of an ordinary husband. Why certain women were able to enjoy this special status is, as we have seen, generally unclear. Both cases of visiting husbands among the Bedouin of Transjordania are from the sheikhly classes, and it may be that this is because women in the upper ranks of tribal society had generally more independence than women from further down on the social scale.

It is unlikely that visiting husbands still exist. The fact that since the time of Granqvist they have not (to the best of my knowledge) been mentioned in the literature on Palestine and the surrounding desert areas is surely significant. Little has been written about the customs of the Bedouin tribes of the Hijaz since the time ofjaussen,[63] and here it would be risky to make an argument from silence. But there is another reason for thinking it most unlikely that the institution of the joz musarrib still survives in the area: the Saudis, after taking over the Hijaz in the mid-1920s, would certainly have done their best to stamp out such a wholly un-Islamic practice.

V

One last question: why did the Bedouin use the word musarrib, and the peasants the word mitsarreb, when referring to this type of husband (joz)’? Jaussen discusses the question at some length.[64] “Le mot musarrib m’a ete explique par un bedouin comme designant une personne qui jouit d’une grande liberte pour ce qui regarde le mariage [ ... ] Dans le musarrib on reconnaitra quelqu’un qui n’est pas enchaine, mais qui agit avec liberte.” Granqvist, in contrast, says nothing about freedom of movement; she translates the term joz mitsarreb as ‘visiting’ or ‘returning husband’.[65]

Both these explanations reflect, I suspect, the nature of the institution rather than the exact meaning of the words musarrib and mitsarreb. Jaussen’s account of the term is somewhat vague; as for Granqvist’s translation, to the best of my knowledge the fifth form of the root s-r-b is not recorded as being used in the sense of ‘to visit’ or ‘to return’ in any Syro-Palestinian dialect. Furthermore, the fact that the same root appears in both musarrib and mitsarreb makes it likely that the two participles have similar or identical meanings, which in turn suggests that at least one of our two authorities is not offering an accurate explanation.

My own tentative proposal is that the idea invoked by both musarrib and mitsarreb is that of the husband departing in the morning. In old Arabic saraba can mean ‘to depart in the daytime’;[66] among the Sinai Bedouin sarab is commonly used to mean ‘to go to pasture’, the subject being either the stock (e.g., al-ghanamgayyalan w-ba‘aden saraban ‘the sheep and goats rested in the afternoon heat and then went off to pasture’) or the person who herds them (e.g., widdha tusrub b-al-ghanam ‘she’s going to go to pasture with the sheep and goats’).[67] The verb sarrab (second form) means ‘to take (stock) to pasture,’[68] and as far as my observations go is not used intransitively among the Sinai Bedouin.[69] I suspect, however, that in the phrase joz musarrib the verb sarrab is being used in the sense of the first form,[70] either the general one of departing in the daytime or, in a jocular fashion, the particular one of going out to pasture. The two possibilities come to much the same thing, since the reason for the use here of a word that means ‘to go out to pasture’ would be that normally one goes out with one’s animals early in the morning.

As for mitsarreb, one of the meanings of the verb in literary Arabic is “to sneak away,” or “to steal away.”[71] This is not unlike what Barthelemy seems to have in mind when he gives one sense of the fifth form of s-r-b as “partir par les intrigues de qqn.” At any rate, here too we have the notion of departure. If we were looking for an English term to apply to the institution that interests us, we might speak of‘the departing husband,’ or, perhaps less literally but more elegantly, we might follow Granqvist in using the phrase ‘the visiting husband’.[72]

Notes

References

8. The Segmentary Lineage System: A Reappraisal

Sharon Ba§tug

The majority, though certainly not all, of the pastoral nomadic peoples of the enormous area stretching from East Africa, through the Arabian Peninsula, the Near East, and Eurasia to northern China have been described as possessing a form of patrilineal descent that is usually termed “the segmentary lineage system.” At the same time, however, the segmentary lineage system, as a theoretical construct, has a history of debate in anthropology and related disciplines which now spans more than fifty years. This debate has generated a very large literature which, especially in recent years, has been overwhelmingly negative.[73] The mass of criticism has led to numerous claims that the “segmentary lineage system,” as a theoretical construct, has been discredited. The following are illustrative:

My view is that the lineage model, its predecessors and its analogs, have no value for anthropological analysis. (Kuper, 1982: 92)

The “category of segmentary lineage systems” received its death blow with the transactionalist critique. (Verdon, 1983: 290)

Barth’s Nomads of South Persia set in train the notion that these tribes have a segmentary lineage structure. (Wright, 1986: 95, quoted in Street, 1990: 248)

The very thought of yet another criticism of the segmentary model will inevitably induce some anthropologists to roll their eyes and groan at the naivete of those who seek to prove the indubitable. However, notions of the indubitable often boil down to empirically baseless conventional wisdom. This was true when most anthropologists assumed that segmentary lineage systems actually existed. It remains true now that many believe the contrary. (Munson, 1993: 267)

The target of this discourse (variously labeled “the segmentary lineage system,” “segmentary lineage theory” or “lineage theory”) is in fact, as Dresch (1986: 322) has pointed out, seldom defined, and claims that it has been discredited are seldom substantiated. Nonetheless, the result of such claims has been a pervasive sense that there is at least “something wrong” with the notion of the segmentary lineage system. Even scholars who express some reluctance to discard the concept altogether exhibit a tendency to avoid use of the phrase “segmentary lineage system,” substituting instead the conceptually vague notion of “segmentation” (Dresch, 1986; Combs-Schilling, 1985; Eickelman, 1981). One result, then, of the massive criticism directed against the concept has been the loss of the phrase itself, with nothing to replace it. With the loss of the phrase has also come the loss of conceptual, theoretical tools which I believe are indispensable in understanding the cultures of peoples whose system of descent takes the form of the segmentary lineage system. I have two aims in writing this chapter. One is to pose and suggest an answer for the following question: “What, if anything, is it that has been discredited in the critical discourse of the segmentary lineage system?” The second is to suggest a model of the segmentary lineage system as a form of unilineal descent group organization.

I view the segmentary lineage system as a particular form of higher-order unilineal descent group organization, in contrast to other forms, and I consider that the primary reason for the mass of criticism has been a failure to recognize it as precisely that — a form of descent and, therefore, a part of a wider system of kinship in specific societies and of the domain of kinship in the analysis of cultural systems. The source of the problem is that from its initial formulation by Evans-Pritchard in the 1940s the concept of the segmentary lineage system as a model of unilineal descent was conflated with a model of social relations, especially relations of social solidarity and/or political and territorial organization.[74] Included in the confounded model are such notions as the invariable mutual support of brothers, the calculation of genealogical closeness as the sole mechanism for the formation of groups allied or opposed in conflict, an inherently egalitarian social system which precludes any sort of state organization (or, indeed, any form of hierarchical authority or centralized government), pastoral nomadism, and a formulaic pattern of settlement, pasture allotment, etc., again according to strict genealogical formulae.

Many of these characteristics are, in fact, often associated with segmentary lineage systems (which is one of the reasons that the so-called “lineage theory” persists after many years of severe criticism), but they cannot be, and never should have been, regarded as defining criteria for a type of unilineal descent. Nor can such characteristics be taken as predetermined inevitable consequences of the particular form of kinship organization. To do so is to adopt a deterministic position in which kinship systems are defined as directly causing behavior such as residence patterns, spatial organization, alignment of parties in conflict, etc. Rather the kinship structure should be regarded as providing inherent conditions which promote certain kinds of behavior in certain contexts and at the same time make others less likely (cf. Dresch, 1986) while at the same time it is constructed and reproduced through behavior. This is an approach which is expressed by Bourdieu as an effort to understand “the dialectical relations between objective structures... and the structured dispositions within which those structures are actualized and which tend to reproduce them” (1977: 3). Furthermore, even stressing the concept of the segmentary lineage system as a kinship model, neither descent nor the wider system of kinship in which it is embedded should be viewed in terms of a single-factor causal model of behavior. Systems of descent operate within wider kinship systems in a dialectic relationship with many other (changing and always changeable) social, political, economic, ideological, and historical factors.

Scrutiny of the many criticisms of the concept of the segmentary lineage system reveals that it is elements of the confounded model which have been the focus of the discourse. If anything has been discredited it is a set of definitions that have nothing to do with descent and a set of entailed characteristics and expectations which systems of descent and kinship can be expected neither to predict nor account for. The following quotation from one of the most strident voices of the recent critical discourse is representative:

As the 1970s progressed, the expectation increased that Iranian tribes would be organised on a segmentary lineage principle, with nesting segments in which lineage organisation and territorial divisions would map each other and act as a blueprint for political organisation. At the same time, an uneasy awareness grew that ethnographic data did not easily fit that model. (Wright, 1992: 643)

Although a few scholars have attempted to distinguish between something called “lineage theory” and “segmentation” (see especially Dresch, 1986 and Eickelman, 1981), in fact, both critics and would-be defenders, while unwittingly perpetuating a confounded model, have in fact grounded their arguments in a reified, deterministic model of social behavior which, to the extent that formal kinship systems are considered at all, obscures the dialectic relationship between kinship systems and social behavior. In summary, my contention in this chapter is that the segmentary lineage system must be understood as a system of unihneal descent embedded in a wider system of kinship in particular societies. Fallacies both in initial presentations of the model and in recent critiques can thus only be understood and evaluated from this perspective. In keeping with this position, I begin with a presentation of a model based on formal kinship considerations.[75]

Segmentary Lineage vs. Clan Organization

I will argue in this chapter that there are two fundamentally different ways of ordering lineages into higher-order groups: the clan system and the segmentary lineage system. This distinction has been made earlier by anthropologists concerned with forms of unilineal descent, notably Krader (1963), Fox (1967) and recently Ferraro (1995).[76] None of these authors, however, systematically explores the differences between the two types, and none of them locates the primary difference in the nature of the formation of internal descent-based subdivisions in unilineal societies. In this section I will attempt to do both. Before doing so, however, it is necessary to define basic terms to be used in the discussion.[77]

In standard anthropological terminology the term lineage refers to social groups whose membership is recruited on the basis of specified genealogical ties to a common ancestor traced unilineally, that is, exclusively through either men (patrilineages) or women (matrilineages). Within lineages genealogy is specified; ancestors are known and named.[78] This meaning of lineage is used with fair regularity in the discourse of anthropology and other disciplines. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the term clan which is haphazardly applied to any sort of group which seems to be defined in kinship terms. According to standard terminology, however, a clan is a formal, named group composed of individuals that consider themselves descended from a common ancestor but do not specify the genealogical connections to that ancestor (cf. Ferraro, 1995: 181). Clans may or may not be composed of lineages, and this aspect of the standard definition is responsible for a terminological difficulty. Where clans are composed of lineages, as is usually the case, then the term “clan” designates a higher-order descent group and should be terminologically distinguished from “clans” which are not composed of lineages and are, therefore, not higher-order groups. In the following discussion I will use the word clan in its standard meaning and the phrase “clan system” to refer to higher-order descent groups which are composed of lineages. In keeping with the standard definition of lineage, the lineages specify genealogical connections between the individuals which constitute them while the genealogical connections which fink the lineages into clans are not specified. Clans may be grouped into higher-order groups, called phratries, and these into still higher-order groups, called moities in standard terminology (the latter term a misnomer since the word means “halves” whereas there is no logical necessity that there should be only two groups at this level). The number of levels is a matter of empirical and temporal variation and I will use the phrase “clan system” regardless of the number of levels.

The classic distinction between “lineage” and “clan,” then, is one of unilineally defined groups which specify internal genealogical connections (lineages) as opposed to those which do not (clans). Although the distinction may seem to be a minor technicality, that is not at all the case. Specifying or not specifying the genealogical connections has important consequences for the nature and structure of internal subdivisions in unilineal societies. The process of segmentation, branching in each generation, is inherent in all unilineal descent systems. However, the introduction of a unity of lineages based on common ancestry but not requiring genealogical specification has the effect of “erasing” the segmentation in previous generations above a certain genealogical level (usually three to five generations) and acts as a brake on segmentation in future generations. It also results in a division of society into formalized internal subgroups based on descent. These internal subdivisions constitute clear-cut, named and unambiguously distinct social units which (in theory) do not change over generations. Membership in each is fixed and any Ego need know only his or her father’s membership (in a patrilineal system) to establish his or her own membership. The system is diagrammed for patrilineal descent in figure 8.1. In the diagram, X, Y, and Z represent discrete social groups with no overlap or ambiguity of membership. Each member of the society is bom a member of one such group, but it is impossible for any Ego to be a member of more than one.

In contrast, segmentary lineage systems segment freely from a founding ancestor to the present generation with no fixed internal divisions. Unlike the clan system, the segmentary lineage system provides no automatic division into unambiguous, distinct and rigorously discrete named units based on the presumption of separate lines of descent. Prototypically an entire people is represented through one genealogy, traced back to a single ancestor which may be mythical and/or non-human and supernatural. The genealogy is of crucial importance in segmentary lineage systems and will be discussed in greater detail in the following section. At this point, however, I should note again that the genealogy should not be expected to be an accurate representation of either biology or history. On the contrary, the expectation is just the opposite. It is now well understood that genealogies are socially constructed, manipulated according to the perceived interests of individuals and groups, and subject to a continual process of contestation, negotiation and redefinition.[79]

As has often been pointed out, segmentation is a characteristic of all kinship systems, an inevitable consequence of the expansion of lineage members in each generation.[80] The lineages which constitute clans continue to segment over time and may form nested hierarchies of higher-order lineages which are structurally no different from those of segmentary lineage systems. This may result in significant similarities between a segmentary lineage system and a clan system and has been one of the main reasons for a persistent tendency to confuse them. However, the fundamental difference between the two lies not in the presence or absence of segmentation per se but in the fact that segmentary lineage descent systems do not provide automatic, non-genealogically defined discrete kinship units at any level whereas that is exactly what is accomplished by the institution of named clans. Segmentary lineage systems are capable of delimiting internal subdivisions, but, as will be discussed below, these are neither automatic nor fixed and require the application of additional criteria for determining membership. They also require a separate terminology, and that, as we shall see, is no simple matter. For the moment, however, I will simply point out that, whatever else we might choose to call the internal subdivisions of segmentary lineage systems, it cannot be “clan” if we adhere to the standard definition. The segmentary lineage system requires genealogical specification at all levels whereas clans are defined as unilineal descent groups that do not specify genealogical connections. Also clans may be composed of lineages, but the reverse is logically impossible. Since a segmentary lineage is, in effect, a single grand lineage traced back to a founding ancestor, internal divisions within it cannot be “clans.”

In conclusion, both the clan system and the segmentary lineage system form internal subdivisions and in that sense both represent higher-order groupings of minimal lineages. However, they accomplish this integration in quite different ways. Mechanisms of internal group formation in the segmentary lineage system will be discussed below. First, however, it is necessary to consider the crucial role of genealogies in the segmentary lineage system.

Genealogies

As the foregoing discussion has shown, a segmentary lineage system is defined by genealogy. The maximal unit (tribe, as I use the term), sub-units of descending orders of inclusiveness within the maximal unit, and the individual’s place within the total system are all defined by genealogy. In the absence of a genealogy there is no lineage, no segmentary lineage system and, by that logic, no society. In a passage quoted later in this paper, Krader describes the genealogy as the “nexus” of segmentary lineage systems (1963: 320). For Bourdieu the genealogy is

the theoretical census of the universe of theoretical relationships within which individuals or groups define the real space of (in both senses) practical relationships in terms of their conjunctural interests. (1977: 19, emphasis his)

The genealogy is simultaneously a charter of tribal structure, a record of tribal history, and a calculus which locates individuals in social space/time. Under these conditions it should not be surprising that segmentary lineage systems promote a significant social concern with genealogies. All segmentary lineage systems are possessed of a unilineal genealogy which relates all members of the system to a single founding ancestor. All the Somali consider themselves patrilineally descended from one common ancestor, Samaale (Fox, 1967). All the Tiv trace their descent from a single ancestor, Tiv (Bohannan, 1958: 34; Fardon, 1984: 4). The Yomud Turkmen consider that all Yomud can trace descent back to a common ancestor named Yomud (Irons, 1974: 641). The Kazak have a grand genealogy, formally written by Abulgazi Ba’adur Khan in 1726 but based on traditions recorded in 1066 by Mahmut Kashgari, which links all Kazak to a single ancestor (Dankoff, 1972: 31; Krader, 1963: 181).

For societies with segmentary lineage systems, I prefer to reserve the word tribe to designate the largest group which conceives of itself as possessing common genealogy. As will be discussed below, it is possible for tribes to unite in political unions which do not claim a common genealogy, and for these unions I reserve the word confederation.[81] All peoples with segmentary lineage systems also possess mechanisms for incorporating non-kin into their tribal units.[82] Given time, these have a tendency to work their way into the genealogy, sometimes creating glaring inconsistencies as when peoples of obviously different ethno-linguistic origins are presented as genealogically related. The following description of the process among the Brahui of Pakistan provides an example:

It is not uncommon, in collecting tribal genealogies, to be told that the founders of sections A, B, C, and D were brothers and for the informant then to add that C and D were Afghans (Pathans). Genealogically alien accretions occur at every level above the minimal lineage ... The tribal charter, although presented in a genealogical idiom, in fact reflects the sociopolitical relationships of heterogeneous peoples. (Swidler, 1973: 394)

It bears repeating that the genealogy is not to be taken as factual. On the contrary, as noted earlier, all evidence indicates that genealogies are contradictory, ambiguous, contested and negotiated. In short, they are socially constructed and contain both fact and fiction. Desirable connections are promoted; undesirable ones are forgotten or denied. What matters is not the objective truth of the genealogy, but rather that “a genealogy” is of great importance for the people in question. They share a collective assumption that genealogical connections do exist, that these connections unite all individual’s concerned as descendants of a common ancestor and that precise connections and relative positions of groups can be established if required.

Considering both the significance and the constructed nature genealogies, a further caveat is in order. Unless they have been written down, tribal genealogies do not exist as unitary concrete objects, and. even when written they continue to be subject to contestation, negotiation, and reformulation.[83] They exist in fragmentary form in people’s minds and in shared oral discourse. Individuals will generally know their own pedigrees; that is, they can recite their male ancestors for several generations back. It would be naive, however, to expect anyone to be able to recite an exhaustive tribal genealogy, especially if the “tribe” is an entire people numbering in the millions. Fragmentary pedigrees, partial genealogies, and a rough concept of the relative positions of larger level segments may be produced or fashioned as needed to locate specific individuals or groups. For the most part, however, total genealogies are assumed rather than learned or transmitted as an independent body of unitary and coherent knowledge. This, of course, reinforces the contested, negotiated character of genealogies. As Krader has stated:

The genealogy becomes mythical by its very scope: one must believe it to accept it, and one accepts the myth to the extent that one accepts membership in the group [or accords membership to others]. (Krader, 1963: 183; brackets my addition)

The Formation of Internal Subdivisions

I. Structural Opposition

As noted earlier, there are no automatically defined internal subdivisions in segmentary hneage systems. Rather, the formation of descent-determined sub-units is accomplished by the use of any of several mechanisms, all of which, however, are ultimately based on genealogical calculation.[84] I will discuss here only three such possible mechanisms. The first and best-known is the mechanism of structural opposition, also referred to as complementary opposition and balanced opposition. The second is the mechanism of generation-counting. The third is the use of a focal ancestor to demarcate specific groups.

By the mechanism of structural opposition internal divisions are positionally defined in opposition to each other based on the degree of their perceived genealogical closeness. In figure 8.2, a diagram no doubt familiar to most readers, groups “a” and “b” form a higher-level group, “1,” as opposed to “2” formed by “c” and “d”; “a,” “b,” “c” and “d” together form a group, “A,” as opposed to “B,” formed by “e,” “f,” “g” and “h.” These eight groups combine to form the maximal group, “I,” structurally opposed to “II” at the same level. The two maximal sections combine to form the total group of people believed to be descended from the apical ancestor.

The groups formed on the basis of the principle of segmentary opposition are often conceived of as being situational, opportunistic and coming into play as a result of conflict between units at various levels. Groups “mass” on the basis of genealogical closeness as necessary to respond to specific challenges or threats and dissolve when they are no longer needed. The processes of formation and dissolution are generally referred to as fusion and fission in the relevant literature. This pattern of opportunistic formation is indeed typical of internal group formation by structural opposition in some segmentary lineage societies. As will be discussed later, however, subdivisions formed on the basis of structural opposition are, in fact, capable of a far greater stability, permanence and tangibility than the literature on segmentary lineage systems would indicate. Similarly, the uses to which they may be put are not limited only to situations of conflict. At the same time, in contrast to the rigidity of the internal subdivisions in clan systems (that is, the clans themselves), those of all segmentary lineage systems are notably characterized by fluidity and plasticity. Structurally the system allows for the possibility of rapid changes in group composition and a quicksilver ability to form, dissolve and reform groups which Golden has termed “kaleidoscopic” (1991: 138).

Structural opposition has received more critical attention than any other aspect of the segmentary lineage system. This is due to the presence of several fallacies which were present in early presentations and have been perpetuated up to the present by critics and supporters alike. Among these are: (1) definition of the segmentary lineage system solely in terms of structural opposition,[85] (2) definition of structural opposition as a hierarchy of loyalties, (3) expectations that societies will order themselves in patterns of residence and spatial distribution that map the genealogy with mathematical precision, and (4) expectations that in cases of conflict subgroups will “mass” along genealogical lines with the same mathematical precision which is supposed to be visible in their residence patterns.

Given the widespread tendency to equate it with the segmentary lineage system, I will stress again that structural opposition is not a definitional component of the segmentary lineage system.[86] It is simply one of several possible mechanisms for the delineation of kinship-based subdivisions in segmentary lineage systems. Although it is undoubtedly the most common, it is not the only such mechanism, nor does it normally occur as the sole mechanism. Groups defined on the basis of structural opposition can and usually do exist simultaneously and often in conflict with descent-based groups formed on the basis of other mechanisms as well as with subdivisions formed on non-kinship bases, such as age-sets, which may cross-cut the lineage structure (cf. Galaty 1981: 88).

The mechanism of structural opposition is often empirically associated with a hierarchized structure of expected degrees of loyalty determined by genealogical closeness. These sentiments are summarized by the well-known Arab expression, “I against my brothers, my brothers and I against our cousins, etc.” This common feature of segmentary lineage systems has become so well known and so entrenched in anthropological thought concerning them that it is unfortunately often taken to constitute the actual definition of both structural opposition and the segmentary lineage system itself as if it were a model of social solidarity rather than one of kinship organization. It is crucial to recognize that, while the ideology of loyalties reflected in the Arab proverb is commonly associated with structural opposition in segmentary lineage systems, it is not, and cannot be, a defining characteristic of a descent system, and its absence does not mean that the society in question does not have a segmentary lineage system. Conversely, the situational formation of kin groups based on structural opposition of lineage levels does not automatically mean that the society should be characterized as a “segmentary lineage society” because this may occur between lineage segments within the clans of clan-based societies.

In addition, although structural opposition, based on genealogy, certainly forms an important ideological justification for the assignment of loyalties in segmentary lineage societies, it is not the only factor. Regardless of ideology, the alignment of support and loyalties in conflict situations is dependent on many other factors in addition to genealogy. In a patrilineal system, it is precisely brothers and patrilateral parallel cousins who are structurally positioned to compete with each other for access to resources, inheritance, leadership, etc. In such cases it should not be surprising that they should seek support and alliances from more distant kin branches, affinal kin, or even non-kin. Furthermore, the point of segmentation in segmentary lineage systems is exactly the division between two or more brothers. The conjunction of these factors creates one of the major contradictions within the patrilineal segmentary lineage system. Brothers and father’s brother’s sons are expected (and often economically required) to cooperate and exhibit solidarity in the face of external threat while at the same time they must compete for and/or divide resources.[87] In addition, each has the potential to become an apical “ancestor” for competing subgroups in succeeding generations. None of these aspects of behavior (ideal or actual), however, should be viewed as being in any sense necessary correlates of a particular descent system and certainly not as defining criteria of any descent system. Systems of descent and various forms of group-formation possible within them may encourage ideal conceptions of the content of relationships between categories of persons defined as kin, but these are most certainly not absolute and the norms through which they are expressed are frequently in conflict with each other or with those related to other institutions. Systems of kinship and descent do not rigidly determine even ideal models of the content of relationships between culturally defined categories of kin, much less those of actual relationships or behavior in specific instances. Certainly no kinship system should be expected to ensure that brothers or any other category of kin will inevitably cooperate. That systems of kinship and descent do not determine residence patterns is amply illustrated in any introductory anthropology textbook.

II. Generation-Counting

A second mechanism for the formation of subgroups within segmentary systems I will call a “generation-counting method.” Groups are defined as the set of individuals who fall within a specified generational range, counting up and/or down from a specified Ego. Such groups may be called into being as required, situationally and opportunistically, or they may be named and recognized as delimited entities. The generation-counting should not be expected to be rigidly applied in all cases; on the contrary, like the genealogies on which it is based, generation-counting is also subject to contestation and negotiation. This, of course, does not lessen the significance of the egocentric groups thus created. They differ from groups formed by structural opposition in that they are explicitly egocentric, and in the fact that by specifying a generational range they are actually able to delimit groups with at least theoretically distinct boundaries though these may always be compromised in practice.

Generation-counting from a specified Ego need, of course, not produce “groups” in the sociologic sense at all.[88] In unilineal systems, however, the potential that they might is strong since any who fall within a particular Ego’s specified generational range will also be related to each other unilineally and very likely fall within each other’s generation-counted group as well.[89] Turkic and Mongolian tribal peoples have traditionally used generationcounting to specify groups which functioned simultaneously as vengeance groups and units of exogamy.

In segmentary lineage systems the unit of exogamy (the unit within which marriage is forbidden), if there is to be such a unit at all, requires the introduction of some mechanism for delimiting internal subgroups.[90] In clan systems, since both clans and the hneages which compose them exist as unambiguously demarcated social groups, the unit of exogamy can be specified very simply at the level of either lineage or clan. Ego cannot marry within his or her own lineage and/or clan. Segmentary lineage systems cannot specify such exogamous units since they lack fixed internal subdivisions. Furthermore, “lineage” exogamy as it is usually conceptualized is out of the question in a society in which the entire society is one grand lineage. Generation-counting is one method of establishing units of exogamy. Among the Turkic and Mongol peoples the same unit, with the same generational spread, was also the unit of vengeance.

It is probably the case that all Altaic peoples of the Asian Steppes traditionally had the institution of blood revenge (of) and defined, by generation-counting, a group with vengeance responsibilities to each other.[91] The group of people who are kan du$ar (literally “blood reaches”) to each other among the Yomud Turkmen of northern Iran provides a modern example. This is a vengeance group with carefully defined responsibilities in the event that one of its members should murder or be murdered by someone outside a specified genealogical range. The group is determined genealogically with respect to an individual (Ego) and consists of all those who share with the Ego a common patrilineal ancestor counting back for seven generations (Irons, 1974: 642—3).

Groups defined by the generation-counting method are necessarily Egocentric and shift with each generation. In other words a group specified by patrilineal generation-counting for any Ego will not be identical to that of his father, his father’s father, his son or his son’s son. This is, of course, in sharp contrast to a patrilineal clan system in which the clan membership is without question identical for Ego, his son, his father and any other direct or collateral male descendant or ascendant up to the clan ancestor. Thus groups formed by generation-counting are not permanent groups in the sense that clans are and this quality provides them with considerably more room for manipulation than does membership in a system of fixed clans. The result is, again, a relative flexibility in the definition and formation of internal subdivisions in segmentary lineage systems as contrasted with clan systems.

III. Focal Ancestor Groups

A third possible mechanism for the formation of internal subdivisions based on genealogy is the use of a focal ancestor to delimit specific groups. The Tallensi provide an example: “Among the Tallensi, the apical ancestors of maximal lineages are fixed, and thus all subordinate orders of their segmentation have a constant character” (Smith, 1956: 40). This mechanism, unlike the preceding two, has the consequence of specifying groups which are truly bounded entities. It also creates the possibilty, should genealogical specification for membership cease to be required, of being transformed into a clan as defined above.[92]

Political Organization and Social Hierarchies

As noted earlier, the concept of the segmentary lineage system was from its conception confounded with notions of political organization. In fact, for many scholars the system was defined as a form of political organization, albeit one with some connection to consideration of “lineages.” At best, if the system was not outright defined as a system of political organization, it must nonetheless be seen as inevitably organizing the political integration and action of the society. The notion was further confounded by the stipulation that not only was the segmentary lineage system a form of political organization, but one which must be, by definition, egalitarian and, therefore, incapable of any form of social hierarchy, “acephalous” and necessarily “stateless.” The following quotations illustrate the identification of the segmentary lineage system with an egalitarian political system:

The Tiv-Nuer segmentary lineage system is a mechanism for large-scale political consolidation in the absence of any permanent, higher-level tribal organization. (Sahlins, 1961: 97)

A segmentary lineage system is egalitarian, decentralised, and based upon variable and contingent relations among its constituent groups. (Salzman, 1983: 267)

The segmentary model, whether restricted to lineage systems or not, assumes the absence of specific institutions of government. It assumes the absence of a state. (Munson, 1991: 65)

If the segmentary lineage system does not organize all political action then there is no good reason to allot it a privileged position in analysis. (Fardon, 1984: 8, emphasis mine)

This view of the segmentary lineage system as coterminous with political organization, in conjunction with the notion of egalitarianism, has been central in the discourse concerning it, accepted unquestioningly by critics and supporters alike. It has also, perhaps, introduced more distortions into the ethnographies of the peoples concerned than any other aspect of the confounded model. The following discussion is directed at certain of these distortions. It is intended to suggest ways in which, working with a concept of the segmentary lineage system as outlined in the preceding section, we may view its articulation with forms of political organization not in terms of inevitable, determined consequences of the descent system, but in terms of structurally inherent possibilities and constraints.

I. Segmentary Pyramids

The use of genealogical structural opposition in subgroup formation, either alone or in conjunction with generation-counting or other methods, generates a nested hierarchy of integrational levels as depicted in figure 8.2. A clan system organized in inclusive levels from lineage to clan to phratry, etc., generates a similar nested hierarchy. In the sense that any form of higher-order organization may be viewed as inherently “political,” then both of these descent forms may be viewed as systems of political organization. Such a view, however, so widens the scope of the word “political” as to render it meaningless. I argue that both the segmentary lineage system and the clan system must be defined primarily as descent systems and the possibilities they create for political organization of various sorts considered from that perspective. Failure to do so has been one of the major causes of the confounded models which constitute so-called “lineage theory.” Only by maintaining this analytic separation can we ask meaningful questions about the articulation of forms of descent with political, spatial, economic and other aspects of organization in specific societies.

Following Garthwaite (1983), I call the structure of hierarchical levels in segmentary lineage systems “the segmentary pyramid.” That this model captures an essential aspect of the system is evidenced by the fact that all peoples with a segmentary lineage system possess an indigenous terminology to refer to the levels of the pyramid. It is, however, impossible for any particular society to label all theoretically possible levels. The process of segmentation in a segmentary lineage system is ongoing and, in theory, infinitely expandable. So also is the potential number of subgroups and divisions or levels that may be formed by structural opposition or any other genealogical method. With each new generation a new level is created and, therefore, the number of theoretically potential levels is infinite.[93]

As is no doubt apparent, the continual segmentation of the system creates a terminological problem for anthropologist and native alike. Neither native terminology nor the anthropologist’s technical terminology can be expected to supply a term for each past or potential level. As noted earlier, however, whatever we may choose to call subdivisions within a segmentary lineage system, the term “clan” is technically inappropriate. Anthropologists make do with the flexible, relative labels “minimal lineage,” “mid-level lineage,” and “maximal lineage,” speak of “segments” or “sections” of various orders, or use terms like “sub-tribe” or (erroneously, I would argue) “clan” and “sub-clan.” It must be stressed that these labels are pragmatically used to define relative levels in an ongoing process of segmentation. The system is intrinsically elastic, a continual process in which social boundaries are drawn and redrawn and social groups of various orders are defined and redefined in a dialectic relationship with the ongoing construction and manipulation of the genealogy on which it is based. Given the inherent ambiguity of the system, it is not surprising that scholarly identification of levels, especially higher levels, and the use of the terms “clan,” “tribe” and “confederation” is erratic, varying from author to author. The resulting terminological confusion is illustrated by the following quotation from Richard Tapper. After providing the standard definitions of “lineage” and “clan,” he continues:

a clan may thus comprise several lineages, while clans and lineages at various levels may form a hierarchical, “segmentary” nesting structure. Clan and lineage may be seen as the cultural or ideological dimension of tribes and their sections, when these are politically-defined groups. When tribe is used to denote a kinship-based group, then clan is its synonym. (1983: 10)

Having defined clan as synonymous with tribe, Tapper continues, nonetheless, in the same article to speak of tribes divided into clans.

All peoples with segmentary lineage systems have a set of native terms to refer to levels of integration within the system. As Tapper has noted, however, “Definition is not aided by indigenous terminology which ... [is] often used interchangeably and without precision in the literature” (1983: 6). The difficulties stem in part from the inherent plasticity of the segmentary lineage system as noted earlier. However, they also arise from the fact that, while the scholar must distinguish between kinship, political, economic and territorial groups, tribally organized peoples are not so constrained. On the contrary, among many (probably most) peoples with segmentary lineage systems the separate realms of kinship, political, economic and territorial organization are fused, each society creating its own unique melange. Thus indigenous terminologies for levels may freely mix and combine groups delimited by different genealogical methods and/or non-kinship criteria such as residence and territory. The following examples illustrate the phenomenon and terminological difficulties.

The Yomud Turkmen of northeastern Iran, as described by Irons (1974), are divided into minimal groups called oba consisting of people who regularly camp together. These are thus simultaneously groups of residential, economic and pohtical cooperation. In terms of minimal lineage membership, they are almost always of mixed composition and this characteristic has been used to suggest that the Yomud do not have a “pure” segmentary lineage system (Salzman, 1978: 58). However, Irons makes it quite clear, that obas are always perceived as being dominated by one particular minimal lineage (1974: 640–1). Other resident lineages, called gonshi, are without question present by permission of the dominant lineage. Obas are grouped into a higher level called il, and these il are grouped into a still higher level which is also called il. The first il roughly corresponds to the seven-generation group discussed earlier, though not, of course, for th egonshi. The second derives from a meaning of the word il which dates back at least to the eighth-century Orkhon Inscriptions with the meaning of “confederation” (Ba§tug, 1997). According to Irons, the use of il to refer to two different levels creates no communication problems among the Yomud. We might also note that the Bakhtiari, a predominantly Indo-Iranian tribal confederation of modem Iran, also use the term il in exactly the same way to refer to two separate levels of organization (Garthwaite, 1983). Irons uses “tribe” for the smaller il and “confederation” for the larger il, leaving no term for the Yomud as a whole, even though they have a common genealogy, or for the Turkmen as a whole.

According to Beck, the Qashqai, a predominantly Turkic confederation of Iran,

used a variety of terms to depict their social, territorial and political groups (including oba, bunku or bailai, tireh, tayfeh and il), all of which English-speaking scholars and others have translated as “tribe.” These terms represent (among other things) the hierarchy of sociopolitical groups found among the Qashqa’i. (1990: 188)

I would insist, however, that it is concepts of kinship which are basic (that is, serve as prototypes) in the cultural specification of functional groups of various sorts in segmentary lineage systems. The tendency is to justify, validate and symbolize other kinds of groups in terms of kinship and descent, not the reverse (cf. Galaty, 1981: 86).

The terminologies of the “segmentary pyramid” reflect indigenous categorizations of the “levels of segmentation” in the anthropologists’ segmentary lineage model. They make explicit the structure of the segmentary lineage system as an organizational model but at the same time reflect the imprecision and fluidity characteristic of internal group formation in these systems as well as the equally characteristic multi-functionality of subgroups. They may or may not serve as the basis for political organization of varying forms in a particular society. To the extent that they do so, however, it will never be in isolation either from other sorts of groups or conflicting and competing sources of identity, loyalty and support. Galaty has expressed this as follows:

In the segmentary lineage case, a series of lineages may be placed within a hierarchical structure and related to norms of relative solidarity and military consolidation, to form a segmentary code. But symbolic identities and norms are invariably ascribed to and embodied in persons, for whom identities and norms are never singular or unambiguous, but rather combined in sets, of varying degrees of compatibility. (1981: 77)

II. Hierarchy and Social Differentiation

As noted earlier, the notion that segmentary lineage systems are necessarily egalitarian, non-stratified and acephalous has been present in theoretical considerations of segmentary lineage systems since the original work of Evans-Pritchard (1974/1940). Strongly stated in the influential work of Sahlins (1961, 1968), it has been perpetuated and/or simply taken as fact by most subsequent authors, supporters and critics alike, concerned with the subject. Digard (1983), Khazanov (1984: 146) and Beck (1990: 200) have explicitly stated that segmentary lineage systems are quite capable of social stratification. Digard states categorically, “we must abandon the myth, which has been decidedly tenacious since The Nuer, that segmentary systems are necessarily acephalous” (1983: 332). Nonetheless, the notion of the necessarily egalitarian, thus acephalous and stateless, segmentary lineage society remains strongly in force in academic literature.

There is nothing inherent in the structure of segmentary lineage systems, or for that matter in any other form of descent, which renders permanent leadership, social stratification, and state forms of political organization theoretically impossible. Forms of kinship and descent do not, in and of themselves, determine the presence or absence of social hierarchies or forms of political organization. Furthermore, the notion that segmentary lineages are necessarily egalitarian is quite simply belied by the well-documented existence of societies which undoubtedly have a segmentary lineage descent system and at the same time are characterized by internal hierarchies, social stratification and state forms of political organization (cf. Fernea, 1970: 105). Pastoral nomadic peoples of the Eurasian and Inner Asian Steppes have historically provided numerous examples, including the Skythians, Hsiung-Nu, Toba, Kok Turk, Uygur, Mongols, Seljuks, the Timurid Chaghatay Ulus and the Akkoyunlu, to name only a few.[94]

The groups which constitute the segmentary pyramid in segmentary lineage systems exhibit great cross-cultural variation in their relative visibility and permanence as well as in the form and permanence of leadership associated with them. Among the Nuer, groups at a higher level than local minimal lineages appear only situationally in response to threat or military requirements and disappear when they are no longer needed. Among the majority of the Indo-European and Turkic tribally organized peoples of Eurasian origin, the groups which constitute higher levels in the segmentary pyramid are relatively permanent, named and associated with specific leaders. The same is also true of the Tallensi:

every level of segmentation among the Tallensi is clearly identified at all times.

Every segment has a pemranent representative who accedes to his position as a result of a clear procedure and according to precise criteria of eligibility. The segment head is also entitled to perform certain political or ritual activities on behalf of the group, or to convene a subgroup for the performance of these activities. (Verdon, 1983: 290)

The existence of relatively permanent groups with leaders chosen or appointed according to culturally prescribed criteria creates a possibility for social differentiation. Among the Indo-European and Turkic peoples of Eurasian origin, leadership of groups at higher levels was traditionally inherited within specific patrilineages. This institution, which I refer to as the “royal lineage,” was the major basis for social stratification among these peoples in the past and is still so today among the majority of those who retain a tribal organization (Ba§tug, 1997). As Beck has noted for the Qashqa’i Confederation, members of the royal lineages of each component tribe (tayfeh) and their sub-tribes (tire) “comprised a small, distinct socioeconomic class with dynastic, aristocratic characteristics” (1983: 306). The hereditary royal lineages of tribes and confederations constituted the aristocracy of the pastoral nomadic peoples of the Asian steppes. They are, I believe, the ak bodun of various Altaic peoples, called “estates” by Khazanov (1984: 147) and others. The phrase ak bodun does not occur in the Orkhon Inscriptions, the eighth-century Turkic inscriptions which record the history of the Kok Tiiriik. However, the phrase kara bodun occurs several times in contexts which imply, on the one hand, a contrast with an opposite ak bodun, and on the other, a contrast between nobility and commoners. The ak bodun are the royal lineages at either the tribal or confederational level; the kara bodun are the non-royal lineage sections (cf. Ba§tug, 1997; Dankoff, 1972: 25). Though, again, the institution of the hereditary royal lineage is not necessarily the only way to introduce hierarchy into segmentary lineage systems, it is one of the most common and the most effective in terms of producing systems of social stratification.

III. Tribe, Confederation and State

As stated earlier, I use the term “tribe” to denote the maximal group in a segmentary lineage system which is united by a consensual genealogy and the term “confederation” to denote a political union of such tribes under a centralized leadership. The component tribes are not necessarily linked by an ideology of kinship and may include polities of different linguistic affiliations. Furthermore, the component polities may not occupy equal positions within the confederation. Some may be attached to other tribes in a voluntary client status; others may have the status of conquered “slave” tribes. There may also exist culturally prescribed strategies for altering such statuses. To the extent that they are able to establish themselves as independent, coherent polities under a centralized authority, confederations may also serve as the organizational basis for independent states as exemplified by the Eurasian tribal states fisted earlier.

While the concepts of confederation (a political union) and segmentary lineage system (a descent system) must be kept analytically separate, they are at the same time not necessarily unrelated in specific societies. I have suggested elsewhere (Ba§tug, 1997) that for the Eurasian Steppe nomads (and their historical offshoots in other regions), the prototype of the confederation was a model derived from the structure of the segmentary lineage system and that the confederation (or parts of it) had always a tendency to transform itself into a “tribe” either through the construction of appropriate genealogies or various mechanisms of Active kinship (including the possibilities for the transformation of affines to agnates). Among the nomadic peoples of the Asian steppes, both group identity and political alliance were, to a greater or lesser extent, dependent on kinship ties. Where these were lacking, they were created by either adoption or marriage. Speaking of the Bakhtiari of Iran, Digard has described the concern to legitimate political alliance by genealogy as follows:

In the absence of proof of the existence (or the non-existence) of real descent ties linking all members of the Bakhtiari tribe, one finds Active genealogies that reveal at least an anxiety to translate political affiliation, a posteriori, into terms of descent. (1983: 334)

Among Eurasian steppe nomads and many of those populations which have historically emerged from them the “anxiety” noted by Digard to transform political alliance into kinship results in a situation such that, while the term “tribe” may be identified as the maximum level for which a consensual genealogy exists at a certain time, the unit as so defined is inherently unstable. “Tribes” united in a purely political confederation have a potential (a tendency, an “anxiety”) to become united in a kinship ideology; therefore, confederations always have a potential to become “tribes.” The tendency ultimately to justify political unity by an ideology of common descent (or failing that, affinal kinship) is pervasive at all levels within the segmentary lineage system of the tribe and at the level of the tribal confederation as well. Conversely, the tendency to justify disunity by a denial of common descent is also encountered. “Tribes” have always the potential to disintegrate into minimal or mid-level lineages, isolated from and claiming no kinship with higher levels of integration. Speaking of the Ghilzai Pakhtun, Anderson has expressed both the fluidity and underlying stability of “tribes” as follows:

As elsewhere in the Near East, tribes disappear only to reappear unpredictably.

To speak of dormant or reserved tribalism only restates the mystery because there is something here more significant than an alternative, complementary viewpoint on the same thing. Tribal formations have the dual significance of being at once given and made, a collapsing of the normative into the experiential from which their own (propositional) terms can be retrieved; and the point of access is the organisation of those terms, for that organisation is what is phenomenally present. (1983: 123, emphasis mine)

Consideration of the possible forms of their symbolic and practical articulation aside, I stress again that the concept of confederation is a political concept and must be analytically distinguished from models of kinship organization. Failure to do so has been a pervading characteristic of the general debate concerning the segmentary lineage system and the existence of “tribes” (i.e., confederations) that do not claim a unitary genealogy and has been used as evidence to show that they do not have a segmentary lineage system or that “the model doesn’t work.”

A recent example is found in Wright (1986) and the acrimonious exchanges between Street (1990,1992) and Wright (1992, 1994) on one side and Barth (1992) on the other. Barth is aware of the distinction between groups whose unity is validated through a common genealogy and those whose unity is based solely on political alliance. His discussion is muddled, however, by his ambiguous use of both “tribe” and “confederation” to refer to the latter (1992: 177). Both Wright and Street, however, fail to make any such distinction at all yet nonetheless use the failure of the Mamassani “tribe” to exhibit unitary genealogies as proof of the failure of the “model of the segmentary lineage system.” We are told that Wright was concerned to investigate the “fragmented and scattered remnants of once-dominated groups” and that the group she studied, the Mamassani, was “one of the myriad small tribal groupings” (Wright, 1986: 1). We are also told that the people of this “tribal grouping”

presented no overarching lineage organization for the tribe, nor any genealogical idiom for nesting political segments ... Instead of one apical ancestor, stories of origin emphasized dual founders whose groups were joined by successive waves of refugees. (Wright, 1994: 185; cf. Wright, 1992: 643)

The description of the “tribe” as “fragments” and “scattered remnants” certainly begs the question as to exactly what was the “whole” of which we now have “remnants’” In any case, it seems questionable to have assumed in the first place that these “fragments and remnants” might exhibit a unitary genealogy, much less to suggest that their failure to do so represents an indictment of the “segmentary lineage principle as an organizational charter” (Street, 1990: 249).

What these “fragments” seem to have done, however, is to cobble together (in difficult circumstances involving pressures from both powerful neighboring “tribes” and the Iranian government) a confederation of sorts using prototypes for the formation of confederations which have been in use among Eurasian nomads and their descendants in Iran for more than two thousand years.[95]

Conclusion

My primary concern in this chapter has been to suggest a model of the segmentary system as a form of higher-order organization of minimal lineages which stands in contrast to the clan system as an alternative form which accomplishes the same thing. Whether I would have wished it or not, however, the presentation of such a model could only be accomplished in juxtaposition to the great mass of critical discourse which has succeeded in convincing many scholars that the segmentary lineage system is a theoretical construct which has been falsified. I have claimed that the critical discourse has been centered on a model which from the beginning confounded kinship (descent) with a number of other variables such as political organization, residence patterns, etc. The critical discourse, however, instead of recognizing that the model was confounded and seeking a solution in the separation of the confounding elements, accepted and perpetuated the confounded model and at the same time directed its criticism at precisely those elements which never should have been included in the first place. Questions of kinship and descent were ignored altogether.

The debated model became, in fact, less a confounded model than one of “social solidarity.” The failure of the Bedouin of Cyrenaica to “mass” correctly was the keystone of Peters’ landmark critique in 1967 of what he called “lineage theory” (cf. Salzman, 1978: 54; Galaty, 1981: 79; Dresch, 1986: 309). In addition to firmly planting the notion that the segmentary lineage system was a theory which did not work in practice, the critique also engendered a subdiscourse regarding the relationship of models (scientific and “folk”) to action or structure to event (see, for example the articles in Holy and Stuchlik, 1981). Regardless, however, of how we theorize the relationship between models and action, Peters’ model was a construct of conditions impossible to fulfill in action and thus certain to fail. As Galaty has stated:

Indeed, no model of general obligations, such as for segmentary solidarity, is sufficient to account for the manifestations of specific obligations and actions, such as consolidating under certain conditions. (1981: 84)

The greater fallacy here, however, is to have identified the segmentary lineage system as a “model of general obligations” in the first place. To do otherwise, however, requires consideration of the segmentary lineage system as a particular form of unilineal descent. This means positioning the concept and framing discussion of it within a context of anthropological models of kinship systems in general. However, concerns with the construction and application of formal, structural models, above all kinship models, have been out of fashion in anthropology for some time. It has been argued that they are sterile typologies, formal models which represent closed systems (cf. Galaty, 1981; Strathem, 1983: 449). New approaches (not at all unwelcome, I should add) have been more concerned with process, with culturally mediated options and discursive strategies through which individuals and groups negotiate social life. Process, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs in cultural contexts which can only be represented through models .of one sort or another (cf. Galaty, 1981: 89). The problems with formal kinship analysis are less problems of the models themselves (though these certainly exist) than with tendencies to reify the models and apply them in a deterministic fashion. In any case, the aversion to kinship studies that has characterized anthropology for the last two decades has certainly been a factor in the continued debate concerning the segmentary lineage system.

In this respect I think it is instructive to consider an important paper by Dresch (1986). In this paper Dresch states his purpose as follows: “In the present paper I wish to suggest that although lineage theory is best discarded, the simpler idea of segmentation which underlay it is less easily dispensed with and remains useful” (p. 309). However, his definitions of the two key terms involved, “lineage theory” (to be discarded) and “segmentation” (to be retained) require examination. “Lineage theory” he defines as that of Peters’ (1967) position:

Nonetheless, adherents and critics agree on the major points. The broad idea is, or was, that solidary groups form, and then combine or conflict, in predictable ways within a system sustained by a balance of power between its elements. Peters showed that this did not occur among Cyrenaican pastoralists. The demonstration could be repeated for other tribal societies. That something like it was supposed to occur might form part of an “ideology.” (p. 309)

Defined in this way, “lineage theory” is “structural opposition” with the deterministic expectation that it will predict the composition of groups opposed in conflict. Dresch’s definition of “segmentation” is as follows:

The principle [that is “common to different instances”] to be found in the case of Middle Eastern tribalism is balanced opposition. Since opposition occurs at more than one level, the formulation we require is that found in the notion of segmentation (p. 313) ... This [Evans-Pritchard’s description of tendencies toward a congruence of political support with genealogical distance] is not a causal model that tells one reliably what will happen next... the approach in terms of segmentation characterizes the forms of action available, (p. 318)

Defined in this way, “segmentation” is “structural opposition” with the determinism removed. Both definitions perpetuate the fallacy of defining a system of descent in terms of one of several mechanisms of internal group formation which it makes possible. Furthermore, a solution is made impossible by Dresch’s positioning of the two concepts, “lineage theory” and “segmentation” in what he sees as different theoretical approaches within anthropology:

Lineage theory and segmentation are not at all the same thing; indeed, they represent two different types of anthropology. The first deals with sequences of events at the level of observation (and in particular with the appearance of groups), while the second deals with formal relations that characterize the types of events possible. (1986: 309)

As noted earlier, lineages are social groups with specific conditions of formation and reproduction. Since Dresch explicitly relegates a concern “with the appearance of groups” to that “other” anthropology which is concerned with “the level of observation,” he has in effect also relegated any discussion of “lineages” or descent “groups” of any sort to that “other” anthropology. Considerations of kinship and descent (involving as they do the “formation of social groups”) are out of the question. However, in the absence of a conception of “groups,” Dresch’s concept of “segmentation” is necessarily left with no meaning beyond a mathematical concept of branching having nothing to do with processes of group formation and thus unrelatable to any concept of descent systems. We are not even able to say what it is that is segmenting. Dresch’s categorization of the “two well-known views of Morocco” also reflects this problem as he says, “neither side finds any sense to segmentation other than that which lineage theory gave it” (1986: 310). They will not find any sense to it as long as they continue to define it in isolation from notions of kinship, descent and the cultural uses to which they may be put in the formation of social groups.

Notes

References

9. The Cactus Was Our Kin: Pastoralism in the Spiny Desert of Southern Madagascar

Jeffrey C. Kaufmann

A famous environmentalist noted years ago that in the “scramble for unspoiled places, codes and decalogues evolve” (Leopold, 1966: 283). This seems to be the case in Madagascar where anxiety about the future of the island’s environment fuels the rising criticism of its several million semisedentary pastoralists. These are people among the Antakarana, Bara, Karimbola, Mahafaly, Sakalava Boina, Sakalava Fiherenana, Sakalava Menabe, Tandroy, and Tsimihety ethnic groups (see map 9.1), who make seasonal migrations with their herds, eat more grains than meat and dairy products, and measure their wealth and prestige through cattle. The problem that concerns me here is not that there is an environmental paradigm that privileges the environment over everything else; or even that numerous influential people in international organizations are against the pastoralists of Madagascar. These issues will be around for many years to come, carved into the woodwork of thinking that frames many Western perceptions of that country. What concerns me is that the environmental anti-pastoralist argument seems to rest on the mistaken assumption that pastoralists live in a one-dimensional world, a world in which the welfare of their herds always comes before the environment. I will argue that in the not too distant past prickly pear cactus was perhaps as important as cattle to Mahafaly and Tandroy pastoralists in the arid south. Thus, history and ethnography do not always agree with conventional wisdom’s perception of pastoralists in Madagascar.

Madagascar’s natural environment, with its extreme richness and diversity of flora and fauna, most of which is endemic to the island, is a natural heritage site and a primary conservation priority for its government and various international organizations working there. A population growth rate of 3 percent, with a projected doubling of its 12 million people in 24 years (World Bank, 1987: 8–9), the majority of whom may continue to subsist in a presumed “cycle of poverty and degradation” (Jolly, 1989: 201), further fuels anxiety about the future of its environment. As such, doomsday generalizations abound. Environmental change there is often portrayed as a “one-act morality play: a paradise of wonders destroyed by the cupidity and folly of men” (Dewar and Wright, 1993: 423). This supposed paradise would remain today, so the argument goes, if Malagasy people were not chopping, burning, and trampling this “garden of Eden.”

][Map 9.1 Madagascar’s pastoralists and their pasture lands<br><em>Source.</em> Randrianarison 1976a: 19 (fig. 6).

Within this environmental paradigm, wherein “nature” is the victim and “culture” the villain, multivarious cattle keeping practices are reduced to their negative effects on the environment. Burning and overgrazing become synonymous with pastoralism in the one-sided anti-pastoralist hyperbole that generates donor interest in the crisis of the environment. The typical view blames Malagasy people living at the subsistence level for “squandering Eden,” making it “perhaps the most eroded place on earth,” resembling a lunar landscape where “Four-fifths of Madagascar is barren, burned off by subsistence farmers or herders,” so that “Scientists who know the island well worry that little will remain by the turn of the century” (Rosenblum and Williams, 1987: 178).[96]

The island has become a testing ground of various environmental programs sponsored by international organizations such as WWF, USAID, and the IMF, all of whom have invested millions of dollars toward conserving the island’s biological “megadiversity” (The Economist, 1988: 73—4). The head of WWF in Madagascar remarked that if international conservation fails on that little piece of Gondwana 1,000 miles long by 350 miles wide, it will not work anywhere (O’Connor, personal communication). With that kind of pressure, it is not surprising that conventional wisdom toward pastoralists has not always been kind, or factual. Unfortunately, so much of what is “known” about Madagascar’s understudied pastoralists is based on conjecture and hearsay, that an ideology of a priori speculations and threatening circumstances seems to act as proxy for facts. This problem is not unique to Madagascar:

So many documents, officials, and even scientists repeat the assertion of pastoral responsibility for environmental degradation that the accusation has achieved the status of a fundamental truth, so self-evident a case that marshalling evidence in its behalf is superfluous if not in fact absurd, like trying to satisfy a skeptic that the earth is round or the sun rises in the East. (Horowitz 1979: 27)

As a result of this anti-pastoralist attitude, lines in the sand are being drawn in Madagascar. For example, two well known and respected conservationists who have worked for many years with a community of Mahafaly in the south-west, gave a chiding interpretation of some recent alarming events at Bezaha Mahafaly Special Reserve, the site of an integrated conservation and development project (ICDP). They noted that although local people often grumble and complain about the project to visitors at the reserve, some individuals from the surrounding pastoral community apparently turned up the volume and vented their frustrations by slitting some protected lemurs’ throats and left them hanging where they could easily be found by project personnel. The project’s directors interpreted this heinous act, which is forbidden among Mahafaly who consider it taboo to kill or even harm lemurs (cf. Ruud, 1960), as proof that the local people were alienated from a conservation ethic or environmental rejlexe. The project’s Western leadership concluded that the lemur incident demonstrated that those “simple” people failed to grasp the “complex” aims of the project to conserve nature (O’Connor and Richard, 1995). Maybe so; yet being alienated from the decision-making process that affects their way of life is a bigger problem (see Khazanov’s chapter in this volume). What might be the aims of the pastoralists themselves who are in theory supposed to benefit from decisions that do not come from them but from overseas strangers and Malagasy bureaucrats? Satisfying the international environmentalist goal of “preserving biodiversity” by establishing more parks and reserves means that many pastoralists are being forced to give up their traditional herding activities in those areas. Can “preserving biodiversity” be a sufficient reason for pastoralists to leave their land?

Compared to the African continent, pastoralism in Madagascar has not been extensively studied. Although numerous anthropologists, geographers, and historians have written about many Malagasy pastoral groups, only a handful have discussed pastoralism per se (Delval, 1986; Ganeval, 1904; Gori, 1979; Hoemer, 1982; Hoemer, 1985; Huntington, 1986; Julien, 1924; Molet, 1953; Randrianarison, 1976a; Randrianarison, 1976b; Randrianjafizanaka, 1973; Ribard, 1926; Tissie and Rakoto, 1922).[97] Yet, cattle-keeping plays a major role in the economic, social, and religious lives of many Malagasy people. During the 1936—7 drought, the national herd reached its lowest estimated number of 7.7 million animals (Heseltine, 1971: 259). In 1952, a decade after one of the island’s worst drought famines, the national herd totaled around 8 million head (Chavatte, 1955: 353; Dorel, 1955: 282; Gillard, 1955: 128). In 1961, it was estimated at 9.5 million (Heseltine, 1971: 258). In 1987, the Food and Agriculture Organization estimated there were nearly 11 million head of catde on the island, 1.3 head per person (Galaty and Johnson, 1990: 8, 14).

Although cattle keeping appears to have arrived late on the island, it is still not known whether cattle were introduced from East Africa or elsewhere. The earliest archaeological evidence of pastoralists — butchered cattle, sheep, and goat bones — are in the far south at the confluence of the Andranosoa and Manambovo Rivers, an area they occupied beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ad (Dewar and Wright, 1993: 425, 438). Today Mahafaly and Tandroy semi-sedentary pastoralists, numbering around 400,000 people, occupy the regions where pastoralism originated on the island. The area below the Tropic of Capricorn in southern Madagascar figures prominently in the history of Madagascar on several counts: it was where Madagascar’s first monarchies, the Maroserana dynasties, were formed in the 1550s (Kent, 1970: 14–15, 164 ff., 292); where numerous slaves were shipped to Africa and the Americas (Drury, 1831: 93); where American Lutheran missions began to concentrate their efforts in the nineteenth century (Burgess, 1932); and where the French subdued the fiercely resistant pastoralists between 1925 and 1930 by introducing an insect that destroyed the opuntia cactus (raiketa gasy) which was vital to their mobile herding livelihood in the desiccative south.

The Importance of Prickly Pear Cactus

Sometime after Flacourt wrote the first history of Madagascar (Flacourt, 1658), pastoralists began to colonize more of the xerophytic south with the help of the newly introduced Mexican prickly pear cactus (Opuntia dillenii), called “raquette” in French and “raiketa” in the Malagasy language. Flacourt completed a careful study of the vegetation in the southeast and made no mention of that cactus. Yet by the early 1800s, English missionaries noted that raiketa grew prodigiously in the favorable climate in the south and was in abundance as ramparts around pastoral settlements (see, e.g., Ellis, 1838). The cactus may have been introduced at Fort Dauphin (now Taolagnaro) between 1768 and 1771 by Count Dolisie de Maudave, an officer in the French Navy, who was attempting to revive the ancient French establishment that had been abandoned since 1674 (Heurtebize, 1986: 295).[98] Before it was destroyed in the cactus plague of the 1920s, cactus had spread across “fifty or sixty thousand square miles of the arid south to make a most astonishing landscape” (Stratton, 1964: 306) and had even reached the High Plateau’s rice lands where it “filled ravines and made the village ramparts a veritable bane of vegetation” (Decary, 1933: v) (see map 9.2). As ground cover, raiketa “raised the water table so that the wells, the springs, and even the rivers flowed all the year round” (Stratton, 1964: 307).

Raymond Decary, the Charge de Mission for the colonial government in the south and member of the Societe de Geographic, described the symbiotic relationship between pastoralists and raiketa. As herders migrated with their herds they planted the cactus, thus building an effective resource and aide for adapting to the arid climate and creating the favorable conditions for more pastoralists to immigrate into the area (Decary, 1930: 126). The cactus provided a critical source of water and food for both humans and cattle that allowed further penetration into the harsh “spiny forest” of Euphorbiaceae, Didiereaceae, and aloes. Its fleshy trunk of spongy “meat” furnished a drinkable liquid after pounding and pressing it in a mortar, as did its ripe fruits which matured from August to February, the same time as cultivated products such as manioc, sorghum, and sweet potatoes that were susceptible to drought failure (Decary, 1930: 128). After burning its covering of thorns, the herders also fed its watery fibrous leaves to their cattle during the dry season (Decary, 1930: 123, 128). “Of course in their movements the Antandroy consume lots of cactus fruits, which yield water and nourishment. Yet raiketa is an even more precious food for cattle” (Decary, 1930: 127, nl).

Besides using raiketa as a source of water and fodder, they also planted it to make ramparts of thorns: for their cattle kraals; fences around their gardens and small fields; and, most importantly, ramparts around their settlements. They encircled their hamlets with a maze of cactus three meters high “concealing the dwellings, the only signs of them were some smoke, barking dogs, a cow’s mooing ...” (Decary, 1933: vi). Invaders could not hack through the hedges without becoming an easy target of ambush from those within the structure. These ramparts of thorns were their main means of protection from surprise cattle raids or military invasions. Thus, herders considered cactus to be their protector and friend, a “blessing” bestowed upon them by their ancestors, which they expressed in the proverb Longo Tandroy sy raiketa, “Tandroy and raiketa are kin”; a saying that impressed on Decary the “strikingly intimate association that is possible between things and humans” (Decary, 1930: 127).

However, the cactus was not a blessing for the French colonial government. Ever since 1900–2, when French soldiers accompanied by Senegalese soldiers and saddled mules first entered the extreme south and southwest (Heurtebize, 1986: 68), all their pacification campaigns failed to subdue and govern the region’s mobile pastoralists. For a quarter century the pastoralists resisted colonization by scattering with their flocks into the spiny forests, aided by their “kin” the raiketa. However, the tide began to turn in 1924. The French introduced a cochenille parasite (Coccus cacti) to the capital city Antananarivo from the island of Reunion (Decary, 1933: v). The insect thrived, having no natural enemies in Madagascar, killing all the raiketa on the High Plateau in two years. “All that remained of them were withered yellow sections that had collapsed in a heap of empty tissue” (Decary, 1933:v).

In 1925, the French brought cochenille to the south, to the colonial outpost of Toliara — the gateway into Mahafaly and Tandroy territory (see map 9.3). “French soldiers would throw infected branches on the raiketa plantations and the cactus mazes surrounding the village in order to quell resistance and force submission by destroying the food supply of‘rebels’, ‘tax-evaders’ and ‘cattle thieves’” (Powe, 1994: 140—1). Ironically, while the cactus plague was sweeping eastward through Mahafaly land in 1926, a group of French scientists persuaded the colonial government in Madagascar to establish twelve “integral” scientific research reserves, the first nature reserves in Africa (Jolly, 1989: 208). At the same time, dense clouds of flying male cochenille choked and blinded travelers in the south (Deca, 1933: v). The plague struck Tandroy territory in 1928; two years later all the cactus was dead in the south. During the time of “white powder” (pondyfoty), named after the color of the insect (Powe, 1994: 164), the water table fell, the landscape was transformed, and the lives of many pastoralists were turned upside down.

In 1932 Decary could still see some cactus corpses; “they cover the soil, forming extraordinary heaps of thorns that break and crush with a crackling sound under foot” (Decary, 1933: vi). In most places the landscape was profoundly changed. Decary could have been describing the aftermath of war: “bare spots of soil, not yet reclaimed by vegetation, scar the landscape”; “paths once lined by cactus hedges are widening”; “dwellings and cattle pens are now visible from afar”; “greenery is getting scarce and the countryside is becoming grayish”; “perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that the Androy became unrecognizable, and yet...” (Decary, 1933: v—vi).

Without this plant, pastoralists became more vulnerable to droughts and famines (Decary, 1933: v; Hoerner, 1986: 35). The devastating famine of 1930—1 nearly wiped out mobile pastoralism in the south. An estimated 300,000 cattle died, as well as thousands more goats and sheep (Heseltine, 1971: 259), along with many Mahafaly and Tandroy people; “the desiccated bodies of the very young and the very old lay alongside the paths where they had stopped for the night but had not got up in the morning to go on trekking to the north” (Stratton, 1964: 307). Drought and famine returned many more times, for example in 1936—7, in 1943—4, in 1957—8. Exported beef never again reached the 700,000 to 1 million head that Madagascar exported to surrounding islands and South Africa in 1913 (Dandoy, 1980: 232). Moreover, the great famine of 1943 “certainly provoked the Malagasy revolt of 1947–48” (Heurtebize, 1986: 68) by traditionalists known by the red shawls they wore called menalamba. A pastoralist recalled in 1993 that:

The reason for [the cactus’] disappearance is that there were some rebels called menalamba ... who refused to pay the taxes and fled into the great forest. When some of them were captured, they were interrogated by the French who discovered that they survived by eating raiketagasy. It was then that the French introduced a poison (“the white worm”) that killed the raiketagasy and it disappeared ... (Powe, 1994: 163—4)

After the cactus plague the menalamba fought against anything foreign, such as missionaries, French, and Western dress, for the sake of restoring traditionalism and past glories.

Besides drastically and rapidly changing the landscape, the cactus plague considerably and permanently affected many younger cowherds who were starting their careers at the time of the plague and whose small herds did not provide a famine buffer. Many were forced into migrant labor.

When the raiketa gasy vanished, the strong men left to live elsewhere. They went to Diego, Majanga, Morondava, and to other places in the North. They left because it was difficult to live without the raiketa gasy. The land here is no longer blessed (raty tanana) and those without patience must leave because there is no water. That is the reason why we are so few now. We are hungry; we are thirsty. There is no water. There is no food. We have rags for clothing. Those who have cattle sell them for food and clothes; those who don’t have cattle, starve and wear sadia (loin cloths) ... There are no lazy people here, for they have all died. (Powe, 1994: 164)

As pastoralists worked in towns or on coffee, clove, sisal, and vanilla plantations, saving their earnings to rebuild their herds, Tanosy rice cultivators from the southeast appropriated some Mahafaly and Tandroy lands around the Onilahy and Mandrare Rivers in the south-west and south. With members of the pastoral “labor pool” forced out of the south, the French government was able to centralize their power and develop administration authorities in certain villages and towns. Thus, the last unconquered autochthonous Malagasy people had finally submitted to French rule.

Yet, the cactus plague did not kill pastoralism in the xerophytic south and southwest. Several varieties of cochenille resistant prickly pear have been introduced to Madagascar since the cactus plague. One kind is thornless; another yields an insipid drink; yet none are valued to the extent of the extinct raiketa gasy. Cactus is no longer used as extensively as it was in the past.

The Current Situation

The predominant type of herding system is still semi-sedentary pastoralism. A combination of herding and agricultural activities meet most Mahafaly and Tandroy people’s subsistence needs and source of cash. Others collect salaries from migrant labor in the north and west (Esoavelomandroso, 1986: 123); or from cowherding for absentee owners; or from pulling a Malagasy rickshaw (pos-pos) in the larger towns. Like other East African pastoralists, cattle are their banking system — cattle are stores of wealth and security against crop failures and other misfortunes (Flerskovits, 1926: 650). People invest in cattle when they have extra cash and sell them when they need money to pay taxes, buy consumer goods, or pay for religious ceremonies (Heseltine, 1971: 260). Giving, killing, and selling cattle meet a family’s various obligations: funerals, marriages, circumcisions, curings, taxes, and so on. As a result, herds appear to be managed very conservatively — with small yearly increases in herd sizes (Hoemer, 1986: 134—5; Huntington, 1986: 305). Yet, there may be around two million head of long-homed zebus (Bos indicus) in the xerophytic south and southwest; where, before the devastating drought of 1991–2, one researcher estimated the average “family herd” at over 100 head (Randrianarison, 1976a: 13).

Besides seeing cattle economically as walking saving accounts, Malagasy pastoralists perceive herding animals religiously as sacrificial ways of communicating with the ancestors. They rarely slaughter cattle simply to obtain meat. They use blood ceremonially, but not in their diet. Their hamlets usually have a sacrificial post, a hazo manga, at their eastern entrance where they make sacrifices to their ancestor spirits.

Herd species-composition is primarily cattle. The approximate ratio between the numbers of cattle, goats, and sheep for the entire island is 10 / 1 / .5 (10 times more cattle than goats and 20 times more cattle than sheep) (Galaty and Johnson, 1990: 8). Herders in the extreme south and southwest keep a higher proportion of goats and sheep than other pastoralists there (Geographie de Madagascar 1965). From my observations on the Mahafaly Plateau (between 1987 and 1989), I estimated the livestock ratio to be 10 / 2 / 1 (5 times more catde than goats and 10 times more cattle than sheep).

Utilization of ecological zones is separate, that is, herders try to graze their animals on pastures separate from agricultural land. Mpiarak’andro, cowherds, those men, boys, and often newlywed brides who “accompany the day” or range with the herds, keep them out of the fields and gardens. A few young or ill animals that they keep near the hamlet will browse the nearby harvested manioc, maize, and sorghum fields tended by the family. Cattle graze separately from goats and sheep. Since cattle need water more often than sheep or goats, and eat different grasses, this strategy allows pastoralists to deal with the south’s main risks: lack of water and available fodder.

Fire does not seem to be used in the xerophytic south to transform “bush” into pasture or to turn dry grass into a “green bite,” as it does, for example, in the western savannas (Andriamampianina, 1985: 83). As one researcher put it, “there simply is not much to bum in the spiny desert” (Burney, 1995).

The local tenure systems of pastoral areas in the south appear to be complex blends of common property and privatization rules. The local level tenure arrangements involve at least seven resource categories: shrub brush, pasture, rainfed fields, irrigated fields, water, riverine forests, and forbidden forests (alafaly) (Schomerus-Gernbock ,1981: 61–2). Cattle having the same ear brand, which marks their owners’ tariha or kin group, graze on communal pastures (Eggert, 1986: 325). Individuals owned only rainfed fields (baibo) around the villages and seasonally irrigated fields (horake).

During my fieldwork in the Antongobe region north of the town of Betioky (see map 9.3) I accompanied several herds that were watered at a permanent water hole within a “tabooing forest” on the Ehazoara river. Local people believed that this portion of the Ehazoara forest contained doany, “sacred enclosures,” the trees inhabited by ancestor spirits who interact in the lives of the local people. Ancestor spirits now living in that forest as sacred trees were considered responsible for fortuitous events as well as mysterious vicissitudes and grave illnesses in offenders who did not observe their fomba and faly, their “customs” and “taboos.” A cowherd avowed to me that the ancestors were recently becoming masiake or fierce. In the local idiom, ancestors were angry about the threatening possible loss of their sacred enclosures (trees) posed by deforestation in the area and a drop in the water table. He explained that spirit possession was on the increase and that local people were careful not to disturb their “tabooing forests.” The unique characteristic about this “sacred grove” (cf. Lebbie and Freudenberger, n.d.) was that although the sacred trees were perceived by the local people as being the private property of the ancestor spirits who were identified with them, and that the forest site was the common property of those spirits, the pastoralists from the surrounding area had free access to the permanent water hole located within the boundary of the sacred site.

The character of pastoral migrations is unstable, irregular, non-linear, and not meridional. With the arid south’s 6 month dry season (in normal years) and frequent droughts (about every 10 years), pastoralists must drive their cattle to areas that have received rainfall. Herds are moved to different seasonal pastures (toetsaomby): dry season pastures (April-September); beginning of wet season (October—November); apex of wet season (December—January); end of wet season (February—March) (Hoemer, 1986: 72).

Cattle rustling has contracted pastoral migrations, by forcing them to keep their herds closer to their village or family hamlet. Rustling occurs among all Malagasy pastoral groups but, beginning with the economic downturn in the early 1970s, it became more common and a major concern for many pastoral families. Rusding forced people to concentrate their cattle by moving their kraals back into the center of their hamlets and villages where they could better guard them. Rather than being grazed and spread over a wide area, sometimes more than 100 kilometers away, keeping cattle closer to the main villages led to overcropping the regions around the villages (Sussman, Green, and Sussman, 1994: 346—7). Although some families are beginning to resume their previous transhumant practices by herding their cattle to former, more distant, pasturelands previously raided by cattle rustlers, the herds that I accompanied in 1989 were still carefully guarded against rustlers. Each herder, including myself, carried a spear. The cattle stayed each night in a corral (valan’aomby) made of raiketa cactus (one of the newly introduced varieties called raiketa mend) in a cattle camp located away from the main hamlet. We traveled each day approximately 15—20 kilometers, round-trip. Recent government policies, which included tracking down and shooting dahalo, professional cattle thieves, have somewhat alleviated the problem.

Although these pastoralists perceive themselves as cattle keepers first and farmers second, dryland farming provides the majority of their subsistence needs. Maize, manioc, sorghum, and sweet potatoes are their chief crops. Making yogurt from milk is more important among Tandroy families than Mahafaly, but such animal products occupy a secondary role even in the Tandroy dietary system. Tanosy neighbors who occupy some irrigated areas north of Mahafaly-land and east of Tandroy-land are the chief source of rice for the pastoralists occupying the spiny desert.

In summary, pastoralism in southern Madagascar resembles, in principle, East African pastoralism, with some differences. The herd composition is mixed, vegetables and grains are more important than milk or meat, and blood is not a feature in the diet at all.

The government would like to commercialize the pastoral sector by increasing the “domestic organisation of both production and marketing” (Robiarivony, in Oyowe, 1988: 36). Transporting cattle to market is costly because walking to the centers causes them to lose 10—20 percent of their body weight, which adds extra fattening costs. Trucking is one possible solution, but it requires a huge investment in cattle trucks and road improvement; moving the cattle markets and butchering facilities closer to pastoral areas is another. However, current export markets do not show much promise. The European market has rigorous quality constraints that have blocked exported beef to the Common Market for several years because Malagasy slaughter-houses are not in line with European health standards (Robiarivony, in Oyowe, 1988: 36). Even regional trade with Comores and Reunion no longer includes Malagasy meat.

Pastoral intensification is also motivated by environmental anxiety, such as designating more land as national parks. Madagascar is establishing a national network of about 50 protected areas (1.4 million ha.) that will cover most Malagasy biodiversity and serve as “ecological tourism” sites (World Bank, 1990: 9). By 1990, 34 protected areas existed. The xerophytic south, with its unique spiny forests of drought-resistant vegetation, remains an important buffer zone to the eastern rain forests and western deciduous forests. So far, six protected areas exist in the far south and southwest. Land policy changes, such as the removal of pastoralists from the protected areas, universal land titling, leases, and taxation, form a structural foundation for intensified livestock raising which is expected to increase land security, stimulate conservation practices, reduce pressure on the forests, and create investment incentives (Madagascar, 1990: 35, 41; World Bank, 1990: 8, 103). The government has tried to limit pastoralists’ access to the traditional resources and products in the parks and reserves, but enforcing that policy has been difficult (Andriamampianina, 1984). The latest idea is to send Malagasy extension agents into the areas to educate and increase the people’s awareness of the environment (Madagascar, 1990: 6; Andriamasy, Finoana, and Rakotonindrina, 1995). These actions are not aimed at restoring some idealized traditional equilibrium with the land, but at developing a new rationale of pastoral production there.

Conclusion

As a result, Malagasy pastoralists are in the midst of another massive change in their way of life. The end of the twentieth century may be “the most important period of human adjustment” for Madagascar’s pastoralists (Huntington, 1986: 318), perhaps even eclipsing the transformations that occurred between 1925 and 1930 if, for example, commercial beef-raising replaces all forms of mobile pastoralism there. At any rate, the future is dubious for its subsistence-oriented pastoralists because the environmental paradigm tends to (1) retreat into the present, which, in turn, (2) bars pastoralists from participating in the planning process.

The retreat into the present is part of the mission of conservation: to save what is left now of Madagascar’s flora and fauna for future generations. Moreover, the island’s “draw” for most tourists and foreign researchers seems to be its exotic species environment, parts of which evolved nowhere else in the world. Its exotics are so unique, perhaps even alluring, that the people who live there are often misunderstood, overlooked, or forgotten. The environmental paradigm perceives pastoralists as villains to the environment, a perception that is based on popular presentist cultural snapshots such as “people of deforestation,” “people of burning,” or “people of desertification.”

The emotional bonds with Madagascar’s “Eden” — the attempts to regain the imagined harmony with nature and the natural environment that has been lost to people in industrialized countries — are today expressed in wildlife parks that, in a sense, are meant to comfort the Western psyche rather than integrate with the “complex and changing environment in which people have actually had to live” (Anderson and Grove, 1987: 4). Yet, as more pastoral lands are turned into reserves and parks, some pastoralists who are affected may respond by attacking the affections of the vazaha (foreign “others”), such as the lemurs. Thus, contemporary problems between pastoralism and conservation in Madagascar will not improve as long as the problem of pastoralist agency, meaning their participation in decision making that will affect their future, remains unresolved (Khazanov, 1995: lvi—lviii). The situation might begin to improve if, first, attempts were made to understand the various motivations, intentions, and actions of the pastoralists themselves; and, second, their opinions and knowledge were accepted as a necessary part of the decision-making process.

The question remains whether Mahafaly and Tandroy pastoralists are willing to participate in commercialized beef production, as the Malagasy government hopes. If the cattle market was subsidized by the WWF, The World Bank, Conservation International, and the IMF, so that beef prices were high, would that be a sufficient incentive for those pastoralists to produce for the market? Or are they too entrenched in the “cattle complex” (Herskovits, 1926), their cattle too dear to them for cultural and religious reasons rather than economic ones, for them to sell them for mere money? I doubt that cattle have so much sentimental value to them that they will not sell them no matter how good the price. After all, increased slaughtering occurred in the 1920s, prior to the cactus plague, when prices were high for hides and skins (ten times higher than the market price twenty years later) and increases in consumer demand existed among the east coast ethnic groups who were enjoying bumper crops and lucrative exports (Heseltine, 1971: 258—9 summarizing Lacroutz, 1962).

Notes

References

10. The Role of Tribal Groups in State Expansion and Consolidation: The Northern Arabian Peninsula during and after the First World War

Joseph Kostiner

The role of nomadic tribes in state formation in the northern parts of the Arabian Peninsula arose out of two of their persistent tenacious qualities. One was their fighting prowess and raiding habits, evident in struggles over regional supremacy and in the process of making a living. The second was a sense of loyalty, based on kin ties and a corporate life-style, the tribespeople providing for members’ security and economic existence. These qualities were crucial for state-building processes.

In the twentieth century the urge to embark on a state building process emanated from conditions which evolved in Northern Arabia during the First World War. The great powers, Britain and the Ottoman Empire, cultivated different local allies to uphold their interests. While the Ottomans supported the Rashidi dynasty of Jabal Shammar, the various British authorities, such as the Arab Bureau and the High Commissioner in Egypt, the British Resident and Political agents in the Gulf (who were answerable to the Indian government) supported different local forces, the Sharifs of Mecca leading the Arab Revolt and ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Sa‘ud (Ibn Sa‘ud) of Najd, respectively. The British authorities in the Gulf also cultivated the autonomy and security of the Gulf s smaller entities, notably Kuwait. Consequently, the North Arabian state-like entities were infused with the motivation to rival each other and intensify their differences, by adherence to the interests of their great powers’ patrons. Thus, while the Sharifs had led the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans since June 1916, their expansion was viewed with suspicion by the Saudis and Kuwaitis, who sought to safeguard their perceived territories and the tribal groups under their protection from falling under the influence of the Sharifian movement. Moreover, while the Saudis were assigned by the British in December 1917 to fight the Rashidis, the latter, as Ottoman allies, were opposed to all the pro-British entities in Northern Arabia.[99]

These rivalries were further kindled by war-related economic changes. Traditional trade routes and centers lost their importance in favor of new ones. Due to the rivalry between the pro-Ottoman Rashidi and pro-British tribal entities, the latter’s caravan trade with Syria had been severely curtailed, and resulting in heavy losses in their horse and camel trade. After the British occupied central Iraq in the spring of 1917, the Shammar tribespeople, led by the Rashidi family, were prevented from reaching their marketplaces there. The British imposed naval blockades on the Red Sea and Gulf ports to bar pro-Ottoman tribal groups from supply lines, and particularly the Gulf blockade which continued into 1918, affected the nomad and settled populations of the Hijaz and particularly Kuwait. The Hijaz, however, as the center of the Sharifi-led Arab Revolt, benefited from a British monthly stipend of over .£100,000 in gold, paid during the first year of the Revolt to finance its expenses. The Hijaz therefore became a new center of attraction for tribal groups in the region. In addition, smuggling routes, such as the one operated from Kuwait to the Rashidi capital, Ha’il and then to the Hijazi city Madina, which remained under Ottoman rule until January 1919, became lifelines for surrounding tribal groups, who fought over its benefits.[100]

These new conditions stimulated political probing among local rulers and tribal groups. Tribal groups shifted loyalties in seeking new centers of livelihood, and rulers looked for fresh sources of income and strategic assets. It can therefore be argued that the North Arabian rulers were challenged by the outcome of the new conditions of World War I, to reform their nascent states, or chiefdoms (or chieftancies) into expanding and more organized states. A chiefdom was a confederacy or alliance of nomad tribal groups, urban dwellers, and a ruler (mostly of an urban family), held together by trade interests and sometimes religious motives. It was based on duty and powersharing among the different components: the nomads usually provided military protection and manpower to lead the caravans; the townspeople provided market, prayer and meeting facilities; and the ruler was supposed to supervise the arrangements and hold its segments together. A chiefdom’s arrangements were ad-hoc, reliant on personalized cooperation among the leaders of the different segments in the chiefdom, with only minimal governmental functions to support it. The territorial limits hinged upon caravan and grazing zones, without fixed border-lines. Social cohesion rested on a coalition of existing segments, which kept a high degree of autonomy in values and politics and could in fact detach themselves from a given chiefdom. Chiefdoms, though, were dynamic social organizations: A chiefdom could assume more elaborate state attributes or what J. P. Nettl called “stateness,” consolidating its territorial integrity, socio-political cohesion and government, or lose these qualities and disintegrate.[101] The conditions which had evolved in the northern regions of the Arabian Peninsula during the war provided an impetus for strengthening the chiefdoms, but through rivalry among them .over the new economic and power centers. In other words, war conditions prompted a drive to state evolution in tribal societies[102] by which certain chiefdoms strengthened themselves, but at the expense of other chiefdoms, which lost out to the stronger ones.

The process of state formation was manifested, first and foremost, in territorial expansion. Expansion was a natural outcome of the unstable existence of chiefdoms, as acquisition of territories was the most common way for a chiefdom to gain additional economic and strategic assets. In this process, it was important for a chiefdom ruler to harness the nomad tribal units and take advantage both of their fighting prowess and loyalty, creating what Ira Lapidus called “a conquest movement.”[103] A successful mustering of tribal power usually hinged on effective inter-tribal solidarities, based on kin ties, stronger tribal groups’ protection to weaker ones, and political alliances. Tribal cohesion also drew on religious zeal: it did not require the disintegration of alternative tribal solidarity or structures and hinged upon what Ernest Gellner, following Durkheim, called “mechanical solidarity” based on a coalition of segmentary groups.[104] Religious zeal gave the chiefdom an embracing ideology, a sense of direction, or a raison-d’etat.

Madawi el-Rasheed argues that another, more important quality which a chiefdom has to acquire in a process of state formation is the support of a great power, to provide economic and strategic-political assistance during a period of crisis and change, such as World War I was.[105] While this point is well-taken, a great power’s support was particularly important in establishing regional strategic conditions which would help create a conquest movement make expansion possible. To facilitate such a combination, another quality was required: that of an expedient leadership: a chiefdom’s ruler as well as members of his elite were required to be champions of tribal politics, military strategy, and foreign policy. The projection of a leader’s charismatic image, ability to infuse morale and unity, his use of persuasive and manipulative tactics were important qualities in the strengthening of chiefdoms.[106]

The combination of versatile leadership, ability to muster tribal prowess and a great power’s strategic support existed in varying degrees of effectiveness in North-Arabian chieftaincies. It gave them, to a certain extent, the ability to play the regional “great game” of plotting among tribal groups to win them over, mobilizing and operating them in expansionist moves.

The Saudi Ikhwan (literally: Brethren) was a Wahhabi revivalist movement which spread among the principal nomad tribes in the region, the Mutayr, ‘Utayba, Harb, ‘Ujman, Qahtan, and others. Directed by the ruler, Ibn Sa‘ud the movement aimed to reinstate the dominance of the initial Wahhabi principles of the eighteenth century which had been attenuated during the nineteenth century such as fighting the association of God and man (shirk) and implementing the holy law (shari ‘a) in society. Its socio-political goals, however, were to establish a center of attraction and a cohesion system, to regather the main regional tribal groups (which had been part of the Saudi forces in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries) and cement their ties with the Saudi chiefdom, so as to counteract the attraction to the Sharifi Arab Revolt’s military expansion and economic advantages and Kuwait’s British protection had on regional tribes, which had indeed induced some Saudi tribal groups to join these two chiefdoms in 1916—17.[107] The Saudi-Wahhabi revivalist movement relied on an effective combination, known from the writings of Ibn Khaldun, of utilizing tribal power under a religious-puritanical flag. It was an alliance hinging not only upon tribal group-solidarity (‘asabiyya), but on the infusion of a common zeal and ideology which gave their movement an unusual effectiveness.

The Ikhwan movement had several important roles in affecting Saudi expansion and thus, state-formation. One, was the spreading of Wahhabi principles, through coercion, persuasion and by setting examples, into the Gulf region (winning over the ‘Ujman tribe which had until 1918 been disloyal to the Saudis), ‘Asir, Jabal Shammar and the Hijaz.[108] Second, while it is true that the Ikhwan tribes were not the only important military units in Saudi military campaigns, and the townspeople (al- ‘Arid) were perhaps even more important militarily the Ikhwan groups constituted an important military factor in the battles of Turaba against the Hijaz (1919), Kuwait (1920—1), the Occupation of Ha’il (1921), ‘Asir (1921–3) and then the Hijaz (1924—5). Moreover, they infused morale and zeal in all other Saudi units.[109]

Third, while the Ikhwan did not fully realize their own pledges to sedentarize and dedicate themselves to settled fife and religious studies, and many groups remained partly nomadic and engaged in raiding, the ideas of Wahhabi revivalism which they diseminated became the idiom and ideological common denominator which cemented the segments of the chiefdom. The fighting in some arenas, such as Khurma (1917–19) vis-a-vis the Hijaz, Kuwait (1917—21) or ‘Asir (1921—3), initially revolved around tribal feuds rather than religious issues, but the Ikhwan interpreted their opponents standpoint as a challenge to Wahhabi supremacy, and as a stimulant to illicit Saudi intervention in these arenas. They viewed their local allies in these arenas as co-religious partners, thereby evoking an all-embracing solidarity between the Saudi centers and its peripheries. Moreover, the leaders of the Ikhwan tribes, notably Faysal al-Dawish of the Mutayr, functioned as a non-established elite, which was not part of the traditional, religious and the leading Saud-family elites, and therefore assumed a non-orthodox role uncommon to tribal groups. They posed as the fulfilling elements of what seemed the most important goals of Saudi society: expansion, sedentarization and religious revival. Thus, although they were a non-seasoned movement, which exceeded Ibn Sa‘ud’s control and did not fully turn into a sedentarized, peaceful sector, they constituted a movement which both stimulated and exercised expansion, loyalty and solidarity in the Saudi chiefdom.[110]

The Ikhwan s role was accompanied by Ibn Sa‘ud’s ability to project an attractive image of leadership to the tribes. He did not levy heavy taxes and imposed the Zakat (donations) and Khums (one-fifth of booty or income) taxes sparingly, as the Qur’an allowed. He was assertive and speedy in adjudicating feuds and litigations, charismatic, pious, politically prudent, but ready to fight if so required. He was deemed stable and courageous and his victories were a further attraction for surrounding tribal groups.[111] Moreover, Ibn Sa‘ud established firm relations with the British authorities in the Gulf, notably the Resident, Sir Percy Cox and his secretary and emissary to Ibn Sa‘ud (between late 1917 and 1919) H. St John B. Philby. Thanks to their support, the British government’s anti-Saudi decisions in April 1918 and January 1919, which encouraged the Sharif Husayn to occupy the town of Khurma bordering Najdaro and the Hijaz after its inhabitants had drifted toward Ibn Sa‘ud and Wahhabism, were in fact stifled. Moreover, thanks to Philby’s encouragement Ibn Sa‘ud obtained a British license to develop an expansionist option against the Rashidi chiefdom in summer 1918, and financial assistance (of c. £5,000 per month, and possibly a lump sum of .£20,000), (which itself paled in comparison with the British financial assistance to Sharif Husayn), which prompted Ibn Sa‘ud’s military campaigns.[112]

The Sharifi employment of tribal groups in the Arab Revolt was different. It hinged upon the formation of successive alliances, or groupings consisting of major tribal groups dwelling in the areas which the Hashemites aimed to conquer. These tribal groups then constituted the bulk of forces which captured that region and became the basis for Hashemite rule there. Each such grouping constituted a link, or a step in what T. E. Lawrence called a “ladder” of tribal groupings, that was ultimately meant to facilitate Hashemite expansion into Syria.[113] As Joshua Teitelbaum shows, the Hashemite hold over the tribes was tenuous. The forming of alliances with tribes depended on hard bargaining: mediation of inter-tribal feuds, allocation of British subsidies in gold (which between November 1916 and July 1917 amounted to over £100,000 per month) and rifles, as well as promises of booty.[114] Infusion ot Arab nationalist or Islamic ideas, which could bestow on the alliance a unifying ideology or a sense of mission, was lacking from the incentives of tribal participation in the Revolt.

The Hashemite leaders attitude to tribal groups differed from that of the Saudi leaders. Lawrence believed that tribes’ practices did not suit a structured and formal regimental organization and rather befitted their “individual excellence,” best manifested in guerrilla warfare.[115] Sharif Husayn’s leadership perception shows that he did not have an elaborate leadership scheme. His relations with other regional leaders were neglected, leading to clashes with Ibn Sa‘ud and the Idrisi leaders of ‘Asir, and only in 1918 did he conceive a “suzerainty” policy which was supposed to assure his supremacy over other leaders, but at a time when his power was already waning.[116] In a similar fashion, Husayn did not devise an elaborate method of ruling, operating on the assumption that the imposition of himself and his sons as leaders and the introduction of the shari ‘a as the governing law was the principal change required for turning the newly conquered territories of the revolt into a Hashemite-led state. Husayn, like Lawrence, was reported to believe that a limited cooperation with tribal groups, which would not evolve into a supertribal religious or organizational framework was the proper way to follow.[117]

What followed was a rather instrumental employment of tribal groups. An initial tribal grouping was formed between July and November 1916 which consisted of‘Utayba, ‘Awf, parts of the Harb, Subay‘, Bani Harith and Buqum. It functioned during the conquest of the Hijazi towns of Mecca, Ta’if, Jidda, Rabigh and Wajh. A second group consisted of the Bily, Huwaytat with the passive support of the Rwala, operating to facilitate the occupation of Transjordan and ‘Aqaba (on 6 July 1917) in particular. But, unlike the Saudi system, the tribal groups in the Sharif‘i chiefdoms were not involved or called upon to participate beyond their initial role. Once the conquest was completed at a certain region and the battlefield moved forwards (or northward), the tribal groups which had conquered the earlier region were not called upon to participate in the next “step.” Moreover, Husayn also stopped paying them the subsidy which had induced their participation. As there were no other ideological or political inter-tribal ties, the bonds among the tribal groups and between them and the leaders remained precarious.

Consequently, reports indicated that groups of the Harb and Juhaynah already started defecting from the Hijazi chiefdom in late 1917, to be followed by ‘Utayba groups, turning mainly toward the strengthening Saudi chiefdom.[118] Moreover, Husayn then started pressuring the tribal groups in the Hijazi vicinity for subordination and obedience, which resulted in a counter-productive response. In the town of Khurma, bordering Najd and the Hijaz, groups of local Subay’ ‘Utayba and Buqum refused to succumb to Husayn’s subordination and, under the leadership of Khalid Ibn al-Luwray, preferred to seek Saudi protection. They independently defeated a series of Hashimite attacks on their town in 1917–18. In May 1919, a combined force of Khurma people and Najdi Ikhwan inflicted a decisive defeat on the Sharifi main force, led by Husayn’s son, ‘Abdullah in Turaba.[119]

The Hashimite case demonstrates the ineffectiveness of outside support for state formation in tribal societies if implemented without a parallel ability to muster tribal power. His claim to power, hinged upon his religious, Hashimite background and mainly British support. To be sure the British office responsible for cooperation with Arabs, the Cairo-based Arab Bureau and the High Commissioner in Cairo indeed provided political support in 1918–19. They attempted to urge the British government in London to prevent Ibn Sa‘ud from conquering the Rashidi chieftaincy, to legitimize a Hashimite conquest of Khurma, and Husayn’s position as an Arab “suzerain.”[120] But, their attempts were not only counterbalanced by the British Gulf-based officials and the India Office officials such as Cox and Philby, but were frustrated by Husayn’s own leadership failure. As Teitelbaum asserts, after the capture of‘Aqaba, as the Revolt was moving into transjordan, the Hijazi chiefdom lost its dynamism and became a backwater,[121] Husayn failed to develop military acumen to win back Khurma, to establish a durable bond with the Hijazi tribal groups, and in fact, to establish a durable legitimacy. He found himself in a position of losing tribal groups to the Saudi chiefdom, responding through pathetic attempts to force Hijazi tribal groups to be loyal to his rule, all the while aspiring for British salvage.

Madawi al-Rasheed stresses the lack of adequate outside support for the Rashidi chieftancy as a decisive factor in its defeat: it was aligned with the Ottomans, who could pay them only a poor subsidy, the size of less than one tenth of Ibn Sa‘ud’s .£5,000 per month, and a ridiculous sum compared with Husayn’s British subsidy. Moreover, the Rashidis remained loyal to the Ottomans to the bitter end.[122] This might have been a major factor in the Rashidi collapse, but there were other important factors, highlighted mainly by Al-Rasheed herself as well as in other studies.

The Rashidi chiefdom depended on an alliance among the factions of the Shammar tribe, which was sustained through a complex system of intermarriage, connecting the leaders with various urban and nomadic groups. It also hinged on a caravan-economy based on trade (camels, horses, and imports from the far East to the Kuwaiti port) and pilgrimage, and on tributes imposed on weaker tribal groups, or alternatively, on subsidies which the Rashidi amir paid out to different tribal groups. These bonds, based on kin, trade-bound alliances and protection, were maintained through a strong leadership, notably of military and organizational skills, which peaked in the reign of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abdullah (1869—97) and to a lesser extent during that of his successor, ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Ibn Mit’ab (1897—1906). The leaders succeeded in developing military and pohce forces which facilitated expansion as well as the maintenance of law and order.

The period of World War I witnessed a decline in these qualities of cohesion. The leaders were of a lesser quality: mostly teenagers or boys, the real power resting with the Rashidi family clans such as the Subhans and the ‘Ubayds, and the rulers consecutively murdered on the account of interfamily factions. It was obvious that the house of Rashid, as the leading Shammar family, lost its internal cohesion and engaged in internal fighting, which did not abate even in the face of a growing Saudi threat. The amirs evidently lacked the ability to contain and redirect regional conditions, failed to infuse a new or renewed ideology, or project an image of success and bravery to reattract the tribal groups. The Rashidis continuing siding with the Ottomans, even when the Ottomans were declining, can attest to the leaders’ impolitic attitude.[123]

Under these circumstances, family contacts between the Rashidi leaders and Shammar groups had a further devisive effect. There were Shammar factions, such as that of Dari Ibn Tawwalla for a short while in early 1918, and the clan led by Sa‘ud Ibn Subhan between 1917 and 1921, which in fact defected to Ibn Sa’ud’s side. In 1920, Sir Percy Cox estimated that most of the Shammar tribe and two-thirds of the People of the capital, Ha’il were supporters of Ibn Sa‘ud. The Shammar group, which had become Ikhwan, were resettled in Southern Najd, at a distance from the Rashidi chiefdom.[124] Even if Cox’s estimate of the extent of pro-Saudi support in Ha’il was exaggerated and certain parts of the city remained loyal to Rashidi rule until Ha’il’s fall in November 1921, the Ikhwan s proselytizing campaigns and the magnitude of Sa‘udi expansion and military successes, drew a large portion of the Shammar toward the Sa’udis.

There was a dominant background reason for the decline of the Rashidi chiefdom. As an entity that was reliant on kin ties and political alliances and aimed to maintain trade routes, it had been severely attenuated by the economic and caravan trade. The emergence of new economic centers, and the marginalization of Ha’il as a caravan transit station caused the Shammar factions to lose power and the Ha’il merchants to lose some revenue.[125] The declining caravan trade, exacerbated by the engulfrnent of the Rashidi chiefdom by hostile, pro-British chiefdoms, neutralized the basic reason of existence of the Rashidi chiefdom. The Rashidi situation, however, also reflects a chiefdom past its prime, its leaders’ ability declining, and its cohesion waning. Decadence spread in the Rashidi chiefdom during its last decade of existence. Under the circumstances of World War I, the Rashidis were unable to muster the Shammar factions for expansion and capitalize on their loyalty, and in fact lost the loyalty of some major Shammar factions.

Kuwait was a chiefdom which depended on pearl-diving and port-based trade, run by a coalition of several major merchant families, whose enterprises turned Kuwait into a regional trade center. A protection agreement with Britain from 1899 provided for Kuwait’s strategic defense, a principle which Britain was careful to uphold, as evident in its agreement with Ibn Sa‘ud in late 1915, which clearly linked Britain’s assurance for Saudi independence from the Ottomans with Ibn Sa‘ud’s abstention from encroaching into the Gulf principalities.[126] Britain’s Defense was also evident in future crises, during which British forces had actively protected Kuwait. The Kuwaiti rulers’ association with tribal groups dwelling in their territories differed from the bonds which the earlier mentioned chiefdoms rulers’ bonds with their tribal groups. Kuwaiti rulers presided over a chiefdom which was, most of the time, too small territorially to host and provide livelihood for major tribes, was no major operator of caravans, and did not usually harbor expansionist ambitions through raiding and territorial occupation.

Kuwait hosted mostly splinter or minor malcontent groups of larger tribes dwelling mainly in the Saudi chiefdom or southern Iraq, who were manual or market workers, or employees of Kuwait’s pearl merchants. These malcontents thus functioned as employees of the Kuwaiti economy and as a link with the larger tribal groups who came to Kuwait for the markets.[127]

The reign ofMubarak al-Sabah (1896—1915) and his sonjabir (1915–17) was marked by the continuity of this system. However, during the reign of Mubarak’s other son, Salim (1917–21), he tried to develop expansionist options for Kuwait. He was presumably motivated by the fear of Saudi strengthening and the Ikhwan’s dominance, evident in attracting tribal groups from Kuwait to the Saudi chiefdom and in Saudi expansion into its territories. Moreover, as it were mainly Najdi tribal groups who obtained their supplies in Kuwait’s port, Ibn Sa‘ud claimed the lion’s share of Kuwaiti customs’ income, and attempted to impose an ineffective blockade on Kuwait from 1918 onwards.

Salim in his turn, wanted to retaliate.[128] He operated the smuggling route from Kuwait to Ha’il (and thereon to Madina which remained under Ottoman rule until January 1919), hosted groups of the ‘Ujman tribe in Kuwait (in the period 1917—19, before they became Ikhwari) and encouraged their raiding into Majd. The ‘Ujman had an ongoing dispute with the Saudi rulers (dating back to the Saudi internal war in the 1860s) and with the Mutayr, a tribe under Saudi protection, which became the backbone of the Ikhwan.

Under Cox’s instruction the former Kuwaiti ruler, Jabir, had evacuated the ‘Ujman to Iraq in order to prevent their raids into the Saudi chiefdom, but Salim re-embraced them went on to reencourage their activities against the Saudis.[129]

The Kuwait alliance with the ‘Ujman had a tenuous foundation, based on cooperation against a common rival. Salim’s ability to operate the ‘Ujman therefore had obvious shortcomings: there was no common ideology, long term purpose or even established common state interests. Consequently, as Ikhwan proselytism spread in Kuwait’s vicinity, the ‘Ujman tribal groups there were either captured by the propaganda or by the Saudi victorious image, and converted to wahhabi revivalism. Moreover, during 1919—20, the ‘Ujman either emigrated to Najd or, even in their former habitat became loyal to Ibn Sa’ud.[130]

The Kuwaitis were more effective in the battle ofjahra’ in October 1920, when they defended this village and its vicinity against an attack by Mutayr Ikhwan. The Kuwaiti commander, Da’ij Ibn Sabah, a member of the leading Kuwaiti family, managed to array both townsmen and nomads of the groups dwelling in Kuwait, and succeeded in infusing in them a sense of common purpose to defend the Kuwaiti state.[131] British intervention then led to the Mutayr’s withdrawal. The next Kuwaiti leader, Ahmad (r. 1921—50) again maintained a prudent and non expansionist policy. In this respect, it can be argued that Kuwait succeeded in establishing a common state-based ideology among its splinter tribal groups and leading families, to protect Kuwait’s independence and economic advantages. But it failed to play a regional “great game” of instigating raids and expansion.

Thus, during a period of state expansion and consolidation in the tribal society of Northern Arabia during the end of World War I and its aftermath, the Saudi chiefdom was the strongest. Based on a tribal alliance molded by religion, and supported by an effective leadership and a great power, the Saudi chiefdom proved stronger than its Rashidi rival which was based on family ties and a political alliance, molded by trade interests, and supported by a weakening leadership and a declining Ottoman Empire. The Saudi chiefdom also proved stronger than that of the Hashimite-led Arab Revolt, which hinged upon tenuous tribal-alliances, each alliance operating for a limited period, and motivated mainly by British financial injections. Despite British support, Sharif Husayn’s poor leadership and the tenuous tribal bonds were decisive in the decline of the Hijazi chiefdom. The Kuwaiti chiefdom, based on an economic alliance of tribal splinter-groups and merchant families proved unable to exercise an expansionist option based on tribal raiding. Hence, the Saudi chiefdom arrayed tribal groups and prepared itself in the best way to the changing war conditions and was able to surmount the war challenges most effectively.

The Saudi chiefdom was not only comparably stronger than that of its neighbors, but also threatened them, rivaled them and capitalized on their weakness, becoming the beneficiary of the others’ shortcomings. Consequently, to thwart Saudi dominance, these local chiefdoms attempted to align themselves against Saudi power: in summer 1920 the Kuwaiti leader Salim joined with the Rashidis and Sharif Husayn, who in his turn allied himself with al-’Aid clan in Northern ‘Asir and contacted the Imam Yahya of Yemen. The British agent in Bahrain, H. R. P. Dickson, estimated that tribal groups of southern Iraq such as the Zafir and the Shaykhs of Basra and Zubayr were part of the anti-Saudi alliance. The Sharif Husayn made clear the alliance’s goal: He [Ibn Sa‘ud] is the common enemy of us all ... we can never discharge the obligations of our religion if we do not make a combined effort to thwart his plans and eradicate this scourge of mankind.”[132] However, this alliance probably reflected intentions rather than abilities and never materialized. The member chiefdoms simply did not have sufficient tribal forces under their command. Its formation, however, irked Ibn Sa‘ud enough to embark on an initiated conquest campaign, which eventually led to the collapse of the Rashidi and Sharifi chiefdoms.

Notes

11. The Missing Link: “Badu” and “Tribal” Honor as Components in the Iraqi Decision to Invade Kuwait

Amatzia Baram

In November 1993 Iraq bowed to UN pressure and accepted the humiliating Security Council Resolution 715, which dictated the long-term presence of UN weapons’ supervision teams on its soil. This was a major concession, extremely unpopular with the Iraqi officers’ corps. As admitted by none other than Salah al-Mukhtar, Editor-in-Chief of the government daily newspaper al-Jumhuriyya, this induced “some people” to wonder “why we refused to withdraw from Kuwait [in January 1991],” only to withdraw under military pressure. Mukhtar’s answer came in two parts. The first one dealt with another question that people, apparently, had been asking: Why did Iraq invade Kuwait in the first place? A few weeks later Mukhtar contributed a second article, explaining why Iraq had not withdrawn before the Allied forces launched their attack. Essentially, both articles promoted the same concept. In his first article, some implied reservations notwithstanding, Mukhtar explained that Kuwait had humiliated Iraq, and left it little choice. The decision to invade Kuwait was derived, in the first place, from Iraq’s “tribal honor.” For many years, Mukhtar argued, Kuwait had accepted offences meekly, and allowed powers like Iran and Syria to coerce it without protest. But since the end of the Iraq—Iran War it started to “show disrespect for [Iraq], a regional power that had salvaged Kuwait [from the Iranian threat].” Hence, “in order to maintain the state’s esteem and people’s honor” it became necessary to “discipline” the offender, regardless of the cost.

Maintaining honor and esteem is at the forefront of our social traditions (taqaliduna al-ijtima’iyya) . .. Thus our tribes have been fighting among themselves for years, and scores of people have died as a result ofjust one degrading word that came out, or of placing the coffee cup (al-fmjan) in a certain [offensive] way. Revenge and drowning the shame (ghasl al-ar) [in blood], whatever we think about them, are all part of social values according to which honor and respect demand blood and sacrifice ... the tribe is guarding its honor with a w ill of corpses and sea of blood ... And can anyone expect from Iraq, ... that it would ignore humiliations from the worms and serpents of the earth just because ... [the offender, Kuwait] is guarded by [the US], a wild beast ready to attack and destroy? The rude and provocative actions of the rulers of Kuwait demanded an appropriate punitive reaction to protect the Iraqi state’s esteem and honor and give future generations an example of their great fathers’ concern about... [their] honor.[133] (author’s emphasis)

And in January:

The concepts of national honor and glory (al-sharaf wal-‘izza al-qawmiyya) are nothing but the highest and widest expression of the tribe’s and tribal federation’s concepts (mafahim al-‘ashira wal-qabila) .. . Thus, whenever there is a transgression against the honor of the tribe or the federation or the nation, ... immediately there are reactions that seem on the face of it emotional... because they are not based on calculation ... but, rather, stem from revenge and future deterrent ... The meaning of revenge ... [and] tribal honor (al-sharaf al-‘asha’iri) ... [and] the idea of the tribal punishing deterrence (al-rad’ al-Hqabi al-‘asha’iri) mean acting, regardless of the results that will follow the revenge (al-tha’r). This is why the mentality of revenge gave birth to a series of wars between the tribes... This way the rational calculations were dropped in favor of the language of honor and glory ... [134]

Such articles could not have appeared without the explicit blessing of the president. Indeed, it may even be suggested that it was the president, in the first place, who ordered the publication of these articles. On the face of it, this explanation for Saddam Husayn’s motivation to invade, then to stay and fight, is a transparent attempt to legitimize the most glaring errors of judgment ever made by Saddam Husayn by linking them to traditional popular values. Indeed, the readers must have wondered how come that Iraq’s “tribal honor,” which did not allow it to withdraw in time to avoid a devastating war, did allow it to accept all the humiliating UN resolutions which denied it weapons of mass-destruction. Similarly, two years before it invaded Kuwait, Iraq had agreed to a cease-fire in its eight-year war with Iran, despite the fact that Ayat Allah Ruh Allah Khomeini and his regime hurled at Saddam Husayn and his Ba’th ruling party every item of abuse in their vocabulary.

Where was Iraq’s “tribal honor” then, the perplexed readers must have wondered. Yet the intention in this article is to show that the issue is far more complicated than it seems at first sight, and that Saddam Husayn’s reference to tribal honor goes far deeper than a mere cynical manipulation.

In the first place, the very fact that the regime invoked tribal values as justification for its political modus operandi is no less than an ideological revolution: the Ba’th party had always prided itself on its modern, avant-garde orientation, rejecting tribalism as part of the country’s social backward legacy.[135] The new line forms an integral part of a major political and ideological transformation which started soon after the party came to power in 1968. It went through a quantum leap since Saddam Husayn became president in 1979, but emerged into the full light of day only in the late 1980s and, mainly, since the Shi’i Intifada of March 1991. From the outset, the main moving force behind this transformation was Vice-President and Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) Saddam Husayn al-Tikriti al-Nasiri.[136]

Badu and Tribal Arabs, and the Regime’s Power-Base

To create for himself a sturdy power-base Saddam Husayn recruited to the regime’s internal security apparatus many members of his own (and President Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr’s) Tikrit-based tribe, al bu-Nasir. The majority of the presidential bodyguards, organized in Special Security (al-Amn al-Khass), were recruited from al bu-Nasir at an early age (sometimes as early as 14 years). Their ties with their families virtually severed, they were housed in special compounds in the capital, at the Republican Palace (al-Qasr al-Jumhuri) and other locations, where they were taught little beyond practical military skills, and they continued to speak in the Tikriti dialect. They were trained under extremely harsh discipline. Some of them died as a result of the ruthless training they received, and any serious failure to carry out the president’s orders was punishable by death. At the end of their training period they were desensitized and conditioned to total obedience to the man whom they called ‘ammna al-chebir (“Our Big Paternal Uncle”), Saddam Husayn.[137] This cross between the Mamluk and the tribal systems seems to have produced remarkable results. Those young people who managed to survive (literally) and graduate from this harsh school grew to dread and to admire Saddam Husayn, and proved loyal to him. In the early 1980s the president started to recruit young tribal people to other elite units. This recruitment policy derived from the president’s personal perception of tribal Arabs, even those who had become sedentary, as badu (nomads), and thus retaining the social norms of the desert: belief in honor and valour. As he saw it, they were less likely to surrender in battle.[138]

Saddam Husayn seems to have extended this admiration for the Badu and the post-Badu to all tribal Arabs, and even to non-tribal Arabs who could be reminded of their tribal roots. In all the army units, at least since the beginning of the Iraq—Iran War, whenever the president met with his soldiers, he used to ask them as a matter of routine, “what is your tribe?” (wen halak, halak wen, ya’nf) (meaning: ahlak). After the soldier replied “Tayy, O My Lord!” (“Tayy, ya sayyidi!”), the president would reply, “Good men, Tayy! Give them our regards” (khosh zilim Tayy! sallemna [:]aleym).[139]

On the cultural level, during the 1980s “Bedouin is beautiful” became an accepted norm. Thus, in a poem published on the occasion of the president’s birthday, Saddam’s face was described as “your bedouin face” (wajhuka al-badaun),[140] and tribal-bedouin expressions started to appear in the press.[141] In Saddam Husayn’s biography, published as a novel describing the life-journey of one Muhammad the Hawk (al-Saqr) Son of Husayn, by one of Iraq’s leading novelists, his family is defined as “among the best of Bedouin and their cavaliers.” In Saddam’s face, like in other “faces of the desert,” one could see “firm belief, immutable like the the laws of heaven.” In his eyes, and those of other Bedouin, “lay the depth of survival,” in their arms dwelt “the experience of fighting, and the alacrity [?] of death was in their hearts.” Saddam was “like those figures in tales of desert cavaliers and moonlit nights,” heroic and undaunted. The Bedouin are described as simple, removed from politics, but loyal in the extreme, honest, and the epitome of “manliness and valour.”[142] Indeed, during the Iraq-Iran War the president was often depicted in drawings and paintings wearing the robe (al-‘abaya) of a desert shaykh and riding on an Arab horse.[143] And while during the war he was photographed almost exclusively in the the military uniform of a field-marshal, during the night of festivities celebrating the cease-fire, the president cruised the rejoicing streets of Baghdad in his armored sedan car wearing a Bedouin shaykh’s robe.[144]

Indeed, since the early 1980s there has been massive penetration of Bedouin culture into the Iraqi media and city fife. The Tikriti power elite, having gained confidence, started gradually to create a new power language. They reverted to Tikriti and, less frequently, the southern vernacular, dropping some Baghdadi forms they had adopted when they moved to the capital in the 1950s and 1960s. Some Baghdadis, too, dutifully changed their language.[145] And while in the 1950s the most popular songs in the capital were in the maqam style (a form of melancholy urban Iraqi blues), accompanied by the ’ud (an Arab lute), violin, a drum, and sometimes other instruments, since the 1980s the maqam has receded in radio and TV broadcasts. Rural southern and northern popular music and poetry became more conspicuous in the media. Even though shi’r sha’bi, vernacular village poetry, has always been fairly widespread in the poorer parts of Baghdad, since the early 1980s it has become prominent in the electronic media. The popular musical instrument also changed, to the Bedouin rababa. Likewise, the new ruling elite introduced a bedouin version of the dahka group-dance. In parties where senior Ba’thi officials participated in the various Baghdadi social clubs which they monopolized or established (Nadi al-Sayd, Nadi al-Hindiyya, Nadi al-Zawariq, aWUlwiyah, and others), the new rulers would dance the Bedouin dabka. This way the provincial (or, as they pesented themselves: Bedouin) Ba’thi elite would indicate that they had arrived. Baghdadis who wished to signal recognition of the new masters would join in.[146]

Finally, tribal norms were applied by Saddam Husayn even with regard to the single most traumatic event in his own family since he became a central politician in Baghdad: the defection to Amman, in August 1995, of his two sons-in-law and cousins, his two daughters and their children. In the first place, the regime announced that the two daughters and the children had been, in fact, kidnapped by the husbands\fathers, General Husayn Kamil al-Majid, and his brother, Saddam Kamil. This way, the shame involved in the daughters’ defection was supposedly removed. In addition, the family denounced the defectors and permitted anyone to spill their blood with impunity (hadr al-dam).[147] On 21 February 1996 the two brothers, frustrated by their experiences in Amman, and having secured a pledge from the Revolutionary Command Council and the top party institution to pardon them, returned to Baghdad. The next day their wives divorced them. On the evening of 23 February ‘Udayy Saddam Husayn’s TV station, Sawt al-Shabbab min Dar al-Salam (The Voice of the Youth from the Abode of Peace), reported that they, along with their brother, Hakam, who defected and returned with them, as well as their father, Kamil, (and, as came out later: their two sisters and their families), were killed in a gun fight by young people from their clan. Significantly, the assassins were described as the offspring of ‘Abd al-Ghafur, the president’s great-grand father, namely: as belonging to the defectors’ and the president’s khams. The next day the Iraqi press praised the “heroic” act, designed to redeem the family’s honor, and mourned the two relatives who died while assailing Husayn and Saddam Kamil. Senior army officers and state officials, from Deputy Chairman of the RCC and Deputy Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri down, participated in their funerals. This way Saddam both endorsed the killings and tried to distance himself from the affair. Though the tribal custom was perverted on a number of major issues in this case, the implied message was that this was the tribal rather than the state mechanism which had been triggered off, and thus that the president and the RCC had not violated their pledge.[148]

Tribal Values in the Political Culture of Ba’thi Iraq

All the above are indications of a deep sea-change, cultural as much as social and political. All the available information suggests that, for the man behind the change, tribalism (or what he considered as such) was more than a propaganda ploy. He presented and, possibly, saw himself as a tribal Badu. He surrounded himself with his rural tribal troops, whom he trusted sufficiently to place his personal safety in their hands, and manned the regime’s elite troops with tribal people. He even seems to have convinced himself that, by “tribalizing” the non-tribal troops, he could inspire them to fight better, after whole brigades had surrendered in the battles of Abadan and Khorramshahr. And he had his renegade cousins killed in a tribal fashion.

Tribal values were invoked publicly in connection with Saddam Husayn and his ruling elite’s political thinking following the end of the Iraq—Iran War. There is no way of telling how deeply (or “truly”) they believed in these values which they invoked: after all, they could have cynically used tribal values, real or fabricated, to impress their own audience, and the Arab as well as foreign powers they were trying to manipulate. But the consistent harping on tribal-Badu matters, so dissonant with party doctrine, and the introduction of tribal troops into the heart of Baghdad, suggest that, at least in the case of Saddam Husayn, this was more than a mere political gimmick. It is suggested here that, whether he himself actually believed in them (and he certainly may have), tribal values, or what Saddam Husayn considered to be such values, did actually influence his political thinking.

By far the most prevalent value mentioned or implied was honor, mostly the damage which Kuwait inflicted on Iraq’s honor, and somewhat less conspicuously, the danger to Iraq’s honor from other directions. A sense of hurt Iraqi pride prevailed in Iraqi-Kuwaiti relations since a few months before the end of the Iraq-Iran War. As the Iraqi side saw it, after Iraq sacrificed “for their sake” and “so their coffers would remain full,” the lives of “the cream of its youth,” Kuwait owed Iraq a tremendous degree of economic support, but no less important, respect.[149] This sense of hurt pride became all the more difficult to contain in view of the huge gap in size and military prowess. As we are told by the-then editor in chief of the government daily newspaper al-Jumhuriyya, Iraq saw itself as a victorious regional superpower, and thus expected the Gulf states to recognize its special role as “the elder brother and the guardian brother” (al-akh al-akbar wal- ... hamt). This elder Iraqi brother was adamant “not to tolerate any damage ... coming from its small neighbors who have lived under his protection for the last ten years.”[150] Instead, the Iraqi leadership felt, or just claimed, that Iraq experienced ingratitude and “impudence” on the part of Kuwait and other Gulf states.[151]

Following the liberation of the Faw peninsula in April 1988, when Iraq believed that the war was nearly over, it turned to Kuwait in the Algiers Arab Summit of June 1988 to settle the border issue. The Iraqi position was that the border agreement which the previous Ba’th regime had signed with Kuwait in 1963 was null and void because it had never been ratified (the regime was toppled a few months after Deputy Prime Minister ‘Ali Salih al-Sa’di signed the document).[152] As Tariq ‘Aziz described it, in Algiers the Kuwaitis were “intentionally stalling [the] talks,”[153] and Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Shaykh Sabah al-Ahmad even had the gall to say: “We are not in a hurry in this matter.”[154] Further Iraqi attempts to negotiate (or dictate) the mutual border met with further Kuwaiti evasion. (Indeed, the Kuwaitis, wary of brutal Iraqi pressure, preferred indirect negotiations, or negotiations on neutral ground, with other Arab participants acting as buffers.)

What the Iraqi side found (or claimed to have found) most offensive was the attitude of the Kuwaiti Emir. When the war ended, he was invited to Baghdad, not having visited there for ten years. But he dragged his feet, while other Arab leaders were quick to come and congratulate Iraq on its “victory.” This delay was interpreted by Iraq as “bad faith.” When he finally came on 23 September 1989, he was the only Arab leader for whom Iraqi singers sang panegyrics [on the TV and radio] such as “ YaJabir, Wallah wa kafayt \ Baghdad ukht al-kuwayt” (“O [Shaykh] Jabir, you have fulfilled your duty \ Baghdad is Kuwait’s sister”). The Iraqi press, for its part, wrote that Kuwait’s policy during the war was “pan-Arab,” “typified by responsibility, courage and farsightedness.” Saykh Jabir was defined as Saddam’s “brother from father and mother,” and Iraq was dubbed Jabir’s “second homeland.” But when Saddam Husayn again wanted to discuss the border, to his “astonishment” the Emir turned him down, again repaying generosity with affront. Until the 2 August 1990 invasion Kuwait was doing all it could to avoid the Iraqis. These evasion tactics were interpreted in Baghdad as intentionlly offensive.[155]

There was another matter which infuriated Iraq and this was the issue of the Iraqi war debt to Kuwait, which the latter refused to write off. This, too, was regarded, or presented, as a major offense. Worse still, the Iraqis seem to have believed that Kuwait was going to sell the debt to Lloyds, which could seriously affect Iraq’s credit worthiness. To repay Iraq for its sacrifices in this way was deemed unforgivable.[156] As the Iraqi president described it, Kuwait and the other Gulf states ignored the tribal value of generosity also in regard to Jordan, Iraq’s long-time protege. Thus, at the Baghdad Arab Summit of May 1990 Saddam Husayn decided to re-educate his rich guests: he told them about the Bedouin who gave his guest his last pot of soup, even though he and his children were starving. Iraq, he implied, is doing the same thing now, when it assists Jordan, while the Gulf states were indifferent to their own Bedouin tradition.[157] On another occasion Saddam Husayn told his listeners of his village reminiscences: as a child, he was told many stories about kings who had lost their kingdoms, and turned to tribes, who helped them regain them. “This kind of values does not move the mustache of those [Gulf Arabs], and when Iraq decided to help our brothers they plotted against us,” the Iraqi president complained. “How,” he asked, “shall we [Arabs] be one tribe [sic!] or one nation, as long as the poor have no share in the [tribal] wealth?”[158]

Therefore, the Kuwaiti and UAE excessive oil production, which the Iraqis presented as the main cause behind the price slump, was presented (and, possibly, seen) as the last straw. And when Saddam Husayn warned during the same Summit that Iraq would deal with those who were flooding the oil market in the same way as with those who were waging war against it, the Emir reportedly offended him again by not responding. As Chief Editor Bazzaz described it, he was just sitting there, “rubbing his jet-black dyed beard with the tips of four of his left-hand fingers,” as if the whole commotion did not concern him at all.[159]

Most instructive is Bazzaz’s account of the crucial diplomatic mission of the then-Deputy Prime Minister Sa’dun Hammadi to Kuwait. On the night of 25 June 1990 he was supposed to arrive in Kuwait from Jidda and meet the Emir early the next morning, but at Jidda airport he was told that the Emir would be busy next morning with a domestic emergency. Hammadi returned to town and spent the night in Jidda. He left for Kuwait only in the afternoon of the next day. The Iraqis were “infuriated” when they learned that the delay was due to a visit by the Iranian foreign minister to Kuwait, which meant that Kuwait preferred Iran to Iraq. After he met with the Emir, Hammadi returned home on 27 June and immediately attended an RCC meeting which included the president, Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Foreign Minister Tariq ‘Aziz and two other members. Hammadi informed the gathering that he was “humiliated” by the Emir, who also refused to forgive the Iraqi debt, and whose consent to discuss a reduction in Kuwait’s oil production seemed to Hammadi to have been insincere. As Bazzaz describes it, no less than the perceived Kuwaiti intransigence, it was the humiliation which his representative had suffered at the hands of the Emir which outraged the Iraqi president. The precise plan was left to subsequent meetings, but this was the first time that it was decided to use military force against Kuwait. Bazzaz blames the fateful decision on Hammadi who, as a Shi’i, felt the urge to demostrate his loyalty to the essentially Sunni regime in an unmistakeable way. As Bazzaz saw it, Hammadi inflated the Kuwaiti affront, and the humiliation to Iraq, out of all proportion, thus forcing Saddam to make a hasty decision. Whether or not Hammadi did, indeed, blow the affront out of proportion is less important than the possibility that Saddam Husayn is reported by one of his chief ideologues as having made a decision of that magnitude, to a significant extent, out of a consideration of honor.[160] The report seems credible. It was first published in Bazzaz’s book when he was still loyal to Saddam Husayn. When it was again made public, Bazzaz was a political refugee in Jordan and the US. He could have denied the whole story, claiming he was instructed to write this way, but he never did. Indeed, he even re-confirmed it. Another way of looking at it is that Saddam was only waiting for an excuse to invade Kuwait, and that Hammadi dutifully provided it. More likely, however, the Iraqi president needed to demonstrate even to himself and to his senior lieutenants that Iraq was being humiliated, and that he was enraged. Hammadi’s story triggered off this halfcalculated, half-genuine rage, which started the ball rolling.

The Iraqi side was offended for yet another reason: Kuwait established direct sea and air links with Iran, but refused Iraq an air corridor, which created difficulties for Basra airport, and again accentuated Kuwait’s new orientation toward Iran. And finally, Iraq offered to supply Kuwait with water from the Shatt al-Arab waterway through a pipeline, and Kuwait had the temerity to “drag its feet” over such a selfless, generous offer.[161] Very possibly, the Kuwaitis were wary of an Iraqi encroachment on their territory under the guise of the construction of the pipeline. But to the Iraqi leader this was a humiliating rebuff, or so it was presented.

Following the invasion, the Iraqi president added two more offenses. He depicted all the Arabs as people who betrayed the value of austerity, and the Gulf Arabs as sexually corrupt, and he linked it to the tribal value of guarding Hrd (the honor of women). Arab life in general, he asserted, was in need of a total puritan revolution:

The Arabs have become corrupt in all social, cultural, ideological, political and economic walks of life. There is now no field left without corruption ... You all know that some Arab Emirs and kings go to Islamic and Arab states and gather the women together to look at them ... they line women up to choose some of them for their entourage, for their ministers and for the Emir himself ... Jihad ... is also against infidel behavior that leads to infidelity. The one who seeks to corrupt... must be opposed.[162]

On another occasion the Iraqi president claimed that the Kuwaiti ruler had seventy wives.[163] Closer to home, in an interview with a Yemeni delegation two days after the invasion, Saddam Husayn accused the Gulf shaykhs that they used to go to Egypt and Morocco, where they chose girls for their sexual pleasures. Now, he charged, they want to reduce Iraq, too, to the same state, so that they can turn Iraqi girls, too, into prostitutes.[164]

Following the invasion Saddam Husayn summed up the whole issue of Kuwaiti and Gulf Arab damage to the honor of Iraq and the Arabs, exclaiming:

If the issue is to be dealt with in the logic of [exploiting] an opportunity, then we have just been pushed to take advantage of the opportunity and re-take [Kuwait]. And if the issue is to be dealt with in the logic of the tribes (bi mantiq al-‘asha’ir), then if they [Kuwait] want to return to the Arab tribe they must pay diyyah (blood-money, honor-money) [to be forgiven for their offences ... However,] they want to belong to us, and yet they do not defend us, nor do they pay the diyyah to the tribe![165]

Tribal Honor and the Saddam-Glaspie Meeting

According to the report of April Glaspie, the US Ambassador in Baghdad, to the Secretary of State, at her fateful meeting with the Iraqi president on 25 July 1990, one week before the invasion, Saddam warned the US against pushing Iraq into war by “arm-twisting” or by “humiliating” it. The Iraqis, he pointed out, wanted friendship with the US, but they are a proud nation, “who believe in ‘liberty or death’,” and if pushed or humiliated they would go to war, disregarding any logic. In the Ambassador’s words:

Saddam asks that the US Government not force Iraq to the point of humiliation, at which logic must be disregarded .. . Saddam said that the Iraqis know what war is, [and] want no more of it, “Do not push us to it; do not make it the only option left with which we can protect our dignity” [he said] ... He is apprehensive that we do not understand certain political factors which inhibit him, such as: he cannot allow himself to be perceived as caving in to superpower bullying, as Ambassador Nizar Hamdun frankly (sic!) warned us in late 1988.

On another occasion Glaspie reported: “If publicly humiliated, he [Saddam] warned, or rather pleaded, that Iraq would have to ‘respond’.” She suggested that Saddam’s purpose was to assure President Bush that his intentions were peaceful, and that he hoped that US Administration public criticism would be damped down. Saddam did not want to further antagonize the US, she observed.[166] As for the sense of hurt pride in Iraq over Kuwait’s ingratitude she wrote:

Saddam expended considerable emotion seeking to convey how wrong Iraqis believe it is for the Kuwaitis, who are rich, not to open their purses when Iraq, which “bled rivers” to protect them, is so financially strapped that he will soon have to cut the pensions of widows and orphans of dead Iraqi soldiers.

If the ambassador’s report is accurate (the Iraqi transcript is different, but unlike the ambassador, Iraq had good reason to misrepresent what was said at the meeting), then clearly Saddam drove the tribal concept of honor to great extremes. The ambassador was, apparently, prepared for this kind of “honor or death” approach, because in Saddam Husayn’s Revolution Day speech a few days earlier he announced, in a slightly different context: “We prefer death to humiliation.”[167] In the interview this language was used in order to prevent the ambassador and her superiors from issuing the kind of warning (possibly accompanied by troop-concentrations) that could stop him in his tracks. His success was complete: in her summing-up remarks, Glaspie accepted this claim that Iraqis, if humiliated, would lose control over their own behavior. Her practical recommendation was “to ease-off on public criticism of Iraq until we see how the negotiations develop.” It is not clear whether or not she endorsed Saddam’s other tribal value, the Iraqi demand that the rich Kuwaitis would “open their purses.” Saddam’s definition of Kuwait as “miserly” and “selfish,” was also reported without comment. And, the ambassador described the unbelievable scene when, at the mention of the Iraqi orphans and widows, “the interpreter and one of the note-takers broke down and wept.” Glaspie did warn him, pointing out that “We can never excuse settlement of disputes by other than peaceful means,” but with six Republican Guard divisions on the Iraqi—Kuwaiti border such a muffled warning was far below the required threshhold of deterrence.[168]

The Department of State’s analysts and, following them, the White House, accepted the ambassador’s analysis and recommendation; this is evident from the American presidential response. On 28 July Ambassador Glaspie was instructed to deliver to the Iraqi government in an “oral response,” or “non-paper,” the president’s satisfaction that Iraq and Kuwait agreed to meet in Jidda to find a peaceful solution to their dispute. President Bush did not hide the fact that the US and Iraq did not see eye to eye on some Iraqi policies, and warned that the US would continue to raise those issues “frankly.” However, it would do so also in a “friendly way.” Most important, he expressed his confidence that both the US and Iraq were interested in preserving peace and stability, and thus that “We believe that differences are best resolved by peaceful means and not by threats involving military force or conflict.” President Bush assured Saddam Husayn that, like Iraq, the US was also interested in better mutual relations. At the same time, however, the message continued, the US would also continue to support “our other friends in the region,” with whom it had “long-standing ties,” thus placing Iraq and Kuwait more or less on the same level of intimacy and friendship with the US.[169]

The thinking behind the American soft-pedalling was, apparently, that if provoked, Saddam, a tribal Bedouin, would go to war, even against his own best interest, but otherwise he would settle for diplomacy. Saddam, for his part, had already given on 18 or 19 July the orders to Republican Guard Commander, General Iyad Khalifa al-Rawi, to prepare the invasion and occupation of Kuwait, and the first units started to roll toward the border.[170]

To what extent was Saddam’s “tribal honor” threat, directed at the US, real? If one accepts’ Glaspie’s version, then clearly the warning was a smoke screen: the US did everything in its power to avoid offensive language or moves, and yet Iraq invaded Kuwait. As he told Ambassador Glaspie, and as she reported it, the Iraqi president was ready to offer Iran concessions on the Shatt al-Arab waterway, in exchange for a free hand in Kuwait. All he needed was evidence that the US, the other meaningful power in the Gulf region, would not go to war over Kuwait. What seems to have happened at the meeting was that, by promising Glaspie that he would give diplomacy a chance, and by serving a tribal warning against any American insulting moves, Saddam Husayn “fed” the American “computer” with false cultural information. In turn, this produced a mistaken American reaction, which led Saddam to a mistaken conclusion that the US was not ready to fight, which sent his tanks rolhng into Kuwait.

In his al-Jumhuriyya articles Salah Mukhtar, Saddam Husayn’s ideologue, presented a different version, which ties in well with the Iraqi transcript of the meeting between Saddam and the US ambassador. As he presented it, as a result if its obligation to preserve, or salvage, its “tribal honor,” Iraq had no choice but to attack, then remain in Kuwait and suffer the consequences. But that any insult to Saddam Husayn would send his tanks rolling into Kuwait regardless of the consequences is out of context. Tribes do not go to war so easily, especially when defeat is assured. The whole mechanism of arbitration, blood money and honor money (fasl al-qatil diyyah, hashm) was introduced in order to circumvent endless feuds (usually not between whole tribes but, rather, between kin-based groups of five generations, khams). Long, unresolved blood feuds that continue endlessly to draw new blood are the exception, not the rule in traditional tribal society. As Dale Eickelman points out: “Cultural notions of persuasion, together with mediation ... and negotiation, are basic to the shared moral community of tribesmen, not the use of sheer force.”[171] As emerges from the present author’s interviews with Kuwaiti academics and diplomats, the Kuwaiti government expected this kind of tribal modus operandi, only to be taken by complete surprise when Saddam broke all the traditional rules and used sheer (and massive) force.[172] And as pointed out above, the Iraqi ruling elite itself was not consistent in maintaining its own stereotyped concept of tribal honor: whenever there was a widely-recognized need to reach an agreement with a proven and tested tough enemy they showed themselves ready for a compromise — despite the humiliation.

All the evidence points in one direction: Saddam attacked not because he had no choice but, rather, because he believed that the US would not be willing to go to war to rescue Kuwait. And he stayed because, even with half a million Allied troops on his doorstep, he still believed the US was bluffing. No one was more surprised than he when the bombs started to fall on Baghdad in the early morning hours of 17 January 1991.[173] It would seem then that the Iraqi president’s decisions backfired because they were based on false information with regard to his adversary’s resolve, not because they were “tribal,” i.e. because they intentionally ignored the consequences.

Conclusion

One can ask whether the claim to a tribal modus operandi is totally false. This is, indeed, the first impression. Rather than the result of a genuine sentiment, the whole tribal component in Saddam’s propaganda campaign — first as a new president, then as a war leader, fighting for all the Arabs against their historical enemy the Persians and, finally in the campaign against Kuwait — looks false. In the latter case it seems to have been fabricated only to manipulate the sentiments of the Iraqis and other Arabs, and to cow the US into passivity. But while there is no doubt that tribal values were used to manipulate the target audiences, it is suggested here that more was involved. It will be remembered that, at least since 1979, Saddam Husayn grafted a tribal-Bedouin component onto Iraq’s power structure and culture. Furthermore, Saddam Husayn made every effort to identify his own person with the tribal-Bedouin theme, creating a myth for himself and his family as fierce and fearless desert warriors. To a large extent, he built his image as a fierce but also magnanimous leader on the Bedouin myth. Also, even if one takes with a pinch of salt the claims that Kuwait had offended Iraq’s honor numerous times befor the latter was compelled to go to war, the very fact that the regime has been making use of such claims is an expression of a state of mind. It is very likely that, after twenty years of such myth-building, the Iraqi president began to be influenced by his own propaganda, seeing himself more and more as truly a Bedouin, bound by the honor codes of the desert. Alternatively, it may be that, even though Saddam Husayn never fell into this trap, he did fall into another one: having conditioned his ruling elite and people alike to the idea that their president was some kind of a desert tribal Bedouin, whose magnanimity is matched only by his vengefulness whenever his honor is being compromised, he had to preserve the myth, even though he did not himself believe it. The Achilles’ heel of this propaganda campaign is that myths are, usually, larger than life. Under Saddam Husayn the myth of Bedouin honor, too, was greater than life, uprooting a useful and functional social value and practice from its natural enviroment and planting it in the barren soil of a modem absolutist dictatorship. To behave in a flexible fashion when faced with a serious threat, as tribesmen usually do, Saddam Husayn needed much more: he needed glaring and unambiguous proof that his adversary was ready to go to war, and able to inflict horrendous damage on Iraq. Such irrefutable proof could be supplied only through an actual war, and a devastating one, at that. It is very likely that some of his advisers did not need war to show flexibility, but they could not afford to antagonize their leader. Thus they preferred the lesser risk of going down with the ship, in the hope that the ship might not sink after all, rather than incurring the wrath of the captain. And Iraq paid the price.

Notes

Although a draft of this article was prepared when I stayed as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. I was greatly assisted in my research by grants from the US Institue of Peace, Washington, D.C., and the Bertha Von Suttner Project for the Optimization of Conflict Resolution. I am indebted to all three organizations for their support, without which it would have been impossible for me to complete the study. I am also grateful to Professors Dale Eickelman, Joseph Ginat, and William and Fidelity Lancaster for going over the manuscript and making useful comments. I would also like to thank my assistant, Ronen Zeidel, for his invaluable help. However, all the responsibility for the article is mine, and mine alone.

12. Preservation and Change in Bedouin Societies in Israel

Joseph Ginat

The Bedouin of the Negev are in an advanced stage of sedentarization. This process began in the 1960s and intensified during the late 1970s. The change was first from a more nomadic to a less nomadic way of life, then from a nomadic to a more sedentary way of life. In discussing various assumptions about the nature of change, Salzman says that:

One such assumption is that socio-cultural change is irreversible, directional, and cumulative. Irreversibility is understood in two senses: that what has happened cannot be undone, and that a return to a previous state is impossible. Directionality is the sense that things change in a particular direction and continue to change in that direction, sometimes in an accelerating fashion. The cumulative nature of change means that previous change has an impact on all that comes after, and each new change feeds into the following developments. (1980)

In the introduction to their book, Nomads in a Changing World, editors Philip Salzman and John Galaty write: “But exactly how has the world changed, and how has it changed differently in different places, in relation to nomadic people? For example, how have developments in communications, transportation, military, and production technology impinged upon nomadic peoples; how have new cities and new states affected nomadic peoples?” (Salzman and Galaty, 1990: 3).

The question posed by Salzman and Galaty focuses mainly on two levels: the state level and its activities in relation to the nomads, and the level of the nomads’ relationship with permanent settlements (Janzen, 1986). These two relationships develop wherever nomads are found. The authorities in all Middle Eastern countries are always interested in having more control over the population and in diminishing the extent of nomadism. For the sake of development, they build roads which cut across areas where the Bedouin live. Mekki El-Jamil, referring to the oil drillings in the desert areas of Iraq, and the Bedouin’s encounter with this technology and with the workers on the rigs, notes that the Bedouin there were exposed for the first time to a way of life thev had never seen before (El-Jamil, 1956: 81—2).

The Bedouin, wherever they may be, are never cut off from the permanent settlement (Chatty, 1990: 123). Lancaster (1984), in his discussion on the interaction between nomads and settled communities, introduced the term “complementary oppositions.” This refers to the fact that the two types of communities have conflicts of interests as demonstrated in years of drought and during dry seasons, when the nomads raid the fields of the permanent settlements in order to feed their livestock.[174]

During the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the Bedouin took advantage of the regime’s weakness and raided the permanent settlements (Lewis, 1987). Khazanov demonstrates this by describing the situation in the North African countries, stating that: “Sometimes the North African states were so weak that nomads were able to rob and exploit the sedentary population” (Khazanov, 1994: 283). Much has been written on the nomads’ dependency upon sedentary societies and on the interactions between them (Barth, 1973; Bates, 1971, 1973; Cole, 1975; Dalton, 1990; Fazel, 1973; Hart, 1973; Khazanov, 1994; Lutfiyya, 1966; Marx, 1990; Salzman, 1980, 1987 [introduction to Ginat]; Tapper, 1990).[175]

The tribal chiefs and heads of families fear the deterioration of the tribal social structure, which can result from the dramatic changes that take place primarily during periods of transition from nomadism or semi-nomadism to permanent settlement. In the face of such changes, the heads of tribes attempt to preserve the culture, the legal system based on urf (tradition), and the values and norms of behavior.

Oweidi (1982) states that, despite the abolition of the Bedouin Control Law, including the abolition of the bishcf practice[176] in 1976, tribal law is still in practice among the Bedouin tribes, and moreover, it is still operative in civil courts, albeit unofficially. Linda Layne (1994) discusses this issue in her research: “The Jordanian press regularly published articles in both English and Arabic debating the pros and cons of‘tribalism’ under headlines such as ‘Jordanian Bedouins Enshrine Arab Virtues,’ ‘Can We Afford These Archaic Customs?,’ and ‘Detribalisation — Towards the Rule of One Law.’ Those in favor of‘tribalism’ portrayed it as the embodiment of a valued past, whereas those against it saw it as outdated and standing in the way of progress.” Layne quotes Maruan Muasher during the period when he was a newspaper columnist, before he was appointed as Ambassador to Israel and Minister of Information in the Jordanian government. She claims that “Muasher criticized the government for support of tribal practices that ‘are followed not only by Bedouins but also by many urbanite, educated Jordanian families ... ‘this way of life has survived the modem social transformation Jordan has gone through ... These are the eighties, not the twenties, not the fifties, not even the seventies’” (Muasher, Jordan Times, 19 January 1985). (Layne, 1994:97).

Layne gathers further criticism against the continued practice of Bedouin laws and customs, quoting from Ahmad al-Anani’s book: “We are unable to extricate ourselves from some outdated nomadic habits, such as the processions and ritual meals held on occasions of marriage, settlement of blood feuds, rituals of consolation and congratulation ... and a long list of similar habits which were extant in Jordan since pre-Islamic times” (Layne, 1994:98). Layne offers additional excerpts from those opposing the continued tribal jurisdiction, and notes that some consider the tribal loyalty to be the primary one, while other loyalties remain secondary. As Layne puts it, “Like the modernization theories, Jordanian critics of tribalism assumed that loyalty to a tribe is ‘automatic,’ whereas loyalties such as those to class, party, or professional organizations are ‘pragmatic’” (Layne, 1994: 99). Thus, we can see that although the practice of laws and customs originating from Bedouin tradition was abolished in 1976, a different reality prevails.

This chapter will focus on three issues:

1. Marriage patterns — changes and attempts at preservation.

2. Tashmis (outcasting) — cultural patterns used in the past to prevent the individual from rising in power. The increase in the individual’s power weakens the cohesion of the khams (co-liable group) (Marx, 1967).

3. The bishd (trial by fire) — this ceremony, originating from the nomadic tribes, is still used, even after becoming sedentarized. This ritual is also used by villagers and city dwellers, who consider it to be a good method for resolving conflicts on various levels.

Attempts at Changing and Preserving Traditional
Marriage Patterns

Marriage patterns have been dealt with extensively by various scholars studying Bedouin and Arab rural societies (Ayoub, 1959; Baldensperger, 1900; Barth, 1954, 1973; Black-Michaud, 1975; Bromlei, 1974; Canaan, 1931; Chelhood, 1965; Cohen, 1965; Cuisinier, 1962; Eickelman, 1984; Ginat, 1982; A. Goldberg, 1974; H. Goldberg, 1967; Granqvist, 1931, 1935; Harnmel and Goldberg, 1971; Keyser, 1974; Khuri, 1970; Kressel, 1972, 1976, 1992; Marx, 1967; Murphy and Kasdan, 1959, 1964; Musil, 1928; Patai, 1955, 1965; Peters, 1965; Randolph, 1963; Randolph and Coult, 1968; Rosenfeld, 1957, 1968, 1973; Smith, 1966; Westermarck, 1921).

Many scholars have dealt with the issue of the preference of first patrilateral parallel cousin, that is, the father’s brother’s daughter (FBD) for marriage. Some scholars emphasize the right of a man to marry his FBD (bint amm). Patai (1955) claims that preference and right go together, pointing out that preference may exist without right, but right (in this context) depends on preference. (The terms in-group and out-group marriages are used for unions within the descent group.) Accordingly, FBD is classified as a sub-category of in-group marriage (Ginat, 1982: 77). The second category, out-group marriage, includes unions between different descent groups within the tribe, as well as with residents of other communities.[177]

Out-group marriages serve, in many cases, economic and/or political interests. One such type of union is the badal: an exchange marriage in which siblings marry siblings. The two unions are linked, that is, if one union breaks up, the other union automatically breaks up as well. The badal can be either an in-group or an out-group union.

All types of in-group and out-group marriages are planned. The marriage is decided upon according to the calculations of the agnates of the male, and not through free mate selection. The agnates decide whether the marriage of a man from their group will be FBD, in-group, or out-group, and whether it will be of the badal type. Thus, the couple makes no personal choice.

The permanent settlement of the Bedouin also affects the issue of marriage. Girls who, in the past, served as shepherdesses and helped their mothers in the family tent, have begun to attend elementary school, and in recent years even high school. Boys and girls socialize with one another in the classroom, and this fraternization spills over into social relations that threaten traditional Bedouin social norms. An eleventh-grade student told the author that he exchanges letters with a girl from another tribe who attends the same class. He hides his letters to her under a stone at the edge of the schoolyard, and a reply from his “girlfriend” is received by the same method. In another case, a girl’s father found out that his daughter was talking on the phone with a boy from school. He tried to prevent her from using the telephone, and when his efforts failed, he held her captive in the house, refusing to allow her to attend school.

In two other cases, girls who were held captive at home attempted suicide. One girl swallowed a large dose of sleeping pills and the other drank insecticide spray. Both girls were saved after hospital treatment. It is uncertain whether the girls’ actions were real suicide attempts or just “threats” to their fathers’ authority. Neither girl swallowed enough poison for the results to be fatal. The girls’ behavior is a reflection of western norms. Among traditional Bedouin societies, as in other simple societies, suicide is very rare.[178] However, western society has greatly influenced Bedouin culture. This influence extends to Bedouin girls, who now want a college education and western clothes. This new phenomenon of girls attempting to deviate from the norms of the Bedouin social structure will inevitably increase as schooling widens their social horizons. In response to these modern social pressures, fathers are going to extraordinary lengths to maintain a traditional system of social control.

The movement of the Bedouin to the new settlements, a move from tentdwelling to house-dwelling, reflects a transition from a mobile way of life to a more sedentary one. Many Bedouin fear that girls who attend high school will not obey their fathers’ decision in the choice of a husband. Through controlling the marriage patterns of daughters, the paterfamilias can also control mate selection for sons, and this is an important factor in maintaining authority. If the head of a family can control the marriage of his daughters, then young men will not be allowed to approach the daughters except by traditional channels.

Today, among the Israeli Bedouin, young men are no longer dependent on an inheritance from their father. The herds have dwindled, and agriculture is no longer a source of income. The cultivated lands have been reduced, and the many drought years (two out of every three years on average) make the income from agriculture almost insignificant. The inhabitants of the permanent settlements or of spontaneous settlements not recognized by the authorities make a living mainly by working outside the community. The young men work as laborers in the Jewish agricultural settlements, the moshavs and kibbutzes surrounding their dwelling sites. They have their own bank accounts and credit cards. They help their father, the head of the family, but not only have they ceased to be dependent on him, they in fact support him. It is therefore particularly important for a father in such a situation to determine the pattern of his sons’ marriages.

Some of the young men and women manage to fulfill their choices resulting from their meetings in school. They meet in secret and try to keep the “affair” from becoming public knowledge, even among their classmates. Both the young man and the young woman tell their secret to their respective mothers, asking them to help them get married. Letting the mother in on the secret can help them to fulfill their wish.[179] If both mothers agree to the match, then the informal relations between them can bring about a marriage in the traditional manner.

When the young couple who wish to marry are afraid to express their desire, even to their mothers, and mainly the girl’s mother, for fear of receiving a negative answer, or when they have disclosed their desire and have already received a negative answer, the couple may consider eloping.

This possibility was carried out in the past, but only rarely. In recent years, however, there have been quite a few cases of elopement.[180] The rise in the number of couples eloping also reflects the changes that Bedouin society is undergoing. This is a pattern of marriage completely opposed to those that the parents are trying to preserve.

Elopement does not signify “running away,” but hatifahh, which means abduction.[181] It is an elopement agreed upon by the couple, with the term “abduction” serving as a safety valve that allows an arrangement to be reached with the bride’s father. The “abductor” carries out the abduction at a time and place agreed upon with the bride, accompanied by several people, and brings her to a place of refuge, usually to a sheikh of reputable name. The sheikh notifies the bride’s father that his daughter has been abducted and is being held in a safe place, with his wife, and asks the father to agree to the marriage. There are cases in which the father refuses, asking that his daughter return to his house and rejecting any compromise. If the father cannot be persuaded, then the daughter will not return home for fear of being murdered. In cases where the father understands that he has no chance of bringing his daughter back home, his desire is to re-establish his honor, and so he makes conditions. He insists that his daughter return home for several days, and then he will agree to the marriage with her “abductor.” The father guarantees to the sheikh at whose house the girl is hiding, and to a group of dignitaries also “recruited” for the purpose of mediating, that no harm will come to her when she returns to her parents’ home.

The use of the term hatifahh instead of elopement makes it possible to repair the situation. Elopement signifies a violation of the norms of arranged marriage and constitutes personal mate selection. This is a very serious humiliation to the father. In some cases, the father refuses to forgive and attempts to discover where the couple is living, in order to send one of the bride’s brothers to murder her. Sometimes the father’s resentment diminishes over the course of the years, particularly after grandchildren are bom. A sulha is held between the father, his sons and the other agnates, and his daughter (Ginat, 1997: 165–71).

Thus, we see that the changes of recent years in marriage patterns have led increasingly to individuals making their own choice of a mate. At first, attempts were made to give this a facade of traditional practice, so that there would be no public knowledge of the change in custom. Accordingly, there was no outward sign that the marriage was not arranged and that the couple had actually made a free choice. Only if this “trick” did not work, did the couple resort to the method of elopement.

Free choice of a wife or husband increases the power of the children and weakens that of the father. Violation of norms takes the control of children’s marriage patterns out of the father’s hands. The rise in the power of the individual child upsets the equilibrium in the relationship between the father and his offspring, which until recently was stable and clear-cut.

Outcasting (Tashmis)

Among rural Arabs, outcasting is practiced so infrequently that no set of rules can be delineated. Outcasting is mainly a Bedouin norm. Common to all Bedouin tribes is the burden of collective responsibility: each member of a co-liable group knows that if he murders someone, or even if he kills someone unintentionally and without any premeditation, he creates a conflict with the injured co-liable group that might lead to blood revenge. When the co-liable group is convinced that one of its members acted without due consideration for collective responsibility, he is likely to be expelled from the group.

The formal expulsion of an individual from the group is to declare him a meshamas, which, literally translated, means “one who is exposed to the sun.” Formal expulsion (tashmis), in contrast to various forms of ostracism, is very rare in Bedouin society (Ben-David, 1981: 34–5). In Iraq, the word for tashmis is hadar al damm, which means someone whose blood may be spilled, that is, who may be killed (allraq, 1.12.1992). The group relinquishes its responsibility for this person, and starting from the date his outcasting is made public, his own group members will no longer defend him in any conflict in which he is involved. This means that they will allow his blood to be spilled.

It is known that between the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 and 1980, there were only two cases of outcasting in Israel. Since 1980 there has been a spate of outcasting cases, most of them involving a sheikh’s co-liable group, and all for reasons other than the classical ones of protecting the welfare of the tribe. Four of these cases occurred within a two-year period. Moreover, we do not know (that is, we cannot investigate) when the last outcasting among the Bedouin occurred before 1948. Out of the 70,000 Bedouin who lived in the Negev until 1948, only 13,000 remained after the War of Independence. A 1996 estimate is that there are now about 90,000 Bedouin living there.

Where the perpetrator of violence is a meshamas and continues to live in the same area, the avenging group cannot renounce its duty of blood revenge. Blood money will not be received by an injured group from any individual pronounced a meshamas. No ‘atwa can be arranged, and not even the compulsory three-day term of ‘atwa may be imposed on the injured group. Because no negotiations can be held (in cases of blood dispute) with a person unattached to any group, the avenging group is left with no alternative but to try to kill the meshamas. An individual initiates the outcasting of a member of the group by first meeting with several of the elders of the co-liable group to find out if there is any support for his proposal. If there is, then the issue will be discussed in a general meeting of all members, which would begin after nightfall. The reason for the meeting beginning after dark is that no stranger is allowed to be present at such a meeting, and it is most likely that, barring an unforeseen emergency, no guest will show up after dark. The meeting can last for many hours, and minor differences of opinion may require three or four consecutive meetings to be held before a decision is made. Even though a majority of the co-liable group may have already personally decided in favor of the tashmis, there is an obvious reluctance to make this view known without hearing the opinion of others. It is then a majority decision as to whether the individual in question remains a member or whether, for the sake of the group as a whole, he should be cast out. (It is usual for the potential outcast to attend the meetings, where he can speak on his own behalf; sometimes others will speak for him.) Where the decision is made to outcast an individual, group members immediately notify neighboring tribes, as well as members of other co-liable groups within the tribe. The notification, in the form of a verbal declaration, indicates that the group is not responsible for the actions of this individual and no longer bears the burden of collective responsibility for him. Only after the notification has reached all the tribes with whom they have relationships and interactions, does the act of outcasting become valid (Ginat, 1997: 100—1).

In the past, after the tashmis ceremony was completed in the shiq (the part of the tent used for entertaining company, separated from the living quarters by a partition), it was the custom to take the meshamas after daybreak to three shiqs of three sheikhs, and to announce that this person was meshamas. It was customary to choose places that were far away from each other, so that the information would spread as quickly as possible throughout the Negev. From the moment the matter was announced in three shiqs, the tashmis would become valid within another 72 hours.[182]

In the two cases of tashmis mentioned above, one which took place in 1957 (Marx, 1967: 240–415; Bar-Zvi, 1991: 36; Ginat, 1997: 101–5) and the other in 1963 (Ginat, 1997: 105—7), the ceremony was fully conducted. The two people who were cast out of the khams were taken to three shiqs in order to demonstrate the decision to outcast them. Jedu’a Abu Sulb, who was cast out in 1957, told the author that during the hours in which his matter was being discussed in the shiq, he already understood fully the meaning of being alone outside the co-liable group, but his being brought before three sheikhs, in the presence of others in the shiq, caused him great humiliation.

The two cases of tashmis mentioned above took place after the khams elders in each of the co-liable groups came to the conclusion that the potential outcast’s behavior was putting the khams at risk. Marx (1967: 293) notes that Jedu’a “was haunted by bad luck, as one man put it. Time and again he became involved in bloodshed.” The first occasion was in 1951, when Jedu’a broke a man’s hand in a quarrel. The second incident took place in 1953, when Jedu’a went hunting and accidentally shot and wounded a shepherdess, who subsequently died of gangrene.

The second case concerns Na’im Ibn Karir, the son of a sheikh from a large tribe who was involved in several incidents concerning relations with women. Na’im was warned by his agnates to change his ways, but he ignored this advice. It was his own father’s idea to outcast him.

Both of the above cases involved circumstances in which the outcasts’ khams members were genuinely afraid that their recurring behavior would cause disaster in their respective groups. In Jedu’a’s case, two incidents occurred after he was declared meshamas in which he killed another person, albeit in self-defense. Had he not been cast out of the group, the members of his khams would have had to reach sulha agreements with the injured groups by paying diyya (blood money), or by paying with the life of one of the khams members, if the injured party refused to accept diyya and decided to avenge the death of one of its members. In the second case, Na’im refused to accept the authority of the group and continued his adulterous behavior.

Those two cases of tashmis were carried out in order to protect the khams from external harm. Since the early 1980s, there have been seven cases of completed tashmis, two cases in which tashmis was threatened but was not carried out, and one case in which a man removed himself and his children from the collective responsibility unit and called it a tashmis (Ginat, 1997). Those cast out belonged either to a sheikh’s co-liable group or to an important co-liable group of the tribe.

In the past, a member of a co-liable group could be cast out if his behavior caused, or if there was reason to believe that it might cause, a breakdown in the solidarity of the group. For example, an individual who paid no heed to the burden of collective responsibility would be a candidate for outcasting. Even under such circumstances, the decision to instigate a tashmis would not be made lightly nor in a hurry, as witnessed by the fact that so few cases were reported prior to 1980.

In none of these cases was an individual cast out for traditional reasons. In contrast to its previous function, outcasting has now become a device to counter the disruptive influences on tribal organization resulting from the rapid changes in the socio-economic and socio-cultural fife of the Bedouin, as reflected in their rapid pace of sedentarization. Outcasting is now deliberately used, in an unprecedented fashion, as a tool for increasing unity and solidarity among co-liable group members. It is also used as a warning to members not to disrupt the cohesiveness of the group. Such warnings are considered very necessary by the elders of the tribe because some of the young generation, especially those who have permanent jobs, feel that the collective responsibility system is a burden from which they should be relieved. The threat of being cast out is a strong pressure to conform to the wishes of the elders.

The use of outcasting as a warning to group members has parallels in other aspects of Bedouin life, especially in the realm of illicit sexual relations. The killing of a girl or a married woman who has had illicit sexual relations serves as a deterrent to other girls who might think of breaking the chastity code. As one informant said, “If she is murdered, the others will think twice before losing their virginity” (Ginat, 1982: 180).

The need to make a decision on a tashmis proposal focuses the group on a problem common to all members. The exercise of formal politeness when the group meets and the recognition, in seeing all the members of the group together, that they share a common heritage, helps promote the idea that the group is larger than the individual. Group cohesion is reinforced in such decision-making in much the same way that it is reinforced in cases of revenge. In a revenge case, the head of a co-liable group will try to find the best political situation to reunite the group members. He will turn down the mediator’s request for ’atwa, and take advantage of the situation to congregate all the co-liable members for consultation and discussion. These gatherings contribute to the unity of the group for the same reasons as they do in cases concerning an outcasting proposal.

A sheikh’s co-liable group is the main hnk of the tribe; it is the focus of all the inter- and intra-tribal activities. All sheikhs take great pains not to lose the cohesiveness of the group, for if this happens, then the members lose their group identity (and the sheikh, of course, loses his authority). The use of outcasting under the modern conditions of sedentarization is a mechanism for building up cohesion within the group. It is no longer a punishment of the individual, but increasingly serves as a warning for others, and is therefore utilized as a a social defense.

The new mechanism of outcasting fits Durkheim’s theory regarding punishment: “But today, it is said, punishment has changed its character: it is no longer to avenge itself that society punishes, it is to defend itself. The pain which it inflicts is in its hands no longer anything but a methodical means for protection.... Its true function is to maintain social cohesion intact, while maintaining all its vitality in the common conscience” (Durkheim, 1966: 86, 108). The two factors analyzed by Emile Durkheim, the weapon for social defense and the importance of social cohesion, are the primary motivations in all the outcasting case histories that follow. The individual is no longer the causa causans of the outcasting process. The change in outcasting is part of a wider ongoing process of dramatic change in the social life and organization of the Bedouin (Ginat, 1997: 107—9).

The cases of outcasting in recent years have involved individuals who acted independently. The young men employed outside the tribe are no longer economically dependent on their agnates. Some have purchased heavy machinery and have become contractors employing other workers. This represents a change in the balance of power between the individual and the group. The stronger the individual becomes, the weaker the group (see above, on decisions of marriage). Except for one case in which a person pronounced himself meshamas, the outcasts do not feel comfortable with the stigma of meshamas. The person who declared himself meshamas did this to provoke his father. He refused to accept the fact that his sister was learning to drive in a driving school. He requested that his father prevent his sister’s lessons, which required traveling from the tribe’s location to Be’er Sheva and spending several hours in town. The father, however, did nothing to prevent his daughter’s driving lessons.

The Bedouin society does not accept an individual’s declaration of self-tashmis. With respect to self-expulsion, I recall a case twenty years ago when a man with a public position consulted me. He wanted advice on how he could leave his collective responsibility unit. He had several cousins whose behavior could easily have led to a blood dispute. His job required him to have dealings with all of the Bedouin tribes as well as representatives of the General Federation of Trade Unions of Israel. He knew that in the case of a blood dispute with another tribe, he would be prevented from coming to work for an unknown period of time. He felt that he belonged to the modern western world and that his collective responsibility unit was only a burden in his life. However, when we discussed the matter in depth, he came to the conclusion that he did not want to expel himself, for he recognized that such an action would be humiliating. He explained to me that he belonged to two worlds, western society and Bedouin society. While he spent the majority of his time in the modern western world, he still felt strongly connected to his Bedouin family and friends. Therefore, under no circumstances would he agree to take upon himself the stigma of an outcast. While in western society it might seem trivial to be announced as an outcast in the family, in Bedouin society it is a grave concern.

There is a unique case I heard of recently regarding the tashmis of the head of a tribe, who is also head of a khams. The members of a particular khams felt that their leader was helping strangers, while ignoring his own relatives. This sheikh has connections with high-ranking administrative officials. The members of his khams assist him in entertaining these government officials as guests, but they receive no acknowledgment from him. In contrast to the situation in which the possibility of a tashmis is only considered, or in which an individual is warned that he might be cast out, the members of the sheikh’s co-liable group used a new and original method. They made their decision regarding the outcasting and signed the document in the sheikh’s presence, but did not want to announce the fact in public. Therefore, they handed the document over to a well-known judge and mediator for safekeeping. Practically speaking, the sheikh of the tribe is not an outcast.

A phenomenon similar to tashmis in its procedure and ritual is the tulu’, meaning “departure.” This is the departure of a number of people from the framework of the khams, after all the khams members have agreed to it, and thus it constitutes a fragmentation of the khams (Bar-Zvi, 1991: 36—8). A single person who wishes to leave the circle of the khams will not be allowed to do so. However, when there is no unity in the khams, and a number of nuclear families are interested in leaving the collective responsibility domain, the remaining khams members will find it very difficult to prevent them from doing so. Until July 1997, the author had never heard of an actual case of tw/tf taking place. There were many talks and discussions in the shiq in which the matter of tulu’ had come up. There were cracks in the unity of the khams, but there was never the danger of complete separation — until very recently, when a case of tulu’ occurred in the Salim khams of the A1 Atram tribe in the Negev. The khams members were involved in blood disputes with another khams in the tribe, the Habib al Atram khams. The continuous tension between the two groups enhanced cohesion within each group, and in order to maintain this cohesion and prevent internal fragmentation, the elders of the Salim khams avoided reaching a sulha between the two co-liable groups.

In 1997, there were blood disputes between the Salim khams from the Al Atram tribe and the ‘ Ali khams of the Ibn Subeih tribe. The conflict included four cases of bloodshed, which luckily ended in people being wounded but not killed. In May 1997, the mediators succeeded in achieving a sulha between the two groups. In spite of the internal conflicts within the Salim khams, it was impossible to carry out the tulu’ ceremony before the sulha agreement was reached. Just as it is impossible to cast out someone before a conflict has ended, so a tulu’ cannot be implemented before differences are worked out between the two branches of the tribe. (See appendix for the tulu’ document.)

The author assesses that this case of fragmentation in the Salim khams of the Al Atram tribe sets a precedent and has paved the way for other descent groups, which will also begin to fragment. It is difficult to maintain the five-generation collective responsibility under conditions of sedentarization or when living in permanent dwellings. In Jordan, King Hussein helped to alleviate this burden when he decreed that collective responsibility would be extended only to third-generation relatives (Ginat, 1987). This change diminishes the circle of collective responsibility, removing some of the burden from sedentarized Bedouin.

The fact that Bedouin society in the Negev is surrounded byjewish settlements and has limited pastoral areas due to Jewish development of the Negev, seems to indicate that the changes taking place in their social and economic life will not be reversed. Changes and developments in the tashmis or the tulu[(] norm are just one manifestation of the whole gamut of change that the Bedouin are now undergoing. The period of sedentarization is a transition period in which the older generation, particularly sheikhs and heads of co-liable groups, are trying to preserve the traditional customs. They are particularly anxious to maintain cohesiveness within the group. The younger generation, however, is pushing toward economic and social integration with the wider society. Although both generations have a fear of losing their identity as Bedouin and of becoming fully assimilated, this is an overwhelming concern for the older generation.

The Bishac: Increased Use of the Ordeal among the Israeli Bedouin

Ordeals by fire or by water are known to have existed among various ancient societies (Diamond, 1971; Lambert, 1965; Lea, 1870; Licht, 1986; Morgenstem, 1925). In the Middle Ages, the ordeals were commonly used throughout Europe, and were even made into official laws in various countries (Bartlett, 1986). They continue to exist today among many African tribes and throughout the Middle East.

The bishd ordeal has appeared in the literature since the second decade of the twentieth century, but it is only mentioned in passing or briefly described, as part of Bedouin law and custom (al ‘Abadi, 1988; al Aref, 1933; El-Barghuthi, 1922; Bar-Zvi, 1991; Ben-David, 1981; Ginat, 1997; al Hashash, 1991; Levi, 1987; al-Qusus, 1972). At present, the ordeal by fire is conducted in Egypt, which today remains the only place in the Middle East where it is still performed and, to some extent, even permitted. It was used in the past both in Saudi Arabia and in Jordan as well. In Jordan, the ordeal was prohibited by the king, and in Saudi Arabia the last person authorized to conduct the ceremony recently died without leaving an authorized successor.

Among the Bedouin, the ordeal is known by the name of bisha’ (the meaning of the word in classical Arabic is “ugliness”, or something ugly). According to the Bedouin custom, the person suspected of committing a crime is made to lick a white-hot iron ladle, heated to 600—800 degrees Celsius, in order to prove his innocence or expose his guilt. The crime can range from the theft of some trivial object, through robbery of expensive jewels, to rape, manslaughter, or murder. If the suspect’s tongue is scorched, then he is found guilty as charged; if it is not, then he is found innocent.

Bedouin law touches all areas of life. It is a system of laws and customs which, although unwritten, are clear and understood. The penalties for the various crimes are also well known and determined by law (see al ‘Abadi, 1988; al Aref, 1933; Bar-Zvi, 1991; Hardy, 1963; al Hashash, 1991; Kennett, 1925; al Qusus, 1972; Shoucair, 1985; Stewart, 1988, 1990, 1994).

The bisha’ is a ceremony for discovering the guilt of a suspect when he is only suspected of a crime, but there is no clear evidence against him. The ritual is conducted as follows: if, for example, someone suspects a person of stealing an object that belongs to him, or of rape or murder, he does not go to the police, but instead invites the suspect to go with him to the mebashd. The mebashd - the performer of the ceremony, who is the sixth generation descendant of a family of Sinai Bedouin of the Ayayda tribe — presently lives between Ismaeliya and Fayed, on the western bank of the sweet water canal (see Bailey and Shmueli, 1977). The accuser and the suspect must come to the mebasha’ together. The mebasha’ will absolutely refuse to deal with only one party and hear only that side, for fear of being accused of taking bribes. There must also be at least two witnesses who are not related by blood to either party. The accuser pays for travel expenses (and people often come from great distances in Egypt and from other countries, such as Jordan, Israel, Kuwait, and Libya) and also for the ceremony itself (90 Egyptian Lira, which is the equivalent of $26.50). This sum is paid for every suspect (every tongue) that licks the ladle (tasa), as sometimes a person may suspect a number of people. I myself was present at a ceremony in which twelve people were accused of murder, three of whom scorched their tongues, that is, were found guilty of murder. In another case, nine women were accused of causing a groom to become impotent (rabata, literally meaning “bound”) on his wedding night by means of witchcraft, with incantations and a written curse to ensure impotence. Such a spell can be broken by consulting a knowledgeable religious man who gives God’s blessing (baraka) for “unbinding” the groom (fak al rabata).

After the ceremony, if a suspect is found guilty, he pays for the travel expenses and the ceremony. In cases involving a theft, he must also reimburse the accuser for the stolen items. An acquittal does not entitle the accused to compensation. Word of his innocence, as found by the bisha’ ceremony, is enough to restore his honor. Compensation for false accusation is paid only to a woman falsely accused of illicit sexual relations who has been found innocent. This is because such an accusation is very grave and may cost the woman her life; she could be murdered for the sake of family honor (Abou-Zeid, 1965; Antoun, 1968, 1970; Ben-David, 1981; Black-Michard, 1975; Ginat, 1982; Kressel, 1981; Levi, 1987; Nelson 1974; Stewart, 1987, 1988, 1990, 1994; Wikan 1984). The sum paid in compensation is determined by the judges of the woman’s tribe or village, according to the accepted norms of compensation in cases of false accusation.

Throughout the ceremony, the mebasha’ evokes a religious Islamic atmosphere, even though this ritual is mentioned nowhere in the Muslim religion. The bishd is a Bedoin custom (urf). Before the parties, particularly the accuser, specify the details of the case, the mebasha’ spreads his hands upwards and recites the fatiha - the first chapter of the Qur’an — and all those present join him. The mebasha’ repeats the prayer several times throughout the ceremony. The accuser describes the incident and explains why he suspects so-and-so, or several people, of having committed the crime. The suspect then tells his side of the story, usually denying everything. At this stage, if the accusation is theft (and not rape, manslaughter, or murder), the mebasha‘ tries to mediate between the parties, suggesting that they each cover half the value of the stolen goods, or half the sum stolen. He says, “We are only human, and not celestial angels, and every man errs in his life. Let us make a compromise.” If the parties agree, he will conduct the reconciliation ceremony between them (the sulha). In many cases, the accuser agrees to the proposal to cover at least half the value of the stolen items; but only rarely will the suspect agree as well. His compliance is likened to an admission of guilt, and then, in spite of the sulha, he will be stigmatized as a thief. The author has witnessed cases in which a person half-admitted his guilt before licking the white-hot iron ladle. Such an admission contributes to the mebasha[c,]s reputation, and raises his status in the eyes of the public.

Before the ceremony begins, the mebasha’ turns to the accuser and says to him: “If the suspect’s tongue is not burnt, do you accept the fact that he is innocent?” If the answer is not made with conviction, then the mebasha’ does not perform the ceremony. Next he turns to the suspect: “If your tongue is burnt, will you acknowledge your guilt?” Once again, the answer must be clear and absolute.

After this, the mebasha’’s assistant completes a form with the names of the accuser and the suspect, their addresses, and the details of the accusation. Both the accuser and the suspect sign their names, and at least two witnesses must sign as well. At this stage, the tasa is brought in and heated over the fire. The mebasha[c,]s assistant completes another form in which the suspect declares that he did not commit the crime of which he is accused, and also that he has not used any witchcraft or sorcery which may affect the results of the ceremony. (There have been cases in which notes with spells written on them were found in the suspect’s clothes. Such people were either immediately declared guilty, or their tongues were certain to be burnt in the bisha’[] ceremony.)

The ceremony includes an initial display of the suspect’s tongue before the witnesses in order to demonstrate that it has no prior cuts or sores. If there is a cut or a scratch of any kind, then the suspect cannot undergo the ceremony, for his tongue will inevitably be burnt. In this case, or any other in which the suspect cannot undergo the ceremony for some other reason, someone else may serve as a proxy. Someone who is sure beyond any doubt that the accusation is false, usually a relative, may lick the tasa instead of the suspect himself. If the proxy’s tongue is scorched, then the suspect is found guilty; if it is not, then he is found innocent.

After showing his tongue to the witnesses, the suspect washes his mouth out with water, and then licks the ladle three times; the mebashd makes sure he actually licks it. Next, the suspect once again washes his mouth with water three times. Then he must wait about five minutes, which the mebashd calls “five minutes for God.” The silence in these five minutes creates extreme tension in all those present, especially the suspect, who does not know whether his tongue is scorched or clean. Several suspects have told the author that these five minutes seemed to them like five hours. Before the mebashd inspects the tongue, he prays again, and after his inspection he directs the suspect to the witnesses so that they may ascertain the mebasha’’s decree as to whether or not the tongue is scorched.

It should be noted that of the 139 ceremonies the author attended, and after examining the reports in the mebashd’s notebook recording all the ceremonies he conducted in his career as a mebashd since the death of his father in August 1986, over 80 percent of the suspects were found innocent, after licking a ladle heated to about 600 to 800 degrees Celsius.

The bisha’ is one of several methods of conflict resolution in which the people attempt to solve their problems without help from the authorities; sometimes they actually desire to escape the authorities. It was found that the representatives of the Nation State sometimes consider the bisha’ as a quick way to resolve conflicts and avoid the development of large quarrels between all members of the descent group, in which case matters may get out of hand. In order to prevent such a deterioration of the situation, a police representative, or the security officers in the village, or the tribe, send the parties to the mebashd, with an official letter of referral bearing an official stamp. This is done in place of a police investigation and instead of making arrests, so as to resolve internal and inter-communal conflicts within an intra-communal framework. By so doing, the parties concerned delegitimize the official establishment’s institutions and demonstrate the legitimacy of their inner circle in handling conflicts through their own methods and mechanisms.[183]

In the past, the Israeli Bedouin used the services of a mebashd in northern Sinai who belonged to the Tarabin Federation of Tribes. However, he died in 1953, and from then on, until the peace agreement between Israel and Egypt was signed, the Israeli Bedouin refrained from conducting any bishd tests. The author was told that there was only one case, an accusation of camel theft, in which the accuser and the suspect were of two different tribes. The parties crossed the border to Jordan and went to the mebashd of the Al-Dibber family who dwelt near the Jordanian-Saudi border. The suspect was found guilty and had to return (or pay the equivalent of) six camels. This happened in 1962, and was handled quietly in order to hide the affair from the Israeli authorities.

Until 1981, the Bedouin used the method of the oath. The oath is used on several occasions. The common type of oath is one in which the right hand is placed on the Qur’an and an oath is sworn. The ceremony, conducted by a sheikh, can also be performed by the suspect raising his right hand and swearing that he did not commit the crime of which he is accused, without actually placing his hand on the Qur’an. A person cannot be accused again after he has sworn and has been declared innocent. It is said that if a person swears falsely, then a member of his family will die, his horse or his flocks will not thrive, or other harm will befall him.

Another type of oath is made when the accuser and the suspect, accompanied by a number of witnesses, go to the grave of a holy sheikh, where the suspect raises his hand and swears that he did not commit the crime of which he is accused.[184] There are several cases known to the author in which an accused Bedouin was asked to go to a holy grave in Wadi Sayal in the Judean desert and take such an oath, and the accused found some excuse not to go. In one case, a man was asked to swear that he had not stolen a sheep. The accused Bedouin used an excuse of not having the time to go and offered to pay the money for the sheep.

The first bisha* ceremony undergone by an Israeli Bedouin since 1953 took place after the peace agreement with Egypt was signed in 1981. The history of the case began in 1966. Fedayin (terrorists) from the Hebron Hills infiltrated into a tent-camp of the Al-Afnoon tribe, continued to the camp of Ibn Cana’an, and murdered Mussa Ibn Cana’an (Ginat, 1997: case history IX). The members of the Ibn Cana’an co-liable group claimed that even if the Al-Afnoon members had not assisted the murderers, they at least knew who the infiltraters were. The leaders of the Ibn Cana’an group suspected one of the murderers to be Harsi Sa’ad, who escaped to Jordan in the early 1960s and stayed there. Relations with the members of the Sheikh Al-Afnoon’s khams were strained until the Sheikh’s eldest son, Suliman, traveled to Egypt and underwent the bisha’ ceremony. Suliman took the test on his own behalf and on behalf of the entire khams. When he licked the hot iron, his tongue was not burnt, and in this way he cleansed himself and his khams of all guilt (Bar Zvi, 1991: 101–7).

Since 1966, many sheikhs and famous mediators have tried to arrange a sulha between the Ibn Cana’an and the Al-Afnoon descent groups, but the sheikh of Ibn Cana’an consistently refused to heed any request for peace. The bisha’ is the most important form of proving innocence or guilt for the Bedouin. Only after the Al-Afnoon tribe was cleared did a large sulha feast take place. The sheikh of the Ibn Cana’an khams declared that the bisha test proved the truth, even though it is very rare for anyone to walk by a tent without being seen by the tent-dwellers. Many people attended the sulha ceremony. The mebasha’ was praised, and several guests made it clear that if they faced any problem where there were no witnesses who could testify, they would go to the mebasha’ before seeking any other kind of solution.

The leaders of Ibn Cana’an asked the Sa’ad leaders (to whose khams belonged Harsi, the suspected murderer) to go to A1 Haram A1 Ibrahimi (the burial place of the Patriarchs in Hebron) and to swear on the Holy Qur’an at the Haram that Harsi Sa’ad had no part in the murder of Mussa Ibn Cana’an. The Sa’ad people agreed and took the oath. However, the Ibn Cana’an group secretly rejected the oath. Among themselves, they declared it to have been a false oath, but did not say so in public.

The ceremony at the Tomb of the Patriarchs took place only after the bisha’ ceremony, which had been agreed upon by both groups, did not take place. Rumor has it that the Sa’ad people feared the test and found various excuses to prevent the heads of the khams from going to Egypt. They claimed that the grave of Abraham the Patriarch was the holiest place at which to swear.

It should be noted that according to the agreement to hold the bisha’ceremony in Egypt, should the Sa’ad representative be found guilty, the Ibn Cana’an people would be entitled to receive as diyya (blood money) a sum four times as large as the usual prescribed diyya. The common rule is that when the suspect is found guilty of murder, it is the right of the accusing side to murder one person only, or to accept the diyya of one person. (It is usual for the pre-bisha’ agreement to include a cease-fire agreement lasting 72 hours following the ceremony, so that if the suspect is found guilty, he is not murdered immediately.) However, the Ibn Cana’an people considered their son Musa’s murder to be particularly cowardly and base. First, the murderer infiltrated from Jordan, and then murdered the man not because of any quarrel between the two descent groups, but in the service of Jordanian military intelligence. Second, Musa was killed in his sleep, and the law of the desert forbids killing a person in his sleep. He must first be woken up and given a chance to defend himself or escape, and then he can be pursued and killed. Therefore, Musa’s family demanded the diyya to be four times the usual sum.

Several weeks after the oath was sworn at the Tomb of the Patriarchs, a fight broke out between members of the two groups, and an individual from Ibn Cana’an was stabbed with a dagger by somebody from the Sa’ad khams. One month later, a member of the Sa’ad khams was murdered. In contrast to Bedouin blood revenge rules, in which the murder of a man is avenged by the death of only one man from the offending group, thereafter ending the dispute, we have here a cycle of killing on both sides, which included the Ibn Cana’an Sheikh among its victims. So far there are four dead in each khams.

The author knows of eleven cases of Negev Bedouin who went to the mebashd in Egypt between 1990 and 1996, in order to conduct the bisha’ ceremony, and has heard that there are at least three other disputes in which the accusing and the accused groups plan to go to the mebasha\ There are two cases in which the accused wishes to go, but the accusers have not as yet given their consent to hold the bisha’ ceremony.

The eleven cases can be divided as follows: seven cases of theft, out of which two found the suspect guilty; two cases of adultery, in which both the women were found innocent; and one case of sexual assault, where the man was found innocent. The accusing family in the latter case plans to ask another person whom they now suspect to come with them to take the bisha’ test. The remaining case was an accusation of rabta (which means to cause a groom to become marbut — “bound” — that is, impotent, on the eve of his wedding). The groom’s family suspected two women and a man of sorcery. The suspects’ khams had wanted the marbut groom to marry a daughter of the khams, but this had not happened. In the end, one of the women was found guilty, by means of the bisha’ test, of causing the rabta.

One of the two cases in which the suspect wished to undergo the bishd ceremony was the case of Habib al Atram (see Ginat, 1977: case history X). In July 1991, a quarrel broke out between two co-liable groups of the Al Atram tribe. A man from the Salim khams was killed as a result of shots fired by both sides. Habib was arrested on the charge of murder, but claimed he was innocent. The man who was killed had been shot in the back, and Habib claimed that this indicated he was probably shot by mistake by his own people. Habib asked that a ballistic test be made, and when it was found that the shot had not been fired from his gun, he was released from prison, in May 1992. However, the members of the injured Salim khams did not accept Habib’s plea of innocence. Habib proposed that the parties go to the mebashd so that he may discover the truth. The leader of the injured khams did not agree to Habib’s offer to take the bishd test. In this case, the injured khams is not a united khams, and in order to maintain cohesion, the heads of the co-liable group try to promote tension to keep the khams members united. (See above for the case of tulu’in the tashmis section.)

As mentioned above, out of the eleven cases that were taken to the mebashd, seven were accusations of theft. In three cases, the accused party had placed his hand on the Holy Qur’an and sworn near a famous grave, prior to the trip to the mebashd. In two cases of bishd , they were found innocent, but in the third case, the accused was found guilty, which, in the eyes of the Bedouin, proved the oath false. The same thing happened in the case of the marbut. There was a case among the Bedouin of the West Bank (now under the Palestinian Authority) in which a man was accused of betraying a Bedouin of a different tribe and handing him over to the Israeli security officers. The accused went to the holy burial place of Nebi Mussa (the Prophet Moses, according to the Muslim faith) and took an oath. The accuser was not satisfied with the oath, and both the accuser and the suspect went to the mebashd. The accused Bedouin was found innocent.

If the mebashd knows that a person has sworn in God’s name, using the Qur’an or even without it, then he does not agree to conduct the bisha’ ceremony for him. The reasoning behind this decision is that, according to the mebashd: “There is nothing more sacred than God’s words.” In the course of this research, the author has witnessed many bishd ceremonies and is familiar with many cases. In some cases, people came from great distances, but when it was mentioned that the suspect had already sworn previously, the mebashd refused to conduct the ceremony. When people conceal the fact of the oath having been made, the mebashd does not investigate. The Israeli Bedouin have learned the mebasha’’s attitude regarding oaths. When they come to a bisha\ they make no mention whatsoever of any previous oaths sworn.

Many Bedouin no longer accept the oath at the site of a holy grave as a valid oath. Some Bedouin have commented that modernization has changed many Bedouin customs, including the deterrence of the oath and belief in the consequences if it is made falsely. On the other hand, the Bedouin do believe in the bisha’ test — with the exception of one famous mediator and judge, Muhammad El Aqsan, who proclaims that he does not believe in the bishd. One can understand the mediator’s feelings regarding the mebashd, as the more people travel to the mebashd, the less they come to him for his services. Many Bedouin have said without hesitation that if they should face a problem, and there were no witnesses to testify on the matter, they would go to the bishd.

To sum up the subject, we see that in the last fifteen years, there has been a substantial increase among Israeli Bedouin in the use of the bishd as a method of resolving conflicts.[185] When the Bedouin choose to go to the mebashd, in many cases it is when they cannot act within the local framework. They must then seek out a wider safety net than that of the inter-community net, where they can find a mechanism to use for solving the problem. If they cannot find such a mechanism, then a crisis will occur. One solution is to go to the mebashd for the ordeal by fire, which resolves conflicts of direct accusation.[186]

Concluding Remarks

This chapter describes three subjects of change among the Israeli Bedouin. Two are changes occurring within the co-liable group, whereas the third is an inter-tribal or inter-khams method of conflict resolution.

The first issue relates to changes in marriage patterns. The sedentarization process reinforces the mechanism of personal mate selection, causing increased conflict between fathers and their offspring. The outcast issue emphasizes the khams elders’ insistence on maintaining cohesion of the collective responsibility unit, that is, the descent group.

Being cast out of the khams happens as the result of a crisis, when none of the existing systems has managed to resolve the conflict and no further safety nets are available. In such a crisis situation, the only way of dealing with the problem resulting from the individual’s behavior is to cast him out of the group.

Using the outcasting mechanism to warn individuals away from personal decision-making is a relatively new phenomenon. The increase in the rate of outcasting reflects the fact that in the process of sedentarization, individuals who accumulate more power, usually as a result of economic resources, try to change the rules and customs of the collective responsibility system. By the act of outcasting, the khams elders try to signal to the younger generation that one might carry the burden of stigma if one violates the rules. Thus, the use of outcasting in the last two decades has changed from its original form and has taken on a completely new dimension. The tulu’[] mechanism for leaving the khams without being stigmatized as meshamas, in effect fragmenting the khams, has been activated only recently.

Both the changes in marriage patterns and the matter of outcasting, as it has been used in recent years, fit Freilich’s analysis of conflict. Freilich (1983) stresses that conflicts exist between the young and the old, the strong and the weak. He perceives culture as “information” within a “guidance system,” containing “logical standards,” while suggesting that the “empirical standards” are behavioral guidelines. In the case of the Bedouin, the behavioral guidelines in the conflicts between the strong and the weak, that is, between fathers and their offspring, and between the old and the young, that is, the khams leaders and the young generation, take place on the local level model of conflict resolution.

While the first two issues in this discussion dealt with the intra-khams phase, the ordeal by fire dwells on the inter -khams level. People turn to the bisha’ when there are no witnesses to their problem, or when the eye witnesses do not dare to be involved in the matter. The bisha\ being an ordeal, differs from other types of conflict resolution, such as those which take place within the community itself or involve Nation State legal authorities. For the Bedouin, the bisha is a final verdict with no possibility of appealing to a higher legal authority.

We have learned that sometimes, the representatives of the Nation State in Egypt use the bisha’ system in order to avoid escalation of conflict. Officers responsible for a community send the accuser and the suspect to the mebasha‘ with a written request that he conduct the ceremony. In these cases, the Bedouin do not go to the authorities; on the contrary, the authorities use the local systems of conflict resolution, that is, the bisha’. When there is a conflict, those involved often attempt to resolve it at the local level. If it cannot be resolved at the tribal level, they must step up to a higher level, such as the mebasha[187]. Anthony Cohen (1982) discusses this issue in terms of different levels of culture. In the local sense, the culture is the tribe. If the conflict cannot be dealt with there, a wider cultural sphere must be sought. David Schneider (1965a, 1965b, 1967) discusses the existing literature dealing with various cultures. He notes that whatever is not resolved at the lower level must rise up to a higher level. The behavior patterns of the Bedouin fit Schneider’s approach.

The Bedouin’s regard for the nation state is different from that of regular citizens for the laws of the state. They are subjugated to the laws of the democratic country like all citizens, but they are not completely integrated into the state. Generally speaking, we can say that mobile pastoralists are not integrated into the communities in which they dwell. The Bedouin must abide by two different legal systems and must deal with both of them. One is the establishment’s system; the other is the internal, traditional Bedouin system. The more the Bedouin turn from pastoralism and semi-nomadism to sedentarization, the greater the involvement of the Nation State, and with it the establishment’s legal system, in Bedouin affairs. However, the activity of the internal Bedouin legal system is not correspondingly diminished. Nor do the heads of families wish to change tradition; they strive to preserve the values and norms of behavior from the pre-sedentarization period, as manifested in everyday life. The difficulties found on the law and order level between the Israeli establishment and the traditional Bedouin system do not stem only from the fact that the establishment is Jewish and not Muslim. Even in Egypt, where the situation is different, the Bedouin also have difficulties in this respect (see Danner and El Rashidi’s article in this volume). Thus, despite the economic and social changes caused by the sedentarization process, the Bedouin are still a long way from becoming integrated into the larger society.

Notes

Appendix

In the Name of God the Merciful

On 19 July 1997, Saturday, an agreement was made regarding a tulu’ [departure] at the house of Mr. Ah Abu Sharifa.’ The agreement is in the matter of the tulu’ (departure). The tulu’ ended in the agreement of the heads of family of Salim (A1 Atram) that Atiyya Ahmad Salman Salim and his sons, and his brother Ali Ahmad Salman Salim and his sons leave the Salim family (khams) (A1 Atram). They will not flee with them [with the remaining khams members] in their flight [i.e., they will not join them in seeking refuge, as a blood conflict forces the khams members to leave their homes for fear of revenge] and they [the departing group] will not join in any pursuit [after those on whom revenge must be taken]. This is neither if a young man is killed nor if property is paralyzed[188] [i.e., property stolen from them in a raid which they cannot get back].

The witnesses of this tuliS:

Ali................

Sliman................

Ibrahim.....................

Muhammad . , , ......

Khalil........................

The heads of the Salim family:

Asbeih....................

Jaber ......................

Sliman....................

A’tiyya...................

Ahmad....................

The Guarantors: Muhammad, Khalil, Musa

Notes to Appendix

References

13. Contemporary Mongol Concepts on Being a Pastoralist: Institutional Continuity, Change and Substitutes

Slawoj Szynkiewicz

Mongol culture has been described as non-violent, non-restrictive, nonegalitarian and non-changing, though instances to the opposite can easily be quoted. Social change is a quality experienced several times in this century by the Mongols. Now we are witnessing the liberalization of the economy which has made Mongol pastoralists change an established pattern of thinking about their life strategies as well as attitudes toward their society.

The classic opposition between human and nature in a pastoral society was modified in the collectivized Mongolia so that “human” was replaced by the reliable “state supported collective.” Recent changes have imposed further exchanges. It has been an upheaval comparable to that of the universal collectivization of 1959. Both resulted from a redesigning of the economic and social structure, and practically meant a revolution.

The socialist economy in Mongolia was different than in other communist countries. The rural sector was not a main source of capital accumulation for industry building; rather the latter has developed at the expense of foreign credits. A limited home-grown military build-up also allowed substantial savings. Revenues from herding were reinvested in an attempt to create a new pastoral economy relatively independent of natural limitations. This almost utopian idea had been partly implemented, but now it is being reversed because of its costs and new political paradigms. The stock-breeders retreated to full dependence on ecology and climate before the experiment could yield results. Mental attitudes characteristic of the previous stage continue, however, to be present. The challenge of simple survival has become a subject of anxiety for most people who suddenly found out that no state agency cared about them any more. An orderly and mechanical society of the totalitarian past has diversified due to agents and individuals offering a variety of services and demanding payment for them. The state has withdrawn its patronage and even token support for citizens. The once mighty government has appeared helpless in alleviating the hardships of life, and it has thus lost the image of Confucian-like paternalism.

Decollectivization has meant a considerable retreat of the public policy element in organizing and servicing the economy, and a noticeable return of pastoralists to intuitive strategies. The drive to abandon the collective or kolkhoz-type organization of pastoral production (negdel in Mongol) began in 1990 and gained momentum the following year. It was widely supported, and many deficiencies in the system were openly discussed for the first time.

In anticipation of inevitable difficulties, and not willing to part with facilities provided by the collectives, many shepherds decided to preserve the previous system’s advantages. These included transport facilities, veterinary services, water supply, fodder provisions, built shelters for animals, established marketing channels, and not least, modest security arrangements. The system, however, was abolished by law, enabling the former collective members to run individual households, to unite into companies with limited liability, or into cooperative enterprises with less restrictive regulations that did not demand managerial personnel.

The idea of a company resembled negdel the most. Their organization was undertaken by collective managers themselves, usually the proficient ones who wanted to stay in the business. Their expertise and personal finks with people and the institutions of influence may well become a safeguard against the uncertainties of transition. In almost all previous collectives there emerged a company or two enlisting those who felt insecure on the open market because of inertness or reliance on modem techniques applied by the negdels. Different styles in opportunity cost accounting have combined people of various dispositions and temperaments in one company. Out of some 360 collectives, in almost twenty the majority of members still constitute a company, thus continuing the previous model of modernized pastoralism. Altogether there are now no less than 300 companies; the exact number will be known when they enter the stock exchange.

Similarly, opposing categories of industrious and inert herdsmen are represented in the population of individually operated households, and sometimes in ventures of a cooperative type. In each case the popular drift toward the private economy or a bias against the collective one drove various people to farm on their own, self-assured in their ability to take on the challenge. Many herders whom I interviewed in 1992 were, however, incapable of reconciling their optimism with the lack of apprehension of strategies necessary for situations they face. Nevertheless, the degree of optimism contrasts with the sense of inadequacy in formerly pastoral regions of postSoviet Central Asia. Competitive qualities common in nomadic societies have, apparently, been retained in Mongolia.

Cooperatives, called khorshoo, combine the efforts of a group of households in production, marketing and transport or in one of several crafts. Other specialized services — such as tailoring, laundry, repairs or mechanics — are also cooperatively run. Specialization of khorshoo is the latest trend, replacing the aggregate character of earlier organizations. Noticeably, cooperatives are preferred over companies, especially as the latter carry the burden of bureaucratic habits inherited from the collectives. Opinions about deficiencies and accomplishments of the former collectives do not vary essentially within the three described milieux (Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 61), which suggests that the choice of the form of operation can only in part be motivated opportunistically, while strategic considerations seem to be essential.

The above gives a framework for economic and social behavior of people seeking opportunities in the new conditions. There are no essential variations in characteristics of the actors in the three sectors of activity as to their attitudes, managerial dispositions, or wealth stock. Therefore they can be taken as an aggregate in the following analysis, which is guided by the hypothesis that the process of adaptation to a liberalized economy assumes a choice of institutionalized behavior known from the past irrespective of period, with the intent of optimizing the procedures and results of adjustment.

Attitudes

The pastoral economy of Mongolia, collectivized for over thirty years (since 1959), was a source of both discontent and comfort for the herders. Among the reasons for dissatisfaction were barriers against wealth accumulation and competition, administrative allocation of pastures, and specialization of herds to be cared for. There was also dissatisfaction about the limits for extensive nomadizing. Measures developed by the pastoral collectives followed a model of modernized herding and of a reduced burden in the way of life, which took the form of semi-sedentarianism. Exactly the same reasons became the basis of contentment for those who had lost ambition and the spirit of achievement.

It must be remembered that quite a proportion of pre-collective herders had been destitute for many reasons and were thus unable to develop managerial concern on the eve of their expropriation. They had welcomed a relaxed though non-accomplishing offer of the kolkhoz-type organization. Survivors of that generation, now pensioners, were most watchful about the latest moves in liberalizing the economy. Nevertheless, it was they who taught the younger ones about the inadequacies of the collective system. Two weaknesses were repeatedly quoted in conversations and interviews: specialization of tasks, and incompatibility of newly-introduced breeds to local conditions. • ,

The former consisted of the separate herding of animals selected by criteria of species, gender and age to the effect that a pastoral unit often attended a fragmented herd composed of a section of a kind. This contradicted the very Mongol notion of “five species” (i.e., the amount held privately by a well-off household), standing semantically for the whole, a microcosm of the nature remaining in unity with the social. Students of the Mongol culture took it for a purely symbolic expression, not necessarily an imperative of a technical quality. In turn, the specialized system of herding, including other experienced tasks, was regarded as a significant initiation-type community. It emerged, however, that the Mongols considered it an unnatural intervention into the symbiosis of humans and animals, a sort of intrusion in their cultural system. Therefore caring for a truncated herd was despised and the herd was completed by adding private animals — both one’s own and those entrusted by absentee owners.

Closely connected with the former is perhaps another disorder in human—nature relations, also attributed to the negdels, and related to the use of pastures. Grasslands contain various sets of herbs which suit a particular species. If only one set is eaten out, as happens in specialized herding, the rest overgrows and degrades. It is possible to regulate pasturing by a consecutive change of herds (i.e., by rotation of attending household units) over the area. This had been practiced, though with little persistence. The result was some deterioration of pasturage. Pasture yields and quality were also harmed due to the decline in pastoral mobility; intensive grazing of over a month, and year by year, at the same sector, usually led to over-use of resources (cf. Tserendash and Erdenebaater, 1993). Duration and intensity of grazing was under the supervision of zoo technicians, but it often used to be a superficial routine. It added to the general disapproval of the “command” system of running negdels.

Collective administration was not to be blamed entirely, except for neglecting its controlling function, since programming of camp changes was not its duty. The frequency of herd rotation at pasture was a matter for shepherds themselves and it was their responsibility to consider the cycle of their movements in relation to successors to the pasture area. Therefore, the lack of coordination was a fault of both the herders and the administration. However, the latter was customarily condemned for the situation by the public. It should be emphasized that, often, collective managers showed greater sensitivity about grazing conditions and territory arrangements than the herders themselves (Fernandez-Gimenez, 1993: 40).

The second highly deplored weakness of the collectives resulted from an expanded restructuring of flocks through substituting local breeds with imported ones, more productive in meat substance and wool quality. The yield, however, did not compensate for the labor involved in watching and looking after alien animals in the harsh conditions of the Mongol climate. Again, much effort has been made to raise hybrids adapted to the local habitat; some of these efforts have been successful or at least promising. But the effort has not brought about the equivalent endurance in the animals. Besides, all kinds of negligence in shepherding could be ascribed to the overall quality of the new breeds. Thus there has persisted the stereotype of non-adapted outlandish sheep, justified only in part due to conservative thinking. Except sheep and cattle, other species have not been affected by cross-breeding, but sheep remain critical in nutritional and marketing aspects, leaving aside their ritual function.

Institutions: Land Tenure

Land rights in Mongolia are based on what are often termed grazing commons or public access to pastures. This was formally represented by titulary ownership vested in the emperor during Chinese rule, in the theocratic ruler in Autonomous Mongolia, and in the state during the People’s Republic. The Constitution of 1992 is less precise, stating “national sovereignty and state protection” over land (art. 6.1) and yet it admits private ownership of cultivated plots and enterprise grounds. However, it perpetuates the tradition by excluding private possession of pastures (art. 6.3).

The early transition years of 1990—1 saw a fierce debate over allowing privately-held grazing grounds opted for by the non-communist opposition and its supporters among herdsmen. Arguments in favor were based on the liberal ideology, including an important premise of enforcing effective land use, sustainable and free from over-utilization. They were not convincing enough, and what is more important, contradicted the culturally-based customary practice (cf. discussion in Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 82—6). The fervor of the post-communist free thought, combined with denouncements of the undemocratic legal regulations, was associated with reasons and interests of the most enterprising strata of individual herders. This was the only case when a completely new institution had been advocated since collectivization.

In fact, exclusive use of some pastures, or rather areas, was in the past assigned to feudal rulers of fiefs, and, by their will, to eminent Buddhist clergy. This, however, pertained to rights of use but not of ownership. Generally, land tenure includes use rights which ideally are open, though practically, priority is procured for customary users. These users are bound by unwritten terms of coordination, implying group membership in resource exploitation, antecedence in occupation, seasonal specialization of pastures, proper succession of species over a grazing area, and a right of passage limited to indispensable duration.

Except for the feudal case, there are no pastures used individually, though particular pastures are usually attributed to a household and constitute a family’s customary grazing grounds. In this case a pasture means an aggregate of seasonal sectors, each including several patches of which one or two are used in a season. There are no boundaries between patches as they can be expanded or contracted depending on grass cover in a given year. And besides, the patches are not real pieces of land, rather they are denoted by a convention between a user and the reality found on the spot. Furthermore, each household has a complementary pasture elsewhere to be exploited in case of need, not to mention to be used as special resorts open to everybody for emergency during calamities. Some patches of the family grazing grounds can also be used by neighbors on a particular seasonal sector. Another sector may support a different set of neighbors, thus contributing to a picture of overlapping family pastures which can be mapped like patchwork. Norms regarding pasture use vary over regions, but in general comply to the above rules (cf. Meams, 1993).

The above summarized ideal pattern explains why any land privatization would be extremely complicated and always to the detriment of other users. Some specific issues, such as right of passage, contribute to the confusion. Non-conflictual privatization is possible only in some areas of the steppe-forest Khangai region, rich in grass and water, where nomads and the size of their grazing area is very limited.

A pasture is, then, a set of pastures — a grazing territory occupied by a particular group of people. Use of such a pasture for strictly private purposes is possible but would be harmful for the territory and the group. The socially accepted group constitutes a neighborhood of authorized customary users. The category includes households long established in the area, their offspring, relatives, and friends invited to join. It is broad enough, though it tends to be exclusive. If the demand for access exceeds the ecological capacity then it becomes competitive and will be acquired on a first come first served basis. Nevertheless, control over access remains limited to group membership, at least ideally. It is in the interest of the members who are somehow ascribed grazing resources, otherwise they would be compelled to apply elsewhere for accommodation, possibly in vain.

On becoming landless they would most probably join vagrants of the nomads who wander through various pastures, making use of an extended right of passage with no regard to the seasonal interests of customary users. Incidence of trespassing has greatly increased during the last few years (cf. Fernandez-Gimenez, 1993: 41; Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 82—3). Observations suggest that people are puzzled and annoyed by trespassing behavior. Trespassing is, of course, not new, but during the time of the collective it had been irrelevant. Under the new circumstances the issue is more contentious. It does not result from the current weak execution of order on the part of local authorities. Its real causes are twofold: first, attempts at a hasty accumulation of livestock capital, taking advantage of disorderly conditions of the transitional period; and second, an intensifying drift toward fixed customary pastures and their protection, which tends to eliminate some people from the game over a territory.

Resource potential in Mongolia is being diminished in absolute terms by a steady reduction of grazing area (for urbanization purposes, tilling, extension of roads and steppe tracks, etc.), and due to the relative increase of the total stock (by 2 million), i.e., 9 percent since 1957. According to estimates, the total grazing area has been reduced from 140 to 125 million hectares between 1957 and 1994, that is from 6 to 5 hectares per head of livestock. Therefore competitive and optimizing strategies gain in significance; any pressure for land privatization should be evaluated in this context. The constitutional ban continues, but through informal channels.

A practice of granting exclusive rights to grounds by district executive heads has recently become current in some regions. The rights are conceded, on the basis of long residency, to persons claiming family grazing grounds. Formal documents are issued in writing and show delineated borders, though the title — leasing or a long-term renting — is not precisely stated. Any law stipulating individual control would mean, in practice, a revolution: monopolizing grazing rights for control by a section of herders. Those who press for land leasing and take avail of the possibility certainly know about prevailing negative attitudes. They are, however, ready to risk outgroup status in exchange for exclusive rights. It is perhaps an indicator of the evolving new business class among the Mongolian livestock-holders. Their behavior is symptomatic of the liberalization program. A quasi-private ownership may incite trespassing conduct to an even greater extent in reaction to what is culturally understood as unwarranted and unjust. If new title-holders were to defend their pastures effectively, it would stimulate agitation or even fighting in the steppe.

Institutions: Local Communities

Pre-collective individual economy households used to be nomads in groups, who pooled their herds for coordinated grazing, labor, management and shared experience. They camped in a cluster, splitting seasonally according to requirements of livestock tending. They also could separate whenever they wished. Such units were termed khot ail in most of Mongolia. The basic criterion for uniting was complementarity of individual herds, so that when combined, they created a manageable and viable joint herd from the point of view of number of animals and their species composition. Therefore the pooling strategy demanded an equal or diversified livestock input, summing up to an optimal size. Most often it was diversified and therefore an informal khot ail organizer would decide about its membership. Poor households presented the least problems, contributing only manpower (perhaps excessive manpower, but this was rarely perceived as an unnecessary burden). Complications arose for very rich households who were looking for freehands only. Sometimes they had to divide up their livestock, to be operated as separate herds by two khot ails.

The system described above was a very convenient one, and it was therefore used to embrace most pastoral families. Individual encampments were a minority, except in the Gobi region, and even some of them belonged to a unit, being separated temporarily because of a division of labor. (An example of this is a saakhalt, a pair of households camping at a distance and exchanging lambs for a day in order to save the milk of separated mothers.) Khot ails constituted a basic local community as well as a center of social and ritual life (Szynkiewicz, 1982). There would be few Mongols bom before the 1950s who did not experience life within such a community. Therefore, the benefits of sharing herds and work have been embedded into their individual life histories and memory. They were even reproduced in collectives when separate production units clustered together in a spontaneous drive to participate in one another’s tasks and to remain sociable against empty steppe ranges.

No wonder then that khot ails have reappeared after the dissolution of the collectives. The people, however, often do not recognize that they themselves belong to that sort of institution. Confusion is understandable, since the expression means basically “household(s) on a campsite” and does not necessarily refer to the structure as described above. Some researchers, while commenting on the institution, mix it up with an encampment, which only spatially resembles the former. Moreover, the historical teaching of the past years has explained the institution itself as a means of economic exploitation of impoverished herdsmen, conforming to the model with diverse wealth of members. Thus a confined meaning seems to prevail. Even trained economists use the term with this particular connotation and say that the time for khot ails is still ahead.

In fact, present khot ails are not for affluent people to serve their herds because they are almost non-existent. They are not even concerned with bringing the pooled herd to an optimal size and composition. Their purpose is limited to basic advantages of the simplest cooperation in herding, produce processing, providing safety assistance, and filling the gap resulting from cancelled collective services. Such services include digging or clearing old wells because borehole wells have fallen into disuse. They also involve servicing cars or trucks, if such have been bought, preparing caravans and organizing transport, fodder collecting, marketing and delivering the produce, and curing sick animals (because veterinary service is charged). Perhaps that is enough for a modern khot ail, but it does not embrace the basic traditional function of shared labor and division of tasks executed by a head or a manager.

Nevertheless the institution has made its comeback, notwithstanding that its functions have been reduced and partly changed. In between there was the period of the collectives which introduced many modernized functions requiring a degree of professionalism not possible in a traditional khot ail. Even in its extended form, a cooperative khorshoo, can answer only basic needs of a livestock producing unit in circumstances of complex pastoralism. It can be conjectured that in the future a form of khorshoo organization, with some measure of specialization and incorporating khot ail principles, will prevail as a social and economic unit, to some extent also supporting its underprivileged members.

Institutions: Kinship and Redistribution

The transitional period, with its uncertainties, made people revive traditional solidarities of which the khot ail is most representative at the communal level. In search of security, it has been reinforced by kinship ties, so that local communities combine kin as a kind of insurance. Mongols have no descent groups anymore, but kinship solidarity is strong and effective. It is a sort of imperative which has resulted in kinship links prevailing in many of the khorshoo which appeared first. Successively, the instrumental approach has persisted over the personal one and recently established cooperatives enlist members, as a rule, according to both action and trust principles, the former dominating while the latter is not exclusively confined to the kinsfolk.

Kinship bonds were intense on the threshold of the collective economy, so that administration tended to suppress them out of concern about a possible conflict of loyalties. Over time they have been relaxed, but they continue in relevance with regard to emergency cooperation and basic assistance to relatives in case of their impoverishment. This function has been resumed with increased determination after dissolution of collectives when people became isolated from organized aid and facilities. As a result kin relations were restored and brought to operation both within and outside the khot ails. In some places even an old tradition of fictitious kinship was revived, namely the sworn brotherhood. Its purpose is not to supersede blood relations, but rather to supplement them with a peculiar alliance, close enough to deserve its elevation to the level of kinship. Sworn brotherhood, well known in medieval times and reported still in the middle of this century, was apparently forgotten in recent years.

In communist Mongolia there endured a specific institution known as idesh, a result of intensive urbanization and migration from the pastoral to the urban milieu. In consequence, kinship networks lost their territorial basis while kinsfolk became disassembled and accommodated in various places. Since the socialist economy was unbalanced and generated inadequacies, there existed separate economies for both urban and country environments with specific demands constantly not provided for. Within this system, relatives placed in various environments worked mutually to supply insufficient goods and services. Idesh has been incorporated into traditional gift exchange whereby manufactured consumer goods and urban-based services were contributed from town to countryside; and this was reciprocated by food suppfies in the opposite direction. The latter gave the name to the institution (idesh - meat for the winter) which persisted for years until adversities of recent times undermined the exchange (Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 74–5).

General impoverishment and price rises made townspeople unable to contribute. For some time they offered money, which in Mongol culture also enjoys the status of a gift (in the form of banknotes, formerly silver ingots and coins). Soon the currency crisis severely curtailed the amount of cash in circulation, eliminating it from exchange. The latter was considered balanced for a time because relatives in the countryside were presented with privatization vouchers (of the so-called “small lot,” not valid for livestock) in an effort to match commitments. On the other side, herdsmen feel compelled to continue their traditional obligations of providing their town kin with meat and other produce, either as a requirement of kinship solidarity or in expectation that the institutional exchange would, in the future, be reinstated. In any case, it still works in fine with the A.R. Radcliffe-Brown’s concept of rights and duties within kinship networks.

Taking into account the prolonged food crisis in urban centers, townspeople depend on self-providing efforts. It is to their advantage then to continue procedures of idesh, and new ways of its implementation can be anticipated. The complex of how, whether localized or dispersed, displays interest in maximizing the performance of its countryside members. Therefore the townspeople would be continually supporting the rural dwellers because for some years to come the herders’ cooperation would depend on external factors, and to cope with them they will inevitably seek advice on mechanisms of the market economy, including an effective insurance policy. Before livestock breeders accumulate an appropriate knowledge, kinsfolk will constitute a “managerial training club,” the more so because formal training is deficient and costly.

The knot ail was also a redistributive institution, and lately revitalized it has incorporated this function, in part at least. As a safety net it is not able to handle environmental risks like livestock mortality caused by climatic calamities. These, as a rule, cut herds down equally within a small herding unit. Therefore only individual cases of misfortune and losses resulting from specific performance, mistreatment or neglect can be dealt with through kinship or community channels.

Khot ail safety services are non-expensive and self-activating; they are offered to inmates on a go-without-saying basis, but have seldom extended beyond this. This is an instance of communal dependents who exchange their labor for maintenance. In many cases goods flow in one direction without reciprocation — in contrast with redistributional channels engaged in the gift exchange system which exists beyond the khot ail’s structure (though of course it may include its members). Khot ails which comprise households of comparable wealth follow an assistance pattern consisting of exchange and loans. The former, however, approximate rather a charitable home which does not provide the means for re-activating wealth status once ruined.

Most khot ails of the past included at least one single person of no substance, and often one or two pauperized households. These were the cases that substantiated the notion of an institution which exploited impoverished people for profit. The situation was not unfamiliar in the collectives whose single or disabled members worked part time and received a meager remuneration for their infrequent work days (there were no regular salaries in the collectives). Similar cases have multiplied in the aftermath of liberalization, though demand for extra labor is not yet great because wealth differentiation is not sufficiently polarized, notwithstanding the emergence of the poor.

Institutions and Attitudes: Status Seeking

In addition to kinship another network has been organizing Mongol society: that of hierarchical dependency based on formal or informal authority and subjection. The pastoral society of Mongolia preserves three status-defining factors: formal authority of rank or public roles which generates an ascribed status; prestige, which is a condition of informal or achieved reputation and influence; and wealth standing. All three have worked incessantly, though relevance of wealth had been obstructed during the years of the collective system. Status is an important agent, structuring the network of social relations. And everybody conforms to its requirements or is supposed to conform. That network in its turn shapes interdependencies within the herding community. It has also experienced significant changes, influencing position and performance of countryside inhabitants.

Authority of Rank

Formal status is the most hierarchical and rigid, though Mongol culture lays down some limitations to its exercise. It has been reported through consecutive historical stages since early feudal, militarized society up until the collective period. The relationship was usually described in kin terms, akh-kiiii, literally older—younger brothers, recognized as having senior-junior affiliation. In practice, however, the senior position within a formal hierarchy has been described by the term darga, which includes both descnptive and honorific connotations. It was also used in the address form in other relations if they were perceived in a widely-defined dependency system. Thus a darga is a person holding any office of influence, or ability to affect such a person’s acts.

In the authoritarian communist society and the collective economy system a darga’s will was decisive in distribution of lower-level posts, functions in a collective, scarce goods, and rewards for labor. Therefore district heads and party secretaries were usually nominated from outside to prevent their involvement in local kinship fabric and consequently becoming subject to inherent expectations and duties. Anyhow, they were not able to avoid persuasion and constant private visits of people with some business to settle. In spite of formal respect to superiors, they were not exempted from the burden of hospitality custom, which meant that their homes were open to clients.

Practical problems of labor organization, changes in herd specialization or pasture area were settled on the local level of the brigade, an equivalent to a subdistrict in administrative terms. Both units were headed by one person, usually of local origin and easily accessible, mostly without resorting to pressures through informal networks.

This sort of dependence ceased to exist with privatization, though it continues in companies which perpetuate the collective’s structure. Under the new system, companies are dissociated from the district administration. District leaders are now elected in a free balloting, though often with a limited choice. They are no longer harrassed by the matters which were on the agenda before. Nevertheless, their powers in goods redistribution persist, as demonstrated in the vital question of land leasing. Since the problem is a new one, there is as yet no research or preliminary evaluation of how it works in the framework of local politics, and whether it consolidates lobbying on the part of kin groupings or local communities. Individual pressure over leasing rights is certainly present.

District administration might have been a center for market knowledge and promotion or for pastoral management instruction, but such services are not being organized. There is only a limited private exchange of information between relatives and friends, supported sometimes by local party structures. Among the latter, most active are post-communist party units. Previously the district party secretary was among the most influential dargas, often superseding the district head. Now his role has diminished, though he remains a person of authority almost universally. Contrary to the former period he has to promote himself and his cause in order to maintain his authority. The latter remains formal and ascribed in part, therefore there is no need for particular status seeking. Other parties’ leaders of local standing belong to the second group of informal status holders. The difference is explainable by the traditional disposition and rather marginal influence of other parties.

Physicians, hospital attendants and veterinary surgeons now accumulate a much higher status than hitherto. Formerly they ranked not much better than clerks since their services were state provided and, in the case of animal disease, were standard. Veterinary service remains mandatory when an epizootic disease is apparent; in other circumstances veterinary care is optional and charged. Health care remains free, but has become hardly accessible because of poor financing. In this situation admittance or free, friendly advice are a desired advantage available through patronage; this has also brought folk healers to rise in prestige and demand.

District heads, who formerly used to be appointed, are now required to build their electorate and thus join the category of status seekers. With this objective, almost universal throughout the country, they set about organizing public feasts attached to the recently reborn religious ceremonies of sacrificing to guardian spirits of a locality. Usually one ceremony is central to a district and that particular one is sponsored by district authorities who care about traditional sportive competitions, invest in awards, and in barbecue-type communal dining. They also support local wrestlers who may bring fame to a district because of the great popularity of the Mongol variety of wrestling. Sometimes they compete for the best performance at grand ceremonies where population from several districts or even provinces participate. Thus district leaders win a good name for themselves by reinstating the custom practiced in old pre-communist Mongolia, and also moderately practiced under the collective system.

Informal Statuses

Elderly people and those of acquired prestige have been kept in high esteem equal to rank holders. A conflict of etiquette occurs when two representatives of each class meet at a reception, causing the host perplexity about whom to invite to the honorable seat in a yurt. Except age, other criteria for prestige are negotiable. There are two methods of status achievement. One is excellent performance in a respected activity, such as former dargas with a good record, outstanding wrestlers, renowned trainers of racing horses, prominent herders (especially those bestowed with the title of labor hero in the collective system), eminent healers, etc.

Another method is a generous distribution of goods and merriment by giving a ritualized party which may last two or three days, is open to everybody, and involves gift exchange. Such a party is called nair and is devoted to status building (Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 71—3; Szynkiewicz, 1993: 169—70). For many years under the socialist ideology nairs were forbidden; they were considered to belong to the feudal past. For this reason administrative officials were eliminated from proposing and executing nairs, but now they have incorporated it into their strategy of shaping their own social images. Even heroes of labor, before receiving the title, had begun to include a nair in their campaign. A nair is an obligation in the life of an honest man, but continuous nairs are a vehicle to transfer already respected men to the class of distinguished members of a community, or to the class of dargas.

Privatization of livestock made some of the richer people want to celebrate by giving nairs. While this was true for a short period when people were rejoicing the new economic freedom, rational considerations soon prevailed. There also appeared new prestige seekers, aspiring for recognition or a distinguished standing in a community, as exemplified by local leaders of new political parties, district-based traders who desired to advertise their traffic, or former emigrees returning from urban centers to take up large pastoral business and striving for acceptance into a community. These people resorted to the traditional way of assuring their social position by means of the ostentation embodied in nairs.

There is one category of people who have reappeared in the countryside without recourse to conventional status seeking and the nair as a mode of communicating with the neighborhood. These are the lamas or Buddhist clergy who have re-established themselves in each countryside district after a long term of banishment. They live in little monastic communities, not yet resembling the once vivid and peopled centers of religiosity and knowledge. Prior to the destruction of the Church, lamas held a formal ascribed status comparable to positions of lay rank authority. At present, due to a widespread laicization and long oblivion, their spiritual prestige is open to verification by the criteria of righteousness and benefits they bring to the civil community.

Wealth Status

Wealth stratification appeared immediately after collective assets had been privatized. Privatization was defined by the method of the allocation of lots to individual collective members instead of to households. Variations in family size were essential for the initial livestock distribution. Different, also, were additional allocations for retired or absent members, which varied according to communal decisions in particular collectives. Combined household assets thus depended on how extended were the families in question. Moreover, particular collectives differed in livestock assets and corresponding varied local individual lots. Right at the beginning some owners adopted a strategy of expanding their herds by purchase, to increase their number or to secure a desirable structure of species.

In consequence, the wealth differentiation now resembles that of the early years of communist Mongolia. An approximate comparison with the situation of some seventy years ago shows that below the line of 200 heads, in 1924, there remained 69.7 percent of households and 86.4 percent in 1929, while in 1995 as much as 83.7 percent (cf. Szynkiewicz, 1981: 26). It is interesting to note that rich proprietors holding over a thousand heads amount to around 270 now, which is exactly the same as in 1954 (265), though the latter figure corresponds to the period of oppressing the wealthy. Nevertheless, at that time they were ostensibly rewarded for their accomplishment in the form of token silver figurines presented by the government. This practice is going to be renewed soon. Public acknowledgment is not designed for individual satisfaction only, but also intended for crediting the new class of profitable herdsmen with prestige and thus promoting effective farming.

This symbofic action points to the importance of building a large herd which is able to give a market product and remain viable against the predicaments of nature. It is also associated with the archetypal dilemma of the Mongol herdsmen on whether to focus on investment or on consumption. The choice is not exclusive but reflects two options which have always been present in Mongolia: economic and social. The latter is closely bound to the issue of status seeking. Wealth ostentation has always been an effective factor in building a person’s image, legitimizing his power and authority or aspirations to both, and finally reinforcing prestige.

The simple throng of livestock used to be an important though not the only instrument in status attainment. Conventionally demonstrative in this respect has been the amount and quality of horses tended by a man. Horses are the least productive animal in Mongol conditions: their meat is not consumed, they are not beasts of labor, they suffice mainly for riding and racing, that is for display and ostentation. However, they do provide practical transport. Fermented mares’ milk, the kumiss, for which a large number of mares is required, is also a sociable beverage, not just a nourishment. It points to the fact that horses, beyond a requisite transport team, serve other needs than economic rationale.

My field observations in 1992 have shown that some newly affluent herdsmen tended to reorient their herd structure to ostentatious over-representation of horses. This is not yet a leading trend, as shown in general statistics relating to herd composition.

General observation shows that, irrespective of individual cases, livestock owners on the whole conform to the rational model of business planning. This may change with further wealth differentiation because signals of ostentatious tactics are apparent in some affluent households. They pertain to both — the herd structure and excessive consumption. The latter has been reported in the field (cf. Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 92—6) and can be attributed to status-exacting activities and redistributional institutions of nair and idesh.

Management and Market Response

Wealth stratification will continue at the expense of some of the weakest households, which possess up to 100 heads. Their spending for market consumer goods (tea, flour, sugar, etc.) would demand continuous trading of animals. At the present time, meat shortages set good terms for breeders, which lets them survive. A justified stereotype holds that pastoralists are better off than urban people, even though they lost their savings because of high inflation. Nevertheless, many poor herders indulge in drinking and gambling. Some quit pastoral occupation and migrate to towns where they are fated to unemployment or to taking up low-paid and despised police jobs.

Many of the dispossessed owe their situation to mistakes made in management. Members of the collectives lost their ability to cope with the challenges of private herding and had to acquire it anew. Not all have been successful and almost no one has had a chance to receive appropriate instruction (which costs money). Care on the part of the collectives and state institutions, especially in providing fodder and transport during natural calamities, has reduced the capacity to stay on the alert. In consequence, the environment has no longer considered a threat (cf. Mearns, 1993: 93). Recently herders have been confronted with a most pressing danger — heavy snow and frost. In early spring 1993 inclement weather took a toll of 750,000 animals, and the following winter as much as one million.

In some cases the losses aggregated to more than half of the livestock possessed. It has reduced or ruined the herd viability, which according to accounts from the 1930s can be attained at the level of no less than 200 heads. An average household, including absentee holders, now amounts to 90 heads. The respective figure for the ordinary pastoralists can be assessed at 110—120 heads which corresponds to reports for 1924 (120.8 heads) and 1959 (124.2, in this case including collective livestock), that is roughly the same potential as in periods of economically ineffective stockbreeding (cf. Szynkiewicz, 1981: 27). It means that an average household is not sustainable.

Interviews with herders have shown that most of them do not regard their situation as unsafe, cannot define the level of poverty and herd viability, or differ in their definitions of what are essential precautions. As a result they are not aware of measures to be taken in response to potential risks (Potkanski and Szynkiewicz, 1993: 69—70). According to private assessments of district leaders only one-fifth of stockholders run their farms proficiently while some 30 percent are incompetent and doomed to bad fortune. At lower levels of experience and competency a tendency toward individual or separate herd attendance, which calls for extended manpower, has been noted. This produced a dramatic decline in school frequenting which has been reduced by a quarter, that is by around 100,000 pupils. It points to an inability to cooperate which is also responsible for infrequent occurrence of khorshoos. The tradition of big collective enterprises with some cooperation between households, notwithstanding centralized management and low individual responsibility, has not found its transmission into the new system of managing, at least with some households.

Certain examples of astonishing behavior can be cited as indications of mismanagement and regress strategy. One example concerns winter and spring shelters for animals which have been acquired from the collectives. Wooden structures proved their usefulness many a time in the system of all-the-year-round pasture grazing. Some of them, too many for a rational explanation, have been left waste when their owners decided to move winter/spring pastures to another area while shaping anew their family grazing grounds. The shelters could be moved and restructured, but a lack of basic skills and means of transport has prevented this from happening. Similar reasons, plus a shortage of timber, would obstruct new constructions. More investment is needed for the upkeep of borehole wells which have been neglected and have had to be replaced by easily available expenditure of simple labor, for example, digging.

As far as the creation of large and sustainable herds is concerned, some relief is provided by leasing livestock from absentee owners, which increases the herd attended. Absenteeism is an old practice though presently it springs from different causes, e.g., former collective members who are now engaged in other professions and leading settled lives. Their herds are small in size but positively strengthen those of their relatives or friends, who tend them for usufruct. There are no big commercial absenteeists in Mongolia who might have changed the social structure of the countryside. Their emergence is not, however, excluded.

An oft-quoted example of self-efficiency of Mongol herders is their reaction to market requirements. A sharp reduction of motorized transport because of a decrease in local car parks and rise of petrol prices led to a call for a return to camels whose number in the total private stock has risen by 32 percent between 1992 and 1993, mostly due to purchase. Some procured camels have been allocated for caravan business, both individual and cooperative. Another instance of market response is an increase of the goat stock by over 35 percent in 1993 as compared to the previous year. It was prompted by high prices for spinning fly or cashmere. The annual yield from two or three goats equals the market price of a well-fatted sheep which makes a good profit. More advantageous prices for cashmere on the Chinese market made the government introduce export restrictions, which caused a conflict with the World Bank in 1995.

Trade is another case of market economy development in pastoral areas. As compared to the previously monopolized state trading network there exist at present three networks: the previous one, now a little more efficient, public companies (a reformed version of the state localized network) and private, including khorshoo and similar organizations. Trading of market produce has been the most vulnerable part of the pastoral economy from the start of privatization. Herdsmen tried to fill the gap by their own effort of combining production with marketing. Peddlers have appeared more efficient, both itinerant and localized ones. As in the pre-communist times, they take this selling opportunity at public rallies, and at religious and lay ceremonies. They also wander country-wide in the peak times of shearing, felt-making, early winter slaughtering, etc. According to unofficial estimates some 30 percent of the capital engaged in private trade is of Chinese origin. Other accounts add to that figure 20 percent hidden in partnership with the Mongols. The situation has reanimated old distrust toward Chinese attempts to subjugate Mongolia (this is an historical pattern of foreign commercial capital involvement).

Conclusions

A grand political and economic experiment at releasing stockbreeders from ecological pressures, and the hardships of distant nomadizing in the collectives, has been terminated. Herders have been set free from the state tutelage and organizational support. Conditions for pastoral operation have become unpredictable again.

First reactions to decollectivization were encouraging: many herders took the private economy for granted as if they were accustomed to its purpose. When the difficulties of leaving the organized structures of the collective became known, some chose to stay with the substitutes, the companies. They did so because of fear of the unknown, or because of their conviction that the promoted style of farming and living was, so far, satisfactory and promising. The state protection was, however withdrawn from all sectors, and it appears that companies are not much safer. Besides, the proceeding privatization was attractive enough, and suggested that those first to enlist would get better shares. Many companies dissolved. The remaining have assembled the herdsmen most dedicated to what was ordinarily called modernization.

This did not mean that individual herd owners were indifferent to modernization. Some of them believed that businesslike performance would return advanced methods in husbandry. For several generations modernization served as a paradigm of an ideal closely related to virtue, situated next to religiosity in the Buddhist tradition. Such a syncretic tie was a result of the long-lasting propaganda which tended to discredit the past but resulted only in the assimilation of the general idea of modernization. The concept was accepted because of the high prestige of the state in a hierarchical status-based society, in deference to its teachings.

Paradoxically, some essential tenets of modern herding were instantly discarded, e.g., improved breeding, artificial insemination, or specialization of herds. Others, like veterinary care, marketing of undurable dairy produce, fodder supplies, or winter shelters, have been widely accepted. Partly abandoned was the inert scheme of contiguous nomadizing, entertaining the illusion of sedentarization.

Strategies adopted in the course of liberalization are a mixture of traditional, new, and blended approaches. The latter can be described as an inconsistent or erratic reintroduction of customary practices, divergences most probably resulting from remodeling.

A traditional strategy which operates with its own rules is the building up of safety nets based on kinship, including “fictitious” ones, and on a community of neighbors. Assistance derived from solidarity is well institutionalized and has been immediately resorted to. Another strategy is a continuing return to the notion and practice of family grazing grounds, contributing to the stability of territorial behavior. There are other good working practices which originate in the past, though they are somewhat marginal to herding strategies. Such practices include small private trading or barter exchange. The environmental ethic has been violated by the reappearance of trespassers (free-riders), and a resulting over-use of resources.

Attempts at accommodation of traditional institutions sometimes end in ambiguous results, producing substitutes which serve limited functions. This can be attributed to a brief period of adjustment rather than a wrong choice. Khot ails are a good example. In rare cases they adopt their original and true form of a community of labor and consumption, but mostly they are part of local safety nets. Besides, they delineate social and spatial boundaries, that is, they create stable neighborhoods allowing for the sustainable exploitation of a particular territory and facilitating the arbitration of disputes. Perhaps less efficient are other institutions, occasionally suspended in action like redistributional idesh. or the wealth ostentation complex.

Completely new institutions, such as cooperatives, khorshoo, market links, or attempts at expanding the livestock insurance in addition to various survivals of the collective period, act as incentives for the liberal economy.

A retreat to familiar practices transmitted from previous generations reduces tensions and alleviates the negative consequences of the new economic order. On the other hand, a new arrangement of social relations and status categories makes the social environment familiar and comprehensible. Perhaps this is what herders in structural transition need the most.

References

Acknowledgment

I am grateful to Dr Budsurengiin Tumen, the ambassador for Mongolia in Warsaw, for his kind and helpful advice.

14. Understanding Reindeer Pastoralism in Modern Siberia: Ecological Continuity versus State Engineering

Igor I. Krupnik

Introduction: A “Subsistence Continuum” in the Arctic

The variety of subsistence and mobility patterns recorded among the native people in the Arctic was by no means a random mixture of patchily distributed economic models. Arctic anthropologists have tried for decades to address that diversity as a juxtaposition of the two major types of native subsistence — that is, of the sedentary and the nomadic economy. The best-known examples are long established cultural divisions between the so-called “Maritime” (i.e., sedentary) and “Reindeer” (nomadic) groups among the Chukchi and Koryak people in Siberia; a similar distinction between the “Mountain” (reindeer-herding) and “Coastal” (hunting and fishing) Saami in Northern Scandinavia; and a famous “Tariurmiut-Nunamiut” (coastal—inland) dichotomy among the North Alaskan Inupiat Eskimo, to name but a few (Bogoras, 1931; Meriot, 1980; Spencer, 1959).

Modern scholars are more eager to shape the very same subsistence diversity in the Arctic as a combination of several overlapping and/or opportunistic strategies that changed both in space and time due to cultural traditions and fluctuations in exploited game resources (Burch, 1976; Mine, 1986; Mine and Smith, 1989). I addressed this issue in more detail elsewhere (Krupnik, 1989; 1990; 1993: 210—15) under a format of organized subsistence continuum, named the Dual Subsistence Model. That approach matches the two basic subsistence strategies, that is, the inland mobile and the coastal/riverine sedentary economies as opposing extremes of a wide nomadic—sedentary spectrum. Dozens of local subsistence models were in between these extremes, according to the range of group annual mobility, the distance to be covered each year, and/or the number of people undergoing annual move (Krupnik, 1985: 134; 1992: 29—31).

The opposing extremes of the “nomadic-sedentary continuum” could be seen as truly antagonistic strategies in terms of their type of procurement and their response to Arctic environmental change. The sedentary strategy was oriented toward intense exploitation of relatively small and specially selected niches, with a simultaneous high concentration of many valuable subsistence resources. At least one or several of these were to be abundant and/or reliable enough to secure survival of a fairly large human population and to level its annual consumption through extensive food storage. Hence, the optimal sites for sedentary subsistence in the Arctic were located along certain sections of the sea shore, at narrows created by islands and archipelagoes, and at the mouths and lower reaches of the Arctic rivers.

At such places, migratory marine mammal stocks and sea-bird colonies were supplemented by summer runs of Pacific salmon and/or other anadromous fish species. Short-term seasonal concentrations of caribou could be targeted at the mouth crossing of large water flows on their regular north—south migrations. The tidal zone provided additional resources through beach-combing and shellfish harvesting. Several local versions of this complex marine/land game hunting and fishing economy were to be found across the coastal reaches of the Arctic and the North Pacific inhabited by Eskimo (Yupik, North Alaskan Inupiat, Canadian and Greenland Inuit), Maritime Chukchi and Koryak, Aleut, Nivkh, Ainu, and the Northwest Coast Indians on the northern fringes of the temperate zone (Fitzhugh, 1988: 191–4; Krupnik, 1988: 183–8).

The opposing strategy — inland mobile — was based upon an entirely different type of procurement. Its main task was to minimize the human pressure upon exploited subsistence resources via population dispersion and regular interchange, that is, rotation of seasonal hunting ranges or reindeer pastures. The ground for survival under mobile subsistence was to enlarge the exploited territory through continuous or periodic move of hunting and/or reindeer herding bands. Inland caribou hunters, like Inupiat Eskimo and Kutchin Athapaskans in northern Alaska; Nganasan, Yukaghir and Tungus (Evenk and Even) people in inland Siberia who matched caribou hunting with small-scale reindeer herding; and fully nomadic Siberian Nenets, Reindeer Chukchi and Koryak, with their intensive reindeer economy, were among the best-known examples of Arctic native people with a year-round mobile/nomadic subsistence. In fact, native subsistence diversity in the Arctic went far beyond these two basic strategies and included dozens of intermediate and/or transitional versions of semi-nomadic and semi-sedentary economy. That subsistence diversity was, in my view, an adaptive response toward high insecurity and general resource instability of the Arctic environment (Krupnik, 1993: 210–14). Human life in the Arctic, as known from both archaeological and historical records, has been dominated by periodic or irregular alternations of warming and cooling phases. In a similar way the human survival in the arid zone has been influenced for ages by periodic humidity—aridity cycles. In general, warming phases in the Arctic were more favorable for the coastal sedentary people, whose resources came primarily from marine ecosystems. During this time, migratory routes of marine mammals, birds, and anadromous fish made a general shift toward the north (Vibe, 1967; McGhee, 1969; see Krupnik, 1993: 143—53, 156—9). New grounds opened; and the time for most productive open-water, ice-edge, or ice-lead hunting and fishing expanded. With resource base swelling, human life was boosted on the Arctic coasts.

But the very same warming phases brought hard times to the caribouhunting and reindeer-herding people in the interior tundra zone. Since the Arctic caribou/reindeer is poorly adapted to summer heating stress, a few years with warmer summer months and winter thaws might cause dramatic losses to reindeer and caribou herds through epizootics, overgrazing, and tundra fires. As a result, warming phases usually led to nadirs in caribou/reindeer population cycles (see Krupnik, 1993: 143–9, 154–5, 158–9).

Cooling phases in the Arctic produced the opposite scenario. With the better condition established for caribou and domestic reindeer herds in the interior tundra zone, cooling phases expanded the niche for inland nomadic subsistence. As a result, the mobile caribou hunters thrived and a full-scale reindeer pastoralism developed in Northern Eurasia between ad 1600 and 1800. On the other hand, native subsidence base on the Arctic coast deteriorated due to changes in ice and we iher regimes and ice blockade of the marine mammal migratory routes. To the Arctic coastal people, cooling usually meant “hard times” and starvation; it triggered population drifts to the interior or to more hospitable areas down south. Large portions of the Arctic coastland became abandoned during the cooling phases, as it happened on the Arctic islands of Canada and north-east coast of Greenland between ad 1600 and 1900 (Jordan, 1984: 547–8; McGhee, 1984: 374–5).

This pattern of diverse warming—cooling responses was obviously a very general scenario. However, constant swings of the ecological pendulum had enormous significance for indigenous people of the Arctic. They encouraged development of a combined subsistence strategy, in which two or more resource use models developed in tandem. Since any changes in the environment bolstered resource niche for one type of subsistence (either nomadic or sedentary), and, at the same time, reduced resource base for another, people were to be ready to embrace either one in response to environmental change.

Several cases of such amazing subsistence flexibility have been documented across the Arctic zone. During the late 1800s, hundreds of Inuit inland caribou hunters in northern Alaska moved to the sea-shore and settled in sedentary coastal communities following the caribou crash of 1880 (Amsden, 1979: 397–400; Burch, 1972: 356–8). As a counter-drift, during the cooling phase of the 1600s and 1700s, groups of Canadian coastal Inuit people abandoned the Arctic coast to become highly specialized caribou hunters, the so-called “Caribou Eskimo” (Burch, 1978). In the same manner and roughly at the same time, coastal sedentary hunters deserted the Kara Sea and the East Siberian Sea coastlands at the two opposing ends of the Russian Arctic littoral and were quickly transformed to (or replaced by?) nomadic reindeer herders (Krupnik, 1993: 206—8).

In this context, the history of indigenous economies in the Arctic could be seen like a tide that periodically shifted from (more) nomadic patterns, that is, inland caribou hunting and reindeer herding to (more) sedentary modes (coastal hunting and fishing) and back again according to prevailing environmental trend. This constant flux of Arctic indigenous people from sedentary to nomadic subsistence and vice versa created a highly specific adaptive continuum. Its strength and sustainability was in the high level of variety, and according to this basic principle dozens of various economic and mobility patterns continued to coexist under specific local, cultural or ethnic faces.

In those areas of the Arctic where the adaptive mechanism of a “subsistence continuum” prevailed — on the Chukchi Peninsula, in northwestern Alaska, in northern Scandinavia — we can generally trace an unbroken line of cultural continuity and human occupation over a long-term time frame. In other areas, like in Greenland, Labrador, or in the Canadian High Arctic, due to local ecological conditions there was never enough room for a full-scale inland nomadic niche. Highly specialized mobile caribou-hunting economies were limited and native reindeer pastoralism never developed in northern North America. And finally, in certain places in the Arctic a “subsistence continuum” that once used to exsist collapsed at one time, due to extinction of one of its building components. There the balance was destroyed and the dual model disappeared. One case of such subsistence breakdown reportedly took place on the Yamal Peninsula and in adjacent areas of the Western Russian Arctic during the 1600s and 1700s (Krupnik, 1993: 201–10). But there were many more documented cases of “cultural extinction” across the circumpolar zone that happened ages before or independently of native encounter with the European colonial powers (Krupnik, 1993: 216–19).

Russian Intervention

That spectrum of indigenous mobility and subsistence diversity in Siberia was nevertheless greatly altered by the Russian colonial expansion during the 1600s. By the early 1700s, most of the Siberian native groups were subdued by the Cossack detachments and/or regular Russian military. Local administration was installed, native people were registered for fur-tax payment and other imposed tributes and duties, and clusters of native military resistance were smashed with iron fist. The only exceptions were militant Chukchi and allied Siberian Eskimo of the Chukchi Peninsula who preserved their independence until the 1800s, and native people of the Amur River Valley and Sakhalin Island (Nivkh, Ainu, Nanay, etc.) who remained under the influence of the Chinese and Japanese until about 1850.

Russian pattern of colonial rule carried across Siberia, from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific, had remarkable differences if compared to other European colonial policies elsewhere in the North (Forsyth, 1992: 38–46; Pierce, 1988: 119—21). Russia’s quest was rarely for free land and/or for cheap enslaved labor but mainly for pelts and for more subdued wards to procure its flow. Hence, its chief if not only goal was to subjugate native Siberians to become obedient tribute-payers to the Russian state. An annual fur-tribute (yasak) was imposed upon all native adult men from age 15 to 55. The regular payement of yasak or fulfilment of some other duties was expected as the best and probably the single demonstration of native loyalty to the Russian State. With that aim achieved, native people were regarded as wards of the empire under special supervision and protection by local Russian administration.

While duly building fortresses, trading posts, and regional centers all across Siberia, the Russian administration had no special concerns beyond regular delivery of the yasak tribute. As such, it rarely imposed any particular pressure upon native customs, subsistence, or social structure as did other northern colonial powers. Russia never had any specific policy for native sedentarization in Siberia — either by converting native people to agriculture or by settling them near missions and trade posts as was practised by Danes in Greenland or by the Moravian missionaries in Labrador. Russian posts and administration centers did attract some indigenous people; but they never became significant centers of native sedentism, except in a few marginal areas.

In fact, Russian colonial rule had even stimulated an increase in year-round or seasonal mobility among the native Siberians. The stocks of the most precious fur-bearers, i.e., sable, marten, and beaver, were depleted and overexploited across the Siberian boreal forest zone within a few first decades after the Russian invasion. Short of pelts to pay the annual yasak tribute, native people were forced to switch to the less valuable fur animals, like squirrel, ermine, bear, Arctic and red fox. Exploitation of the new game species triggered shifts in former hunting strategies and caused far greater hunting mobility, particularly in the winter months. Several bands of boreal hunters and fishermen were forced to move northward, to the new hunting grounds in the forest-tundra zone. On that trek, many of them acquired domestic reindeer as their basic means of winter and summer transportation (Pika, 1988). Under a similar pattern of a contact-stimulated transition, several local groups of Khanty, Mansi, Sel’kup, Ket, even moved from a semi-sedentary hunting and fishing subsistence to a more mobile hunting (trapping) economy with some domestic reindeer, and then to a year-round reindeer pastoralism (Koz’min, 1980: 165–8; Lebedev, 1980: 86—9; Pika, 1988; Sokolova, 1982: 29–37).

Another major development in northern Siberia was a gradual shift to the large-herd reindeer economy which reportedly happened during the 1600s and 1700s. A combination of favorable ecological trend and new socioeconomic conditions established by Russian colonial regime created a setting under which a remarkably similar subsistence change took place in distant, geographically disjunct areas of northern Eurasia (see more in Krupnik, 1993: 160–84). The earliest documented transition to a large-scale reindeer pastoralism was reported in the 1700s among the Scandinavian Sami and Western Arctic (i.e., European Russia and Yamal) Nenets people as well as among Reindeer Chukchi and Koryak of the North Pacific zone, that is, at the opposing ends of Northern Eurasia (Krupnik, 1976: 65—9). The next wave of pastoralist transition came during the 1800s, to embrace the Dolgan, Nganasan, northern bands of Yakut, Sel’kup, Komi, and Kola Sami (Krupnik, 1993: 164, 175–6).

By the year 1900, reindeer pastoralist economy, advancing simultaneously from western and eastern cusps of the Eurasian tundra zone, ultimately converged in Central Siberia to become a prevailing form of subsistence among native people from Arctic Norway to the Bering Strait area. With dramatic increase in the size of family herds, several indigenous nations eventually shifted from mobile hunting and fishing life to a full-scale nomadism, with its established annual migrations and continuous rotation of camp-sites and seasonal pasture grounds.

Transition to productive reindeer pastoralism has triggered spectacular population growth among some newly converted native pastoralists in central and northern Siberia (Krupnik, 1993: 178—80). Those groups who became truly nomadic increased dramatically. The number of reindeer Nenets people in the Western Russian Arctic swelled almost four-fold: from 1,400–1,500 to 5,600–6000 between the years 1600 to 1850 (Krupnik, 1993: 179–80). Other native pastoralist populations, like Reindeer Chukchi and Koryak, the Yamal Nenets and northern bands of tundra Yakut, experienced similar rates of increase and doubled or even tripled their early contact numbers by the year 1900. Siberian pastoralist population also grew substantially when many former sedentary hunters and fishermen adopted reindeer herding from their nomadic neighbors and shifted to nomadic subsistence. That transition took place among several groups of northern Khanty, Mansi, and Sel’kup people as well as among Izhma Komi and sedentary Olyutora Koryak.

When first detailed censuses and economic inventories were launched by the new Soviet administration in Siberia by the year 1926, some 60 percent of the Siberian minority population was recorded as “nomadic” (Kantor, 1934; Sergeev, 1955: 14). The overall number of native Siberian reindeer pastoralists was about 75,000. Among the Nenets, Nganasan, Dolgan, Even people the share of‘nomadic’ (i.e., reindeer herding) population was at 95 percent; among Evenki and Chukchi it stayed at 87 percent and 70 percent respectively (Sergeev, 1955: 14).

These numbers may be compared to a respective portion of native pastoralists and mobile hunters on the eve of Russian colonial intrusion. Based on population estimates by Russian ethnohistorian, Boris Dolgikh (1960), by the year 1650 native pastoralists accounted for less than 15 percent of the Siberian indigenous population and numbered barely above 30,000 people. That figure then included both the reindeer-herders of the tundra zone and the horse- and cattle-breeders of the boreal forest and steppe, that is, Buryat, Yakut, Touvans and other Turkic-speaking people of South Siberia. The shift toward higher mobility and remarkable expansion of the nomadic portion of native “subsistence continuum” in Siberia during three centuries of the Russian colonial regime was quite obvious.

Soviet State Policies

Unlike their Tzarist predecessors, the new Soviet administrators arrived to Siberia with a fairly defined paternalistic ideology of proletarian “enlightment.” A new society, one free from classes and exploitation, was to be built at the expense of complete transformation of the former native lifestyles. That was to happen in Siberia as well as elsewhere across the country.

The first decade of new Soviet rule was, however, dominated by the policy of “protective” or “philanthropic paternalism” followed by the federal Committee of the North, established in 1924 (Sergeev, 1955; Forsyth, 1989; Pika, 1990; Vakhtin, 1992: 10–14). Several government decrees and statutes were issued aimed at protecting Siberian native people from an uncontrolled trade, from exemption of their lands, pastures and hunting grounds, and/or at creating better educational policies, medical service and local administration. Committee of the North started an ambitious campaign in building local educational and medical centers, named the kultbazy (literally “the cultural bases”) in Siberia. Some of those “bases” became the first centers of new native sedentarization, which at that time were voluntary (e.g., Tabelev, 1936: 14–17). A few, like Yar-Sale base on the Yamal Peninsula, Khatanga base on Taimyr Peninsula, and Tura base on the Lower Tunguska River were later transformed into district or regional hubs, with a substantial native population of former pastoralists.

That policy of “protective paternalism” was abandoned in the early 1930s when the all-Union campaign for collectivization of private agriculture was imposed upon native Siberians. While communalization of the smaller property owned by sedentary hunters and fishermen was rarely met with any serious resistance, the pastoralists were far more reluctant to give up their private reindeer or cattle stocks. Owners of large or even medium-size herds were named “people’s enemies”; they were deliberately overtaxed, disenfranchized, forced to join collective farms, or purged when they refused. The herders resisted by fleeing to the remote tundra areas where they were off effective control by administration or by slaughtering their livestock rather than seeing it incorporated into collective herds. Among the reindeer-herders of northern Siberia, the total loss of domestic stock was between 30 and 50 percent by the year 1935, and the Central Siberian cattle- and horse-pastoralists destroyed about 60 percent of their stock (Forsyth, 1989). The remaining animals were incorporated as common property of the nomadic collective farms (kolkhozes) arranged along traditional local bands and territorial groups that continued to exploit their former pastures and hunting grounds.

The shock of collectivization was extremely traumatic though not yet fatal to native pastoralism in Siberia. When World War II broke out, the state policy once again shifted to less government intervention, in order to secure supply of vitally needed fur, fish, and reindeer meat from Siberia. Even in the 1940s children were still bom in nomadic camps that followed their traditional year-round migration routes, or in small hunting and fishing stations, with traditional subsistence activites. Those people now in their fifties represent the last generation with personal experience of upbringing at nomadic camps and hunting sites. A few bands of reindeer-herders in the most isolated sections of Siberia (like the Amguema River Chukchi, northern Yamal Nenets, or Rassokha River Even) remained the last “non-collectivized” native pastoralists across Siberia well up to the 1950s.

The new state campaign for mass sedentarization of Siberian pastoralists regained its momentum in the early to mid 1950s. This second wave was supported by huge governmental investments and programs aimed at profound transformation of native economies and lifestyles. Hundreds of smaller settlements and camps were closed and their inhabitants were forcefully relocated to larger villages or newly built settlements, with free standard log-housing provided to native families. Even more important was change in the native economies. Smaller collective farms and nomadic kolkhozes were amalgamated into larger state-owned enterprises (sovkhozes) under the new policy of economic concentration. Siberian herdsmen, hunters, and fishermen were now named state “agricultural workers”, with fixed salaries and benefits, but under strict control by the administration.

Herders camps of close kin and/or partners were transformed into “productive brigades” (teams), with appointed personnel staff, migration routes, and production output set up by local farm leaders and district economic planning. By shuffling kin structure of reindeer camps and building large boarding schools in modernized villages, the Soviet authorities forced mass withdrawl of pastoralist population, mainly of women, children, and the aged to larger sedentary communities. By the 1960s both the free mobility of hunters and the former nomadic lifestyle of reindeer herders was all but gone under the pressure of paternalistic modernization.

The reindeer herders camps that I visited in the Siberian Arctic during the 1970s were artificial groupings of several male herders supported by a few elder women, mostly wives of the retired herdsmen (see similar accounts in Yakutia in Vitebsky, 1992: 234). They shifted to a more viable social unit for a few months of summer vacation when children were released from district boarding schools and were brought to the camps to join their families. Each camp was then in charge of a huge state-owned herd of some 2,500 to 3,000 reindeer. Each year a camp was to move along the same and specially designated migration routes over seasonally rotated pastures according to pasture maps prepared by land surveyors.

While theoretically herders’ fife was still mainly nomadic, the former mobility was greatly reduced, since migration routes were shorter and each grazing camp-station was much longer. In addition, herdsmen could have spent up to several weeks or even months each year in the permanent village on vacation. Much of the transportation and supplies were delivered by the state farm’s trucks, boats, over-terrain vehicles and even by rented helicopters. Sometimes the entire camp could be supplied or relocated by modem technology altogether.

Though deeply transformed, that lifestyle was nevertheless under continuous attack by Soviet ideologues. Officially, pastoralism, to say nothing about family nomadism, was labeled an “archaic” and “obsolete” occupation. The then declared goal was to replace family pastoralism with more “progressive” forms of herding, such as fenced pasturing or monthly rotation of herders who were to be provided with a second part-time job and a family residence (an apartment or a house) in the permanent community. Their families would stay there year-round while the herdsmen were to be died out to the pastures by helicopter in shifts as modeled upon a system used for the Arctic oil workers and miners (Vitebsky, 1992: 232–3). With that pattern in mind, academic conferences and official declarations duly argued for “a decisive victory over the last remnants of everyday nomadism.” Although that victory was almost completed during the previous decades, even the last people still in residence in the tundra, like herders, trappers, and/or their accompanying families, were put under special registration. Each native Siberian district was then accounted for its number of nomads who were “permanently settled” during the previous year or were scheduled to be settled in the years to come.

The years between 1960 and 1985 marked the greatest challenge to Native pastoralism in Siberia brought by unprecedented industrial expansion in the Russian Arctic and Subarctic. Some isolated areas of modern industry — mostly of mining, logging, railroad and other communication facihties — were established across northern areas of Russia already in the 1930s. However, major industrial construction and population influx still targeted areas along the Transsiberian Railway and more populated steppe and southern boreal forest zones. The bulk of tundra and boreal forest Native residents remained more or less untouched by modern industry well into the 1950s and even in the 1960s.

The situation changed dramatically when many ambitious industrial projects were started in Northern and Central Siberia after 1970 (Forsyth, 1992: 360—1; Vakhtin, 1992: 24—5). The best-known examples of this unprecedented industrial expansion to the Siberian heartland were the Baikal-Amur Railway, the oil and gas exploitation along the Ob’ River valley and further north in the tundra zone of West Siberia, and a nuclear power plant built on the Chukchi Peninsula, to name but a few. By the year 1985, the Soviet oil and gas industry was already established on the Arctic coast in West Siberia, and the prospects were high to start the offshore drilling in the Barents and Kara Seas. The former continuous zone of native Arctic reindeer-herding and mobile subsistence which once stretched from the Barents Sea to the Bering Strait area was now broken into several isolated enclaves. In fact, the Central Siberian Arctic has been separated by the Norilsk-Lower Yenisey River industrial zone from the Western Siberian Arctic while the latter was in turn isolated from the North of European Russia by the Lower Ob’ River industrial zone and Vorkuta coal mining area. Each of those sections were further spht into smaller segments by the ongoing industrial expansion.

The proponents of a non-stop industrial advance in Siberia lobbied for further projects. Those might well transform the Russian Arctic into a heavily industrialized zone, with a few marginal areas left for state-owned reindeer and fur-trapping enterprises. That latter scenario could have easily brought native pastoralism to a close on any significant scale. As the industry was beefing its plans for further Arctic expansions, anxiety mounted and protests were on the rise among Native Siberians, local “green” activists, and Arctic scientist community. Finally, it exploded in an outspoken criticism of government Siberian policies, just a few years before the Soviet system collapsed altogether in 1991 (Pika and Prokhorov, 1988; Bogoslovskaya et al., 1988; Prokhorov, 1988: Sokolova, 1990; Karlov, 1991; Indigenous Peoples, 1990, etc. — see latest reviews: Forsyth, 1992: 404—17; Slezkine, 1994: 371–85; Vakhtin, 1992: 27–9).

Modern Status of Native Pastoralism

The situation in Siberia changed dramatically, due to severe economic crisis that first initiated and later accompanied the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. Several industrial projects in the Russian Arctic, such as, construction of the Turukhansk and Amguema hydroelectric dams, of the new railroad and pipeline across the Yamal Peninsula and many others were either delayed or abandoned by 1990 (Osherenko, 1995; Savoskul and Karlov, 1988; Vitebsky, 1990). Opposition from the state environmental agencies, protests by new local leadership and Native activists and, first and foremost, the acute shortage of government funds halted any further industrial construction in Siberia, at least for several years.

With the cessation of regular government supply of foodstuffs, fuel, and cash, the huge state reindeer farms lost any prospects of economic profit if not their very reason for existence. Suddenly the northern villages found themselves adrift in a sea of constant shortages, desperation, and wild speculation. As a result of economic difficulties, the Russian professionals and technical specialists, the backbone of the former state farm economy, are fleeing the Arctic in thousands. The economic system created by decades of collectivization, paternalistic experiments and unlimited state investments began to crumble before one’s very eyes, and is hardly likely to be reinstated.

While economic shortages eased the threat of unlimited industrial expansion (at least temporarily), the new political climate has softened the old Soviet pressure upon and control over native fife in Siberia by state and local administration. Since the late 1980s, major official restrictions on mobility and transportation were lifted, first and foremost for women and children accompanying professional hunters and herdsmen during the summer months. State-owned boats, trucks, and cross-country vehicles are now regularly used on commercial grounds or under other forms of payment for family subsistence activities, visits to abandoned traditional villages, or family camp relocation. Foot trips, reindeer- and dog-sled travels are expanding. In recent years, local administration looks much more positively toward free traveling in the Arctic areas. Prospects of a mounting flow of tourists, including foreigners along the Russian northern coastland, seems extremely attractive to the cash-stripped regional economies. With that in mind, all official restrictions on native life in the tundra may soon vanish altogether.

Long-expected transformation of the state-owned reindeer industry raised new hopes and anxieties across Siberian native communities. After 1988—9, the drive to decentralize or even to close the state reindeer farms and to claim back the reindeer property lost during forceful collectivization of the 1930s and 1950s became extremely popular. Local media and public debates were focused upon small reindeer cooperatives or even family-based teams of herders, with individual or family property on reindeer herds. That new property system could eventually transform the Soviet-era patterns of land and pasture management in the Russian Arctic. First and foremost, it may help to return women, children and elders to reindeer camps. Though prospects to re-establish year-round nomadic communities based on traditional reindeer economy and lifestyle are doubtful at best, far more native people are currently staying in seasonal camps across the tundra and boreal forest during summer and fall months. Those who already returned or who are to return would rely on local subsistence resources and activities of their own. As such, they will need more domestic reindeer to hve on their meat and skins, and for transporation.

There are a few additional factors that push toward greater mobility if not toward increased native pastoralism in present-day Siberia. Shortage of centralized governmental food supply to local stores boosted demand for local subsistence resource, i.e., reindeer meat, fish, waterfowl, land game and other traditional food among both native residents and the Newcomers. Higher and less controlled mobility is crucial factor for expanded subsistence use and/or for increased poaching. Fresh meat and fish, pelts, skins, and a few other local subsistence products, already serve as major currency at the local black-markets. This spiralling combination of shortages and demands pushes for substantial increase in private reindeer stocks, as one of fastest ways to accumulate valuable subsistence resources by native Siberians.

Last but not least is the role of the nativist grass-root movement which gains its influence and prestige across Siberia. Native (traditional/indigenous/our fathers’) life values, that is, a free living outside the settlements dominated by the Newcomers and frustrated by alcoholism, unemployment, and violence, is getting a renewed popularity. As the old Soviet ethos of ongoing modernization dwindles, a new brand of Native spokespeople and/or some “reborn” Native intellectuals speak adamantly in favor of traditional life on the land, with its freedom of subsistence and unrestricted mobility.[189] Others, like the Nenets writer Anna Nergagi, who settles permanently in her family reindeer camp on the Yamal Peninsula, express their uncovered disgust toward sedentary life in modem communities built for native people by the Soviet regime.[190] Pastoralism, participation in traditional subsistence activities, and residence in the remote reindeer and hunting camps suddenly becomes a new earmark of cultural continuity and ethnic values.

Whether this spontaneous grass-root movement could become a starting point for a larger and ideologically motivated “bush-movement” — like ones that developed recently among the Australian Aborigines or Canadian Inuit — is still highly questionable in present-day Siberia. There are several factors that limit both the number of people who are willing to return to the bush/tundra lifestyle (or could physically do that) and the amount of their pastoralism to be restored. Firstly, current practices of native reindeer-herding in Siberia are far away from traditional patterns. While former herders used to have a more balanced kind of economy that bound reindeer pastoralism with subsistence fishing, land game and marine hunting, commercial fur-trapping and limited sale of reindeer meat and skins (see Krupnik, 1993: 86—127), modem herdsmen are full-time laborers in an intensive reindeer economy.

That means that nowadays there are less camps with larger herds and, hence, with larger groups of adult male herders and their families. An average modern sovkhoz (i.e., state farm) herd in Arctic Siberia is between 2,000 and 3,000 reindeer compared to a former camp herd of some 400—500 reindeer among the Nenets and 1,000 reindeer among the Chukchi during the 1920s (Krupnik, 1993: 100). As a result, the men simply have no time to look for any regular subsistence activities beyond some episodical fishing and occasional fox-trapping. Lacking additional food and/or pelts to trade for foodstuffs and manufactured goods, modem herders are far more vulnerable than their grandfathers ever used to be in their reliance upon centralized supplies from state farms and large villages. A typical modem reindeer camp on the Yamal Peninsula receives bread and flour, rubber boots and ammunition, gasoline and even firewood, to say nothing about monthly salaries from the state farm via centralized free deliveries in exchange for planned amount of reindeer carcasses in the fall.[191] When and if those people are on their own, there’ll be no bread, no rubber boots and no money to live on.

Secondly, thanks to better medical service and high population growth there are many more native people in several areas of northern Siberia than ever before. The Yamal Nenets population, for example, has increased from 3,240 people in 1926 up to 7,181 in 1989 and is currently around 8,000 (Krupnik, 1996). At least half of those people are officially reported as “nomadic” though evidently not all are year-round pastoralists. Since the amount of usuable pasture land on Yamal actually decreased in recent decades due to overgrazing, oil construction, industrial pollution, etc., there is hardly any room for additional people to move from settlements to a freestyle tundra nomadism.

Thirdly, the current land-use system, that is, pasture distribution among different groups of users, has been profoundly transformed during the decades of the centralized Soviet economy. Formerly, the basic users were regional groups (bands) of herders bound by ties of kinship, clan solidarity and/or of residential cooperation. Those bands were split into smaller units, the herding camps, usually of 2 to 5 tents/households (Krupnik, 1993: 92—5, 98—100). According to the Pasture Land survey of the Yamal Peninsula in 1934, there were 27 regional clusters/groups with 75 summer camps altogether (the actual number of camps was probably much higher, since several camps mapped were actually aggregations of some 10, 15 and even 30 families). Both traditional camps and regional groups were fairly flexible units, and within certain limits one could change group/camp affiliation easily.

Present-day herders of the very same area are mostly state-farm employees listed as “workers” (“herders” or “hunters”) on the state-farm staff payroll. There are three large state farms on Yamal Peninsula (Yamal’skii, Yar-salin-skii and Panaevskii), and in order to change the state farm affiliation one has to be discharged and officially reemployed by another farm administration. Each state farm has 10 to 15 herding teams (called brigady, i.e., brigades), and that again is a closed productive unit with fixed staff. Any change of the brigade’s paid staff is to be authorized by the farm administration, often located hundreds of miles from the camp.

Last but not least, people are not free to change their routes and areas of pasturing, since they are “locked-in” within certain social groupings. Traditional nomadic routes were by no means accidental or chaotic, but people could use several established routes to move between their summer and winter camp sites often separated by some 400 miles (about 600 km). Each of the three present-day state farms (sovkhozes) on Yamal Peninsula — as elsewhere in the Russian Arctic — has its pasture lands strictly fixed and mapped by state land surveys. Each brigade similarly has its allocated pasture land(s) and migration routes across Yamal mapped and fixed by state farm papers.

Formerly one could move to someone else’s pasture grounds by following established rules of kinship, reciprocity, cooperation, or just by violating the owner’s right with certain expected responses to follow. It is a different story today if, let us say, brigade no. 3 of the Yamal’skii sovkhoz enters the pasture grounds of brigade no. 12 of the Yarsalinskii sovkhoz. The people involved may be grandchildren of the very same herders of the early 1900s; the present social context that binds them is, however, entirely different.

The situation in Siberia is undegoing deep transformation while few if any serious changes are still visible. Although the huge state reindeer farms have lost their absolute control over stock size, herd distribution and people’s mobility, they continue to be monopolists in terms of supply and cash flow to the herding camps. As a result, the herders are reluctant to break their ties with the state farms and to start pasturing on their own. The number of independent family herding units or newly-built small cooperatives is miniscule at best, at least if based upon official registration. In the Yamal area the only fully legitimate, that is, registered private reindeer group is one of the family of the Nenets writer, Anna Nerkagi. It obviously keeps going due to her strong personality and popularity.

Without a more radical reshuffle of the state farm reindeer industry, the old system would never permit any large flow of people back from villages to reindeer camps. And there is not much room for those who would love to return from the settlement life to free pastoralism in Arctic Russia. But the pressure for return is mounting and changes are inevitable anyway, unless the government restores its former unlimited financing of the state reindeer farms. As such, the nomadic—sedentary continuum in Siberia is still working. Once again, hundreds of people could eventually be forced to alter their level of mobility under a new combination of social and environmental agents of change.

Summary and Conclusions

Traditional subsistence of indigenous Siberians was arranged under some form of nomadic-sedentary continuum which supported amazing diversity in lifestyles and in modes of resource utilization. Differences in residential mobility were well established culturally as well as ecologically, but they never operated as impenetrable barriers. Both increase and decrease in mobility was practised as an adaptive response to a changing wealth in domestic reindeer stock, to fluctuating levels of major subsistence resources, and/or to the dominant environmental trend that brought “hard times” to either inland herders or coastal sedentary hunters.

When Siberia was incroporated into the Russian colonial system the Russian authorities, unlike other European administrations in the Arctic, were generally far less assertive in stimulating native sedentism for the purpose of better control, easier taxation, schooling, and conversion policies. On the other hand, Russian administrators were very supportive of rich and powerful native reindeer herders whom they tried to convert into a sort of new native elite loyal to the system. That type of economic and political favoritism had no parallels elsewhere in the North American Arctic. It created a significant group of very powereful reindeer pastoralists, large herd owners that practised a year-round nomadic lifestyle. In fact, Russian colonial rule extended the former indigenous subsistence continuum in Siberia and favored significant population shift toward the nomadic portion of subsistence spectrum.

That trend was halted dramatically when the new Soviet administration was established in Siberia and, particularly, with the advent of collectivization of the native economies after 1930. The new regime followed an unequivocal strategy of forced sedentarization. At first, it eliminated rich herders, oppressed year-round nomadism and freed the fur-market. After 1950, it launched a full-scale policy of active social engineering by closing smaller villages and nomadic camps. Instead, large modernized settlements were built for the nomads, with state boarding and nursery schools, free housing for native residents, and a new employment sector off the traditional subsistence.

The Soviet policy eventually caused desintegration of the former nomadic-sedentary subsistence continuum in Siberia and triggered a major shift of the indigenous population toward the sedentary end of the spectrum. By 1970, nomadism survived primarily as a professional occupation, as an unwanted requirement of certain state-controlled commercial activities — either large scale reindeer-breeding or fur-trapping — that were vital for central and local economies. It was constantly under attack as an “archaic” and “primitive” occupation, to be replaced by technologically more advanced practices in future. Gradual softening of the governmental pressure followed by indigenous revival and collapse of the centralized Soviet economy in 1991—2 opens some new stimuli for native pastoralist life in Siberia. Therefore, a regeneration of a former broader spectrum of mobile-sedentary subsistence options could become a plausible scenario is certain parts of Siberia (i.e., the Yamal and Taymyr Peninsulas, northern Yakutia, etc.). Under most favorable conditions, one may expect a new population shift toward the “nomadic” end of the former subsistence continuum, after several decades of state engineering and forced sedentarization.

This new trend, however, will hardly bring Siberian Natives back to traditional patterns of pre-Soviet herding nomadism and/or year-round mobile hunting. Several checks are now in place, first and foremost due to increased economic dependence of the herders and to the shortage of free pasture lands across the Siberian tundra zone ravaged by state industrial expansion and severe pollution. Thus, any return to a higher mobility and increased pastoralism will most likely follow a pattern of quasi-traditionalist “bush” movement strengthened by native ethnic revival as well as by unemployment and economic shortages in large modem communities. The old nomadic-sedentary “subsistence continuum” is still working in Siberia and could once again undergo a rapid reshuffle. This time, however, that would be hardly a response to any environmental change but mere a survival strategy in the era of economic instability and social manipulation.[192]

References

[Back Matter]

Contributors

Amatzia Baram is Associate Professor, Department of the Modem History of the Middle East, University of Haifa, and Senior Fellow at The United States Institute of Peace. Between 1984 and 1988 Dr Baram was a member of a small team advising Shimon Peres on Arab affairs. Since then he has advised government agencies about Iraq and Syria. Since June 1997 he has been part of an advisory team working with Ehud Barak. His pubhcations include Culture, History and Ideology in the Formation of Ba’thist Iraq: 1968–1989, and Iraq’s Road to War (edited together with Dr Barry Rubin).

Sharon Ba§tug received her Ph.D. in Anthropology in 1979 from The University of Texas at Austin. She is currently an associate professor in the Deparment of Sociology at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. Her research interests are focused primarily on kinship, tribal structure and family organization among the Turkic peoples of Inner and Central Asia, past and present. Recent pubhcations include “Kok Tiiriik Kinship Terminology: An Omaha Model” (Central Asiatic Journal, 1993), “Kinship Marriage and Descent in Early China” (Journal of Asian History, 1995) and “Tribe, Confederation and State among Altaic Nomads of the Asian Steppes” (forthcoming in K. Ertiirk, ed., Rethinking Central Asia, Ithaca Press).

Dale F. Eickelman is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations at Dartmouth College. Since 1968 he has traveled extensively in the Middle East, including long-term field research in Morocco and the Sultanate of Oman. His pubhcations include: Moroccan Islam (1976); Knowledge and Power in Morocco (1985); Muslim Travelers: Pilgrimage, Migration and the Religious Imagination (co-edited, 1990); Russia’s Muslim Frontiers: New Directions in Cross-Cultural Analysis (edited, 1993); Muslim Politics (co-authored with James Piscatori, 1996); The Middle East and Central Asia: An Anthropological Approach, 3^rd edn (1988); and numerous scholarly articles and contributions to edited books. He was 1991 President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, a 1992 Guggenheim Fellow, and a 1996—7 Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (Washington).

Helmut Danner teaches at the University of Munich. He has been involved in developmental cooperation in Egypt and Kenya since 1986.

Ugo Fabietti was born in Milan, Italy. He has carried out fieldwork in Saudi Arabia, Iran and more recently in Pakistani Baluchistan. He is Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Department of Social Studies in the University of Florence.

Joseph Ginat is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology and former head of the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa. He served as adviser to the cabinet and the Prime Minister on Arab affairs and as personal adviser to Moshe Dayan. He was formerly head of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo. His previous publications include: Women in Muslim Rural Society: Status and Role in Family and Community (New Brunswick, 1982); Blood Revenge: Family Honor, Mediation and Outcasting (Brighton, 1996) and Polygamous Families in Contemporary Society, Coping with Challenging Life Style (co-author, Cambridge, 1996).

Jeffrey C. Kaufmann is a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He conducted fieldwork in the southwest and high plateau regions of Madagascar. He is currently writing a dissertation on a group of Malagasy pastoralists and co-editing a forthcoming special issue of Ethnohistory devoted to Madagascar.

Anatoly M. Khazanov is Ernest Gellner Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Fellow of the British Academy and a 1993–94 Guggenheim Fellow, he is the author and editor of eleven books and more than 200 other publications.

Joseph Kostiner obtained his bachelor and master degrees from the University of Haifa, and his Ph.D. from the University of London’s School of Economics and Political Science in 1982. He has ever since been on the staff of Tel Aviv University, where he is currently Associate Professor in the Dept, of Middle Eastern and African History and a Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Professor Kostiner has held visiting appointments at Harvard, Johns Hopkins and London Universities. His works on Middle East history, politics and society, with special reference to the Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, are widely recognized. His recent books include: The Making of Saudi Arabia, From Chieftaincy to Monarchical State, 1916—1936 (Oxford University Press, 1993) and Yemen, the Tortuous Quest for Unity (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 1997).

Igor Krupnik is a Research Anthropologist at the Arctic Studies center of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, D.C. He is a specialist in Siberian/Arctic ethnography, indigenous economies and subsistence, and modern culture change in the Arctic. He has authored numerous publications in both English and Russian, including Arctic Adaptations: Whalers and Reindeer Hunters of Northern Eurasia (University Press of New England, 1993).

William and Fidelity Lancaster are social anthropologists (MA, Cantab, and BA, London). They have worked with Bedouin tribes in Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Oman since 1971. Apart from consultancies, appointments as Visiting Professor at Yarmouk University (1986—7) and Director of the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History (1991—4), they have preferred to concentrate on field research. They are currently engaged in collating their material in book form.

Arnon Medzini studied in Israel and at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. Currently he is lecturer and head of the department of Geography studies at the “Oranim” School of Education of the Kibbutz Movement.

Maha El-Rashidi is Project Manager and Follow-up Consultant in developmental cooperation, and is currently working in Egypt and Israel on conflict resolution.

Frank H. Stewart is Professor in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He read Arabic at Cambridge, and was a Junior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, where he wrote his doctoral thesis, and then at Trinity College, Oxford. From 1976 to 1982 he did fieldwork among the Sinai Bedouin. His publications include “Fundamentals of Age-Group Systems” (1977) and “Honor” (1994).

Slawoj Szynkiewicz holds senior positions at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, at the Polish Academy of Sciences, and at Warsaw University. He is the author of numerous books and other publications, and for many years he has been conducting extensive fieldwork in Mongolia.

Index

Titles of Interest From Sussex Academic Press

POPULATION GROWTH AND RATION IN JORDAN, 1050–1004

ONN WINCKLER

This is the first book to describe and analyse the demographic trends of Jordanian society in historical perspective. The first part of the book discusses the long-term causes of the growth of Jordan’s rates of natural increase, as well as the consequences of the rapid population growth on the economy, and investigates the attitude of the Jordanian authorities towards high fertility. The second part deals with the migration of Palestinians and Jordanians to the Arab oil producing countries for purposes of employment, and the impact this had on Jordan’s economy.

Finally, the author examines the connection between the rapid population growth after the return of Palestinians and Jordanians from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia as a result of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, in the light of the political dimension of the peace process.

Contains 44 tables and figures, all with detailed sources Hardcover ISBN: I 898723 65 6 C39.50 $55

SOUTHERN EUROPE AND THE NEW
IMMIGRATIONS

RUSSELL KING AND RICHARD BLACK

Full geographical coverage across Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece, coupled with substantial discussion across a wide range of migrant groups, processes and issues, make this book essential reading for all those who have an interest in contemporary European society. Migration has had important effects on labour markets, as well as calling into question identities and public policies. These issues are explored from an explicitly comparative dimension and in the context of current theoretical debates.

Hardcover ISBN: I 898 723 6 1 3 £39.50 $59 95

EXILES AND MIGRANTS

CROSSING THRESHOLDS IN EUROPEAN CULTURE
AND SOCIETY

“Examines the ways in which the literary text acts not just as a filter of experience of exile and migration, but helps mediate the associated problems of identity. It is an issue of peculiar relevance.” From the Foreword by Eda Sagarra, Royal Irish Academy

The situation of exiles and migrants stands at the crux of the existential, as well as economic-political, internationalism of the 20^th century.

[Back Cover]

This volume, which contains a chapter entitled “Great Scholar, Great Man, Great Friend (Remembering Ernest Gellner),” brings together leading anthropologists who discuss how pastoralists are coping and changing as the societies they inhabit change at an unprecedented pace.

The different issues pertaining to the different geographic areas covered are united by a general theme: socioeconomic and cultural changes in contemporary pastoralist societies and groups. These changes are far from being spontaneous. They result from the painful adaptation of the mobile and extensive pastoralists to the modern (some scholars would argue already postmodern) world, in which pastoralists occupy only a marginal and inferior economic and social position. This is true even with regard to Middle Eastern countries, although in some of them a social prestige connected with pastoralism is still quite high.

Discussion focuses on the worldwide deterioration of the socio-political and economic standing of the pastoralist, the historical factors of colonization/de-colonization, and how modernizing sedentary society (with its technological inventions, modern infrastructure, and national requirements of taxation and education) impacts on change in nomadic societies.

Joseph Ginat, formerly Chairman of the Jewish-Arab Center at the University of Haifa, and a former Director of the Israeli Academic Center in Cairo, is currently working with the Egyptian scholar Maha El-Rashidi on methods of conflict resolution.

Anatoly M. Khazanov is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A Fellow of the British Academy, an Honorary Member of the Jenghiz-Khan Society in Mongolia, and a 1993–4 Guggenheim Fellow, he is author of Nomads and the Outside World.

Visit Sussex Academic Press on the World Wide Web http://www.sussex-academic.co.uk

Sussex

[1] “The group would no longer be conceived as something isolated, static, and autonomous (but self-sufficient), but rather, as a dynamic unit towards which converge resources originating from a variety of sectors, procured and organized by mobile individuals belonging to a parental group whose dimensions and composition are not definable a priori.” Fabietti, 1990: 242; Lancaster and Lancaster, 1992b: 154.

[2] There is a range of natural variations in climate, rainfall, etc. which is expected as a matter of course. Social change may arise when such natural variation coincides with external change beyond local expectations or control (see Lancaster and Lancaster, 1993).

[3] The Solubba are said to have become craftsmen because they lost their animals and grazing areas (see Doughty, 1926: 326).

[4] For Fatimid Egypt see Goitein (1967: 169ff). For Palestine see Firestone (1973). For sheep-herding contracts see Burckhardt (1831, vol. 1: 17–18), Lancaster and Lancaster (1995a), and Lancaster and Lancaster (1995b). Also Lancaster and Lancaster (1995a) for shop rental contracts and Lancaster and Lancaster (1995b) for land and equipment in share-cropping contracts.

[5] Examples of political and economic intermeshing between nomads and settled populations can be found, for example, in Luke (1965), Lancaster and Lancaster (1992c), Cameron (1993: 182–96), Shahid (1984, 1990), Isaac (1990: 235–49), Kennedy (1986: 21–8 and 285–308), Irwin (1986: 115–16), Owen (1987: 43–4).

[6] The change in focus of the Ottomans toward the north and the Balkans from the end of the sixteenth century, together with the shift in wealth away from the east Mediterranean to the Atlantic with the discovery of the New World and new sources of gold and silver, meant that Syria, Palestine and Jordan were of less importance and their administration was handed over to local agents.

For the Ottomans handing over command of the Hajjj caravan to local notables see Bakhit (1982: 108—15, 164—81 and 200—18). For changes in trade routes affecting the area see Lapidus (1984: 22–43), Groom (1981), and Chaudhuri (1985 in general but especially pp. 95—7 and 98—110).

[7] For external change and its relationship to the constructed moral premise of individual autonomy, etc. see Lancaster (1981: 151–62) and Lancaster (1982).

[8] To exapt is to adapt socially rather than physically. Adaptation carries the implication of a deterministic, material change; exaptation implies a deliberate choice to modify social behavior as one of several possible responses to a change in the environment (see Gamble, 1994).

[9] Hunters, in the sense of those who based their economy on hunting, have disappeared, as have gatherers. In the early nineteenth century hunting and gathering was a profitable occupation in Sinai, the Nefud and in the mountains of the Hijaz. In Dhofar the gathering of incense gum was very rewarding. Many nomads continue to hunt and gather in a casual manner as do many villagers as well. See Burckhardt (1831: 446) for collecting gum arabic; ibid,: 448 for tafal (a soft stone); ibid.: 495 for charcoal; ibid.: 501 for plant ash for soap-making; ibid.: 601 for collecting “manna” for own consumption; and ibid.: 664 and 666, for hunting for sale. See Doughty (1926, vol. 1: 324—8) for Solubba hunting and vol. 2: 86 for hunting ostriches and selling the skins.

[10] For example Donner, 1981; Hiyari, 1975; Bakhi, 1982; al-Qasimi, 1988; Bayley-Winder, 1980 and Dresch, 1989.

[11] There have been policies by all governments in the region to incorporate their nomadic populations by the necessity to be a citizen to get access to education, employment, subsidies, papers for travel and transport of property and goods, for pensions, health, and so on. There have also been active restrictions on former local processes of self-government in dispute settlement and access to the resources of grazing and water and markets now across national borders, to mention but two areas. A citizen finds this almost impossible without “an address” so the statistics show that the percentage of nomads in the population has declined significantly although, in many case, the “settlement” is more apparent than real. Many of the villages of “former” nomads actually show about 30 percent of the dwellings inhabited at any one time (rather more during school terms) and people continue to be almost as nomadic as before in the pursuit of their economic options — but “an address” means that nomads are less visible in official figures. These disadvantages (from a nomad’s point of view) are mitigated by the increased opportunities for trade in new markets, increased government employment including service, increased demand for nomadic products and services as the town population expands, and the availability of government funding for productive and service enterprises.

[12] We have not concerned ourselves greatly in this chapter with theories of change. We have noted the occurrence of change at all times and at all levels — biological, social, political and economic — but have concentrated on the views of the Arab nomads to these changes and how they have reacted to them. Mostly, external change has been seen as a fact of fife which has to be accepted in large measure. Internal change that comes from within the nomad groups and the progression from birth to death, for example, is also accepted although it is, so to speak, monitored as to its effect on the future well-being of the individual and his group/s.

There is, however, an intermediate type of change, change which could be resisted. There are many articles and books about the effects this sort of change has had on nomads, bedouin or pastoralists. A fairly common theme is the loosening or break-down of social bonds (e.g., Salzman, 1978). Ginat (1983) picks this up and applies it as a general principle to the situation of the Negev bedouin, an application which he finds satisfactory. While in no way doubting Ginat’s findings we do not find it applicable to groups which we have studied. It may well be that the social bonds are less visible. Vengeance and dispute settlement are convenient examples. In Jordan traditional social bonds are active in this area although, theoretically, the government has taken the resolution of such disputes onto itself. The governor or police chief of the area in which the dispute is taking place acts as a traditional mediator; so successful is this strategy that many disputes, even killings, never get as far as a formal court appearance. Essentially, the traditional law holds good (together with its dependence on social bonds) although, in formal terms, traditional or customary law was abolished many years ago. Less dramatically, social bonds within the domestic group (which work through reputation and tribal and/or family identity) remain the mainspring of economic activity — this can be demonstrated for the Rwala, the Ahl al-Jabal and the Kerak tribes in Jordan and the tribes ofja’alan in Oman.

In the case of engineered change or development, most users of the badia and the rural areas, nomadic or not (and also probably the majority of urban dwellers) ignore or discount the role of developers and political decision-makers as irrelevant. They make the fullest use of development possibilities in as far as they do not clash with traditional morality. They accommodate political or legal change to their convenience rather than vice versa; they use technical information and ideas such as new fruit varieties, pumps, wells, etc. but without changing the pattern of landholding or traditional rights of access; they take advantage of government loans and finance provided they can escape the conditions attached (i.e., by having a close relative in the department concerned), otherwise only as a last resort. As they are well aware that they are going to have to live with the results of specific developments, they take those bits which they perceive as useful and wait for the rest to lapse after the developer has taken his fee and left. These failures are usually foreseen as members of the rural population (including nomads) know that they know their environment far better than any development expert and resent the fact that their advice or opinion is ignored. In particular, nomads are aware that developers have little idea as to how a landscape or environment is used already and how it is really only part of a far larger whole. Nomads understand this fully, combine it with their social processes (which developers rarely consider) and twist development into something which is either useful to them personally or, at least, not deleterious.

[13] See Ahmed Abul Zeid (ed.), Desert societies in Egypt. Study no 1: North Sinai. Cairo: Center for Criminological and Social Research, 1991 (in Arabic), pp. 286–7.

[14] See also J. Ginat, Blood Revenge: Family Honour, Mediation, and Outcasting, 2^nd edn (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1996).

[15] See “Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung: Continuing Education in Egypt”; brochure of Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, (Cairo 1994), pp. 13–21; H. Danner, “Marakez el-nil khelal aam 1993; el-taawen bein kul men el-haya’a al-ama lilestelamat wa el-moassassa el-almaneia hanns seidel” (The Nile Centers in 1993; the cooperation between the State Information Service and the German Hanns Seidel Foundation); in Nile Magazine, 56/1994.

[16] One Egyptian Pound (LE) equals around $0.33.

[17] See note 1.

[18] The tribes’ names: Auwlad Ali El-Abiad, Auwlad Ali El-Ahmar, El-Salina, El-Gama’et, El-Qataein.

[19] See Nile Magazine, no. 60, January/1995.

[20] Another example: According to a recommendation by the Nile Center, a presidential decree (no. 395 of 1994) was issued to establish a central office for j’-rigation in Marsa Matrouh governorate. Locks were installed in the irrigation system. A committee of Bedouin was established to supervise the opening and closing of the locks — a most unusual arrangement.

[21] See: State Information Service/Nile Center El-Arish: Developmental Studies. Documentary edition no. 7, El-Arish, 1993.

[22] See brochure on the palm tree series conducted by the Nile Centers (Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, Cairo, 1992).

[23] Jaussen calls them Leida after the name of their ruling section; cf. Jaussen and Savignac (1920: 4n), Oppenheim (1939–68, 2: 348). (Typographical constraints have made it necessary to use a simplified transcription in which long vowels are indicated by a circumflex accent and diacritical signs are not used.)

[24] This is the term used by Granqvist (1931–5, 2: 312); and it will be used here because of its appropriateness, even though, as will appear later, it is apparently not an accurate translation of the Arabic.

[25] The account of Bedouin marriage that follows is based on data collected among the Bedouin of central Sinai between 1976 and 1982. For a fuller description, see Stewart (1991). Marriage among the central Sinai Bedouin is apparently very similar to marriage in the northern Hijaz and Transjordania.

[26] Cf. Musil (1907–8,3: 211).

[27] Unless otherwise indicated, it will be assumed throughout that husband and wife belong to different agnatic groups. This is in fact not necessarily the case, but the assumption simplifies the exposition without distorting it.

[28] Jaussen simply writes “la femme se decide a rester dans la tente de son mari” (1910: 238); but generally this tent will be part of a camp, and it is safe to assume that in the tribes that Jaussen is concerned with (as in Sinai) the others in the camp (whose composition may well change from time to time) will generally include close agnates of the late husband.

[29] For an example, see Stewart (1991: 109–10).

[30] Though Jaussen (1910: 241) does mention one such marriage which was “celebre en grande pompe,” since the bride was the widow of a sheikh.

[31] Jaussen (1910: 241).

[32] Jaussen (1910: 243).

[33] Jaussen (1910: 242).

[34] Jaussen (1910: 241).

[35] Among, for instance, the Awlacd ‘All of the Western Desert of Egypt the wife can achieve divorce even without the support of her guardian (Mohsen, 1970: 139–43).

[36] Jaussen (1910: 242); similarly p. 238, where he states that the widow, after taking a joz musarrib, remains “responsable de 1’administration de ses biens”; p. 241, where the the bride-to-be says, “Je resterai sous ma tente, j’administrerai mes biens, j’eleverai mes enfants”; and p. 243, where it is implied that the wife of a jdz musarrib has “la liberte de disposer de ses biens.”

[37] So also Jaussen (1948: 26), referring to Transjordania.

[38] Jaussen (1948: 20).

[39] Jaussen and Savignac (1920: 30).

[40] Jaussen (1910: 238). Similarly Jaussen (1948: 26), referring to Transjordania.

[41] Jaussen (1910: 242).

[42] In what follows I shall use the word “Palestine” in the way that it was generally used before the time of the British mandate: that is, to exclude the southern Negev and to include some of the land to the east of the Jordan.

[43] Granqvist (1931–5, 2: 312–19). This is the only other mention of the institution that is known to me. Granqvist refers to Jaussen (1910).

[44] In what follows I shall use the abbreviations conventional in the anthropological literature: F for Father, S for Son, B for Brother. FFBS is to be read “father’s father’s brother’s son.”

[45] Granqvist (1931—5, 1: 76).

[46] Granqvist (1931–5, 2: 321). Elsewhere she writes, “a widow who has children has the right to remain in her dead husband’s house” (Granqvist, 1931—5, 2: 319). This seems not to be accurate, since “in case of the husband’s death his relatives would take possession of his home, and she would have to leave it because she had no son to justify her remaining” .(Granqvist, 1931–5, 1:3).

[47] We are not told how old Zhur’s sons were when she lost her first husband, but it seems safe to assume that none of them had reached majority (since otherwise one of them would surely have taken control of the property). We are told that she was eight months pregnant when her first husband was killed (Granqvist, 1931—5, 2: 298). That she was relatively young at the time of her second marriage appears also from the fact that she went on to bear children to her second husband (a stillborn daughter preceded Ahmad).

[48] Granqvist (2: 291) writes of the widow, “Especially if she has no children or only girls, the only way to keep her in the husband’s house is for another member of his family to marry her.”

[49] Jaussen (1910: 237).

[50] Jaussen (1910: 240).

[51] I suspect that here, as among the Sinai Bedouin, the term qar&yeb does not mean ‘relatives’ but rather specifically ‘agnates’.

[52] Jaussen describes her as belonging to the ‘Amara; the accompanying details suggest that she belonged to the ’Amara section of the Masa’id tribe (Oppenheim, 1939–68, 2: 42).

[53] Jaussen (1910: 239–40). Chelhod’s statement (in the Encyclopedia of Islam, second edn, s.v. al-Mar’a, vol. 6, p. 480b) that “this type of union is very rare” must to this extent be qualified.

[54] Jaussen (1910: 240).

[55] See Stewart (1987: 474—80); among the works on the Transjordanian Bedouin not mentioned’ in that article may be noted in particular the books of Ahmad ‘Uwaydi al-‘Abbadi.

[56] Jaussen (1910: 237).

[57] Chelhod (1971: 132) claims to have encountered some instances of it in the Negev, “mais sporadiquement et a l’etat latent car il tend, en fait, a disparaitre.” My own (very limited) inquiries on the subject, and the fact that the institution is mentioned nowhere else in the literature on the Negev or Sinai, lead me to believe that Chelhod was mistaken.

[58] For details see Stewart (1991).

[59] Doughty (1921, 1: 230, 321, 471).

[60] Jaussen and Savignac (1920: 20).

[61] So also Burckhardt (1831, 1: 263), who contrasts the practices of the south Sinai Bedouin with those of more liberal tribes elsewhere, both in the Arabian peninsula and in the Syrian desert (cf. Burckhardt, 1831, 1: 107).

[62] Jaussen and Savignac (1920: 20).

[63] The main publications of which I am aware are ‘Atiq al-Biladi n.d. and 1982.

[64] Jaussen (1910: 238 n. 2).

[65] Granqvist (1931–5, 2: 312).

[66] Landberg 1920–42, s.v., citing Ibn Sida. The first meanings given by Lane (1863–93) for the verb are “he went forth” and “he went away.”

[67] Similarly in old Arabic: “sarabat al-ibl, the camels went away into the country [ — .. ] going forth whithersoever they would” and “he betook himself to the place of pasture.” Lane (1863—93, s.v.).

[68] Stewart (1988—90, 2: 262); this is virtually the same meaning as in classical Arabic (see Jaussen, 1910: 239 and Lane, 1863–93, s.v.).

[69] Although it is so used among the Marazig, a Tunisian Bedouin tribe, where it can mean “filer tout droit, marcher droit, s’en aller en file, defiler” and “prendre la route seul, sans avoir a suivre (chameau qui connait le chemin)” (Boris, 1958, s.v.).

[70] My friend Simon Hopkins observes that it is quite common in Arabic dialects for the second form of a verb to be used in the same intransitive sense as the first (and/or fifth) form. Some examples are given, for instance, in Grotzfeld (1965: 27); and see more generally Blau (1966: 154–5).

[71] Wehr (1961, s.v.).

[72] My thanks to Sarah Stroumsa and to Etan Kohlberg for their comments on a draft version of this chapter, and to Simon Hopkins for his comments on the last section.

[73] For examples see especially Kuper (1982), Munson (1989, 1991, 1993), Street (1990, 1992), and Wright (1992, 1994). See Dresch (1986), for an evaluation which is not quite so critical and Masquelier (1993) for a recent listing of critical sources. For a remarkable exception see Galaty (1981).

[74] A number of scholars have suggested that the model presented by Evans-Pritchard was neither as confounded nor as deterministic as those of later scholars — an interpretation with which I agree (Dresch, 1986; Galaty, 1981; Karp and Maynard, 1983). I am not, however, concerned here with what Evans-Pritchard may or may not have meant in his many works. I am concerned with the meaning(s) of “segmentary lineage system” as it developed in the subsequent discourse, critical or otherwise.

[75] In the following discussion I will concentrate on the patrilineal segmentary lineage system as it exists among the peoples, nomadic or settled, of Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia. This restriction is imposed in part due to limitations of space and the concerns of this volume, but also because the debates concerning the segmentary lineage system have been largely centered on the ethnography of the peoples of these regions. I should, however, emphatically stress that I do not mean to imply that the segmentary lineage system can only be patrilineal. The intriguing subject of the matrilineal segmentary lineage system must be deferred to another discussion, along with the equally interesting question of parallels under conditions of bilateral descent such as the ramage system of the Maori.

[76] It is also to be found in the work of Evans-Pritchard: “They [the Nandi] had not a lineage structure, but a different form of segmentation. We can use the word ‘sub-clans’, a word often used in the literature, to describe these clan segments lacking a genealogical structure. There is possibly a correlation between the absence of political function and the absence of genealogical structure in the clan system” (1940: 265—6, as quoted in Smith (1956: 40). Smith, however, while recognizing the implication of this quotation continues nonetheless to confound political organization and descent structure: “Where these conceptions are combined with unilineal descent groups, segmentary lineages exist; otherwise they do not. The specialized conceptions and terminology of segmentary theory follow from these principal ideas” (1956: 43).

[77] For basic terminology related to kinship systems see Ferraro (1995), Fox (1967) and Scheffler (1986). See also Watson (1982) for a summary of current anthropological terminology for unilineal descent groups of various sorts as these apply to China in various historical periods.

[78] This statement should not be taken to mean that genealogies are in any sense “true,” that all individuals can recite long genealogies, or that those who claim to be able to will be in agreement with each other. As will be discussed later, it does mean that a cultural notion exists which claims both the reality of such genealogies and their importance.

[79] For a detailed example of the process in operation see Humphrey (1979). See also Tapper (1983).

[80] See Fox (1967: 123) for a general discussion and Karp and Maynard for the following: “The principle of segmentation appears, then, to be inherent in the lineage organization and not imposed upon it by its association with the political system” (1983: 490).

[81] Galaty has expressed his oppostion to the use of the term “tribe” in this way (1981: 90). His unpublished work which he cites is unavailable to me, and I am unable to comment on his reasons. We require a term to denote the highest level in a segmentary lineage system which claims a common genealogy, a term to stand in contrast to “confederation” which requires no genealogical connnections. “Tribe” seems to me the best choice among a number of poor options.

[82] See Krader (1963), for examples of the “adoption” process among various recent Turkic and Mongolian peoples and Togon (n.d.) for an example of the “adoption” of Mogol lineages by the eleventh-century Kerait.

[83] See Watson (1982) and Shima (1992) for examples of the continued contestanon and reformulation of written genealogies.

[84] I am concerned here with sub-units formed solely on the basis of descent (“real” or fictive). Societies with segmentary lineage systems may form many different kinds of groups whose memberships are not based on descent or, indeed, on kinship ties of any sort. These include various types of politically and/or territorially defined groups which may overlap considerably with groups defined by kinship criteria but must be distinguished analytically. See Galaty (1981) for a brilliant descnption of the articulation of age-sets and the segmentary lineage system of the Masai.

[85] For examples in which structural opposition is held to be uni dimensionally synonymous with the segmentary lineage as a concept, see Peters (1967), Salzman (1978, 1983), Caton (1987), Munson (1989, 1991, 1993) and Wright (1992).

[86] Combs-Schilling, one of the few recent scholars who explicitly views the segmentary lineage system as a form of unilineal descent, also defines structural opposition as a “mechanism.” She does not, however, suggest what the mechanism is meant to accomplish. Furthermore, the four definitional charactistics she provides for “segmentation” actually dissolve into a definition based on structural opposition (1985: 661).

[87] See Fardon (1984) for a fascinating account of how the Tiv ideology of agnatic solidarity is undermined by two cultural institutions. One is a system of ranked marriage preferences combined with polygyny which forces sons to compete with each other, their patrilateral parallel cousins, their fathers and their father’s brothers for wives, a resource essential for the achievement of status. The other is a set of beliefs related to magic and witchcraft according to which only close agnates are believed capable of bewitching others thereby creating an atmosphere of fear and suspicion among agnates.

[88] See Hutchinson (1985) for a description of the varying ways in which generation-counting is used by the Nuer. Not all of these produce “groups,” but it is interesting to note the overlap in membership between categories defined by generation-counting and groups defined by structural opposition, residence, bridewealth entitlements and/or other factors.

[89] This is a point which Fox (1967) failed to understand, leading him to categorize the egocentric generation-counted vengeance group of the Mongols with the egocentric kindred of bilateral societies.

[90] Neither segmentary lineage nor clan systems are necessarily exogamous, though clans usually are. Some segmentary lineage societies (including most of the tribally organized peoples of the Arab Middle East, past and contemporary) do not specify a unit of exogamy beyond the nuclear family and, in fact, exhibit a widespread preference for minimal lineage endogamy expressed in the preference for marriage between the children of brothers. As discussed in the text, the identification of exogamous units within segmentary lineage systems requires the introduction of some principle by which the units can be demarcated.

[91] See Dankoff (1972: 36) for use of the word by Kashgari, the eleventh-century lexicographer of Turkic languages. Dankoff considers that the ogu$ mentioned in the eighth-century Orkhon Inscriptions as well as in Kashgari, was the unit ofblood vengeance responsibility among the Turkic peoples of Kashgari’s time. See also Krader (1963).

[92] See Krader (1963: 208) for an example of this transformation in progress among the Aday segment of the “Little Horde” section of the Kazak.

[93] The same is also true of the clan system. The standard lineage-clan-phratrymoiety scheme does not, in fact, capture the many possibilities in this system for higher-order lineages within clans or the formation of sub-clans, etc. See Watson (1982) and Ba§tug (1995) for discussion of clan-based descent systems in China, and Fox (1967) for that of the Nayar in India.

[94] For discussions of state formation among peoples of the Asian Steppes see Barfield (1989), Ba§tug (1997), Khazanov (1984) and Golden (1982, 1991).

[95] See Ba§tug (1997) for a discussion of prototypic models in the formation of confederation and states by nomadic peoples of the Asian Steppes and the relationship of these model to the segmentary lineage system.

[96] For a different view of the situation see Jarosz (1993) where she argues that logging, more than shifting cultivation, causes heavy deforestation in the land’s eastern tropical rainforests.

[97] One finds only limited discussions of pastoralism in other publications, such as, Battistini (1964), Birkeli (1926), Bloch (1971), Decary (1930), Decary (1933), Decary (1969), Eggert (1981), Eggert (1986), Faublee (1954), Feeley-Hamik (1991), Frere (1958), Gardenier (1978), Grandidier (1902), Haseltine (1971), Huntington (1988), Kaufmann andElvin-Lewis (1995), Kottak (1980), Lanting, Mack, and Jolly (1990), Marcus (1914), Richard-Vindard and Battistini (1972), Verin (1976), and Wilson.

[98] All translations of works in French are mine.

[99] Arab Bulletin [of the Arab Bureau] no. 41, 6 February 1917; R. L. Coleman, “Revolt in Arabia, 1916—1917: Conflict and Coalition in a Tribal System” (Ph.D. Diss., Columbia University, 1916), pp. 208—10.

[100] H. St. John B. Philby, Arabia of the Wahhabis (London: Constable, 1928) pp. 216–18; FO 686/14 ARBUR [Arab Bureau] to A. T. Wilson [Iraq], 21 September 1917; Arab Bulletin, no. 92, 11 June 1918.

[101] P. S. Khoury and J. Kostiner (eds), “Introduction” in Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), pp. 1—22; G. Ben-Dor, State and Conflict in the Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1983), pp. 1–34.

[102] In her article “The Tribe and the State,” in J. Hall (ed.), States in History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1986) Patricia Crone, objects to the notion of tribes “evolving” into states. The conditions of the World War I, however, constituted the kind of major changes which set off a process of state evolution, or of chiefdoms assuming more “stateness.”

[103] I. M. Lapidus, “Tribes and State Formation in Islamic History” in Khoury and Kostiner, pp. 25–47.

[104] E. Gellner, Muslim Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

[105] M. Al-Rasheed, “Durable and Non-Durable Dynasties: The Rashidis and Sa’udis in Central Arabia,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, 1992, pp. 144–58.

[106] S. C. Caton, “Anthropological Theories of Tribe and State Formation in the Middle East: Ideology and the Semiotics of Power,” in Khoury and Kostiner, pp. 74–108.

[107] A. T. Wilson [Baghdad] to ARBUR, Cairo, Relations with Ibn Saud, 17 September 1917; F0686/14, ARBUR to C. E. Wilson [British emissary in Jidda] 24 May 1917.

[108] A. T. Wilson, op. cit.; FO 379/5061/E 378, note by Gertrude Bell, 23 February, 1920; Philby’s Papers [at St Antony’s College, Oxford], vol. 1, Political agent in Basra to Political Agent in Kuwait, 18 August 1918.

[109] J. Kostiner, The Making of Saudi Arabia 1916—1936, From Chieftancy to Monarchical State (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) pp. 35–45.

[110] Kostiner, Saudi Arabia, ibid.; H. R. P. Dickson, Kuwait and Her Neighbors (London: Allen and Unwin, 1956) pp. 153—7.

[111] Dickson’s Papers [at St Antony’s College, Oxford], Box 2A/V, Diary of Political Agent Bahrain on his Journey to Hasa and Back 29 January to 20 February 1920; FO 371/3389/4067, Wingate to Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 7 January 1918.

[112] Kostiner, Saudi Arabia, pp. 13—34.

[113] T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, reprint (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978) p. 345; J. Kostiner, “The Hashemite ‘Tribal Confederacy’ of the Arab Revolt, 1916—1917,” in E. Ingram (ed.), National and International Politics in the Middle East, Essays in Honour of Elie Kedourie (London: Cass, 1986).

[114] J. Teitelbaum, “The Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom of the Hijaz: 1916–1925, A Failure of State Formation in the Arabian Peninsula,” Ph.D. Thesis, Tel Aviv University, 1996, pp. 94–6.

[115] Lawrence, Seven Pillars, pp. 193—202, 346—8.

[116] Teitelbaum, “Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom,” pp. 298—330.

[117] FO 882/6, HRG/16/85, Lawrence to [Sir Reginald] Wingate [High Commissioner of Egypt], 22 November 1916.

[118] Arab Bulletin, no. 67, 30 October 1917; Kostiner, “Tribal Confederacy”; Teitelbaum, “Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom,” 263–7.

[119] Kostiner, Saudi Arabia, pp. 18–42.

[120] D. Silverfarb, “The British Government and the Khurma Dispute 1918—1919,” Arabian Studies (1979), pp. 167—77.

[121] Teitelbaum, “Rise and Fall of the Hashemite Kingdom,” p. 378.

[122] Al-Rasheed, “Durable and Non-Durable Dynasties.”

[123] See the study by M. Al-Rasheed, Politics in an Arabian Oasis, the Rashidi Tribal Dynasty (London: Tauris, 1991).

[124] Op. cit., pp. 223–42; Kostiner, pp. 18–54; India Office, L/P25/10/765. P4313, Cox [then Civil Commissioner at Baghdad] to Secretary of State for India, 16 May 1920.

[125] Al-Rasheed, Arabian Oasis, pp. 223—42.

[126] J. Goldberg.

[127] J. Ismael, Kuwait (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1975).

[128] India Office, R/15/5/104, Political Agent, Kuwait to Philby, 6 May 1918.

[129] FO 686/14, ARJBUR to C. E. Wilson, 21 September 1917.

[130] FO 882/21, IS/20/1, Diary of Political Agent, Bahrain, 20 February 1920.

[131] FO 371/5065/E 12940, High Commissioner Iraq to Secretary of States India Office, 21 October 1920; Badr al-Din al-Khususi, Ma’rakat alfahra’ (Kuwait, 1987), pp. 82–98.

[132] CO 725/129392 Report on Visit to Idrisi at Jizan by Fazluddin [British envoy with al—Idrisi], 3 April 1921; FO 371/5065/E 12852, Memorandum on the Political Situation in Najd, by H. R. P. Dickson, 12 August 1920.

[133] Salah Mukhtar, al-Jumhuriyya, 17 November 1993.

[134] Salah al-Mukhtar, Editor-in-Chief, al-Jumhuriyya, 5 January 1994.

[135] For details see A. Baram, “Neo-Tribalism in Ba’thi Iraq: Saddam Husayn’s Tribal Policies 1991–1995,” in International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 29 (February 1997), 1—31; hereafter “Neo-Tribalism.”

[136] For a detailed treatment of this ideological-political shift see A. Baram, “NeoTribalism.”

[137] Based on interviews in 1993–4 in the US with ‘“Umar,” an Iraqi engineer in his early thirties who had left Iraq in early 1990. ‘“Umar” associated with and knew well the children of some of the regime’s luminaries, and visited them at their homes, inside the special ruling elite’s compounds in Baghdad. That the Guardsmen were recruited at a young age mainly from the Tikrit area, and trained in special compounds in Baghdad, has been confirmed by other sources. “Paternal Cousin,” ibn ‘amm, is a widespread title used among Tikritis when they address each other, even if they come from different tribes.

[138] For details see A. Baram, “Neo-Tribalism.”

[139] An interview with ‘“Umar,” Washington, D.C., 25 December 1993. This interview was corroborated by reports in the Iraqi press to the effect that Saddam used to ask army personnel about their tribal affiliation. For more, see A. Baram, “Neo Tribalism.”

[140] ‘Izz al-Din al-Mani’, al-Thama, 28 April 1992.

[141] See, for example, the expression, associated with independence and rejection of outsiders’ domination/protection: “We are not coming under anybody’s armpit” (tahla al-ibt), al-Thawra, 1 August 1993.

[142] Abdul Ameer Mu’alla, The Long Days (Baghdad, Dar al-Ma’mun for Translation, 1982), Part 3, pp. 83, 154. The book was completed in Arabic in December 1980, and translated into English by Dr. A. W. Lu’Lu’a.

[143] See, for example, al-Thama, 28 April 1986; al-lraq, 17 July 1987.

[144] al-Thama, 10 August 1988, front page.

[145] Thus, for example, they started to use “djal,” rather than “idhan,” or “Wad,” for “then” (as in Wad, rahat tiji, “you are coming, then”), or: “So” (as in: “So, what are we going to do now?”). They reverted also to Tikriti forms in the way they ended words with “his” or “him” (“his aunt” would be khalteh, or khaltah in the Baghdadi dialect, but khaltuh in the Tikriti one; “I told him” would be gillet lah in Baghdad, but luh in Tikrit, and so on).

[146] An interview with “‘Umar,” see note 5.

[147] For details on the defection and its aftermath see Amatzia Baram, “The Regime’s no. Two Defects,” Middle East Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 15–21.

[148] International TV networks (CNN, CBS and others), and Iraq’s TV stations, 21—24 February 1996. For an analysis of this case, as well as an extensive discussion of the permeation of tribal norms to the state’s justice system see A. Baram, “Neo Tribalism.”

[149] Saddam Husayn’s Revolution Day Speech, Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic 17 July 1990, in Foreign Broadcasts Intelligence Service, Near East, Daily Report, Washington, D.C. (hence: FBIS-NES-DR), 17 July 1990, pp. 20–3.

[150] Sa’d Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra (War, and the One After) (Amman: al-Ahliyya Lil-Nashr, 1992—1993), p. 36. When he wrote the book Bazzaz was Editor in Chief of the government daily newspaper al-Jumhuriyya.

[151] See, for example, Tariq ‘Aziz’s letter to the secretary general of the Arab League, Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic, 18 July 1990, in FBIS-NES-DR, 18 July 1990, p. 22. And Sa’d Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra, pp. 36—7.

[152] Sa’d Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra, p. 39.

[153] ‘Aziz’s July 1990 letter to the Secretary General of the Arab League, ibid., p. 21.

[154] Sa’d Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra., p. 37.

[155] Ibid., p. 38. For the press treatment of the shaykh’s visit to Baghdad see al-Qadisiyya, 25 September 1990.

[156] Sa’d Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra, pp. 49–50.

[157] Ibid., p. 42.

[158] In an interview with a Yemeni delegation on 4 August 1990, Babil, 22 February 1990.

[159] Sa’d Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra, p. 43.

[160] Ibid., pp. 32, 44–6, 50; and a closed-session lecture by a senior Iraqi defector to American officials, Washington, D.C., 16 August 1995.

[161] “Tariq ‘Aziz Reacts to [the] Kuwaiti Government’s Memo,” Iraqi News Agency 24 July 1990, in FBIS-NES-DR, 24 July 1990, p. 23; al-Thama, 22, 25 July 1990.

[162] “Saddam Husayn addresses Islamic delegation,” INA in Arabic, 15 December 1990, in FBIS-NES-DR, 17 December 1990, pp. 14–15. See also, “Saddam calls Arabs, Muslims to save Mecca,” Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic, 10 August 1990, in FBIS-NES-DR, 13 August 1990, p. 46.

[163] ‘ Saddam Interviewed by German TV,” INA in Arabic, 22 December 1990, in FBIS-NES-DR, 24 December 1990, p. 23.

[164] Babil, 22 February 1993.

[165] Babil, 22 February 1993.

[166] From: American Embassy Baghdad, to: Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., Saddam’s Message of Friendship to President Bush, 25 July 1990. The message was reproduced in many American newspapers and magazines. For example: The New York Times, 23 September 1990; The New Republic, 5 August 1991, pp. 8–10; and the Guardian, 12 September 1990. For the Iraqi version see Mahdar muqabalat al-sayyid al-ra’is Saddam Husayn ma’a al-safira Abril Klasbi yawm 25—7—1990 (Minutes of an Interview of President Saddam Husayn with Ambassador April Glaspie), issued by the Iraqi embassy in Washington in mid-September 1990.

[167] Baghdad Domestic Service in Arabic, 17 July 1990, in FBIS-NES-DR, 17 July 1990, p. 21.

[168] From: American Embassy Baghdad, to: Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., Saddam’s Message of Friendship to President Bush, 25 July 1990; see The New York Times, 23 September 1990; The New Republic, 5 August 1991, pp. 8—10; and the Guardian, 12 September 1990.

[169] From Secretary of State, Washington, D.C., to American Embassy, Baghdad, “President Bush’s Response to Saddam Hussein’s Message.” 28 July 1990. The message was widely reproduced in the American press. See, for example, Leslie H. Gelb in The New York Times, 5 April 1992. Author’s emphasis.

[170] A senior Iraqi defector in a closed-session lecture to American officials, Washington, D.C., 16 August 1995. Present were only General Rawi, Saddam’s cousin RCC Member ‘Ali Hasan al-Majid, and his other cousin, Brigadier General Husayn Kamil al-Majid. See also Bazzaz, Harb Talidu Ukhra, pp. 23, 85.

[171] Steven Caton, “Power, Persuasion and Language, a Critique of the Segmentary Model in the Middle East,” in IJMES, vol. 19, no. 1 (February 1987, p. 89, as quoted by Dale Eickelman, The Middle East, p. 136. And see Frank H. Stewart: “Bedouin law is ... fundamentally directed towards the peaceful settlement of disputes,” Honor (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1994), p. 139. See also pp. 81—91.

[172] All interviews were conducted in the US between February and September 1994.

[173] For an attempt to explain how and why decisions were made in Baghdad between 1988 and 1991 see A. Baram, “The Iraqi Invasion ofKuwait: DecisionMaking in Baghdad,” in Amatzia Baram and Barry Rubin (eds), Iraq’s Road to War (St. Martin’s Press, February 1994), pp. 5–36; A. Baram, “Calculation and Mis-Calculation in Baghdad,” in Alex Danchev and Dan Koehane (eds), International Perspective of the Gulf War 1990–91 (London: Macmillan; Oxford: St Antony’s College, 1994), pp. 23—58. A very senior UN offficial who had an interview with General of the Army Husayn Kamil al-Majid, after he had defected to Jordan reported that Kamil told him that he was with Saddam during the night of 16–17 January 1991. When the bombs started to fall the president was deeply shaken, fearing that these were the opening shots of a palace coup d’etat. He was relieved when told that this was the beginning of the war (an interview at the UN headquarters, New York, 12 October 1995).

[174] Granqvist (1931, 1935), in her study of the village of Irtas on the fringes of the desert, describes the marriage tendencies of the Irtas people with desert-dwelling Bedouin. The villagers of Irtas gave their daughters in marriage to the Bedouin’s sons, thus creating an alliance with them which prevented Bedouin raids on their village in drought years.

The strong Bedouin tribes on the east bank of the Jordan River, such as Bani Sakhir, would raid the fields of the Jewish settlements in the Beit She’an and Yizrael Valleys. The historian Malamat, in his discussion on the Midianites and his analysis of their penetration and retreat in Gideon’s period, notes the raid of the Bedouin from the eastern bank of the Jordan River to the “West Bank” in the year 1947, which was a year of drought. See A. Malamat, “The War of Gideon and Midian,” in J. Liver (ed.), The Military History of the Land of Israel in Biblical Times, Tel-Aviv: “Ma’arachot” Israeli Defence Forces, pp. 110—23 (in Hebrew). Reference to the raid of Bani Sakhir Bedouin is made on p. 118.

For a detailed description of the Bani Sakhir tribes, see the book by Mefleh Alfayez, who is a member of the tribe: Mefleh Alfayez, Bani Sakhir Tribe, Amman: Aljamiah al Urduniyyah Markaz al Lughat, 1995 (in Arabic).

[175] For a thorough discussion of the historical perspective of nomads’ dependency on permanent settlements, on the universal level and not just limited to the Middle East, and also for a discussion of the relationship between these two populations in a diachronic analysis, see Anatoly M. Khazanov, Nomads and the Outside World, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994 (second edition). For the subject of submission and the different forms of dependence of nomads on sedentary societies, see pp. 212–27. See also Joseph M. Hiatt, “State Formation and the Encapsulation of Nomads: Local Change and Continuity Among Recently Sedentarized Bedouin in Jordan,” Nomadic Peoples, vol. 15: 1—11, 1984. Reference to the subject can be found in K. S. Abu-Jaber and F. A. Gharabieh, “Bedouin Settlement: Organizational, Legal, and Administrative Structure in Jordan.” in D. Aronson, J. Galaty, and P. C. Salzman (eds), The Future of Pastoral Peoples, Ottawa International Development Research Center, 1981, pp. 294–300.

[176] On the bisha\ see Arefal Aref, Bedouin Justice, Jerusalem: Beit al Maqdas, 1933 (in Arabic); A. al Qusus, Bedouin Justice, Amman: Al Matbaah al Urduniyya, 1972 (in Arabic); El-Barghuthi, Omari Affendi, “judicial Courts Among the Bedouin of Palestine,” in Studies in Palestinian Customs and Folklore, Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society, vol. 2, 1922, pp. 34–54; Robert Bartlett, Trial by Fire and Water, The Medieval Judicial Ordeal, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986; Abadi al, Ahmad Aweidi, Justice Among the Jordanian Tribes, Amman: Al Dar al Arabiyya Liltawazia Wanasher, 1988 (in Arabic); Abadi al, Ahmad Aweidi, The Jordanian Tribes, Amman: Al Dar al Arabiyya Liltawazia Wanasher, 1988 (in Arabic); Shoucair bek, Naum, The History of Sinai and the Arabs, Sinai: St. Catharine Monastery, 1985 [1916] (in Arabic).

[177] Marx found in his study among the Bedouin, that of marriages of the in-group category, the co-liable group, constituted 30 percent (Marx, 1967: 112). Regarding three other communities, which Marx presents as comparative data, we learn that in none of them does the percentage exceed one-third of the total number of marriages (Marx, 1967: 113). In a study I conducted in four rural hamlets, I discovered that only 14.2 percent of the marriages were FBD, while the total percentage of all in-group marriages was 38.9 percent (Ginat, 1982: 86).

[178] In fatalistic societies, such an act is almost impossible. Kressel (1981: 142) states that, especially among Bedouin, there are “attempts to give murders the appearance of suicides or accidents.” Ginat (1997: 135) states, “There have been several cases where a girl has been found dead at the bottom of a well and the family have claimed that the death was due to suicide or to an accident. Postmortem examination has revealed no incriminating evidence ... I received information that the girls were pushed into the well for having broken the sexual propriety code.” Emil Durkheim (1966: 77) argues that “suicide has most victims among the most cultivated and wealthy classes.” Traditional communities have much lower suicide rates than affluent societies. In traditional societies, life is much more regulated by a “body of practices minutely governing all the details of life and leaving little free room for individual judgment” (Durkheim, 1966: 161). Emanuel Marx (1967: 12) claims that “in human memory no case of... suicide has occurred among the tribes of the Eastern Negev, nor have I heard of suicide in other Negev tribes.”

[179] The relationship between a son and his mother, and not only between daughter and mother, is open and warm, while the son’s relationship with his father is more rigid. The father is authoritative, and the son respects him, but a son would not dare to mention to his father his desire for marriage, for example. The son can discuss the matter with his mother’s brother (khal), but not with his father’s brother (am’m), whose status is identical to the father’s. If the mothers cooperate, and after the father has been persuaded by the mother or her messengers, the marriage can be arranged by asking for the girl’s hand in marriage from her father, who has also been “prepared.” The free mate selection which takes place is latent, while what appears manifest is the traditional method of determining marriage patterns by the parents, along with the agnates of the couple.

On the wasta (or wasitah), see Fredrick C. Huxley, Wasita in a Lebanese Context: Social Exchange Among Villagers and Outsiders, Ann Arbor: Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan Press, 1978.

On mother-son relationships, see Ginat, 1982.

[180] For information on hatifahh in the sense of elopement, see Ginat (1997), case history LXXI, pp. 165–71.

[181] The term hatifahh denotes three different kinds of abduction. One kind is abduction by force, which is very rare and might end with the murder of the abductor. A second kind is “ritual abduction.” Marx (1967) writes, “it takes place only after the marriage arrangements have been completed and the marriage-payment paid over, and it is carried out not by the bridegroom himself but by one or more of his close agnates” (Marx, 1967: 103). The main point of the abduction is to symbolize the fact that the bride was not given freely, and that which was taken by force was not bestowed willingly. It demonstrates the fact that the bride is an inseparable part of her father’s home, in spite of her marriage. See also Maya Melzer-Geva, Mate Selection in the Jewish Georgian Ethnic Group, MA thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1983 (in Hebrew). The third type is what is called hatifahh but it is actually elopement.

[182] A period of time designated as “three days, three nights, and a third of a day” has special significance in Bedouin society. For example, when a guest arrives, or when a passer-by is invited in, he is considered a guest for three days, three nights, and a third of a day. Another instance is when a murder or accidental killing takes place, and neutral sheikhs impose a mandatory ‘atwa (cease-fire) on the injured party. This cease-fire lasts for three days, three nights, and a third of a day. For more on the tashmis, see Bar-Zvi, 1991: 35—6.

[183] For comparison, see Ellickson (1991), who studied how neighbors settle disputes in western societies.

[184] Musil (1928), in his book on the Rawala tribe, describes three degrees of oaths: the two mentioned above, and a third oath for very serious matters, in which the sheikh of the tribe uses his sword to draw a circle in the sand around the suspect, and afterwards takes the sword in his left hand, and with his right hand takes hold of the suspect’s testicles. The suspect raises his hand and swears. This ceremony’has great significance in that the sword is usually swung with the right hand. All important things — a greeting, holding a weapon, eating, holding a coffee cup — are done with the right hand, while the left hand is used for impure things, such as going to the toilet. This ceremony is unusual in the fact that the testicles are held in the right hand (the suspect is fully dressed). See Alios Musil, The Manners and Customs of the Rawala Bedouin, New York: The Geographical Society, 1928.

[185] One would think that by the end of the twentieth century, the use of ordeals would have declined, especially the bisha’. However, through the fieldwork conducted by the author during the years 1990–5, an increase has been found in the number of people choosing the bishab as a method of conflict resolution, not only among the Bedouin, but also among rural societies and even city-dwellers.

[186] Evans-Pritchard, in his study of the Azande, describes a case of indirect accusation. When someone is accused of something, a chicken is fed poison, called “beng.” If the chicken dies, he is guilty, and if it lives, he is innocent. The accused claims it was not he who committed the crime, but spirits who pushed him to do it, and the result is a warning (Edward E. Evans-Pritchard, Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937). See also G. Filibrerio, Death Among the Azande of the Sudan: Beliefs, Rites and Cult, Bologna: Editrice Nignizio, 1968. Marwick, in his book Sorcery in its Social Setting, notes that making an accusation against a man is not always done in order to have him directly punished for a crime he committed, but in order to stigmatize him politically. See M. G. Marwick, Sorcery in its Social Setting, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1965. On punishment by direct accusation, such as murder for family honor, see J. Ginat, Blood Revenge: Family Honor, Mediation and Outcasting, Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 1997.

[187] The first names in the document are correct; the rest of the names, such as the father’s, grandfather’s, and family names, are pseudonyms. The lists of witnesses, heads of families, and guarantors include first names only.

[188] The Bedouin expression for this matter creates a rhyme between maqtul (killed) and mashlul (paralyzed). “Paralysis” for the Bedouin means helplessness in returning the stolen item. The expression emphasizes two basic terms in collective liability: blood and property, for which all the khams members are collectively liable.

[189] See, for instance, a recent collection of essays contributed by several prominent native writers and political leaders who just a few years ago praised Soviet modernization, industrialism, and happy life of the Russian Arctic minorities (Korobova, 1991). A new mood, which is now deeply negative, is fully expressed in titles, like “The Black Snow,” by Yuri Rytkhey, “The Pain of My Native Land,” by Vasili Ledkov, “Why the Ancestors Cry” by Yuvan Shestalov, etc. See also Slezkine (1994: 372–82).

[190] See Slezkine (1994: 369–71). Anna Nergagi’s recent position is fully expressed in several films made by the Salekhard independent TV channel (author’s data, Salekhard, 1994) and by her latest publications (Nerkagi, 1994: 13–14).

[191] These data were collected in 1995 by an Israeli anthropologist, David Dector, who spent a few months in a reindeer camp on the Yamal Peninsula, West Siberia, on a field-study sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution.

[192] I am grateful to Nikolai Vakhtin, David Anderson and Anatoly Khazanov for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this chapter and to David Dector who shared with me some of his recent impressions of his life in a reindeer camp in Yamal.