Iraq's Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden 9781934536759

Citation preview

I RAQ ’ S M ARSH A RABS IN THE G ARDEN OF E DEN

I RAQ ’ S M ARSH A RABS IN THE G ARDEN OF E DEN Edward L. Ochsenschlager

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA MUSEUM OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Copyright © 2004 by University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology 3260 South Street • Philadelphia, PA 19104–6324 All rights reserved. First Edtion.

SUPPORT PROVIDED BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Ochsenschlager, Edward L. Iraq's Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden / Edward L. Ochsenschlager. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 1-931707-74-X (alk. paper) 1. Ethnology--Tigris-Euphrates Delta (Iraq and Iran) 2. Material culture--TigrisEuphrates Delta (Iraq and Iran) 3. Marshes--Iraq. 4. Baòsrah (Iraq : Province)-Antiquities. I.Title. DS70.8.A1O29 2004 935--dc22 2004019710

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VII 1

IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1

2

THE PEOPLE OF AL-HIBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

3

WAYS AND MEANS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

5

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION . . . 74

6

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES . . . . . . . . . 95

7

BAKED POTTERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

8

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE OF REEDS AND RUSHES . 129

9

REED ARCHITECTURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

10 WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN 11 BOVINE HUSBANDRY 12 SHEEP

. . . . . . 45

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

13 VILLAGE WEAVERS

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

14 THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOHN HENRY HAYNES

. . . . . . . . . . 251

15 DEATH UNDER GLASS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

This page intentionally left blank

PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

U

ntil the end of the 20th century a vast marsh existed in the south of what is now the modern nation of Iraq. For thousands of years people had lived on the edge of these marshes.The archaeological record shows that already by the middle of the 4th millennium BC a people of unknown origin, known to us as the Sumerians, occupied this land and built there perhaps the world’s oldest cities. By the end of the 3rd millennium BC the land had become absorbed into the first-known empire of history, that of the Akkadians. Over the next two thousand years, the area was controlled by the successive empires of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Parthians. Over time, perhaps due to an overworking of the land and an abuse due to arrogance or ignorance of the ecological realities, the populations dwindled and the cities deteriorated and were eventually abandoned.What we today refer to as the cradle of civilization had become a wasteland. Over some indeterminate length of time, among the mounds that were all that was left of the great ancient cities by the marshes, people began to eke out a subsistence from this exhausted land. Among them are those known today as the Beni Hasan, the Mi’dan (often referred to as the Marsh Arabs), and the Bedouin. Although they used the land differently, there evolved among them a mutual interdependence. Their way of life was documented by an outsider, an American, John Henry Haynes, at the end of the 19th century during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. By the third quarter of the 20th century their isolation along with their traditions of self-reliance had been broken.The inevitability of change in human affairs now became their reality. By the end of the 1980s their way of life, by now precarious, was given the coup de grâce by Saddam Hussein. I now consider the great privilege of my life that all three of these peoples allowed me to observe their way of life and actively encouraged my vii

viii

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

work when I first began in 1968 to try to understand the purpose of a shaped ancient lump of mud and later when I wanted to learn as much about their material culture as possible. I hoped that understanding their way of life would help us better comprehend the information we were gathering about the ancient Sumerians who lived at the nearby ancient city mound we were excavating called al-Hiba. Change was a part of these peoples’ lives just as it is of ours. In 1968 parents were pressuring their children to stop making their own toys out of mud, professional male potters in the market town with their wheel-thrown pots were winning their battle against the traditional women potters of the villages, and the weaving of reed mats on upright looms was almost a thing of the past. But none of this was of such catastrophic nature as the political solutions of Saddam Hussein that would later force the Mi’dan to leave their homes forever and the Bedouin to vanish from the neighborhood. This book looks at the material culture of peoples living near the excavations at al-Hiba from 1968 to 1990 and focuses on the ethnoarchaeological question of what can the present tell us about the past. The findings recorded here were extremely helpful in interpreting the context of ancient material remains and gave us some insights into everyday life in antiquity. Careful observation of these people’s ways of life also served to muddy the waters of archaeological interpretation. It brought home the complexity and impact of behavioral and cultural choices in ways that would be almost impossible to decipher from the study of material remains alone. These studies give us some clues to the nature of change in human society. Because research took place over a period of 22 years we saw a great many changes, both minor and major, and because of our long-term involvement we were better able to document their causes and effects. Our research demonstrated the problems of understanding the reasons for change and the difficulty of evaluating the magnitude of its cultural effect. We discovered that it was not always easy to understand reasons for modern change initiated within the community unless one was present and privy to conversations concerning it immediately before and during the process of the change itself. Shortly after change occurred the previous justifications given sometimes disappeared to be replaced by a new set of justifications more culturally acceptable. In a way, then, the enduring reasons for change became part of a new mythology.These studies also remind us that our knowledge of the past sometimes relies on shaky interpretations and cavalier assumptions, and shows us that it is altogether too easy to misunderstand the significance of physical evidence. Change in personal attitude, in the availability of trained craftspeople or raw materials or in circumstances of life can alter traditions overnight, make cheap things expensive and expensive things cheap,

P REFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ix

make something either more or less desirable, and modify or change the roles of men, women, or children in society. Sometimes highly visible change is of little cultural significance, while major cultural change can be accompanied by little or no change in the material record. These studies have an unintended benefit in that they preserve an account of aspects of the interrelated daily lives of the Mi’dan and the Beni Hasan who lived here year-round and the Bedouin who pitched their tents on the dried-up seasonal marshland during the fall of each year. The way of life embodied in these studies, and especially the interplay between the three different peoples, has ceased to exist. These study gave me an opportunity to come to know a large number of remarkable, industrious, and steadfast people from whom I learned much more than the secrets of their crafts. After briefly discussing the people living in the area and the way I collected the information, I divided the book into a series of chapters based on the nature of the material resource we investigated. Resources such as mud and reeds were used for so many purposes that they are the subjects of more than one chapter. In addition to discussing how individual artifacts functioned I try to give a detailed account of how they were manufactured. I then deal with what changed and what persisted in both techniques of manufacture and function over the 22 years of the project. Finally I try to give some idea of the impact this information can have on the study of the past. I would like to thank Vaughn Crawford of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Donald P. Hansen of the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University, who put the facilities of the al-Hiba expedition at my disposal and encouraged me in every way. I am deeply indebted to Robert Ehrich, who helped me refine successful applications for funding to the City University of New York and the National Endowment for the Humanities, Claireve Grandjouan for the deep wisdom embedded in her highly entertaining lecture on the Archaeology of the Modern City of New York, and the interest of Edith Poroda, Ralph and Rose Solecki, and Richard Ellis, who helped fuel the expansion of my inquiries. I am deeply indebted to Bonnie Gustav for allowing me to use the material we previously worked on and published. Special thanks are also due to Ann Farkas, Qais Al-Awgati, Mary Strong, Selma alRadi, and James Pidala, who read parts of the manuscript and helped me improve them immeasurably, and to Richard Zettler, who insisted that I pull this information together and helped me at every turn. Above all I am deeply appreciative of the significant contributions to this project of Marjorie Venit and Sidney Babcock who examined the text and made many valuable suggestions. Others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude include Tony Frantz, Anna Grifiths, Abdullah Khalil, Annie Searight, Alex Pezzati, and of course

x

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Muhammad el-Dukkhan, my guide, informant, and friend, without whose generosity and sensitive help the project would have been doomed. I am most grateful to my editor Walda Metcalf and Matthew Manieri for their encouragement and cogent scrutiny of every aspect of the text in putting this study into a publishable form.

1

IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

I

n 1968 a discovery that would change my research focus from ancient pottery to ethnoarchaeology occurred during my second week as part of a team excavating at al-Hiba, an eroded mound on the edge of the marshes of southern Iraq. The mound contained the remains of the ancient Sumerian city of Lagash which reached its greatest size in the Early Dynastic III (ED III) period, ca. 2600–2300 BC. At the end of Early Dynastic IIIB (2400–2300 BC), or sometime during that period, the city’s occupation declined rapidly and the Sumerian capital was apparently transferred to ancient Girsu, now the nearby mound of Tello.* The surrounding marshes consisted of a series of interconnected permanent marshes and lakes covering some 8,800 km2 in the dry season and expanding to 20,000 km2 when their banks overflowed in the spring inundation. The Garden of Eden is the name given to the “earthly paradise” where Adam and Eve are thought to have lived before their Fall (Genesis 2 and 3). From the exact details recorded, it would seem that the writer of the Biblical story conceives of the Garden of Eden as an actual locality on earth. Many attempts have been made to determine its exact geographic position, and writers and scholars have located it in many parts of the world. Since the discovery of ancient civilizations in modern Iraq scholars have leaned toward the sites of southern Sumer, which includes the al-Hiba area. Indeed, it is con* For additional information on the site itself see Robert D. Biggs, “Pre-Sargonic Riddles from Lagash,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 32, 1/2 (1973): 26–33; Elizabeth Carter, “A Surface Survey of Lagash, al-Hiba, 1984,” Sumer (1990)46:60–63; Vaughn Crawford, “Lagash,” Iraq (1974) 36:29–35; Donald P. Hansen, “Al-Hiba, 1968–1969, A Preliminary Report,” Artibus Asiae 32 (1970): 243–50; Donald P. Hansen, “Al-Hiba, 1970-1971, A Preliminary Report,” Artibus Asiae 35 1,2 (1973):62–78; Donald P. Hansen, “Royal Building Activity at Sumerian Lagash in the Early Dynastic Period,” Biblical Archaeologist 55,4 (1992):206–11.

1

2

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

ceivable that the word “Eden” is derived from the Sumerian word “edinu” which meant field, plain, or depression. One of the most prominent theorists on this topic, Juris Zarins, believes the Garden of Eden lies some 200 miles south of Sumer under the waters of the Persian Gulf, and he thinks that the story of Adam and Eve, both in and out of the Garden, is a highly condensed and evocative account of the shift from hunting /gathering to agriculture.*

Al Hiba Al-Hiba is situated on the alluvial plain of southern Mesopotamia. Located on the southeastern edge of the marshes, it is surrounded by water and is one of the largest, if not the largest, archaeological sites in southern Iraq. It is over two miles long and a mile wide. Findings of Ubaid and Jamdat Nasr artifacts indicate the site’s early occupation, but it is in Sumerian times that the site grew in size and importance. Vaughn E. Crawford for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Donald P. Hansen for the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University began excavating the mound in the fall and winter of 1968–69, and I was a member of their team. Major efforts of the first season included the excavation of the temple platform in a temple oval and several soundings in other areas to help explore more fully the nature of the mound.

The Find Many important discoveries took place on this site over the next two decades. I especially remember two of them from the first season. The first was the excavation of a foundation deposit, in the temple oval, which consisted of human torso made of copper whose lower body, from the waist down, terminated in a large cone-shaped nail that pierced the lowest course of the foundation. Behind the torso was a stone brick, which, like the figurine, bore an inscription telling us that the statue was a representation of the god Shulutula placed here by the king Enannatum I to stand forever in prayer before the goddess Inana in her temple the Ib-Gal. It was widely known from ancient texts that the Ib-Gal stood in the city of Lagash, of the State of Lagash. Clearly here was the proof the expedition had been seeking that the site of al-Hiba was the ancient city of Lagash. Equally important, the inscriptions told us which king built the temple and therefore its date of construction. Clearly this was a very important find for the expedition and for the elucidation of ancient Sumerian history. The second find was the shaped-mud object that determined the course of my career. It occurred in one of those soundings carried out to determine stratagraphic sequence, not too far from the Ib-Gal, in what *See Dora Jane Hamblin, “Has the Garden of Eden Been Located at Last?” Smithsonian Magazine 18,2 (1987) .

I N THE G ARDEN

OF

E DEN

3

appeared to be the remains of a private house from a slightly later period. This lump of shaped mud in a layer of unshaped mud was barely discernible and extremely fragile and might have been easily overlooked. It was hardly the type of discovery to cause a celebration but it was the beginning of this study. I had not seen anything like this in the excavation before, and I certainly had no idea of its significance. Luckily we had built an oven that we used for baking mud tablets, and I included this particular lump in one of the oven’s firings.After it was baked, I carefully cleaned it and examined it in detail. Clearly it was part of a vessel; still unclear was why it had never been baked. I wondered if it might be something made by a child to imitate the baked pottery of his or her elders or an awkwardly formed vessel by a beginning potter judged too poorly made to warrant firing. The adult-sized fingerprints left by the individual who shaped the piece made it clear that my first hypothesis could not be correct: the piece could not have been made by a child. At that time, my second hypothesis did not seem to be testable. Over the next few days a few more pieces of unbaked mud vessels came to light, demonstrably from unbaked pots of different shapes and sizes, and their possible purpose took on more significance.Why would a culture with fired pottery have any use for vessels made of sun-dried mud?

Taking Our Problem to the Villagers Desperate for help in understanding these idiosyncratic finds, I turned to the nearby villages. The villagers soon introduced me to a world apart from the Midwestern U.S. farm where I was raised. In 1968 a number of small villages existed close to the site of al-Hiba and alongside the marshes on which they were largely dependent. Each contained the homes of one of two different tribes, the Mi’dan or the Beni Hasan. The Mi’dan, sometimes called the Marsh Arabs, had lived in the marshes for over 5,000 years and fished the marshes with spears.They also kept water buffalo, which, technically undomesticated, foraged for reeds and sedge in the marshes during the day and returned to the family shelter in late afternoon to give up their milk and spend the night under protection. Mi’dan villages were sometimes built directly in the marshes on platforms or islands they constructed of alternate layers of reed mats or reeds and silt dug from the bottom of the marsh.The Beni Hasan, in contrast, kept sheep and cattle of breeds adaptable to the environment, which grazed on the banks of the marsh, and raised crops of vegetables and animal fodder on plots of land that were sometimes irrigated. They also fished, not with spears but with set or throw nets. There were many similarities between the two peoples, and families of one tribe were often dependent on families of the other. Both tribes kept

4

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

chickens, caught wild birds in nets or shot them with guns, and grew rice in small beds on the edges of the marshes. Strict ideas of honor governed relationships between people.The principal guardians of these traditions, and the work ethic as well, were not holy men but craftspeople. Children were born at home with the aid of midwives or an older female relative.They were taught early at their mother’s or father’s side the chores required for survival, and by the time they were eight years old they were productive and respected members of the family. One’s parents chose one’s mate, marriage occurred early, and it was expected that there would be no sexual activity of any kind by either person before the marriage was consummated. Most important, for our purposes, these modern people were largely dependent on the same material resources that had been available to the ancient Sumerians.

Answers to the Problem of the Mud Sherd Imagine my surprise when I found villagers in every modern household using unbaked mud vessels alongside fired vessels and others made from metal, glass, and plastic. I spent hours watching village people collect mud and manufacture sun-dried mud objects. I also observed them use the objects for a wide variety of purposes: portable hearths, small storage containers, bases to stabilize large pots, corn grinders, incense burners—all were fashioned from mud and dried in the sun.Within a few weeks I was convinced by the evidence that ethnographic analogues had significant value for clarifying excavated finds and perhaps better understanding life in the ancient world. Clearly I could not consider modern artifacts, similar to those that existed in Early Dynastic times, as an inheritance from the past. Nor could I conclude, on the basis of similar shape, that their functions were necessarily the same. It was clear, however, that the general ecology in 1968 Iraq was similar to that of the 3rd millennium BC. Our initial belief in this comparability rested on the archaeological finds of model boats, fishing spears and fish bones, the remains, impressions, or images of reed products or structures, and the like. The existence of such water-related artifacts in quantity seemed unimaginable without nearby, contemporary wetlands or marshes. Jennifer R. Pournelle brings certainty to this point of view in her dissertation.* She gives us an idea of what the southern floodplain would have been like in the early millennia of settlement and delineates the role of marshes as a recurring feature of the landscape. She believes that Sumerian administrators understood “that productive wetlands were not just those areas delimited by permanent * Jennifer R. Pournelle, “Marshland of Cities: Deltaic Landscapes and the Evolution of Early Mesopotamian Civilization,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, San Diego, 2003. For specific details of the al-Hiba regions see 206–10.

I N THE G ARDEN

OF

E DEN

5

reed swamp, but included all that surrounding area, seasonally dry, ‘created’ by farming and grazing, that revert to dust, mud, or water during a year’s progress,”* and this mirrored the ideas and practices of the modern people who inhabited the area at the beginning of our research. Robert Ascher† had suggested that given environmentally similar conditions, valid analogies could be sought between the present and the past. Indeed, both modern villagers and ancient Sumerians had adapted to these conditions in a similar fashion: both used similar technology and the same locally available raw materials to make similar artifacts. I was convinced that what I learned from modern villagers would help me better understand the ancient Sumerians and might help the excavators answer archaeological questions at al-Hiba.

More Than Mud What I learned about the modern use of mud§ was so interesting and so potentially informative about aspects of life in ancient times that I expanded my investigation to other materials that were used by ancient peoples. Initially I focused my investigations on wood, bitumen, reeds‡ and wool,§ and these carried me to tangential areas with which they were closely associated: wood to boats, fishing, and moral power of craftsmen; bitumen and reeds to the many kinds of tools and their use; wool backward to sheep and then to other animals and animal husbandry, forward to spinning, weaving, and the power of craftswomen in the community. The project had a single goal: to help us better understand what we were finding in the excavation. There was no expectation at that time that these studies would be of independent interest to anyone else. This 22-year project resulted in a portrait of a way of life, however incomplete, which has since entirely vanished. From an archaeological point of view it helped us define ancient manufacturing processes and assign value to our artifacts as a function of the craftsman’s skill and time. It has extracted meaningful criteria to help us understand better an artifact’s significance, to appreciate the skill of those who used it, and to grasp the substantial social and * Pournelle, “Marshland of Cities,” 257. † R.Ascher, “Analogy in Archaeological Interpretation,” Southwestern Journal of Anthro-pology 17(1961):317–25. ‡ E. L. Ochsenschlager, “Ethnographic Evidence for Wood, Boats, Bitumen and Reeds in the Southern Iraq: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba,” Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 6 (1992):47–78. §E. L. Ochsenschlager, “Sheep: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba,” Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7 (1993):33–42; E. L. Ochsenschlager, “Village Weavers: Ethnoarchaeology at al-Hiba,” Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 7 (1993):43–62; E. L. Ochsenschlager, “Carpets of the Beni-Hassan Village:Weavers in Southern Iraq,” Oriental Rug Review 15,5 (1995):12–20.

6

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

moral authority wielded by village craftspeople. Study of the manufacture, use, and disposal of modern artifacts has indicated problems of interpretation sometimes overlooked in archaeological contexts. Above all, I believe these studies allow for a fuller understanding of the complexities involved in the process of change in an artifact’s function, value, and spatial relationships in defined settings. Clearly many details of modern village life had parallels in the archaeological record.Arched reed houses and buildings of mud brick and pisé are well attested in antiquity, and we can conclude that they were built in a very similar fashion to the way they are built today, in part because of the nature of the raw materials and in part because of direct evidence of manufacture from ancient strata. Some of the forms of sun-dried mud pottery are attested in Sumerian times by finds in the excavations at al-Hiba, and they have preserved details of construction which show that they were made in the same way as modern examples. Mud storage containers, jars, conical ovens, ammunition for slings, and children’s toys are widely known in antiquity from many sites. Ancient models of outside mud and reed bed platforms, perhaps made as toys, show the same raw materials used in the same fashion as those in modern courtyards. Impressions of ancient reed baskets and mats exhibit the same construction techniques as do modern ones. Models of ancient boats show that they were very similar to modern ones and built of the same materials. Even without corroborating evidence some ancient parallels with modern functions can be assumed. Although the materials did not exist in antiquity, the functions of some modern aluminum, tin, plastic, and porcelain containers are probably generally the same as the functions of the pottery of antiquity. The physical requirements of animals would lead us to believe that ancient animal husbandry had much in common with the modern. In some cases, for instance in weaving, we can restore parts of the process and artifacts missing in the archaeological record. Through the restoration of the entire process involved in the manufacture of an artifact we can estimate the actual value of that artifact to the people who made and used it by measuring the skill and time required for its production. We can infer other details of life in Sumerian times from the ethnographic information. We can understand and better appreciate, for instance, the degree of coordination and skill required for everyday activities in ancient times because both modern and ancient peoples used similar artifacts for similar purposes. Indeed the physical and mental energy expended by young men in mastering the throw-net, spear, and sling is akin to the effort put forth today by first-class athletes. Like modern young Iraqi villagers who, at the age of eight or younger, have jobs which are important to the survival of their families, Sumerian children were

I N THE G ARDEN

OF

E DEN

7

probably productive members of society, in contrast to modern Western society where we appear to think that work deprives children of their childhood and there is little work that children can profitably do in any case. More speculative, perhaps, are such things as the role of individuals or groups of people. For instance, Iraqi villagers and ancient Sumerian craftspeople dealt in raw materials and artifacts crucial to the survival of the entire community. It is possible therefore that similar groups in antiquity may have enjoyed similar respect and played similar roles in preserving traditional morality and work ethics.

Nippur The value of this research is significantly enhanced by a decision of the University of Pennsylvania to let me use the previously unpublished 19th century photographs of John Henry Haynes (see Chapter 14). He was an acutely sensitive man who served as business manager, photographer, and eventually director during the first four seasons conducted by the University of Pennsylvania at Nippur in Iraq, situated some 80 miles to the northwest of alHiba and in the late 19th century lay on the edge of the same vast marshes which al Hiba bordered during the course of my study.* The older material from Nippur gives me a unique opportunity to illustrate a general continuity in artifact form, function, and details of manufacture over a period of nearly 100 years.

Change, Change, Change In contrast to the general continuity which would appear to have existed among artifacts and functions from the late 19th century as evidenced by the photographs of John Henry Haynes compared to my initial studies in 1968, a great many changes would take place during the next 22 years. In 1968, at the beginning of this study, the majority of the inhabitants still lived in isolation from mainstream Iraq. Few of the people of tribes other than the Bedouin had visited any place more distant than Shatra, a three-hour trip in good weather, and they clearly resisted outside influences in their daily lives. Fundamental and far-reaching changes took place during the following years. Inexpensive goods appeared in the markets of nearby towns and encroached on the production of local households or craftspeople. Schools were built in the area and were obligatory for the young.Although at first most * See Margaret Catlin Brandt “Nippur: Building an Environmental Model” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49 (1990):67–73, for information on the alternating marshy and desert environment around Nippur.

8

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

of the students would follow in their fathers’ footsteps, teachers awakened in them a curiosity about the outside world and inspired some to try their hands at non-traditional endeavors. The authority of the sheikhs began to disappear in intra-village and inter-group relations, but the cohesiveness of family and village life was still strong due to a firm belief in the Quran and the moral authority of village elders and of craftspeople. By the middle of the 1970s some of the traditional crafts and practices had completely disappeared, and barter was increasingly replaced by a cash-driven economy. Goods made elsewhere and purchased in market towns became more common, eroding the traditional, almost total, reliance on the material resources of the local area.The strictest possible adherence to village standards was increasingly giving way to a more flexible morality encouraged by more contact with the outside world, a decline in the authority of craftspeople, and a change from an information and entertainment system largely dependent on the Quran, poets, and story tellers to the radio which provided both news and entertainment from within and outside Iraq well saturated with “modern” ideas and political propaganda. Still, it was the wars and drying up of the marshes, both inflicted by the outside world, that would cause the most serious and far-reaching changes and alter forever these peoples’ ways of life.With the onset of Iraq’s war with Iran in the 1980s, the pace of change increased with electrifying speed. Conscription took hundreds of young men from the marshes and turned them into soldiers.Their experience and associations with men from other areas in Iraq permanently altered the outlook of those who returned. The fact that many did not return had a devastating effect on the families they left behind who had no other resource but the father’s labor to ward off hunger or even starvation. It put a great strain on the principles of hospitality and community welfare one saw at work in the communities and changed, probably forever, many of the divisions of labor that previously existed. It was the purposeful drying up of the marshes that clearly had the most devastating effect for everyone in the area was dependent on them in one way or another. Even those in the community who eventually benefited by the draining of the marshes mourned their passing as a way of life and a thing of beauty.

The Eden of Old In 1968 al-Hiba was surrounded by contiguous areas of permanent, seasonal, and temporary marsh. Melting snow in the mountains to the north caused annual floods. The inundation reached its height in May and began to recede in June. By August the temporary marsh was covered with a growth of sedges

I N THE G ARDEN

OF

E DEN

9

and grass ready to welcome the nomadic Bedouin who arrived with their herds of goats, sheep, and camels to take advantage of the pasturage. The waters reached their lowest point in September and October. In November the water level rose slightly, and, with the rainy season in late December or early January, sudden short floods could occur. Weather provides a definite summer and winter with transitions between the two in November-December and March-April. Spring weather brings brief but violent thunderstorms with high winds. Dazzling flashes, traveling down the plain as sheets of ground lightning, and tremendous rolling thunder bursts deliver a vivid reminder of why the weather was often a god in ancient times. When the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers flood, from March to July, the marshes were at their greatest extent both then and now. In the 1960s and 1970s the floods were much more dangerous and the marshes would attain a depth of four to five feet fairly close to the marsh banks and much deeper in places farther away from the shore. Hot, dry summers often include a southeast wind called shamal, which pick up heat in crossing the Arabian land mass and cause high local temperatures, sometimes over 120° F during the day.When especially strong this wind generated dust storms, sometimes lasting for three or four days and nights. Such continuous, unchanging, and monotonous storms could prove psychologically trying and enervating to outsiders. Occasionally one from the south, which usually brought high humidity combined with the heat, and made human activity of any kind difficult, replaced this wind. Long summers are hard and hot. Winters are quite chilly with temperatures reaching the freezing point overnight and frost occurring fairly regularly. Winter is also the rainy season, especially from the end of December through March, with the heaviest rains in January and February. If we waited too far into the rainy season to leave al-Hiba for Baghdad, the floodwaters often required extended boat trips to an area where we could pick up a road which was still above water.Then we traveled by taxi and on foot, carrying our luggage, making our way to a main road that was fairly clear of water and passable. The marshes were a thing of beauty. During the fall and winter migrations they were filled with wild birds—ducks, geese, ibises, pelicans, and cranes. Other birds, such as owls, kingfishers, eagles, and quail, seemed to be permanent residents. Carp, the most common fish in the marsh, furnished ample supplies for the fishermen who caught them for food, sale, or barter. Other inhabitants of the marshland were not quite so benevolent. Several varieties of poisonous snakes lived here, and the bites of some were said to be fatal. Equally dangerous, and even more feared, were wild pigs lurking among the reeds and attacking anything that encroaches on their worlds, even human beings. Wild boar were larger than some varieties known else-

10

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

where.They could grow as tall as 1 m at the shoulder and sported formidable, razor-sharp tusks. Quite a few local inhabitants bore sizable scars; others died of their wounds. The Mi’dan, who harvest fodder for their water buffalo and reeds for their mats in the marshes, were especially vulnerable. The world shifted when a wild pig crossed the mound; silence was absolute; birds stopped singing and dogs slunk into hiding without a sound. The marshes also had other drawbacks. They were a breeding ground for insects. Mosquitoes, in combination with fiercely biting flies, made summer difficult for both humans and beasts, and the flies maintained their vitality through October. In spring beetles appeared as large around as a silver dollar. Their purpose, apparently, was to fly noisily into midair, mate, fall down, and dig holes in which to bury their eggs. Hairy hunter spiders as large as a human hand ran back and forth all night looking for beetles to prey on. Between the beetles and the spiders, which penetrated through even the reed and mud of local houses and raced over people trying to sleep, spring was not the time of year to take a good night’s rest for granted. Freshwater snails that carried the parasites causing bilharzias also made their home in the marshes. Few people in the area were free of this disease, with which, although curable, they were often re-infected each time they stepped into the marsh or canal. Flatworms penetrated any scratch in the skin and made their way to the bladder where they multiplied, causing bleeding, weakness, and pain. Like people everywhere, local inhabitants took their problems for granted and found them of minor consequence. Few attributed blindness, external bleeding, and serious internal problems to the flatworms that caused bilharzias. Certainly trouble caused by insects, snakes, and wild boars were unpleasant, but either home remedies or precautions mitigated them, and they need not be endured every minute. Each season was considered a relief from the vagary of the season past. Like farmers everywhere, no one here ever complained too loudly of either rain or sun. Each season brought rewards. The shade of the palm provided easement on the hottest day, as did the dried dung fire on the hearth in times of cold. In the scenery there is great beauty. In the fall, one can gaze over the depleted marsh for miles, clear to the horizon. Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular, framed by enormous beds of reeds in the late spring and summer. When traveling in the web of narrow boat paths through the thick, tall, reed stalks all light can be completely cut off, giving one the feeling of traveling through mysterious tunnels in a lost world. Above all, it was the marshes which made possible the way of life of the surrounding people who still made their living, as they had for generations, from the countryside. They relied heavily on their individual and collective skills and the resources of the area for most of their needs.Tribal, vil-

I N THE G ARDEN

OF

E DEN

11

lage, and family organizations were still fairly strong, giving a meaning and purpose to life fully shared with other members of the community.

The Beginning of the End In 1968 the marshes had already begun to shrink largely due to private irrigation projects of important sheikhs and landowners and to natural causes.The site of Nippur, from which we have drawn so much comparative material, stood on the northern end of the marshes in the late 19th century but was several kilometers north of the marshes in 1968. Over the next 10 to 12 years new canals and dams were built by the government and older ones cleared or reinforced in order, ostensibly, to prevent the consequences of dire seasonal flooding, to recover additional agricultural land, and to increase irrigation. As Pournelle points out this under-valuation of marsh resources and the desire to convert them into agricultural enclaves had been a part of Modern Iraqi policy since colonial times, and this same attitude toward wetlands existed in many other parts of the world.* It was not until the late 1970s that we realized a part of this program of marsh draining, whether by default or design, gave the government greater access to people seeking refuge in the marshes. The local villagers had a way of communicating in code on mud drums and mud whistles to warn others of police visits. Although we were not privy to the code, we recognized the nature of the message when half our workmen grabbed their knives, clubs, guns, and cloaks and disappeared into the marshes. In the 1980s it dawned on us that a part of this activity might be a deliberate attempt to get rid of the Mi’dan. Relations between the Mi’dan and the Beni Hasan which had previously seemed quite congenial appeared now to be somewhat strained. Occasional allusions, in passing, characterized the Mi’dan individually or collectively as dirty, lazy, venal, and not too bright. Feelings were strong enough that it appeared better to separate men of the Mi’dan from those of the Beni Hasan on work teams, and visiting officials would regularly denigrate the Mi’dan and the way they made a living. I had a vague feeling that the Mi’dan were being targeted for unfavorable propaganda. Looking back at the end of the decade, I was certain that it had been the case, but by then it was too late as the Mi’dan had completely disappeared from our area and no one seemed able to explain why. One reads everywhere that the destruction of the marshes by the building of huge dams and the driving out of the Mi’dan occurred in the years after Desert Storm to punish the Shia who had rebelled against Saddam * See Margaret Catlin Brandt, “Nippur: Building an Environmental Model,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 49 (1990):67–73, for information on the alternating marshy and desert environment around Nippur.

12

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Hussein. But that was simply not true in our area. By the end of 1989 much of the great marsh had been drained, a modern road ran from Shatra to the excavation, which had formerly been accessible only by water, and electricity had been extended to the villages on the site. Most important, the Mi’dan had been driven from the area by changes in the environment and a barrage of propaganda alluding to their unprincipled corruption. Meanwhile there were no more Bedouin encampments. Bedouin who lived outside Iraq were no longer permitted to cross the borders, and those who lived inside were forced to settle in specific areas. The Beni Hasan alone now inhabited the area of alHiba.The old order was gone forever and the results of change and its process became one more focus of this study. Looking back, I am haunted by my acceptance of the reason given for the disappearance of the Mi’dan, that they had moved on because of the shrinking marshland. On the last day of the excavation in April of 1990, while conversing with the son of one of our workmen, I was told that the great delay we experienced in being allowed to come down from Baghdad to the site could be attributed to the army not knowing which way the gas might blow. Was there a holdout village of Mi’dan close by who refused to leave and had to be dealt with accordingly? There is a commendable effort under way to restore the marshes. Although such an undertaking would be difficult, expensive, and probably limited to an area much smaller than the marshes of the past, I think it would be tremendously rewarding. I do not believe, however, that there is any way anyone could restore the integrated society of peoples and tribes that flourished here through the late 1960s and early 1970s. Relations between people brought to antipathy by governmental propaganda and pressure are not easily restored. New opportunities and aspirations make subsistence existence completely unattractive to those with better prospects.Technology has moved on, making the old-fashioned way of doing things painfully burdensome and unrewarding.

2

THE PEOPLE OF AL-HIBA

T

he people of al-Hiba lived far removed from the outside world.The trip to Shatra, the nearest town, was at its shortest when there was sufficient water in the main canal to float the large motorized boats which carried passengers, animals, and produce from the outlying areas to market. It still required a 2.5 hour trip aboard a motorized boat to a mud bank docking place and from there a taxi ride of 15 to 20 minutes. From January through March, during the rainy season, it took much longer since it was necessary to walk through deep mud from the dock to the nearest place approachable by taxi, a process that could take 1–2 hours. During the dry season, in late fall and early winter, the trip was longer still, 4 hours or more, since the villagers first had to walk to the place where the local canal joined the main Shatra canal (Abu Simech) from where they could hire a tarada (bitumen-covered boat poled through the water with long bamboo or reed poles) that would take them to the point where they could be picked up by the motorized boat.The motorized boat would then take them to the Shatra docking place. Thus, people in the villages surrounding al-Hiba were relatively immobile. A trip to Shatra was a major event reserved for those occasions when they wanted to sell something—carpets, reed mats, wool, produce, an animal for butchering—that could not be sold or traded in the village, when they wanted to buy a major item such as a plow, a knife, or a gun, or when they needed to visit the doctor at the hospital. In most families the doctor or hospital visit was a desperate last attempt when other kinds of local treatment had failed. Villagers believed that sick people who went to the hospital inevitably died. They often delayed so long in taking a sick person for treatment that their beliefs became self-fulfilling prophesies. 13

14

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The early years of our excavation, in the late 1960s, were times of unbelievable poverty for the people of al-Hiba.The sheikhs, who were politically active and prospered under the monarchy, were treated with great suspicion by the Baathists who used every opportunity to eradicate them and their influence, leaving a void in the management of farmlands.The irrigation system in the area, which had previously been one of the sheikhs’ major responsibilities, was now often in disrepair and inadequately regulated. Money was beginning to replace barter for some commodities, and people in the villages, who had little opportunity to acquire cash, were at a great disadvantage. In those days one could often see women gathering grass and sedge from the edges of the marsh and the canals, not for fodder for their animals, but to be boiled and served as the main dish for their families’ dinners. The villagers in the area around al-Hiba fell into three different groups. First, the Bedouin pitched their tents on the seasonal marshland from late August to the beginning of the rains in late December. Second, the Beni Hasan dwelled in seven villages of 200 to 250 people each within walking or boating distance of the site.Third, five small villages of the Mi’dan, or Marsh Arabs, dotted the southern part of the mound. In addition three Mi’dan households, each isolated from the others, were perched on a narrow spit of land in the extreme southeast. Other villages of the Beni Hasan were located on the margins of the marshes, and some Mi’dan villages were found in the marshes where they had created patches of dried land by alternating layers of mud quarried from the marsh bottom with reed mats. All these settlements could be reached by boat. The Mi’dan, or Marsh Arabs, have in particular attracted considerable attention. Fulanain (Hedgecock and Hedgecock) captured much of the atmosphere and social interaction in the marsh Arab world in a highly personalized account of a marsh dweller in The Marsh Arab Haji Rikkan (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1927).* Gertrude Bell, who had encouraged the book, was unable to write a promised foreword because of her untimely death. The Marsh Arabs (New York: Dutton, 1964), by Wilfred Thesiger, and People of the Reeds (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1957),† by Gavin Maxwell, provided very personal narratives of adventurous journeys through the same land. Both Thesiger and Maxwell were keen observers and wrote accurately, often poetically, of the lives and customs of the Mi’dan. Both works are also lavishly illustrated with fine photographs. The most useful account for the modern anthropologist is that of S. M. Salim (Marsh Dwellers of the Euphrates Delta (London: Athlone, * For the reality behind this story see Pournelle, ”Marshland of Cities,” 235-36. † See also Gavin Young and N. Wheeler, “Water Dwellers in a Desert World,” National Geographic 149,4(1976):502–23; “The Folk that Live in the Marshes,” Observer Magazine May 22 (1977): 30–43; and Return to the Marshes (London:William Collins, 1977).

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

15

1962), a carefully documented field study conducted in ech-Chibayish (which lies at a considerable distance from al-Hiba) of the values and social rules whereby the lives of the Marsh Arabs are sustained, and it records the significant social changes in Mi’dan society due to commercial and external influence. It does not concern itself with the mechanical detail of material culture. I am concerned here primarily with the material culture of the tribes living in the area, not only with the Mi’dan but with the Bedouin and the Beni Hasan, and I am especially concerned with their relations to each other.As the project originated in the desire to known more about our archaeological finds on the excavation, it is only natural that material culture should play the leading role, but that does not mean that other aspects could be ignored for they also had archaeological implications Each of these three groups occupied an important ecological niche in the area, and all three had much in common.The general character and basic beliefs of each, especially in the area of family organization and patterns of living, were very similar. Rather than repeat fundamental elements common to each of the three groups, I shall describe first the Beni Hasan and note later how the Mi’dan and Bedouin differ from them.

Beni Hasan The Beni Hasan, who belonged to the Shia branch of Islam, lived on dry land at the edge of the marshes. Only an occasional tribal sheikh preserved anything like the power he had previously possessed and he was strictly responsible to the government for every decision he made. Most of the local sheikhs had fled south, some as fugitives from government pressure, into Kuwait or even Saudi Arabia. Others had moved permanently to Baghdad where, through cooperation with the government, they sought to protect the little they had salvaged from their former holdings. Two minor sheikhs still functioned in the area due in part to their personal charisma, in part to their adroit political maneuvering, and in part to the location of their peoples in a part of the country at the time considered less politically important than other areas. During the summer, the Beni Hasan raised rice and millet, and in winter, barley and wheat unless prevented from doing so by either lack of rain or a greater flood than usual.They cultivated vegetables—especially a kind of spinach, turnips, onions, beans, eggplant, and some tomatoes on land near the banks of a canal or the edge of the marshes. The young leaves of many wild plants were gathered and eaten raw as salads. Fields for crops were usually protected by manmade ramparts of mud and straw that varied in size according to their location. Those areas

16

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

against the marsh bank or along the borders of a canal were usually significantly higher than those farther from the water. The largest bank in the area, in a place especially prone to flooding, stood about 3 m high and about 4 m wide at its base. Maintaining these embankments during the rainy season was a constant chore. The vegetable garden for some families was small, growing just enough for family use. For other families the area of the garden was larger and the produce was sold or bartered. Most Beni Hasan also had small herds of sheep, flocks of chickens, and sometimes turkeys and small herds of cattle. The sheep produced meat, wool, milk, and dung, the birds both meat and eggs, and the cattle meat, dung, milk, butter, and cheese. Fish, largely carp netted in the marshes, provided many families with their major income or trade good. Then as now men wore a kuffiya (headcloth) fastened on their heads with a plaited camel hair or wool cord, and a dishdasha (long, straight garment) under a recycled western suit jacket, which is in turn covered with an aba (wool cloak). Underwear, consisting of white cotton drawers with drawstring waists, came midway between the knee and ankle. Very few people regularly wore shoes, except on holidays and other special occasions. So callused were men’s feet that they warmed them in winter by putting them on the hearth an inch or two from the burning coals. All men carried rifles over their shoulders, wore colorful ammunition belts around their waists and often over their shoulders, and carried a mugwar (reed and bitumen club).Women wore an abaya (shapeless black cloak) that covered them from head to foot. Under the cloak they wore a loose-fitting black garment similar to the dishdasha.

The Family Family organization is patriarchal and patrilocal.The father is the head of the household, which usually consists of himself, his wife or wives, his sons and unmarried daughters, his sons’ wives, his grandsons and unmarried granddaughters, and possibly his sons’ sons’ sons, their wives, and great-greatgrandsons and unmarried great-great-granddaughters. Usually the whole family lives in one compound or in two or more adjoining compounds (see p 100–101). In theory, the father has absolute power over his extended family. He decides which members of the family will perform which work, whom his sons and daughters would marry, what the living arrangements inside the compound would be, and how any extra produce for barter or money would be used. He is also the absolute judge of his family’s behavior, and he can punish them in petty ways by withholding food and privileges, and in substantive ways by disowning them or even having them killed or killing them himself. The most severe punishments are applied only in cases of extreme violation of honor.There was little to distinguish between exile and death: life without the family is considered a kind of living death.

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

17

The family is thought to have sharaf (a collective honor).The ideology of honor comprises responsibility—especially in obedience to religious laws—a strong work ethic, charity, chastity, and modesty. Each member of the family is responsible for the acts of every other member, and the dishonorable conduct of one member reflects upon the honor of all. Ideally men and women are expected to live by standards of conduct that reward generosity, sincerity, honesty, loyalty to friends, and vow keeping. Parents, of course, are supposed to instill these values in their children so they will grow up to be good Muslims. In addition, men are expected to provide financial support and to protect the family against external harm.Women must preserve their reputation for sexual morality by strict adherence to social mores, self-control, and modesty. If men fail in their obligations, their women lose honor. If women fail, men lose honor. Therefore “honor” is interlocked, and all members are responsible for the honor of the entire family or household. Much the same code of honor and sexual behavior is found throughout the Mediterranean and Latin America. It was brought to Spain by the Arab conquest and to Latin America by the Spanish. Violations of the honor code are taken very seriously, and the threat of severe punishment seems to deter dishonorable behavior. In the villages with which I am best acquainted, exile, but not death, was occasionally inflicted. Out-of-wedlock pregnancy was among the greatest sins; its punishment was death to the woman by stoning at the hands of her relatives. I am aware of two such serious breaches of honor. In both cases the pregnant young women were sent to visit distant relatives and returned after several months to report that their distant married cousins had given birth to new babies. Neither of the two girls was physically harmed. Despite evidence to the contrary, all inhabitants of the village knew—or pretended to know—that the death penalty had been invoked in a nearby village during their lifetime. The stories of these punishments were narrated in a very dramatic fashion, leaving one to wonder if these cautionary tales, true or not, were an important part of the deterrent. On two occasions when problems of honor were not resolved through public discourse or through proper punishment exacted by the father, violence erupted. In one case, a young fisher boy spoke to a girl gathering fodder in the marshes. This conduct, regarded as dishonorable on his part but not on hers, since she had not answered him, was not adequately punished by the boy’s father. That night the girl’s family, armed with rifles, attacked the boy’s family compound and a battle ensued in which two people were wounded. To my knowledge, this case has not yet been resolved, and there is still bitter antagonism between the two families over an event that happened in 1978.

18

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The second case, involving two families living in different villages, revolved around a boy who had blocked the path of a young girl and tried to make her speak to him. In the ensuing fight between men of the two villages who were armed with guns and knives, one member of the girl’s family was killed, and the transgression was only mitigated when the boy was sent into exile and a large payment exacted from the boy’s clan was paid to the girl’s family. This kind of payment commands the financial support of every clan member and often brings extreme hardship to more distant members who, even though they are not involved in the altercation, are obliged to pay their share. An unpaid obligation for a breach of honor may produce a blood feud that can continue for several generations. When a crime is committed against a member of another lineage, each member of the perpetrator’s lineage must pay in equal amounts his portion of the penalty. All men over 15 are considered as full members for the purpose of compensation, so a father of young men may have to pay several shares to satisfy his family’s portion of the penalty. One of the problems that hampers ethnoarchaeological investigation among the people of al-Hiba is that men must be extremely careful in speaking to women to whom they are not related, since a woman who allows or encourages such conduct brings a serious stigma to her family’s honor.A good friend of the family might be allowed to speak to a widowed elderly grandmother, but only in public and only if she talks to him first. Indeed, several senior women relished the opportunity of expanding their knowledge of the outside world by asking me questions and at least two of them expressed interest in helping me find a suitable bride. It is also quite all right for men to talk to little girls. Little boys and girls gathered around me wherever I went, intensely curious about the nature of this creature from outer space.They laughed, giggled, and asked questions, made hesitant statements or observations that brightened up my day. They were a beginner’s best teachers of Arabic for they had a limited but basic vocabulary and took delight in repetition. Although they often laughingly collapsed at my mispronunciations and other mistakes, they never tired of chatting and helping. Between the ages of 8 and 12, however, little girls grew up, spent more time at home, and were no longer supposed to socialize with boys or men. No male outsider was permitted to talk directly to a woman between childhood and old age. It was even considered bad manners to indicate he had noticed her presence or passing. Sometimes, with special permission, it was possible to talk to a woman through her husband or son, but usually only in the most public place. In the 23 years that Muhammad was my guide and best friend in the area, I never saw his wife except as a fleeting shadow about the house or courtyard, and the shadow was always fully veiled.

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

19

Although the father has a right and duty to punish family members for improper behavior, social controls function to keep his punishment within acceptable bounds. The essence of these controls is the man’s own honor: to act unjustly or to punish unjustly is also considered dishonorable. Those who disagree with the punishment the father chooses must convince him that what he is doing is improper and thus dishonorable. The most potent controller of behavior is perhaps public opinion, which is usually shaped by gossip initiated within the man’s own household. A man’s mother, his brothers, or his wife’s brothers are also considered to have important influence. Interestingly enough, a man’s mother can be directly influenced by the man’s wife or wives, who also hold sway over their brothers. Brothers are brought around through their wives, and wives of brothers commonly work hard at building close relationships, perhaps for this very reason.The power of gossip and the building of close relationships with people who hold social power give women more control over their world than is at first evident (see Weaving, p. 242–244). This control is applied with such tact and diplomacy that husbands often think they are acting on their own ideas. Women never withhold their sexual favors or refuse to do their household jobs, but they can show their displeasure by approaching these activities in so listless, joyless, and bored a fashion that husbands often openly search for a way to restore equanimity and tranquility to the household.

Marriage Marriages are arranged, and the father has authority over the choice of spouse. Other family members, however, often heavily influence his decision. The ideal, and most prestigious bride for those families who can afford it, is said to be a Bedouin (see p. 29, 238).This aspiration would seem to be, at least in the villages near al-Hiba, mostly a dream. In the course of my work I know of only one Bedouin engagement and as you will see below it never came to fruition. Otherwise a father usually looks first to his brothers’ children for potential mates. Such marriages have the benefit of (1) costing less to arrange because the bride price and dowry can be kept to a minimum, (2) aiding the patrilineal kinship organization by keeping this distributed property in the family unit, (3) providing the comfort of a familiar environment for both marriage partners who know their in-laws well and have been brought up in much the same way. For the father, the fact that he accepts a low bride price for his daughters is offset by the fact that he can acquire wives for his sons at the same reduced rate. Often an older woman of the village serves as matchmaker, searching out appropriate and prestigious mates.The women of the family also play a significant, often-crucial role: they are able to report on aspects of the

20

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

potential partner’s personality and upbringing to which the father has no direct access. Women seem to prefer marriage in their own lineage for they fear they might be badly treated if they are forced to move far enough away to void the protection of their own family. They also believe that they are less likely to be divorced or made second wives by further marriages if their relatives are close by. The ideal young woman is sturdy and has long legs, large hips, small waist, large breasts, long neck, large, liquid eyes (“the size of eggs”), and long, thick black hair. She is strong and healthy, a well-trained housekeeper, shows promise of being a good mother, and is responsible and modest.Young men are admired for wiry builds, aquiline features, flashing white teeth, and piercing eyes that look with such intensity that they “burn a hole through the walls of the mudhif.” They are also responsible and modest, and they have superior farming, fishing, and hunting skills. For males, overweight is considered a bizarre deformity; fat men are the butt of unkind jokes as are men with extremely pale skin. Blue eyes are considered full of potential evil and in this reflective of their owner’s soul. The color of my eyes, a bluish-green, meant that I almost always made a bad first impression and had to work very hard to overcome attitudes that had persisted for generations. Marriages are arranged in a series of visits between the fathers of the prospective couple, and presents are exchanged.After the subject is broached, the fathers continue discussions to determine the dowry and the bride price. In 1968, the bride price paid by the father of the groom to the father of the bride, and the dowry, the personal possessions brought to the marriage by the new bride from outside the lineage were about equal in value, ranging from about 400 Iraqi ID (Iraqi Dinars) for a village wife to 1,000 ID for a Bedouin (then about $800 to $2,000).The intra-lineage price ranged from 25 to 50 ID. In 1990 prices up to 5,000 ID were being asked for outside the lineage brides, but seldom paid.The war between Iraq and Iran had greatly reduced the number of eligible males, and families were lucky to find husbands for all their young girls. A bride is more expensive if she is especially beautiful or if the groom to be has a bad reputation. Although not exorbitant by later standards, the amounts for outside brides were often large enough to keep men from marriage several years longer than they or their parents wished. After the details of the bride price, dowry, and ceremony are finalized, the marriage contract is usually signed by the two fathers and a witness for each family, at the sheikh’s mudhif or at the bride’s home in the presence of the sheikh, a religious man, or a Sayidi, a descendent of the Prophet Muhammed. The contract usually reads: “I marry my daughter to [name], accepting the payment which both sides involved have agreed in the manner prescribed by the Quran.”A meal prepared by the mother and female relatives

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

21

of the bride is served to the men. Unseen by the men and gathered in a nearby structure, the female members of both families also feast, sing, and ululate. The next day the groom takes a basket of meat, dried fish, sweets, fruit, nuts, and other treats to the bride’s house, and the basket is returned with gifts for the groom’s family. The actual marriage day is set during the next few days through discussions in the sheikh’s or town’s mudhif. Between the signing of the marriage contract and the actual wedding, the groom, his family, and friends construct an addition to the family compound for the newlyweds.A room is usually added onto the main structure of the family home, with an entrance from the courtyard, not from the structure to which it is attached.The volunteer workmen—young male relatives and friends of the groom—are fed by the women of the groom’s family, but the women usually stay apart from the building activities which are accompanied by many jokes, some of them crude. Before the wedding day, the bridegroom and his male relatives make the rounds of the village inviting people to the wedding. On the day of the wedding the groom bathes, dresses in his best clothes, and is joined in celebrating by his male relatives and friends.The bride is washed, perfumed, hennaed, and usually dressed in a special glittery, metallic cloth with strong, bright colors called “turn-out-the-lights-and-catch-me-fabric.” She is then placed atop a platform at one end of her house where she is surrounded by girls of her own age (usually between 12 and 15) singing wedding songs that extol the bride’s virtues and beauty and often the groom’s virtues as well. There are two types of wedding celebrations. In an ordinary wedding, the bride’s relatives meet and celebrate at her home.They then conduct the bride and her dowry to the groom’s house. The procession, preferably with the bride mounted on a horse, is accompanied by music and singing. In the second kind of wedding, both sets of relatives participate in the celebration at the bride’s home. When the groom arrives, astride a horse and amidst a volley of gunshots triggered by his friends, a battle ensues between the two sets of relatives for possession of the bride.The groom’s family always wins, but there is often no pretense about the strength of the blows delivered on both sides. The groom seizes the bride, carries her outside, throws her across the horse’s shoulders in front of him, and gallops home. Both sets of guests follow directly, but more slowly, singing and dancing, and the most important members of the girl’s family accompany the dowry. The second kind of wedding is usual in families that emphasize their nomadic ancestry and in addition have considerable material resources, not least for the horse required for the ceremony. Renting a horse in an area where few exist (and those that do are treasured as members of the family) is very difficult and extremely expensive. It costs three times as much to rent one for an “abduction” as there is always fear that the horse will be injured or terrified in the midst of the struggle.

22

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

On arrival at the groom’s house after either kinds of wedding, the bride is immediately ushered into the new room by her mother and the mother of the groom, and sometimes by aunts and great-aunts as well.The men congregate in the mudhif or the main reception room of the family, and small groups or even the entire family of the bride or groom leap to their feet from time to time to sing and dance hosas, songs in which the leader makes up a verse that is then repeated by the other singers. Men lift and stamp their feet in rhythm with the words, swaying in unison backwards and forwards or in a circle as they perform the ancient dance.The women gather in the kitchen area where they also sing and dance and, in addition, ululate.The groom’s father carefully checks the dowry: it is as dishonorable for him to be fooled as it is for the bride’s father to try to fool him. The bride, mother of the bride, mother of the groom, and sometimes an aunt or two retire to the bride and groom’s new bedroom, where they await the groom.When the groom enters the wedding chamber, a silence falls over the entire party.The two mothers remove the girl’s undergarments and hold her legs apart.The groom then takes a length of white cloth prepared for him by his mother, wraps it around his index finger, and breaks his bride’s hymen, decorating the cloth with her virginal blood. Rumor has it that a chicken is always kept in the wedding chamber in case the bride does not bleed freely enough, for there is a tendency to equate the quantity of blood with the quality of the virginity. The groom leaves the room to display the cloth to the men while his mother shows it to the women. Gunshots erupt amidst piercing ululations and loud hosas. The groom reenters the chamber alone to consummate the marriage and then returns to the party to be again greeted with ululation, hosas, music, and song.The bride is waited on hand and foot by her mother-in-law and new relatives. Her own mother and family will not see her again for an entire week so that she can adjust without interference to her new family and new life. A husband can divorce his wife any time for any reason. If the husband has a legitimate reason for doing so, such as adultery, barrenness, bad behavior, or misuse of household money, he has the right to the return of the bride price from the bride’s family. Divorcees usually return to live with their natal families and have few prospects for an additional marriage. Adulterous wives are usually secretly killed after their return. Both their own family and the family of their deceased husband, on the other hand, treat widows, with great respect.

Looking Out for Others Although the Quran permits a man up to four wives at the same time, multiple wives are fairly unusual in the al-Hiba area.Among the villagers, most men who take second wives do so as a way of maintaining family bonds. Should a man die, for instance, leaving behind a wife and children, it is not unusual for

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

23

his brother to marry the widow. This marriage is not one of love but a very important device for preserving family connections and making certain that the deceased’s wife and children are provided for in an appropriate manner. The next largest group of men with multiple wives consists of families in which the first wife convinces the husband that he needs a second wife. Two wives, of course, meant that women’s duties in the household could be shared, and the first wife would have only half as much work as before.This is not to say that there was not the occasional marriage of passion.These were arranged by the husband and were likely to stimulate jealousy, competition, and other unhealthy emotions in each of the two wives. Other men in the village seldom envied the home life of a husband who took a second wife for love. People are bound by rules of generosity to look after each other’s needs. Widows, old men, and other needy people have the right to ask younger members of the village for help in arduous tasks, and the younger person has a strict moral responsibility to comply. Helping someone else is very much in a person’s own interest. If he refuses he will not be able to find anyone to help him when he is in need of assistance.There are other regulatory devices in the community that keep self-centered acts to a minimum. One such is the function of gossip in so tight-knit a community and the stigmatization that results if egocentric behavior persists. Only those who live in impervious shells can pretend that they are not the focus of gossip for their antisocial behavior. Craftspeople, in addition to providing a setting for gossip in the places where they ply their trade, often afford a forum for the discussion of an individual’s over-all behavior in the community (see p. 184–5, 243). As both these proceedings are entirely public and generate comment from other members of the community, their messages are difficult to avoid. Most impressive is the compassion with which mentally deficient people are cared for in the village. Looking out for such a person, whether an adult or a child, is the concern of everyone in the community. Whoever sees a mentally challenged individual in trouble drops everything to help him. Persons with such disabilities are thought to be touched by God and are observed and listened to with special interest, for who can tell what this special one might be trying to foretell or proclaim. As a result the afflicted person has round-the-clock care and a very special social status in the community.They were looked upon with both pride and a bit of apprehension, and far from being treated as outsiders or monstrosities, were treated with respect and an element of awe.

Education for Life Aspirations of most young people in the late 1960s and 1970s were somewhat limited.The main goal of adolescents seemed to be to grow up to be like their

24

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

mothers and fathers, but only if their parents had honor.Young people’s practical education consisted of learning how to accomplish the expectations of their same-sex family members. Industry and responsibility were stressed. Girls learned to prepare food from scratch, to manage household chores like cleaning the compound, laundering, and making dung patties for fuel, to collect reeds, to care for chickens or turkeys, to assist in the harvest, and, perhaps most important of all, to guard the family resources. Women had to assure that resources lasted from one harvest (or, rarely, one paycheck) to the next. Girls also learned proper behavior, which included the subtle influencing of male behavior and the outcome of events. Boys learned agricultural methods, the care of livestock, fishing and hunting, proper village behavior— especially the etiquette for participation in discussions in the mudhif—and the special crafts, if any, of their fathers. During their training, children learned what it means to be a man or woman through close and extended association with the parent of their own sex. Children go to work at a very early age, learning and doing at once. There are many helpful jobs a child of seven or eight can do—herding animals, looking for eggs, and helping to plant or cook. Through constant association with their father or mother children learn their proper roles in the household and the village; they learn to be useful and to contribute to the family’s well being. Children as young as 7 or 8 usually participate in serious family decisions; they are very much a part of the family unit, providing services and sometimes wages which help to make the family economically viable. Formal schools for both boys and girls, provided by the central government, are within walking distance of most villages.These schools teach the skills of reading, writing, and figuring, and they give students some knowledge of their government and some understanding of the Quran. The most common method of learning is to recite the lesson aloud. Foreign teachers, usually from Egypt, almost inevitably staff schools and children attend them for several years: girls until about 8 or 9 and boys until about 12 or 13. Local parents curtail their daughters’ education because they are concerned about the girls’ honor. Bright boys are able to graduate from the country schools to regular or technical secondary schools in nearby towns. A major rite for boys is circumcision. In two of the villages around al-Hiba in the late 1960s circumcision took place near the age of puberty, somewhat later than in most places in the Middle East. Children expect it and prepared for it by mastering self-control. The local barber usually performs the operation in the village square. He uses a razor, but no anesthetic. Stoicism is required: boys are expected not to wince or make a sound or even let a tear inadvertently escape their eye. By showing no signs of pain during the operation, boys prove themselves brave men. Unfortunately,

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

25

infections often set in because the procedure was carried out under far from sterile conditions. Some of these infections were serious enough to cause deformity or even death. Once the magic of our antibiotic powders was discovered, nearby villages tended to postpone these ceremonies until the excavation was running, assuring themselves access to our supplies if they are needed for their sons. The man who performs the circumcision in the nearest village makes the donated antibiotic powder a part of the official proceedings. With the onset of puberty, boys usually enjoy greater freedom than they had known in their youth.They are almost never punished now: they have learned to act according to the dictates of honor, to work well and industriously, and never to pilfer from members of friendly clans. When they complete their assigned work they are free to come and go as they please without explanation. Such freedom is considered necessary for men in order to develop self-control. Girls, on the other hand, have their freedom restricted at puberty. Even a slightly sullied reputation seriously limits a young girl’s marital choices, if it does not preclude her marriage altogether. Therefore girls seldom leave the immediate neighborhood. When they venture out of their family’s courtyard they usually do so to work in their family’s fields or to collect reeds and sedges from the marshes near their homes. Even then they must wear the abaya and use it to hide their faces as well as their bodies. In the area of al-Hiba where the dictates of religion are seriously adhered to, the onset of puberty can make life very difficult for young people. The Quran completely forbids any sort of sexual pleasure outside of marriage. There is no practice of masturbation, nor is there a word for it. One young man who worked for the excavation went into the most abject despondence I have ever seen, which lasted for nearly two weeks.When I inquired about the reason, Muhammad told me that the boy had exploded, that is, he had experienced a wet dream. His shame over this experience was acute. To avoid unwanted thoughts, it seemed to me, young men became punctilious about their religious conduct, spending their evening hours studying the Quran or singing religious songs.

Death When an individual approaches death he or she is rolled onto their right side facing Mecca. Gunshots and the wailing of grief-stricken family members signal death. While the corpse is being washed by the womenfolk and wrapped in cloth, family friends go down to the banks of the canal to arrange transportation for the corpse to the huge cemetery in the holy city of Najaf, in southern Iraq, where those Shia who can afford it are buried near the tomb of

26

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

the martyr Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad. Those whose families could not afford the trip, more women than men, were buried in a local cemetery.The dead person, whose family could afford it, was accompanied to the boat by male relatives and friends, shooting their guns and singing hosas of mourning. The ululation and mourning of the women could be heard from the dead person’s home where women wailed, scratched their faces with their fingernails, and heaped dirt on their heads. The bodies of men and those few women who were to be buried at Najaf were accompanied aboard the boat by grieving relatives and transported to the dock near Shatra. There a taxicab driver, who brought a wooden coffin, met the corpse, the coffin most often belonged to the driver, and he rented it to the grieving relatives for the trip to Najaf. The body was placed in the coffin, which was then lashed to the roof of the taxi for the trip.The deceased was accompanied by relatives, but fewer than those who had accompanied the body to the dock, for the number of mourners were usually limited to those who could fit inside the taxi. When the body reached its final destination, I was told, it was removed from the coffin and buried in the soil in its cloth wrapping.The owner of the coffin retrieved it and was free to rent it again. It was the responsibility of the members of the clan to assist with the expenses of transporting the body to Najaf and those of the three-day mourning period. All families who had either a relationship with the dead person or with other members of the immediate family were expected to attend the mourning ceremonies and offer gifts, which were usually cigarettes or coffee. For most women and those men unable to afford transportation and burial at Najaf, the only alternative was a small cemetery on the village outskirts. Although some locally buried bodies were bedecked with mud imitations of the jewelry they wore in life, this never occurred, to my knowledge, with the bodies sent to Najaf. Local burials were quickly made in the 1960s, and those family members lucky enough to have a job soon returned to their daily activities. One of our pot washers, a lad about 9 years old, asked one day if we would permit him to have an hour off. A few moments later I saw him with a small group of people on “cemetery hill.” He returned in about 45 minutes. “Did someone in your family die?” I asked him. “Oh yes,” he said, “my mother.” “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.“Please take the day off. I’m so sorry.” “Oh no,” he said. “That’s not necessary, God is good.” He sat down before a pile of potsherds and went on with his work.

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

27

The Mi’dan The Mi’dan, sometimes known as Marsh Arabs, depend on the watery environment of the marshes for their way of life.They keep water buffalo, which provide them with fuel and milk, and have even taught these semi-domesticated creatures how to forage beneath the water’s surface for succulent reed shoots and sedges. Animals such as the water buffalo cannot really be considered domesticated if their owners fail to supervise their mating, and the Mi’dan did not consider this their business. Houses of the Mi’dan are built either in the marsh itself atop man-made islands of reed mats layered with mud or on the very edge of the marsh where they and their animals have easy access to the marsh vegetation. Both women and men are practiced at harvesting reeds and turning them into reed mats and baskets, which they sell or trade to itinerant trades people. Additional sustenance is derived from sowing rice during the spring in the seasonal marshland formed by the annual inundation. The most important source of outside income, however, comes from the making of reed mats and from the dairy products of their water buffalo.The Mi’dan fished for their own consumption but despised nets and thought that the only manly way to catch fish was to spear them. Both the Bedouin and the Beni-Hasan looked down on the Mi’dan for keeping water buffalo, which both regarded as disgusting. Over the years serious scandals arose when the Bedouin or Beni-Hasan thought local butchers had substituted the meat of a water buffalo for the meat of domestic cattle. The Beni Hasan also thought that the Mi’dan were incomprehensibly silly to spend so much time trying to spear a few fish when they could catch many more with nets. Aside from these distinctions and their different dwelling areas and subsistence modes, essential patterns of Mi’dan culture such as family organization, life-crisis ceremonies, division of labor, and notions of good and evil are very similar to those of the Beni-Hasan. One instantly noticeable difference is the custom of the Mi’dan women to go about their work without the abaya. The architecture of the Beni Hasan and the Mi’dan, which was markedly different when the al-Hiba expedition began its work, grew more similar as time passed (see p. 100–101). Most members of the Mi’dan did not consider some so-called Mi’dan who lived in isolation or semi-isolation in the marshes as Mi’dan.These people often had been in some trouble with the law and had come south to lose themselves in the marshlands. On the surface, at least, their way of life was identical to that of the Mid’an, and they were held by their hosts to the same religious and moral standards of conduct. In the many years of our work in the area, I never heard of the smallest violation of conduct on the part of these outsiders. They were very dependent on the

28

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Mi’dan’s early warning system which effectively alerted everyone that an outsider was coming and usually identified the newcomer.At least an hour before the police could arrive at their homes, those in trouble with the law would melt into the marshes. It took me a long time to figure out how this was done, but it seems that signals were sent by a complicated system of gunshots, drums, and sometimes children’s whistles in a code based on the number of shots or notes and the time intervals between them. The typical family has very few household possessions.They can, in a few short hours, roll up the reed mats which provide them shelter, put their few possessions into their boat or boats, and, driving their water buffalo before them disappear into the marshes, sometimes to isolated islands sometimes to hide in the water itself among the giant reeds.

Bedouin From August through January the edges of the mound and its surrounding area were also inhabited by a clan of the nomadic Hadij, a Bedouin tribe, whose tents usually dotted the landscape in groups of three or more.Their nomadic wanderings brought them to al-Hiba when the recession of the marshes furnished pasturage for their herds. When the winter rains and the increasing floods from the irrigation canals began to empty into the marshes and expand them, the Hadij moved west into Syria, then south to Kuwait, and finally into the deserts of Saudi Arabia before returning to the area near al-Hiba during the hottest part of the summer. Some Bedouin encampments were within walking distance of al-Hiba, others could be visited by a combination of boat and camel. All Hadij were members of the same clan, but they split into smaller groups to take advantage of the emerging grasslands fodder at the edge of the marsh. All were also Sunni Moslems, and although they were of a different sect, the Bedouin were welcomed here by both Beni Hasan and the Mi’dan. They inhabited and used for their pasturage only that part of the land not used by the others—the part that was beneath the water level of the marshes during the rest of the year. Most Beni Hasan and Mi’dan believed that they themselves were descended from nomads who had settled here in earlier days; thus they thought they were close relatives of the Bedouin. The Hadij were especially respected because the Prophet Mohammed had descended from these desert nomads and because they were people whose unsurpassed honor was obvious in their women’s purity, their men’s honesty, and their meticulous observation of rules of hospitality. If a villager wished to choose a bride from among the Bedouin—and many so aspired—he must be prepared to pay a bride price at least three times that for a village girl.

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

29

Three categories of Bedouin women, however, never married into local families: women from the families of the mukhtar or sheikh (clan leader), from the sayyid (clan religious leader) who was a descendant of the Prophet, and from the weavers. Although they perform the same functions as families of other clan members, the family of the mukhtar (often called sheikh by followers and neighbors) usually has a long history of clan leadership and is held in great respect. Girls from such families are usually married into other leadership families of equal or greater respect to maintain the political advantage of their fathers. Boys from these families must learn to do the same things expected of other boys their age and, in addition, are usually also given some special training in leadership, but they may more freely marry tribeswomen of other classes. Both daughters and sons of the sayyid are expected to marry into families who are, like them, descended from the Prophet.Those children of a sayyid traveling with the Hadij had to find mates outside the clan: only one sayyid family accompanied a clan. Indeed, the sayyid and his family were not considered clan members, and could travel freely with it or not as they wished. Boys from such a family were given religious training in addition to the daily tasks of herding animals. The male weavers, using shuttle looms, traded their more finely woven material to be used for clothes and blankets for cruder wool and woven carpets made by village women. In contrast to the other two status groups and in spite of their economic importance to the clan, male weavers and their families were given little or no respect by either the Bedouin clan to which they belonged or by local villagers.The only Bedouin wife considered undesirable was a woman from a weaving family; even the poorest villager would have considered such a marriage unsuitable. Members of weavers’ families married within their own families or into other weavers’ families. The origin of this bias seemed to lie within the historical Bedouin concept of the ideal man, who should be a first-rate hunter or raider, wily, strong, and proud, not a sedentary individual who spent his days sitting on the ground before his loom. Among the Bedouin weavers who visited the area, I always noticed a sort of frantic cheerfulness and frenetic high spirits as if to cover an imperfection of which they were all too well aware. No such stigma applied to Bedouin women weavers. The women of each household wove their own goat-hair tent panels from which they constructed their tent and the special panels that were used to divide the tents into women’s and men’s quarters, which consisted of alternating horizontal strips of woven goat hair, sheep wool, and camel hair.The wool from animals with multicolored coats was segregated by color, and panels of different colors alternated within the basic design. Sheep wool, for example, could be

30

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

woven into strips of brown, black, and white, and these strips would then be alternated with khaki-colored strips of camel hair and strips woven from various-colored goat hair. Women also raised the tents (usually under the direction of their men folk) and dismantled them with no direction whatsoever. They cooked, made clothing, drew water for animals that could not be taken to the water source, made fuel from dung and straw or reed, cleaned, washed, and did all other household chores. Men herded the camels, sheep, goats, made coffee, and sometimes tea. In the past their other major duty was to guard the encampment against outside raiders and to conduct raids themselves. Although such raids seldom took place in the late 1960s or early 1970s, except occasionally to punish someone for breaching the honor of a family member, the appropriate skills were carefully maintained. Similar skills were still employed, for example, in avoiding the harassment of border patrols of national governments that, for security reasons, urged the Bedouin to settle down and cease their nomadic way of life. The Bedouin kept herds of sheep and goats, which they considered to be the foundation of their wealth and their major economic resource.They also kept camels and occasionally horses.The stately and dignified walk of the camel belies their temper.When the Bedouin were in residence, I sometimes used a camel to travel from one village to the next when carrying out my research. Camels know precisely how great a load they are meant to carry, and it is easy to offend them by overloading them. If the overload is minor they merely lie down, and once the insulting kilos are removed, they get up again and walk on as if nothing has happened. If seriously overloaded they bellowed with rage, refused to move, and spat on any person within range. Some become so deeply offended that even removing their entire load cannot mollify them. Mitigating the inflicted injustice is the only thing that will restore them to their usually tranquil nature. As they seem to equate any animate thing with its odor, a person can resolve the perceived injustice by removing his or her clothes and putting them on the ground in front of the enraged beast. The camel will kick them, urinate on them, defecate on them, and sometimes get down on their knees to rub their waste products into the clothing, and thus restore their equilibrium. The offender can then pick up the clothes, put them back on, reload or remount the camel, and continue the trip with a renewed degree of understanding, if not open friendship. The Bedouin supplemented their income during their residency in the area by hiring out their camels as conveyers of goods. According to an informant, this custom began long ago when the local sheikhs had great power over the area and the people. The Bedouin were required to transport grain and goods for the sheikhs as a fee for using the marginal land around the

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

31

marshes.After the sheikhs lost their power or had fled, the Bedouin continued the practice but now received a fee that nicely supplemented their ordinary income. In 1970 mostly tradesmen and descendants of the sheikhs who still maintained a resemblance of their original position in the community hired them.The usual freight consisted of grain, reeds, and reed mats. For the Bedouin the camel was indispensable. It was the main form of transportation and cartage; it was the means for moving home and contents from place to place throughout the year. In addition, female camels supplied milk, an important part of a Bedouin’s diet. The milk was highly regarded in the villages as a health cure, and its value in trade or outright sale also produced a significant addition to the family’s income.Then, too, the dried dung of the camel produced appreciably less smoke than that of other animals, and was considered the best fuel for making bread in the tannur, the oven for baking bread and meat, and the most practical fuel for inside heating producing a comparatively smoke-free environment. In the past, I was told, camels were bred mostly for speed and endurance so they could most productively carry their masters on pillaging raids or into intertribal warfare. In 1970, however, the ideal camel was heavier and therefore capable of carrying heavier loads albeit at a slower pace, and was also a prolific producer of milk. Camels live to be as old as 27 years, but their average life span is about 20 years. Naga (female camels) are kept only as long as they continue to give milk of good quality and quantity. Owning too many male camels can be troublesome at breeding time, so in those households where fee-transportation plays a minor role, the young males are often sold as meat for weddings and other big feasts. The camel intended for the feast is made to lie down, and its legs are firmly bound so that it can no longer rise. Even with the camel bound, it takes as many as three or four men to hold the camel’s neck back while the butcher thrusts his knife into the base of the neck and saws through the jugular vein. Most of the time camels are kept tied by one foot and hobbled to prevent them from foraging in neighboring fields.They are fed on dried reed stalks and any kind of green grass or sedge that can be gathered or that grows near the area where the camel can be staked. Camels are usually walked to the marsh or canal for water once a day—twice a day when it is very hot. They need both the water and the exercise. Females are bred every year or year and a half in order to provide her with a new calf about the time she ceases to nurse the old one. Pregnancy lasts for a year, and the mother will nourish the calf for up to a year and a half. Owners of camels usually allow the babies to nurse, since some mothers cease to give milk if their calf is taken from them.A cloth around the mother’s udder supported by a strap on her back keeps the calf from drinking all the milk. A

32

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

camel is usually milked twice a day until it begins to give less milk after a year or more, when it is milked only once a day. Before the mother is milked, the calf is allowed to nurse, but is only allowed to drink as much as the owner thinks necessary. A good naga will give 2–3.5 liters of milk at each milking. If a female camel loses her calf at birth and is the kind of mother who will dry up without a young camel to feed, the owner will try to buy a calf from someone who has a female camel that gives milk even without a baby at her side. To get the female to accept the new baby, the neck and head of the dead baby are cut off, mounted on a stick, and stuffed with straw.The mother is teased with this contraption while the new baby nurses the first few times. The smell of the dead baby’s head and neck encourages the mother to let the new baby nurse, and gradually she accepts the newcomer. Not all female camels, however, can be fooled in this way, and if their calf dies they may become useless as milk producers. A few Bedouin keep a horse or two that are normally treated like members of the family.The horses are provided with winter blankets to protect against chill and lighter ones to ward off the summer sun.Always encouraged to walk into its master’s tent and lie down wherever it wishes to rest, a horse sometimes seems to enjoy more privileges than its owner’s wife or children.

Change In 1968, the Beni Hasan, the Mi’dan, and the Bedouin lived on the countryside as they had for generations. For most of their needs they relied heavily on their individual and collective skills and on the resources of the area. Tribal, clan, village, and family organizations were strong enough to give life a meaning and purpose that were fully shared with other members of the community. From the archaeological point of view, the resources on which the villagers were dependent were often the same resources available to the Sumerians who lived on the same land thousands of years ago. Changes, however, were beginning to take place as early as our first campaign. Inexpensive goods appearing in the markets of nearby towns were making inroads on the production of local households or craftspeople because of the strength, brilliant colors or decorative designs of the new items. Schools in the area were obligatory for the young. Although most would follow in the footsteps of their fathers, teachers were beginning to awaken the students’ curiosity about the cities and the outer world, to inspire some to try their hands at non-traditional endeavors, and even to challenge tradition. Battery-operated radios were ubiquitous, and news programs were listened to with great concentration. Interestingly, a program’s message was fairly well

T HE P EOPLE

OF AL -H IBA

33

understood but often translated into the familiar local geographic setting and local technology with subtle changes.The election of a president in some distant country was thought to require some warfare between parties with guns, mugwars (clubs), and daggers as well as an appearance at the ballot box. The disappearance of the sheikhs’ authority was beginning to be felt in inter-village and intragroup relations, but family and village life were still held together by a firm belief in the words of the Quran and the moral authority of village elders and craftspeople. Changes slowly occurred during the next few years, until by the middle of the l970s some traditional crafts and practices had completely disappeared.With the onset of the war with Iran in the 1980s, the pace of change increased with electrifying speed. By 1990 the Mid’an and the Bedouin had completely disappeared from the area. Drying up the marshes had allowed the building of a road that gave direct access to alHiba from Shatra. New ways of growing vegetables, for instance tomatoes under plastic, led to new marketable resources. Most important was the devastating effect of the Iraq-Iran war, and the lives it had claimed from these communities. For those ethnoarchaeologists interested in problems of change and continuity this was a dramatic and intensely revealing time. In 1968, at the beginning of this ethnoarchaeological study, the majority of the local inhabitants were isolated from mainstream Iraq. Few of them visited any place other than the local market town of Shatra, and they clearly resisted outside influences in their daily lives. By 1990 when the expedition’s work concluded, only a few men over the age of 16 had not visited Nasiriya, the provincial capital, as well as Shatra, and no small few had been to Baghdad in the north (a 6-8 hour trip by bus from Shatra) and Basra in the south (a 4-5 hour trip by bus from nearby Nasiriya).

3

WAYS AND MEANS

T

he research plan for this study had to be simple and flexible, for no set time period could be allotted to these studies, and the excavations at al-Hiba had to be the first concern. Holidays, days when rain or mud made the site unworkable, and evenings were available. At other times I participated in the daily digging and dealt with the ancient pottery recovered from the excavations. From time to time two or three consecutive days could be arranged, especially when staff members made group visits to other sites. It was also possible to set aside a few days before the excavations began and after they were finished. I wanted to know how local craftspeople gathered their raw materials, how they modified or prepared these raw materials for use, what kinds of artifacts were then made and the details of their construction, their function or functions, their longevity, and how they were disposed of when they were abandoned or no longer usable.Two other elements were important: one was the variation in an artifact’s form or function based on tribal or village contexts; the other was the change that took place in any aspect of an artifact’s life cycle and the reason or reasons for that change. I focused on major, locally obtainable, raw material resources that had been available to ancient people who lived in this area: mud or clay, reeds, wood, and bitumen. I added sheep, cattle, and water buffalo to our study. In order to avoid confusion, I investigated each resource separately. For instance, only when I had completely finished collecting information about mud would I begin asking questions about reeds. As a result, a number of procedures, for example the use of reeds in mud construction, were documented twice: once when studying reeds and again when studying mud construction. 34

WAYS AND M EANS

35

I will introduce each subject with a description of what I learned about these materials and their usage in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Then I will present a short section on the changes I noticed in individual artifacts or groups of artifacts during the 22 years of our investigation and why these changes occurred. Finally I will try to indicate the impact this information can have on our knowledge of the past.

Good Manners Accompanied by Mohammed al Dukkhan, our mound guard and my guide, I would visit a village or settlement. Inevitably the villagers knew of my pending visit. As their laws of hospitality demanded, we were invited for coffee, tea, or both in a mudhif maintained by the local sheikh or his followers, or in one or more village homes or Bedouin tents (see p.145–9). Inevitably we were asked to stay for a meal. We tried not to inconvenience anyone by accepting, but sometimes it was impossible to refuse the invitation. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when few families had enough food to keep them from hunger, the burden of extra mouths to feed had serious consequences. Nevertheless, hospitality was considered an important manifestation of generosity, and generosity was a major requirement of family honor (see p.17). No matter how destitute a family, they always tried to provide some help for those worse off than themselves. Women prepared more than the family needed, even if the main course was boiled greens, lest some hungry stranger wander by at mealtime. Accepting an invitation for tea, coffee, or food was an obligation to eat or drink whatever you were offered. To do otherwise was to insult your host. Some visitors thought they could beg off food they considered unpleasant, like a chunk of fat from the tail of a fat-tailed sheep, by claiming vegetarianism. If this were not true and the visitor later ate any meat during his or her stay in the area, it became immediate village gossip and both the host and his village were dishonored by this visible rejection of their hospitality. The visitor was never believed again. It was also considered ill manners to eat in one house and then accept another invitation for the same meal or to eat in the village and return to your camp for an additional meal or snack.This double dipping broadcast to the community that you had found the hospitality of your first host inadequate and was considered a grave insult. I remember with great embarrassment an incident when I took a fellow excavator to drink coffee with the Bedouin. He asked for boiling water and used it to clean the communal coffee cup before drinking from it. This extra-hygienic flourish, offensive both to his host and the assembled guests, was fortunately considered so outrageous that it eventually became a community joke.

36

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Such finicky behavior would rightly be destructive to one’s reputation with people of the village. Nor was there any reason for it. If, for instance, you were served the gelatinous eye of a sheep plucked from the socket of the cooked beast you could force yourself to swallow it in spite of the determined resistance of your esophagus. All sorts of noises, some of which are considered bad manners elsewhere, are permitted at dinner. Belching, smacking your lips, making loud sucking or chomping noises with your mouth show that you relish the food and can be used as cover during the contest between your will and your stomach. Because foreigners were unusual in these villages and camps, almost all village men would soon join us at our host’s to drink tea, talk, and ask questions.This initial encounter could be time consuming, sometimes lasting three or four hours. It took less time in small villages than in larger ones because of the number of people present, for it was essential to the honor of our hosts that they follow the rules of hospitality precisely. Only after every rule had been observed and every person present been given the opportunity to welcome me and ask their questions could I ask mine. Everyone was eager to be helpful, and often arguments would break out over exactly how something I was inquiring about was done, how something was used, how much it cost, and so on. I collected information, even that which was contradictory.When everyone had finished their say on the subject, I tried to identify people in the village who had actually made or used each item, and then I would make appointments to return and watch the artifact’s manufacture and use. Often this meant returning to the same village several times while investigating a single class of objects, because I tried to watch everyone regularly involved perform the process from beginning to end.

Careful Observation I must emphasize the importance of the visual aspect of ethnoarchaeology. Only repeated, concentrated observation over long periods of time helps us escape a variety of pitfalls: our own preconceptions; the multitudinous snares of relying on biased, ignorant, or culture-protective informants; the danger of questionnaires, which can be intentionally or accidentally designed to elicit what the designers predetermine they want to hear; or the formulation rather than sampling of opinion. How we see things depends on our point of view. Our preconceptions arise from our own cultural bias and what we have read or been told by “experts.” Of the two, what we have been told by “experts,” a phenomenon often unrecognized, is the more destructive of true understanding. From early childhood through old age, many of us accept without question concepts and

WAYS AND M EANS

37

solutions provided us by the books we read, the television or movies we see, and the opinions favored by our friends, relatives, and teachers. So powerful is the effect of this lifelong reliance on “experts” and “expert opinion” that I have observed extremely bright college students watch a video of pottery making three or four times before realizing that major aspects of the process are different from the way I described it to them moments before. What we are capable of seeing depends on our ability to suspend routine processing of visual images. In everyday life, most of us observe phenomena only long enough to classify them and assess their immediate utility or meaning. This transitory glance helps us avoid the paralysis that would result from sensory overload had we to absorb and analyze every visual detail we perceived before we could respond. Fortunately speedy absorption of detail and comprehension are easily taught for most kinds of visual stimuli. Courses in speed reading and reading comprehension have in particular enjoyed considerable success. The camera is also useful in helping us see clearly. A recording of an ethnographic process on file can be viewed repeatedly.The mistakes of interpretation made the first viewing can be corrected at a later showing. A film can serve as a training tool for students and also help the ethnoarchaeologist verify previous observations or discover new aspects that escaped observation in the field. Using cameras for studying ethnographic detail, however, is not necessarily the same as the production of an ethnographic or documentary film. In the former one focuses the camera and lets it run through every aspect of a process no matter how repetitive or boring. In the latter a producer or director often edits the material to present effectively a particular message or point of view and to take into account the normal span of audience attention. Today the easy availability of movie or video cameras makes them an important research tool. In the late 1960s in Iraq restrictions on their import and use and the cost of the equipment made them impractical. Still cameras, however, were an acceptable import, and shooting snapshots throughout a process of artifact manufacture or use proved extremely useful. Clarity of perception is equally important in understanding the cultural significance or impact of change. Sometimes we can observe changes but lack understanding. Other times change is not easily seen, yet it is obvious from subsequent behavior or occurrences that important changes have taken place. Sometimes dramatic changes that appear major turn out to be minor, and sometimes changes that appear minor have significant cultural impact. Based on my experience at al-Hiba, I feel certain that the investigator must actually be present just before, or at the time when, major cultural changes occur in order to understand fully their significance or their structure. It is in community actions and deliberations that take place during the contemplation of these changes and in their initial processes that real issues and factors are weighed and discussed.

38

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

A good example of this can be found in the discussion of change from mud to plastic toys (see p.89). Although afterward people attributed the change to the durability and color of the plastic, the primary motivating factor and its enforcement depended on aspects of family honor (see p. 88–9). Since in ethnography the investigator deals with a living culture it is possible to explore actions and opinions of each member of the group provided they are willing to explain these to you.With perseverance one is able to understand the significance to the villagers individually and collectively of what we observe.This immediacy of understanding is not possible for the archaeologist, who must rely for his or her elucidations on those few artifacts preserved, his or her interpretations of their contexts, and whatever written documentation exists.The complexity of results from ethnoarchaeological research cautions archaeologists against over reliance on or easy acceptance of simple theoretical constructs to explain the nature, function, and significance of artifactual evidence. Long-term, intensive ethnoarchaeological research with emphasis on clarity of comprehension can separate us, however reluctantly, from the outcomes we expect. It can also protect us from false, even comical ideas, which often result from scattered observations here and a few cogent questions there. Moreover, it can provide us with enough detail to understand the underlying structure of cultural persistence and change.

Problems in Collecting Data Repeated and unhurried observations of the same process performed by many different informants, I believe, gave the most reliable information, and my serious reservations about ethnoarchaeological evidence based on interviews, questionnaires, or one or two observations are a direct result of this study. During my research I was told, and sometimes shown, many things that turned out to be inaccurate about artifact functions or manufacturing processes. Only by watching a process from beginning to end, performed by different people and in different villages, was I able to correct mistaken impressions. For instance, the time it took to make an artifact, which is an important factor in computing its relative cultural value, could be shortened by mentioning verbally but not performing one or more processes, or it could be lengthened considerably by the informant drawing out activities or descriptions as if explaining them to a two-year-old child. Things could be added, especially decorative touches, which were never seen on the artifact in question in an inventory of household items, or details could be omitted entirely. People in the villages were always pleasant and hospitable. They would inevitably seek to please me in any way they could, which often included telling me what they thought I wanted to hear. I had to be extremely care-

WAYS AND M EANS

39

ful not to influence their replies by asking questions in such a way as to suggest the answer or by showing through facial expression or gesture either approval or disapproval. I also had to ensure that my guide, Muhammad, did not prejudice the outcome. He, of course, had heard what others said on the same subject, so it was natural and easy for him to weight answers and discussions in accord with what he had previously heard or seen. Indeed the villagers sometimes asked him outright what it was I wanted them to say or just how I wanted them to carry out a process. Interviewees telling us what they think we want to hear probably leads to less error than other ways that they may (and do) respond. Some try to create what they imagine is a good impression, others reply with their notion of how things should be rather than the way they are. If this can happen among people whom an interviewer has known for years and who are genuinely trying to help, think of the potential error in interviewing subjects who are strangers and who have no interest in you or the success of your project. No amount of textbook behavior modification can ever replace a relationship based on years of association and proven concern for the interviewees and demonstrated usefulness to them and their villages.We were the area’s largest employer, we tried to live within the constraints of local morality, and we actively aided those in need of medical attention. Few people in the area were eager to divulge technical secrets on which their livelihood depended, but they might acquiesce for those whom they saw as appreciative and reciprocative good neighbors. Other misleading information comes about when the informants consider their behavior old fashioned or embarrassing. For example, while watching a local burial from some distance, I happened to notice that the deceased woman’s jewelry was modeled out of mud. Although Muhammad and I had been concentrating on collecting information about the use of mud for several weeks, this was one usage he had never mentioned to me. It turned out that some families replaced the real jewelry of the dead, which often comprised the entire material resources of the family, with imitations in mud before interment. As this would appear to be a very local and unique practice somewhat at odds with religious tenets and, as far as I know, practiced no where else in Iraq, Muhammad was reluctant to discuss it. He considered this custom by some of his neighbors old fashioned, mortifying, and too bound up with the aura of death to be wholly safe for discussion.When I later took pictures of substitute jewelry being made for the adornment of a corpse, some villagers were convinced that I would die within the year. Had I not actually seen the earlier interment, I would never have known about this usage, for no one would have told me. After making horrendous language mistakes on my first visit to the area in 1968, I decided to bring along native speakers of Arabic. In a Bedouin

40

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

tent, for instance, wanting to ask how often they milked the camel, I once tried to show off by using a more specific word than jamal (camel).The word baier leapt to my mind. No sooner was the word out of my mouth than I realized I had said “stud camel.” Before I could correct my error, I was tersely advised that Bedouin do not milk stud camels. Despite my protestations that I had merely made a mistake in the choice of words, I knew what would follow. I had just defined Americans in a new and interesting way, and I could almost hear them tell their neighbors around the hearth that night, “You will never believe what Americans drink.” I hoped that native speakers could catch nuances of language that would expand my knowledge of a particular operation, but it did not turn out that way at all. Villagers who had been voluble in their explanation of, for example, the use of dung patties for baking pottery when I had spoken to them myself, the day before, might suddenly deny that they used them at all when I brought along a city-educated translator. And, if the translator was local they might try to impress him by increasing the number of dung patties they used to show that they were well off and were indifferent to the expense, or they might decrease the number to show how skilled they were in getting sufficient heat from fewer patties. In understanding the language these translators were infinitely superior, but they lacked the necessary relationship with the participants and they depended on language, rather than on observation, in seeking to understand a process. They were inevitably misled either intentionally by the subject or through their misunderstanding of the meaning of a word or phrase as it was used in a local dialect or in a craft context foreign to them. This can be a real problem for outsiders unaware of alternative terminology or methods of classification used in local crafts or occupations (see p.129–30, 213–4).Also, like most of us, they were acutely embarrassed when they found they did not know the details of what happened in their own backyard. They either invented a theory and made their observations fit, or they bought the first explanation from an “expert,” embracing it as their own understanding and holding to it with great tenacity, in spite of their ignorance. If the translator is closely associated with his subjects one must consider his ideas of cultural propriety and what he might hide or amend in the presentations he is helping to record.* * Some of these same problems surfaced at Brooklyn College when it was decided that in multicultural courses people “of a culture” could do a better job of teaching that culture. Indeed being of the same ethnic or “culture” background seemed sometimes to be the sole criterion for choosing teachers. For the kind of thinking which led to this decision see the papers collected by Judith Roof and R. Wiegman,Who Can Speak? Authority & Critical Identity (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995), esp. 1–70. Although one often winced for the students, it was incredibly amusing to hear someone from an “upper-” or “middle-” class urban environment, for instance, with no experience, interest, or serious study of farmers or farming, authoritatively interpret the life, ideas, and aspirations of the “peasant.”

WAYS AND M EANS

41

Some Problems of Relationships Local curiosity about every aspect of my existence was flattering but also caused me minor problems. In the countryside the problems were small and were sorted out with no difficulty. Everyone wanted to know what America was like, what kind of work I did, and what my family was like. Good manners permitted these questions to be verbalized directly, and they could easily be answered. But simple answers could not always dispose of a question.Again and again they would approach, with incredulity, the question of my not being married. I could never find an answer that satisfied them.To marry and raise children was, after all, the duty of every able-bodied man, and it was inconceivable to them that a man my age remained unmarried.This question was one of the many disconnects between cultural expectations that arose in conversation, and at first I was concerned about how to handle them. Some suggested that I should avoid answering questions based on concepts of cultural relativity lest I offend local people. I found it far better to be open and candid as most people reacted to differences in my culture as I reacted to differences in theirs. They thought them sometimes strange and always interesting, and they wanted to know the reasons for differences in action or thought. It was my experience that forthrightness on any issue proved far better than deception. The overwhelming impression I have of my excursions is the feeling of never being alone. Even a trip to answer the call of nature was accompanied by at least two people. If I was not feeling well, all my new friends swarmed to keep me company and cheer me up with stories, songs, and laughter. If I had a headache, I never dared to reveal it: the ensuing cacophony of support made the headache even worse. Sometimes an individual had heard some strange rumor or come up with an idea of his own invention concerning nonbelievers: if one stuck a pin into them or threw salt on them, or said a holy phrase, foreigners would turn red, explode,perhaps pray to Allah. From time to time, therefore, I was the victim of an unexpected and strange incident in full view of the assembled guests, and I had to accept that being stuck with a pin, sprinkled with salt, and the like, was merely the result of curiosity. Towns were quite different from villages. Our first visit to a nearby town was a near disaster. Children saw our taradas (bitumen-covered boats that we propelled through the marshes with long poles) coming through the marshes and lined the bank where we landed. They raced ahead of us as we walked toward the town, and the townsfolk came out in great numbers; they certainly meant no harm but crowded so closely around us that we could not move. By this time, the police had been apprised of our arrival and had come running to our assistance.Worried about our safety, they ripped off their belts and beat anyone within striking distance until we were safely ensconced in a local coffeehouse. This method of crowd control, an overreaction from a

42

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Western viewpoint, was more likely to occur in towns and cities than in the villages of the countryside, and it made interviewing in town difficult if not impossible. On a visit to Shatra in 1970, I saw several ladies selling carpets in the suq (marketplace). One carpet, which I found especially interesting and unusual, featured rather large, Picassoesque birds and animals set among the more traditional geometric forms. I was touring the market with the chief guard of the antiquities department in the region and the mayor of the town, both extremely pleasant fellows and very solicitous of my welfare, and we were followed by about 150 people. The officials took my interest in the woman weaver and her product as a desire to purchase the carpet. Before I could inform them otherwise, they asked the seller how much she wanted for the carpet, and when she named a figure, the crowd began to berate her for asking too much, overcharging a visitor, and so on.The poor woman dissolved in tears under this barrage, plucked her carpet from the ground, and ran in terror from the marketplace.

Winning People’s Respect When women were involved in a particular task, it was sometimes difficult to persuade men to let me watch their womenfolk and often impossible to persuade them to let me take photographs.The religion here is strictly aniconic, which prohibits photos, and an ideal of women’s honor hold them to a higher standard than men and prevents them from engaging in any behavior even remotely questionable. As a compromise, a man would sometimes go through the process of making or using an artifact just outside his house while his wife coached him from within. On the one hand, it was instructive and a bit amusing to note how little a husband or son might know about something he watched his wife or mother do every day. On the other, he thought he knew the process because he was a member of the community in which it was done and he would often persist in erroneous procedures until the onlookers rolled on the ground with laughter. The public nature of village life also acted as a control on a subject’s veracity. It was not easy for a person to fabricate or improvise a manufacturing procedure or to make a substitution such as wood for dung patties in the baking process, since sessions were seldom private and the spectators quite voluble. A real innovation required substantial explanation from the maker or user before the omnipresent crowd accepted it. Added controls were the many examples of comparative material gathered from several settlements (which were often socially at odds with each other and thus isolated from one another), as well as the visual evidence in the actual inventories of village homes. What little falsification or embellishment was attempted, such as adding storebought brass thumbtacks to a utilitarian mugwar was never very successful.

WAYS AND M EANS

43

There were several reasons why people in the village were so cooperative. First, they were aware from the beginning that we wished to make the al-Hiba expedition a long-term project. Over the years this gave us an opportunity to really get to know each other. In my experience long-term involvement with the people one is studying can win their respect and understanding. We tried very hard to respect the traditions and customs of the area and to live our own lives there accordingly. Second was the al-Hiba expedition’s relations with its work force, all of whom came from the surrounding villages. Our policies of hiring were based on village custom, and, from time to time, we provided jobs for members of destitute families who otherwise would be dependent on village alms for survival. Sometimes these individuals were not as capable as other workers available, but our action was supported by the gratitude of the entire village. Third, we looked after the minor injuries of the surrounding populace with iodine, bandages, aspirin, and antibiotics and often sent serious cases to the doctors in Shatra at our own expense. When traveling to villages for ethnographic research, I always took a first-aid kit and was usually able to offer some assistance that helped establish my credentials as a person interested in other human beings. There was a certain danger in this, of course, for it was always possible that I would be blamed for the death of someone I had treated. Fortunately that never happened to me. Particularly poignant is the memory of the parents of a young boy who died when his skull was crushed in a fall. Every year they would bring me vegetables from their small garden as a thank you for “having cared enough to try and help.” Finally, I did not expect craftsmen to spend their time and energy for nothing.* If they allowed me to watch the manufacture of an object they were making for a third party, I often ordered and paid for something similar after the session was over. If they were just making the object to demonstrate the procedures of manufacture to satisfy my curiosity, I inevitably bought the object outright. I could not bring myself to take advantage of their willingness to help me, especially in the early days of economic deprivation.This practice of paying fair market value had another advantage: it eliminated the frequent shortcuts taken in procedure and explanations when a project was not compensated. The local people came to know me socially as the only outsider who frequently visited their villages, and they accepted me as a person as interested as they were in the problems they encountered in converting the resources of the area into a living for their families. My enthusiasm for the ethnoarchae* A request to videotape one of the last weavers working in the Hadramut Valley in Yemen brought the necessity of this home to me. The weaver said: “The Russians made a video of me and they say I am famous in Russia. People in Sana’a made another and said they would show it on television. No wonder I am the last weaver in the valley. Many people want to take my picture but no one pays me for my work so I go hungry.”

44

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

ological project and my joy in discovering the smallest details of their everyday lives was apparent to them and in a sense flattering.They seemed to take pleasure in teaching me what they could—not, as I was to discover later, because they were concerned with my scholarly research, but because they assumed I was applying what I learned to improve my life and that of my family in rural America. Having seen a photograph of my house, which is alongside a creek, they concluded that my interest in refurbishing boats was in order that I might better repair my own boat that carried me by canal from my home to Brooklyn College. My curiosity about the details of spinning and weaving, they thought, was motivated by my desire to teach my mother and sister this necessary craft. Some believe that a researcher should maintain emotional and physical distance, isolating oneself from human feelings for one’s subjects lest these emotions adversely influence the objectivity of the study. This unconcern is fine for nature films where, without attempting to interfere in the action, one may photograph the birth of a fawn, its first nursing, the attack of the lion, the bleating of the dying fawn, the cries of its mother, and a close-up of the bloodspattered lion. No doubt such scenes are true to nature, but neither the lion nor the deer are aware that they are being observed, nor do they have a human sense of right and wrong. Villagers might find failure to come to the aid of a weak child or to help any human being in his or her time of need morally indefensible and fail to appreciate the researcher’s sublime motivation in attempting to achieve isolationist purity. Results from the indifference to the wellbeing of your informant and those people and principles you hold dear can range from complete indifference to your project to active attempts to undermine both it and you. More dangerous perhaps is that most human beings have a well-developed sense of humor and can make sport of you in the most remarkable ways. Only time will reveal that you have been appallingly misled, and you may never know how much delight this intentional misinformation has provided the entire village as well as some of your colleagues at home.The obituary of Dr. Alfonso Ortiz in the New York Times on January 31, 1997, gives a good example of what can happen. Dr. Ortiz liked to tell visitors about the time he showed his father and an uncle the classic work of northern New Mexico anthropology, Dr. John P. Harrington’s The Ethnogeography of the Tewa Indians, published in 1916. “When Dr. Ortiz read aloud some of the names of mesas and arroyos supposedly used by the San Juan people, the two men howled with laughter. Dr. Harrington’s informants, confronted by a white man handing out money in return for geographical lore, had apparently improvised some of the information on the spot.”

4

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

B

rought up on a farm in Illinois where mud was considered a serious impediment to plowing, planting, harvesting, and any kind of transportation, I was totally unprepared to discover the many important uses of mud in the villages around al-Hiba, where it was seemingly incorporated into every aspect of village life and domestic architecture. Its household uses ranged from pots and pans to containers for storing food to grinders for grinding grain. Drums and whistles were made of sun-dried mud as were toys and jewelry, and many houses were made out of mud laid up as walls in either sun-dried brick or pisé. Additional rooms built on the house, as well as leanto structures and sheds were also often made of mud. Mud walls often enclosed courtyards completely or in part, and inside the courtyard feed and watering troughs for livestock were frequently made of mud, as were bed platforms for sleeping outside when the weather grew hot and overbearing. Women made cooking and heating devices, incense burners, containers, and devices for food processing and food protection out of mud. Occasionally men helped with gathering the material, but this was considered unusual. Mud objects were usually made in the summer, unless it was necessary to replace a recently broken mud artifact. A potter found it uncomfortable to work in the cold, rainy, winter season. Such weather made the clay difficult to work, and it prolonged the time needed for the clay to dry. As a rule one woman in each dwelling unit makes vessels needed for her family. Occasionally the mother of the bride will make mud pottery for newlyweds. In most homes more than one woman has the skill necessary to make mud objects, but their manufacture is usually considered a job for middleaged or older women, freeing younger members of the household for the more 45

46

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

strenuous work. Making objects of sun-dried mud is a part-time occupation. A woman makes only those vessels needed by her immediate family and the breakage rate for these objects is low. Informants agree that most mud objects, well taken care of, will last from a year to 6.5 years. Storage chests made of unbaked mud will last even longer, for their outer surfaces are renewed with a layer of mud plaster at least once a year. Most mud objects, especially those not subject to great stress in use, could be repaired by thoroughly wetting the two pieces with water or saliva and joining them with a daub of fresh mud. No formal learning process is involved in the manufacturing techniques of mud objects. Children, both boys and girls, absorb the process by watching their mothers at work, and in the early years of the project, children often fashioned vessels of their own as toys. Bedouins who camped in the area make mud objects only if they intended to stay for an extended period of time.The sun-dried mud forms most often encountered in their camps are the tannur, tunga, tabag, and mogad (for the names and forms of mud vessels see below).According to informants, Bedouin never carried mud pottery from one campsite to another but used a metal disk called a tabag in place of a tannur or mud tabag for baking their bread when they moved from one camp to another. Indeed, insofar as could be discovered, no religious or semi-religious beliefs or sanctions were associated with sun-dried mud among the Bedouin, the Mi’dan, or the Beni Hasan. Its manufacturers agreed, however, that the small pieces of glass, shell, broken pottery, and other material used as decorative inserts in mud objects served to “avert the evil eye” as well as provide decoration. Because of their ease of manufacture and ubiquity these modern artifacts were an important and functional part of every home in the villages surrounding the site of al-Hiba: the same basic forms appear in the homes of the wealthiest sheikhs as well as in those of the poorest villagers.

Cooking and Heating Devices Mangala: Mud Dish for Fire The mangala (Figure 4.1) is a shallow mud dish, sometimes with three attached legs but sometimes legless, that can be used as a portable hearth.The fire fueled with dried dung patties is started in the mangala outside the home and allowed to burn down until only the hot coals remain. The dish is then brought inside where it produces a great deal of heat but little smoke. During the winter, in the house, the mangala supports a cooking pot, a tea or coffee pot, and also functions as a portable brazier. In more clement weather, it can be placed outside. Since villagers drink tea on the hottest days, a sheltered place for preparation is particularly desirable when the temperature climbs

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

47

Figure 4.1 Manqala, mud dish for fire (diam 32 cm, ht 14 cm).

above 120oF. Fishermen in the marshes usually keep a mangala in their boat.To protect themselves against fierce mosquitoes that swarm in the marshes at sunset, they fill the mangala with slightly moist dung and fire it to create dense smoke. In the winter fishermen use this fire dish as a portable heater. Metal braziers obtained in the larger cities are not a satisfactory replacement for this sun-dried mud form.Village houses are small and contain little furniture, which is usually limited to a bedroll or two and a chest. In place of wooden furniture, a profusion of rugs, carpets, and carpet-encased pillows placed atop highly combustible reed mats cover the floor during a feast. A metal mangala, a conductor, created a fire hazard. Usually either a three-legged mangala is used on a carpeted surface or a legless mangala is supported on pieces of broken mud bricks or on three specially made wedgeshaped, dried-mud legs (mansab see p. 48), which are also used as supports for the tabag. Sometimes, however, a plain mangala is set directly on the carpets, seeming to cause no damage.

Tabag: Disk The tabag (Figure 4.2), a heavy disk of sun-dried mud with a slightly concave wet-smoothed side, is used primarily for cooking and baking. It also has

48

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.2 Heating the tabag, a mud disc (diam 36 cm, ht 5 cm).

a flat side, which serves a variety of other purposes. Bedouin occasionally use the concave side for baking ordinary wheat bread. The concave surface is always used for baking rice bread because its dough has a fairly liquid consistency. For making bread, the tabag, with concave cooking surface down, lies on three, separate, mud legs (mansab) over a hot fire of dried dung patties. When the concave cooking surface is thoroughly heated, women remove the tabag with a folded rag or a corner of a shawl or skirt serving as a potholder, and place it on the ground with the heated surface up. They then pour liquid rice dough over the surface and spread it evenly with their fingers (Figure 4.3). After a minute or two, with sticks for tongs, they place hot, glowing dung patties, which initially heated the surface, on top and leave them there until the bread is thoroughly baked. Although the bread is delicious, some people on the excavation refused to eat it after learning how it was cooked. One must remember that the dung patties are thoroughly converted to charcoal by the time they come into contact with the bread. Two disks and a set of three dried-mud supports can be used to construct an even more effective oven for cooking certain meat and fish dishes as well as baking small cakes or cookies.The cooking surface of each tabag is prepared as for baking bread. One tabag is then laid on the ground with its hot

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

49

Figure 4.3 Using a tabag to cook rice bread.

concave surface up and meat or fish is placed in it; the second tabag is set over the first, with its hot surface facing the food and about 20–28 cm above the lower tabag on three mud supports or legs. The red-hot remains of the dung patties are then heaped against the outer edges, covering the space between the two disks.The intensity of the oven’s heat can be controlled by varying the distance between the disks, by augmenting the fire around the oven’s edges with additional dung patties, or by leaving an opening in the sealed circumference in the direction of a prevailing wind. This plain mud disk is a good example of multiplicity of use that can inform our study of ancient artifacts. It is used as a cover for dried-mud storage jars during the winter, it can be placed over the opening of the tannur (oven) to protect its interior from rainwater which would both destroy the smoothness of the interior and make a fire more difficult to start (Figure 4.4). Especially when the ground is damp, the flat side of the mud disk is often used as a surface on which to knead straw with dung and then to flatten the mixture into the dung patties used for fuel. It can also be used as a carving board and a frying pan and occasionally as the bottom part of a corn grinder (see p. 59). I have even seen it used to swat a slow-moving child. Such demonstrated variety of use indicates the risk of assigning function to either ancient or modern artifacts on the basis of limited evidence.

50

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.4 Using a tabag to make dung patties. The Bedouin in this area carry with them a single iron tabag for baking bread. The advantage of a non-breakable tabag during their yearly migrations is obvious. They usually make disks of mud when settling in one place for a period of time primarily, according to informants, because of the “fresher taste” of the bread baked on the mud tabag.

Tannur: Conical Oven The tannur is a large conical oven that varies considerably in size, but is usually from 80 to 100 cm high with an opening of 30 to 40 cm at the top.A fire of dung patties and reeds heats it.The reeds burn quickly and hotly, thoroughly igniting the dung patties and quickly raising the inside temperature. Hot coals from the dung patties will then maintain the heat in the tannur’s walls for a considerable length of time. Although the tannur is sometimes used for cooking meat and fish, it is primarily used for baking flat wheat bread, the dietary staple of the area (Figure 4.5). Wheat bread dough is patted into thin, flat disks resembling those used for preparing pizza in the U.S. (Figure 4.6). The baker then mois-

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

51

Figure 4.5 Flattening the wheat dough. tens one side of the loaf, applying saliva with her tongue or water with her fingers, and presses the moistened side against the inside of the tannur above the hot coals.The moisture helps the dough adhere to the side of the oven during the cooking process.When the bread is done, the baker pulls it free, sets it to one side to cool, and flattens another disk of dough in its place.The ordinary tannur can accommodate up to four disks of dough simultaneously, and its inner surface can be used again and again, as long as the coals from the original fire maintain a proper level of heat. The tannur is obviously much better adapted to making a quantity of wheat bread than is the mud tabag, which requires reheating after baking one or two loaves. Meat and fish can also be cooked in a tannur. Ground and partly cooked, they are kneaded into wheat dough and baked as ordinary bread. Chunks are skewered on a metal spit that is placed vertically in the tannur, and whole chickens and fish or large hunks of meat are suspended inside with metal wire.The food is cooked by heat from the embers below reflected from the tannur walls, thus assuring a fairly uniform temperature on all sides.

52

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.6 Sticking the dough to the inside wall of the tannur for baking. Sometimes dried-mud platforms are set up on one or two sides of the tannur serving as counters that give the cook a place to put her dough on one side and the freshly baked bread on the other. During the rainy season, a family will occasionally build a conical, dried-mud structure around the tannur and roof it with reeds. This protective structure (see p. 106–7 for other uses) looks like a gigantic tannur, and is made in exactly the same way.

Incense Burners Tunga: Incense Burner The tunga (Figure. 4.7) is an incense burner with a characteristic handle. It is always used in the house or mudhif on festive occasions, before the arrival of

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

53

Figure 4.7 Tinga, mud incense burner with handle (diam 24 cm, ht 28 cm). important guests or to counteract unpleasant odors.Those who can afford it use incense in the house every three or four days just for the pleasure it affords, and its frequent use is something of a status symbol. Except when receiving important daytime guests, it is always used in the evening, never in the day. Red-hot dung cake fragments are placed in the vessel, usually outdoors.The tunga is then brought into the house and incense (mystica) which is purchased in the nearest market town, is sprinkled over the coals. Like the mangala, it can be placed in close proximity to the rugs, carpets, and reed mats, or even on them without causing damage.

Mabkhara: Incense Burner The mabkhara (Figure 4.8) is a less elaborate version of the tunga. Although it lacks a handle, it is used for exactly the same purpose.The tunga is largely used in the villages of the Beni Hasan, and the mabkhara in the villages of the Mi’dan.

54

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.8 Mafkhara, incense burner (Diam 13 cm, Ht 10 cm).

Containers Mogad: Dish with Interior Supports The mogad (Figure 4.9) is a shallow dish with in-sloping, interior fingers or lugs built into the rim. It is used for holding glass containers such as bottled kerosene bought in the markets.The fingers or lugs help keep the bottle from accidentally overturning in a high wind or being kicked over by courtyard animals. A secondary use developed for this form in the village of Qariet al-Alikhan Algamoge during the second season of the excavations. The lugs were used to support a metal tea pot over the hot coals in the shallow dish below. The tea thus stayed warm, but it did not boil away or become too strong as it might if it were in direct contact with the fire.

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

55

Figure 4.9 Mogad, mud dish with interior supports (Diam 20 cm, Ht 17 cm).

Sahan: Shallow Dish The sahan (Figure 4.10) is a shallow, flat-bottomed dish that is used for a wide variety of purposes. It can serve as a mangala for warming, cooking, and boiling, as a feeding or watering dish for chickens, turkeys, cats, and even dogs, as well as a storage dish for small quantities of dried food or spices. Small mud dishes are also used in the house for holding tobacco and miscellaneous small objects such as needles, thread, change, and other things which are easily misplaced or lost. Because they are so useful, one is likely to find three or more in every household

Figure 4.10 Sahan, a shallow mud dish (diam 28 cm, ht 7 cm).

Figure 4.11 Three mud storage vessels without stands.

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

57

Tiniya: Storage Vessel without Stand The tiniya (Figure 4.11) is a container without a stand used for dry storage, most frequently for rice, barley, wheat, dried fish, sugar, spices, herbs, and packaged coffee or tea. The vessel is made in a wide range of sizes, from ca. 30 cm to over 150 cm in height, and in a wide range of shapes from conical to square. Most frequently tiniayat are conical in shape, 90 to 100 cm in height, and are usually covered with flat disk of dried mud or a tabag. A tiniya of any shape can also be sealed with reed mats daubed with mud and sometimes topped with water buffalo dung for waterproofing. One can usually judge the relative economic position of a household by the size and number of storage vessels it maintains. In this part of the world, where fish are readily available by either spearing or netting, most households have a very large storage jar for dried fish.Well-to-do villagers also have large vessels for rice, barley, and wheat.

Sidana: Storage Chest with Stand A sidana (Figure 4.12) is made in much the same range of shapes as the tiniya, but is most often in square or oblong shape and does not come in portable sizes. The stands on which they are built raise them above the level of the

Figure 4.12 A sidana, or mud storage chest, with built-in stand.

58

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

ground providing adequate drainage during the rainy season and protection from ground pests at other times of the year. Quite often, the sidana is built by molding mud around a framework of reeds.They can be used, like the tiniya for such things as dried fish, grain, fleeces of sheep, rice, barley, wheat, salt, sugar, spices, herbs, etc. They can also be used for storage of family possessions not needed during the summer, such as heavy blankets, or excess bedding and clothes.These chests are often decorated (see p. 112).

Food Processing and Protection Michfaya: Heavy Cover The michfaya (Figure 4.13) is a large, heavy cover used to protect prepared food from prowling cats or dogs. Indeed the name translates roughly as “keep the cat out.”The food is usually placed in a covered china or metal dish which

Figure 4.13 A michfaya, or mud cover for protecting food (diam 54 cm, ht 36 cm).

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

59

is in turn placed in a sahan, and then covered with a michfaya. They furnish extremely effective protection, for they are too heavy for the strongest cat and most dogs to move. The cook must be alert when sheep and cattle return to the courtyard in the late afternoon, for they can easily knock over the michfaya out of curiosity and destroy the food underneath.

Majrasha: Grain Grinders The majrasha (Figure 4.14)consists of two disks. A vertical stick in the center of the bottom disk fits into a socket in the middle of a good-sized opening (8

Figure 4.14 A majrasha, or mud grain grinder (diam 34 cm).

60

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

to 10 cm) in the upper disk.The top disk is turned by means of a stick handle projecting from its upper surface at a 45° angle. Grain is fed through the opening in the upper disk, which is then rotated on top of the lower disk, and the grain is ground between the two surfaces. There is a distinct difference of opinion between those who prefer their grinding disks covered with bitumen and those who prefer the natural sun-dried mud surface.With the plain disk a certain amount of dust gets into the flour giving it a kind of earthy taste, and with the bitumen surface the flour can take on a slightly oily taste. Although each side is likely to discuss their preference in terms of functional differences, it would appear to be taste preference that leads them to choose one over the other. Grinders of this type can be found in nearly every household in the villages except for three well-to-do families who possess town-bought stone grinders.

Mortars Mortars of various sizes and shapes are often made of bitumen over a sundried mud core. The shape varies from round to oblong, usually with fairly low sidewalls from 10 to 15 cm high. Pestles consist of bitumen knobs built up over reed sticks of appropriate length. Most villagers pride themselves on mortars of wood or metal.

General Manufacturing Details Collecting the Mud The potter herself usually collects mud, although occasionally another member of the family may assist her. Two ideal places for mud collecting are the edge of the marsh and where the mouths of the sub-canals and gullies enter the main canals. For mud pottery, the location chosen is generally the one closest to the potter’s home. The mud is always collected from a point just below, or at the very edge of the waterline, where it is already thoroughly moistened.Women dig lumps of mud with their hands and place them in a hisa or carrying sack.When she has sufficient mud for her purpose, the potter carries it home on her back or head. She always collects mud for a project at hand and never stores it for future use.

Tempering (Adding Non-plastic Material to the Clay) The materials most often used, straw and chaff, come from the threshing floors, inside or outside of the courtyards, where the dung patties used as household fuel are also made.The temper often accidentally contains long and short straw, manure from the dung patties, sometimes green grass pulled up during the

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

61

kneading process, stray particles of bitumen, and even pieces of metal such as nails or small scraps of tin cans. Small pieces of bitumen and decayed metal also often find their way into the clay through the action of the water against the clay bank of the canal or the edge of the marsh.According to informants and my own observations, these things are never added on purpose. The clay body consists of about equal parts, by bulk, temper and mud.The temper is scooped into a pile at one side of the threshing floor and the mud laid on top of it. The mud is turned over several times, thoroughly coating its outside with temper, and the remaining temper is heaped on top of the temper-coated mud mass.The potter then kneads the material firmly with her fingers and the heels of her hand, from time to time scooping the remaining temper on top of the mud, until all the temper is worked in. She then separates the mud into two lumps and repeatedly smacks them together with great force. She repeats the process of kneading and pounding several times. When the potter judges that the mud has reached its proper consistency, she kneads it thoroughly once more and it is ready for shaping.

Constructing the Object The basic form from which most others are developed is the sahan or flatbased dish. The form is always made on a dry portion of the same threshing floor on which it was mixed with temper. Sometimes a gunnysack or a reed mat serves as a place for the potter to sit or squat and as a surface on which the pot can be constructed. At other times the potter works on the bare ground. Tools required consist of a pan of water and a short (ca. 8 cm) smooth, reed stick. The potter makes the base by flattening a cake of mud against the ground, mat, or fabric, using a twisting motion of her palms and heels of her hand. She forms the edges of this irregularly shaped base into a roughly circular disk with her index and middle fingers of her right hand. When she has moistened the edges of the base with water, she is ready to apply the sidewalls. Sections of sidewall can be prepared by two different methods both of which may be used by the same potter. She can form a section of sidewall from a lump of mud either by pressure of her thumbs, using her fingers as sort of an anvil, or by rolling the lump of mud between the palms of her hands to form a coil and then by flattening it with her palms or fingers. She applies small sections of sidewall one at a time and anchors them to the base with a downward motion of her thumb and fingers. She joins each section to the previous section as well as to the base in the same way. Once in place, she shapes each section to the desired size and finishes it with her fingers before applying the next section.When the whole sidewall is firmly anchored, the potter adds

62

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

patches of clay to the thinner areas or scrapes clay away with her reed stick from the thicker ones to give the dish a more symmetrical form.

Finishing After the container is fairly well shaped, the potter sprinkles water with her hands over the entire vessel. She carries out final shaping and wet-smoothes the surface simultaneously, at first with her fingers, but finally with additional water and the side of a reed.

Drying The vessel sits in a warm, shady place for about 24 hours.When the vessel is leather dry, the potter moves it into the direct rays of the sun.The full drying process takes from one to three days, depending upon the time of year, the amount of moisture in the air, and the heat of the sun.

Special Techniques and Variations High Sidewalls The potter starts small storage vessels without stands and sometimes the larger ones in the same way as the dish described above, but the walls are raised in a series of segments.When the first layer of sidewall is applied, ca. 7–9 cm high, she may set the vessel aside for several hours, sometimes over night, in order to allow the mud to dry to a leathery consistency. She then applies another layer of sidewall to the preceding section. She again leaves the vessel to dry for a few hours, and she repeats the process until the vessel has reached its desired height. The whole vessel is then usually sprinkled with water, and daubs of very wet mud are smoothed over the surface to give the container a more consistent profile. The tannur (oven), michfaya (protective cover), and sometimes large storage jars are constructed by building up the sidewalls in a roughly truncated conical shape on the bare ground. For these vessels, the lowest layer of sidewall is usually thick, sometimes as thick as 10 cm. After reaching the appropriate height, she finishes the rims of all these vessels by thinning and rounding them with her wet fingers, flattening them with the palms of her hands, or in some cases, when the potter pushes hard against her fingers held as an anvil on the inside or outside of the vessel, forming a kind of ledge rim.The rims of these vessels vary widely.

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

63

Michfaya Top and Handle Creating the top of the michfaya is somewhat more complex.The potter breaks reed sticks into appropriate sizes for spanning the top of the truncated conical form, placing them across the opening and pressing them firmly into the mud below. She then lays lumps of mud on top of the sticks spreading it over the reeds and down the sides of the vessel. She flattens the top with the palms of her hands and blends the surplus mud into the sidewalls with her wet hands and fingers. She always adds the handle of the michfaya after the rest of the vessel is partially dry. She presses the wedge-shaped lump of mud fastened to the rim and body of the cover by spreading the clay from the base of the handle over an area two to three times the size of the area of contact.

Mangala Legs The potter attaches the legs of the mangala when the vessel is leather dry. She turns the mangala upside down and smoothes three wedge-shaped legs she has formed from wet mud against the bottom.The vessel completes drying in this position. She also makes individual triangular legs as separate entities that can be used with the simple mud disk or tabag, and sometimes with a legless mangala.

Tunga Handle Before the basic dish has a chance to dry, the potter breaks two reed sticks for each of the three sides and strips off their outer bark.With her right hand she pushes two sticks at a time through the clay from the inside top of the thick sidewall almost to the bottom of the outside edge of the base. The fingers of her left hand guide the sticks to keep them from protruding through the inside of the sidewall.The guiding fingers can sense when the sticks have gone deep enough (Figure 4.15). When the framework for all three sides of the handle is in place, she holds the tops of the reeds together over the center of the dish with her left hand and molds a lump of mud into a knob-shaped ball around them, thus binding the three parts of the handle together. Lumps of mud are then applied to the outside of each reed stick and molded around it. She alternates a pulling motion with her thumb, index, and middle finger, and an up-and-down massaging action with her hand wrapped around the reed, to smooth the mud evenly over each reed stick of the frame. She adds mud patches as needed, and she works the mud from the handles into the adjoining mud of the knob at the top, and the rim of the vessel below.The handles and the area of joins are then

64

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.15 Man making a tinga handle.

carefully wet-smoothed with fingers and a smooth reed stick. Potters often add additional amounts of cow or water buffalo dung to the mud used over reed sticks.

Mogad Retaining Fingers The potter builds the three mogad retaining fingers up in the same was as the tunga handle. The main difference is that the sticks are not pushed so deeply into the sidewalls, and the angle differs depending on the shape or size of the bottle or pot that the vessel is designed to hold upright. The mogad is made with six fingers, three short and three tall. The potter may or may not build the three short fingers on reed stick frames, depending on their height and the consistency of the mud. She always uses sticks for the tall fingers as they usually do the actual work of holding a vessel in place.When asked why short fingers were used at all, potters would say that it looked better or that it was the way it had always been done.The potter may build the walls of the vessel higher between the fingers to reinforce them and hold them at the proper angles. Sometimes these later additions are angular and do not follow the contours of the lower walls.

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

65

Sidewall Holes for the Tunga and Mabkhara The potter makes holes in the sidewall with the same reed stick that she used in smoothing operations. She dips this stick into water and pushes gently through the sidewall as soon as the form of the vessel is completed. She pushes it in and pulls it out several times, and scrapes away the excess clay that collects around the inside and outside of the vessel with her fingers. She then rotates the stick between the thumb and forefinger to insure smooth edges for the holes. For a larger hole she twirls the stick with sufficient pressure to enlarge the opening.

Tiniya and Sidana Villagers make large storage chests, both with and without stands, in many shapes from round to conical to oblong to square. Women who often construct them directly on the ground without stands make round and conical varieties. Women can also make them with solid mud stands or, for better drainage around them, stands composed of low, parallel mud walls over a framework of reeds set in the ground. They can be built up in conical forms like the tannur, built up in free-form shapes to fit a particular corner of the courtyard, or made of poured mud. The builder makes a mold for the latter by binding together reed mats and setting them on edge to create two concentric circles from 10 to 20 cm apart. The interval between them is filled with 10 cm of very wet mud that is allowed to dry before the next 10 cm section is poured. When the container sidewalls reach the height of the frame, the builder removes the outer matting but retains the interior as a liner. Men make large rectangular storage chests of mud over a framework of bundled reeds and reed mats. They cut reeds to the appropriate size and make bundles of several stalks bound together with a cord or marsh grass. Next men dig a narrow trench outlining the chest to be constructed, and set the reed bundles upright in it, at intervals, with the thick end of the bundle from 20 to 30 cm below the surface.They always make the reed bundles at the corners thicker and longer, and sometimes set them at a greater depth. The builder then fills in the trench and stamps the earth down with his bare feet. If the chest is to have a stand, he constructs mud bench supports from 25 to 40 cm wide and from 20 to 30 cm high, on the long sides, incorporating the bundled reeds, and a third support parallel to and at an equal distance between them. When these benches are thoroughly dry (2 to 3 days), he lays reeds transversely across them and places one or more reed mats on top of the reeds. These reed mats, raised above ground level on the three bench supports, and covered with carefully smoothed mud, will form the bottom of the

66

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

chest. The two channels between the benches provide drainage in the rainy season and the benches raise the chest above the damp ground. The builder then covers the frame of vertical reed bundles with mud, carefully forcing it into all nooks and crannies between the reeds. Some men place the bundles almost contiguously and bind them together with cord or marsh grass, others place them as much as 30 to 40 cm apart. It can take several days to cover the framework depending on the size of the chest.The maker raises the clay walls about 10 to 20 cm at a time making sure that each course is dry before the next one is applied. When the frame is completely covered, he applies from one to three layers of the mud plaster to the outer surface for protection from rain and to give the chest a more even and finished appearance. He also forms mud knobs over the taller bundles at the four corners. Builders choose the place where the chest is to stand in the courtyard with regard to access and protection. They usually close the chests with one or more reed mats plastered with mud and sometimes a layer of water buffalo dung. The size of the chests varies according to the storage needs of the household from about 40 cm wide by 60 cm long by 50 cm high for the smallest to about 150 cm wide by 100 cm long by 200 cm high for the largest. Men make these chests, sometimes with the help of women who bring mud to the building site and help spread it on the framework. No one could tell me why men had a role here but not in making the smaller tiniya. I suspect it may have had something to do with the reed framework for men were responsible for building other reed structures.

Majrasha A woman forms a thick flat disk of mud 10 to 20 cm thick, in the same fashion as a tabag, around a fairly thick, centrally projecting reed stick set perpendicular to the flat surface. She then makes a second disk of the same diameter, but often twice as thick, with a fairly large circular opening in the center.The potter builds two pairs of reeds, each pair at different levels, into the second disk so that they cross each other at right angles forming a central socket of the same diameter as the upright stick in the first disk. She embeds another stick within the edge of the second disk so that it projects from the top at about a 45o angle. When the two disks are thoroughly dry, she sometimes applies a thick coat of bitumen to the bearing area or over the entire surfaces of both disks, and allows the substance to cool and harden. To ready the grinder for use she places the second disk on top of the first so that the upright stick in the bottom disk fits snugly into the socket.

Mortars The potter builds up a round or oval container of mud similar to the sahan and usually 10 to 15 cm deep. She puts it aside after it has dried, until someone in

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

67

the neighborhood is re-covering their boat with bitumen. Once the boat builders begin preparing the bitumen, she asks for a bit to line the dish and, if she does not already have one, enough bitumen to make a good-sized knob on the end of a short reed stick for a pestle. It is up to the potter to determine when the bitumen is the right temperature for forming and not so hot as to burn her hands.

Decoration Potters often make vestigial supports on a mangala, sometimes drill decorative holes in the rims of a tunga, mabkhara, mogad, and occasionally impress finger designs on the baking surface of the tabag and sahan. Sometimes, especially on large storage chests, the maker will apply plastic decoration modeled from mud or insert broken pieces of stone, shell, pottery, china, or glass.The local repertoire seems limited to partial plastic bands or knobs, figurative representations, and geometric patterns.All bands, figurative representations, and barbotine applications are made of mud and are found mostly on storage chests and jars.Villagers think that the insertion of foreign material in geometric patterns will avert the Evil Eye.

Persistence and Change From the beginning of this project until 1990 a good many changes occurred. The Bedouin no longer came here in the late summer because the gradual drying up of the marshes eliminated the seasonal pasturage for their flocks, and the Mi’dan, to whom the marshes were a way of life and who had been under intense pressure for many years, had fled eastward. One must remember, therefore, that when one speaks of villagers or village households from the late 1980s on, one is speaking only of the Beni Hasan. It is interesting to note that most people seem to think this depopulation process resulted from a post-Gulf War Shia uprising against the Baghdad regime in the spring of 1991. In reality, for the al-Hiba area the whole process started considerably earlier. Much of the marshland around al-Hiba was dry, new roads led from the main roads directly to the site, and both the Mi’dan and the Bedouin were gone before the Gulf War even began in 1990.

Cooking and Heating Devices Villagers continued to use the mangala, tabag, and tannur, and throughout this study these objects could be found in nearly every household. At the same time they developed a new fondness for yeast bread which one could buy in the nearby town markets. Even though they considered such bread a treat, unleavened bread continued to be a staple of the diet.

68

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Incense Burners Incense burners started to disappear in the late 1970s. This was largely due to the fact that villagers could purchase various kinds of house fresheners, which were largely self contained, in local market towns. These ranged from scented pads which could be hung from strings to scented candles and sprays. Surprisingly the use of old mud forms and mystica continued in a few homes even though it was more expensive than the other fresheners and often harder to find because of a declining market. According to informants, the old forms were largely used by older people who associated the odor of mystica with memories of past pleasures and with the sense of well-being it brought to their homes when they were children.

Containers By the middle 1970s round-bottomed glass containers were pretty much a thing of the past.The mogad, however, continued to be seen in some households, used mostly for its secondary purpose, to support a teapot at sufficient distance above hot coals to keep the tea warm but not allow for further boiling. There was some change in form.The lugs or fingers no longer sloped inward, but tended to be vertical and were generally not as high as in the old mogad. By 1990 one could no longer find a mogad in any of the surrounding villages. Dishes of china, plastic, or tin began to replace the in-house functions of the sahan in the early to mid 1970s.What is quite amazing is that the sun-dried mud sahan continued to flourish in spite of this.As late as 1990 they were still frequently used outside for feeding or even watering cats, turkeys, and chickens, and inside for what was said to be the temporary storage of bits and pieces until a suitable and pleasing container could be acquired.The secret to their continuing popularity is probably the ease and speed with which they can be made and the fact that they cost nothing. The tiniya and the sidana continued to be made and used into the late eighties, but they were mostly smaller than before and were usually used for short-term storage. A few could still be seen in 1990, but none of them had any kind of decoration.These storage facilities were largely replaced with large covered tins or tin chests that were stored inside the house, usually under a central bench, rather than in the courtyard.The quantity of things stored was considerably less than before. Easy access to marketing towns, now minutes away on the new roads, and a handy cash market in local suqs eliminated the need to store large quantities of things for barter. The introduction of electricity meant that some village families, especially fishermen, were able to afford freezers or refrigerators. This was a real boon for the fishing business as it meant that whenever one wanted to buy fish, “fresh” fish was always available.

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

69

Food Processing and Protection There was an occasional michfaya in village courtyards in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1990 I was unable to find a single one. Leftover food was no longer stored in the courtyard on open dishes. It was kept in sealed containers, usually plastic, inside the house. No doubt the fact that sealed containers prevented the odor of the food from permeating the house made a major contribution to this change, as did the fact that these plastic containers, largely made in China, were very inexpensive. Mortars made of bitumen-coated mud disappeared by the mid1970s. That was not so surprising as they were not overly popular in the late 1960s when every wife’s dream was a mortar made of brass.Wooden mortars (see p. 244) continued to be used throughout the entire period The majrasha could still be found, although not in every household as before.Village life had become more cash and carry, and flour was available in all the local markets if you wished to buy it.Those who still raised their own grain or who preferred to buy whole grain kept a majrasha handy for special occasions, but did not use it as often as they had in the past. Quite a few were convinced that freshly ground flour made better bread than did the storebought variety.

Archaeological Evidence The fact that every modern household in the villages we studied used vessels made of sun-dried mud required us to take seriously the broken pieces of similar forms that we found in the archaeological strata (Figure 4.16). If we had found a larger number of these unbaked, mud fragments in the excavation, it would have been easier to identify them as evidence for a widespread use of sun-dried mud forms in antiquity. In fact we found just 42 fragments, and only 33 of these gave us some idea of their original form. Perhaps the reason for their scarcity is the nature of the archaeological project that was directed toward large public buildings rather than private houses. In the modern villages, after all, these sun-dried mud forms are a home industry. Modern evidence for manufacturing mud vessels, the possibilities and limitations of the raw materials that we have learned from our observations, when compared with the evidence preserved in the composition and structure of ancient artifacts, allows us to infer the ancient sequence of manufacturing procedures from collection of materials to the final product. It is clear that the ancient manner of manufacture was extremely similar to the modern one. Ancient sun-dried mud forms, like their modern counterparts were often carelessly smoothed leaving significant details of their segmental construction and often preserving some impression of their maker’s fingers.

70

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.16 Fragments of mud vessels from al-Hiba excavations.

Sometimes one can even discern the impression of the reed mats on which they were formed. Accidental firing, as in the case of some examples from Area B of al-Hiba, or semi-firing as in the case of the use of an ancient tannur, have preserved evidence of the nature of the tempers used in antiquity which would appear to be the same as those used today (partially digested reeds, sedges and grasses in manure, crumbled dried reeds and sedges, and reed coma, the hairlike appendages that give the reed seed its mobility).This allows

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

71

us gauge the approximate time each of the ancient objects required for their manufacture from gathering of raw materials to final form. Add to that the degree of skill required by the manufacturer, and we have a good idea of the value of these ancient artifacts in ancient communities. Parallels in form to modern sun-dried objects have been found in ancient contexts, but that does not necessarily indicate parallels in function. Some modern mud forms, such as grain grinders, seem to have single purposes. Many forms, however, have multiple functions, which suggests that a variety of useful purposes may have been characteristic of many ancient artifacts as well.The study of the functions of individual objects or classes of objects in a modern society cannot be applied uncritically to similar objects from antiquity. Sometimes, with reinforcement provided by the depositional context of the ancient artifact, it can form the basis of valid functional hypotheses. In other cases it can offer intriguing and sometimes totally new possibilities and suggestions. Additional parallel forms may or may not be found in ancient contexts as time goes on. Clearly one must suspect that sun-dried mud forms are not limited exclusively to the Early Dynastic period and modern times. It would not be surprising to find them in use at any time over the intervening years in archaeological contexts. Wherever they are found we are now alerted to the possibility of their existence and are more likely to look for them and less likely to misinterpret evidence of their existence.

Cooking and Heating Devices We discovered fragments of mud forms identical to the mangala in the al-Hiba excavations (Figure 4.17). Some of these fragments showed evidence of partial baking which could be attributable to exposure to fire during the course of their use. It seems likely to me that this form existed in antiquity. We also found several pieces of a form identical to the modern tabag. The modern tabag is used for a great many purposes. Although there is no evidence of ancient function for this form, we might expect some overlap between modern and ancient usage because of the multitude of modern uses from which to choose.Two ancient fragments, lightly baked and carbon smudged, indicating repeated burning, support the supposition that this form may have been used also in Early Dynastic times as frying pans or ovens. The tannur, or at least the remains of its lower portions, have been recognized in many excavations, and one suspects that its ancient uses were close to the modern ones.

Incense Burners We did not find, in any of the excavation’s soundings, fragments of mud forms with holes, lugs, or handles similar to the incense burners made in modern times. That does not mean, necessarily, that mud incense burners were

72

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 4.17 An ancient mud vessel, possibly a manqala.

unknown in ancient times. Other forms can be used for burning incense. In modern villages the ordinary sahan was frequently used as a incense burner when no other form was handy. Even villagers who had a proper incense burner would use it on those occasions when they wished to use more incense than they had receptacles.

Containers Nothing was found to indicate so specialized a vessel as the mogad in antiquity.The sahan, however, was the form most frequently encountered in ancient levels. As with modern forms of this dish, the remnants preserved indicate a

MUD HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS AND STORAGE CONTAINERS

73

wide variety of sizes in antiquity. Two fragments indicate that some of these mud dishes had much higher sidewalls than those we encounter in modern times. Once again the function of these ancient shapes can only be surmised, but as a sahan has so many uses in modern times, one might easily imagine some degree of coincidence with its range of functions in antiquity. Ample information has survived to confirm the existence of large storage containers such as the tiniya and the sidana in antiquity. Courtyard storage was as much in vogue in antiquity as in the early part of this research. There is also some indication that in antiquity similar storage chests were sometimes built in the interior of a house.

Food Processing and Protection The only form from this group which may have left some evidence in ancient strata is the majrasha or grain grinder.Although several fragments of mud with bitumen adhering to a flat surface have been excavated, they have all been too fragmentary to indicate the shape of the artifact from which they came. One wonders about the use of similar grinders in the Early Dynastic Period since no stone grinders have been found at al-Hiba. If such grinders were used in antiquity, the absence of evidence could be due to the re-use of bitumen. Modern villagers remove all bitumen from broken objects, reheat it, and use it over again when making replacements. One piece of a disk-shaped form with bitumen adhering to one of its surfaces proves nothing. With the small number of stone grinders found, however, it does offer the tantalizing possibility that mud corn grinders were used in the past.

5 MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

I

n addition to household utensils and storage containers, other objects made of mud played important roles in village life. At the beginning of our research, no one in the area could imagine life without them.

Musical Instruments Tabol: Drum Men and boys inevitably temper mud for making a drum with coma, the hairlike appendages attached to the seeds of the reed which function in their dispersal when a seed pod ripens and opens.The maker carefully works the coma into the mud by kneading and thumping. He builds up the shape with short, flattened strips of mud 4 to 16 cm in height. He makes each strip by rekneading a handful of mud, rolling it in the palms of his hands, and working it into a short, flat strip of appropriate thickness with his fingers (Figure 5.1). He joins three to five strips in a circular pattern to form the first course, and fixes each firmly to its neighbors by massaging the joins. The maker then anchors a second course to the first, a strip at a time. With downward pressure of his fingers he uses his hands alternately as anvils and forming agents both inside and outside. He then uses his hands and fingers to improve the symmetry of the two courses and smoothes the clay with wet fingers or a tuft of muddy coma.When two courses are completed, he puts the section in the shade, and sometimes covers it with an inverted basket while it dries over night. If he intends to go on using the unformed mud he has already collected the next day, he puts it in the shade and covers it with a wet cloth. An attempt 74

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

75

Figure 5.1 Forming the base of the drum (tabol). to build up the vessel on a wet base would result in the vessel’s collapse. The man or boy continues the construction two courses at a time until the shape is completed (Figure 5.2). When he finishes the last course he once more carefully smoothes the drum base and allows it to dry completely. Any kind of leather can be used for the drumhead, but the best is thought to be the skin of a carp, the second best the gullet of a pelican. Most men and boys use sheepskin, however, for it is the most easily obtainable.The maker fettles the top of the drum free of irregularities and then ties the pliable cover, which he soaked in water overnight, on to the frame (Figure 5.3). He then applies a paste of flour and water under the leather which projects beneath the string and over all the leather on the sidewall and lip of the mud frame.When the paste is dry the drum is ready for use (Figure 5.4). The drum and pipes are the major musical instruments one sees at every celebration. Musicians perform by themselves, accompany dancers and singers, and sometimes even accompany the poetry of wandering bards or singers of epic songs. No celebration is considered complete without their participation. Drummers also form a kind of communication network, sending by the sounds of their drums warnings of danger or the approach of unknown people. Local musicians, of course, are not specialists, but ordinary villagers with special talents.

Figure 5.2 Smoothing the exterior of the completed drum body.

Figure 5.3 Tying the soaked cover to the drum frame.

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

77

Figure 5.4 Applying a paste of flour and water to the top of the finished drum.

Saffara:Whistle The maker of a whistle starts construction with a dumbbell-shaped piece of mud thoroughly tempered with coma (Figure 5.5). From one end he fashions the shape of the eventual mouthpiece while he slits open the other end and thins its walls with his fingers until it resembles the bottom of a boat. He then brings the flared edges together and seals them, leaving a hollow space within. He makes a hole into this sounding chamber with a fragment of broken reed, as close as possible to what will become the mouthpiece. Then he drills another hole longitudinally to meet it through the center of the mouthpiece tube, and makes small holes at either end of the crescentshaped sounding chamber (Figure 5.6). The maker spends considerable time on testing the tone of the whistle while it is still semi-wet. He is often dissatisfied and widens the mouth hole or central sounding hole or increases the size of the two holes at either side of the sounding chamber. As the whistle dries, its sound becomes shriller. Once dried it can last for several months if given ordinary care. Although the whistle has only three basic notes, it is a remarkably flexible instrument in the hands of someone who uses it well. Whistles are most popular among the shepherds, young and old alike, who play tunes back and forth to each other across a great distance or use them for their own pleas-

Figure 5.5 Forming the sounding chamber of the whistle (safara).

Figure 5.6 Widening the central sounding hole of the whistle.

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

79

ure to help idle away hours of solitude. One shepherd can send messages to a shepherd at some distance using interspersed phrases of well-known songs. In some cases the message is clear from the phrases chosen, in other case the meaning is more obscure to the ordinary listener, for its full meaning is based on the order in which the phrases are played rather than the formal meaning of the phrases alone. One can keep track of the progress of visitors to the mound through the sounds of the shepherds’ whistles.

Toys During the 1968–69 season the largest class of sun-dried mud objects produced in the villages were toys made by children for their own entertainment (Figure 5.7). These youngsters acquired a certain skill through comparing their products with those of older children and, when possible, with the real

Figure 5.7 A young boy making toys out of mud.

80

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

objects in nature.With so many children of different ages making toys, there is a tremendous variety in their craftsmanship. An endless number of games are improvised around them. One can pretend to be a shepherd or camel herder and make as may animals as one wished.Wild boars, wowies (foxes), or even lions can be turned out in sufficient number to threaten one’s own herd or that of one’s neighbor and thus simulate danger. A boy can make an army and lead it against an opposing force, make a tarada (boat) and pole it through the marshes, or make a modern motor boat and serve as its captain. A girl can build a house and furnish it with people, utensils, mats, rugs, and pillows. Children take as much delight in making their toys as they do in playing with them. There are no artificial boundaries imposed on the child’s inventiveness by the commercialism of manufacturers or the tastes of parents, friends, and relatives. Children were limited in their creativity only by the breadth of their experience and imagination. The more complicated the form undertaken, the more rewarding its successful completion and the more prized the final object. The usual repertoire included a host of well-known local animals and some not so well known. In addition to the animals, one finds toy soldiers, stylized men and women, houses, wagons, boats and even an occasional tractor. Hunting games were especially popular. Mud animals were speared with small sticks or pieces of wire supposedly by successful mud representations of huntsmen on horses or camels. The toy houses are interestingly accurate as imitations of the three types of real houses—mud, reed, or mud brick. Where composition is entirely dependent on the imagination of the maker some extraordinary compositions are to be expected.The word “lion” is very popular in the south as it is heard often in such phrases as “he has the heart of a lion,” “the strength of a lion,” “the skill of a lion.” Needless to say the lion was a very popular toy. Until 1969, when a picture of a lion appeared in a book used at the nearby school, the form of these sculpted mud lions varied considerably. Some had wings like birds, some long bodies like snakes, some had horns like the water buffalo, and all had, as very prominent features, enormous teeth and claws, sometimes almost as large as the body of the animal itself.Whenever we saw a child playing with a particularly weird looking mud animal, we knew it was a lion. These hand-made mud toys have a tendency not to last too long.They are easily lost or forgotten, broken in play, and if stepped on they disintegrate. Because toys are so easily made they have little lasting value in the eyes of children and are often abandoned after a game. This means that when a child desires to play some particular game, he or she must usually make a new set of toys. Occasionally an older child will make toys for a very young brother and sister. More rarely, a father will do the same to comfort a child who is sick or injured. Seldom, if ever, were the toys baked, although several children tried to

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

81

do so by putting them in the family hearth and one woman who made fired pottery sometimes allowed her children to put a toy or two in the trench fire.

Making Toys The sophistication of the toy-maker governs the gathering of mud and the use of temper. The 3- or 4-year-olds often make toys of dirt from the courtyard mixed with water. As they get older, however, they quickly realize that their toys are far less sturdy than those of other children who get their mud from the canal banks or the edges of the marshes and mix the clay with a little straw, manure, or coma. The older children model their activity on their mother’s method of mixing clay and temper for the unbaked mud pottery used at home.

Animals The most usual animals made are the sheep, goat, camel, horse, wild boar, dog, donkey, wowie, cat, water buffalo, chicken, and turkey, all of which are found in the area (Figure 5.8). Among animals that the children have never seen, the lion, as mentioned above, is the most popular. To make an animal, a child molds the mud into a dumbbell shape and then pulls the tail and hind legs out of one end with their fingers and the neck, head, and forelegs out of the other.They sometimes added additional pieces for ears, tail, mane, and horns, but usually teased these out of the original lump of mud. Four-legged animals could be modeled with four separate legs, with the two legs behind separated and the front legs joined, with the front legs separated and the back legs joined, or with both the front legs and the hind legs joined.

Figure 5.8 Animals made by a boy from a different village than the boy in Figure 5.7.

82

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

In each village there is only one way of structuring the legs that is adhered to by all the village children. It is often possible to tell from what villages a toy came by looking at the way the animals’ legs are formed. The bottoms of the feet of the finished animals are pressed gently down against the ground, a flat potsherd, or a piece of metal, in order to flatten them and allow the object to stand more steadily. When fully formed, etching mane and tail, drawing the mouth or piercing the eyes with a reed stick can detail the animal. It is then put aside to dry.

Men and Women Men and women are made from the same kind of dumbbell-shaped mud form (Figure 5.9). In all the villages visited, children only detailed the heads of specific persons known to them with features such as eyes, nose, and mouth.They made the heads of other human beings schematically. Unlike the plan for making animals’ legs where each village has its own method, the variation in human heads and the reasons for them are universal. If a boy represents himself and his friend leading an army into battle, the two specific persons are made with carefully drawn features on ovoid heads. The heads of the rest of the members of the army are represented by a twist of clay.

Figure 5.9 A horse drawing a cart and a human figure with drawn features.

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

83

Figure 5.10 The secret of where babies come from with human figures with schematic heads.

Human figurines are made from time to time by children who are intent upon passing to their younger siblings or their friends the mystery of the origin of life. In the two sets seen by the author, the positions were the same (Figure 5.10). The male figure was shown on his knees, the female figure on her back with her knees raised but feet flat on the ground. Primary sexual characteristics were enormously exaggerated. Both sets were discovered when the author blundered onto the scene of instruction by accident. In both cases the children, who seemed terrified, dropped the toys and ran. In a society with rigid strictures against sexual display and immodesty this seemed to me to be rather outrageous behavior. To my principal village informant, it seemed moderately deplorable, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Vehicles Children often make toy vehicles such as wagons, boats, and an occasional tractor. They seldom have the opportunity to see automobiles and trucks, as there is no access by road, and only rarely do they construct them (Figure 5.11). There was considerably more individuality among the children in the way these toys are started for they can be molded from an oblong block of

84

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 5.11 A non-specific human poling a boat.

mud, a wedge, or even an amorphous lump. Mobility of wheeled vehicles is attained by one of two methods. A broken reed stick of the proper size can be pushed through the bottom of the vehicle body or through a clump of mud attached for that purpose to the undercarriage. The stick is then twirled between thumb and forefinger, and pressure applied to increase the size of the hole. Non-rotating clay disks are then molded at each end of this rotating axle. In the other method, the stick is solidly secured, and turning wheels with enlarged axle holes are held on the axle by mud hubcaps.The same toy maker uses these methods interchangeably.Which method to choose depends on the quality of the mud and the availability of good quality shapeable sticks. Details are added to the vehicle by drawing with a sharpened reed stick or by applying bits and pieces of formed mud.

Houses Three kinds of houses are commonly made out of mud: mud houses, reed houses, and mudbrick houses. In all three types, the maker usually reproduces, as closely as possible, the actual building techniques of the child’s elders. For mud-brick houses, which tend to be rather large and spacious in comparison to the other houses, bricks are made, dried in the sun, and then joined together with wet mud mortar. Mud houses are usually constructed by build-

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

85

ing up the walls in pisé fashion, and by using small, broken reed sticks for the roof beams. A piece of flattened mud, inscribed with an appropriate criscross, weave pattern, is used to simulate the reed matting put over the roof beams before the addition of a packed mud roof. Reed houses are usually built on frames made of bent reed sticks.The child makes long strips of mud to simulate reed mats, inscribes them with a stick so they resembles the woven mats in appearance, and wraps them over and around the frame.

Khorkhasha: Baby Rattles Mothers and fathers usually make rattles to amuse babies, especially when the child is in distress from some childhood ailment. A rattle is made of two shot-glassshaped cones, the edges of which are first prepared as evenly as possible and are then lightly pounded on a flat surface to flatten them slightly and make them connect more easily. Dust is poured liberally into both sections to keep the rattling material from sticking to the sidewalls during the drying process (Figure 5.12). Small bits of broken pottery or stone fragments, if they are available, are put in one of the sections and the edges of both sections are moistened and joined, the mud from one section being carefully massaged into that of the other to produce a firm bond.The middle of a long strip of mud rolled in the palms of the hands is wrapped around the join, and the ends of the strip, pressed together, form the handle.

Figure 5.12 Filling a khorkhasha, baby rattle, with broken pot sherds.

86

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Usually this mud strip is subsequently pinched with the fingers to form both a collar around the sounding chamber and a flat handle (Figure 5.13). The rattle is then put in the sun to dry. Oftentimes when the rattle is partially dried, the maker will sketch features of the baby’s face on one side of the sounding chamber.

Figure 5.13 Making a handle for the rattle.

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

87

Jewelry In the early 1970s jewelry worn in life was removed from the dead and retained by most families, because the family jewelry is often a household’s total financial resource . In some Mi’dan families, mud replicas of that jewelry were made by the oldest female relative for the corpse to wear in the grave, as near identical to the original as possible (Figure 5.14). It was made very clear to me that the mud jewelry was merely a replacement, just as the corpse replaced the living form, and had no religious significance of any kind. Because of its function in adorning the dead the making of mud jewelry is regarded as perilous. It is extremely unlucky to watch it being made or to make it at all unless it was for a specific dead person. Little girls never make jewelry as toys, although one might easily imagine their doing so under other circumstances. All sun-dried mud jewelry except for rings, according to the informant, uses string or cord as its base. A bead necklace is made by molding clay pellets, piercing, and stringing them, while larger, more ornate necklaces and bracelets make use of flat geometric disks held together in series by several cords. Handmolded discs are set out in the desired order.The maker, holding one cord at a time in both hands, forces it into the wet clay.When all cords have been inserted in a

Figure 5.14 Replacement jewelry for the dead made from mud and string.

88

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

given disk, the maker smoothes over the clay, obliterating the entry passages, and passes on to the next disk in line. Rings are molded by hand to the appropriate shape and size. Decoration is usually limited to incisions made with a sharp reed stick.

Slingshot Because there is no stone in the area, the only thing available for shot for slings is local mud rolled into balls in the palms of the hands and dried in the sun.These mud balls are not toys.Boys practice hard to attain a deadly accuracy with their shot and hunt birds and small animals. Often the difference between having meat on the table or not rests on the skill of the families’ young sons. Our studies showed clearly the amount of coordination and training necessary to hit a moving target forcefully and accurately with mud ball shot. It also showed that not everyone could be trained to be an expert in this.Those who excel are blessed with natural coordination and invariably practice long hours.

Persistence and Change Musical Instruments It was only in our first two seasons at al-Hiba that local men made their own drums out of mud. Professional potters in the towns, who were competing with women village potters (see p. 160–70, 174), were making baked pottery drums.Although they were of the same general shape as those made in the villages, their durability made them easier to transport and their consistency of form made them pleasing to look at. They were also thought to produce a more congenial sound. By the next season mud drums had disappeared except for the occasional one made by a small child. For reasons I did not understand, it was considered quite alright for children to make drums for playthings but nothing else. By 1990 I was unable to find a single mud drum, not even a toy, in the villages. Mud whistles lasted until the late 1970s before plastic whistles bought in the market towns replaced them. These plastic whistles were shrill and less flexible than the mud ones. Perhaps that is why one no longer heard young shepherds conversing with each other over long distances on their whistles and whistles were no longer used to make music.

Toys In 1968 children in the villages over the age of 3 or 4 always made their own toys out of mud. Abandoned mud toys could be found everywhere in village courtyards, alongside the canals and marshes, and even in the fields. Unfortunately, domestic toy making disappeared rapidly. Manufactured plastic toys, available in nearby market towns, gradually replaced them. By 1970

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

89

a wide variety of cheap plastic toys was available to those of every economic level. Most children were attracted to these plastic toys because of their bright colors and their relative durability. At first children would continue to make toys that were not available in the market out of mud, but that came to an abrupt end in 1972. So popular had the new plastic toys become that most villagers could find no reason to continue using mud toys short of lack of money. Indeed cheapness came to be thought the sole criteria for continuing to make toys out of mud, and this impacted that part of the father’s honor which depends on his ability to provide adequately for his family (see p. 17).To make a mud toy under these conditions was to bring dishonor on the family. Without some knowledge of the role of honor and its requirement that men provide strong financial support to their families in these villages, what reasons would archaeologists give for the sudden and complete disappearance of mud toys? Bold colors and increased durability seem the most reasonable, and in part logical, answers, as the villagers found these attributes attractive at first. But logic alone does not begin to explain why old forms disappeared completely and with such speed; the compelling power of color and durability must not be overestimated. The children themselves were a real problem. When they had only the few animal forms sold in the suq to play with, they sometimes had to be forcibly stopped from making additional toys of mud.They missed the freedom of making any toys they could imagine and playing any game they wished. The kind and number of toys available now limited their games.Attractive colors and durability may have given the impetus for change, but it was the challenge to family honor that made parents forbid their children to make mud toys.

Jewelry In the late 1960s the jewelry worn in life was removed and retained, and the oldest female relative in some Mid’dan families made mud replicas of that jewelry for the corpse to wear in the grave. I know of no other people in the Muslim world who adorn the dead in this manner. Indeed, I could find no one able or willing to tell me how this custom originated. By the mid 1970s, a piece of the real jewelry was buried with the dead in at least two cases and was much talked about in the area. Burying the corpse with a piece of valuable jewelry proclaims, in a sense, a family’s material well-being and enhances its reputation. Clearly such a family is well enough off and well enough provided for that it need not hoard jewelry for material benefits. According to informants this raised a question about the families who continued the old tradition.Those who are thought to be very conservative in their values continue the tradition of replacing jewelry with mud replicas and do not suffer any loss of prestige from their actions. Others, who follow less religiously accepted ways of behaving, are sometimes

90

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

thought to be greedy. The operable factor in pursuing the traditional replacements without criticism seems to rest on the villagers’ impression of an individual’s commitment to religion and traditional values. An archaeologist of the 21st century would be at a complete disadvantage in interpreting this behavior on the basis of material remains. Three categories of behavior exist in the villagers’ minds, but only two appear in the archaeological record. Even more confusing is the fact that none of this behavior was consistent with ordinary burial practice among either the Mi’dan or the Beni Hasan. By the middle of the 1980s the Mi’dan had been driven from the area and the practice ceased to exist.

Slingshot Boys continued to use mud slingshots throughout the entire time. In the earlier period gun ammunition was very expensive.Most people could not afford to use it for anything but protection in a crisis or a sign of joy or sorrow in connection with life’s major events. By the mid 1980s, however, the economic situation had greatly improved. Foraging for birds and small animals for food was less common, and bullets, not slingshots,were used for ammunition.Most boys still made their own slings.What changed over the years was the seriousness of the effort to reach perfection in accuracy of aim. Doing so in the late 1960s was a necessity if you and your family were to have enough to eat and avoid going hungry. In later times the need to attain perfection was less urgent. Boys still vied with one another to see who was best, but the personal victory which could be achieved was never as strong a motivating factor as the village-wide honor attained in the past for helping to support your family in the war against hunger.

Archaeological Evidence Musical Instruments There is evidence for both drums and whistles in ancient times, but in baked pottery and not mud examples.Examples of whistles similar to those the villagers make are on display in the Baghdad Museum in Iraq.A nearly identical, although fragmentary, sundried mud whistle has been recovered from an ED IIIB context at al-Hiba.The form of the sun-dried mud and the baked pottery drums are identical, and closely resemble the general shape of certain so-called “fruit stands” from Early Dynastic levels. On one level we can probably attribute the same simple mechanical function to these instruments in whatever time period they occur.The whistle is blown and the drum thumped and in that sense they have a single function. On the other hand, each of these instruments play important roles in the villages that have no parallels in our knowledge of antiquity. Modern drums are used to accompany dance, song, and poetry, but also to send messages, especially messages of dan-

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

91

ger from one village to the next. Modern whistles are often used by young shepherds for making music, but also for communicating ideas and messages.

Toys Numerous fragments of mud and baked pottery animals, human beings, and vehicles have been found in ED IIIB contexts at al-Hiba (Figure 5.15). Widespread manufacture and use of such objects by modern children as toys,

Figure 5.15 Fragments of figurines from the excavations at al-Hiba.

92

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

leads one to question the persistent identification of such archaeological finds as votive objects. I do not wish to imply that all such finds were once children’s toys, but it is quite possible that toys were made in the 3rd millennium BC as well as figures which may have played a ritual role. How to distinguish toys from ritual objects in ancient strata presents a real problem. Indeed I know of no persuasive reason to eliminate the possibility that children may have, in antiquity, made some toys and played with them precisely because of their symbolic associations. At first it seemed that the great differences in conventions, styles, and artistic competence visible in toys made by modern children of different levels of ability and varied ages could help us differentiate toys from votive objects in ancient contexts.Votive objects could have been made by the individuals who dedicated them and could exhibit very similar differences. In modern times each child makes his own toys, but in ancient times they could have been made by the child’s parents, thus eliminating some of the extremes of rendition characteristic of children of widely different ages. All of this creates an ongoing dilemma.The archaeological context of these ancient figures plays the crucial role in determining their function (Figures 5.16, 5.17, 5.18). Whatever our conclusion about the purpose of

Figure 5.16 Models of animals and rattles in a 1973 display case of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts in the Iraqi Museum.

MUD MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS,TOYS, JEWELRY, AND AMMUNITION

Figure 5.17 Wheeled chariots in a 1973 display case of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts in the Iraqi Museum.

Figure 5.18 Models of boats in a 1973 Iraqi Museum display case of ancient Mesopotamian artifacts.

93

94

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

individual ancient finds, it is clear that we must be acutely aware when collecting our archaeological evidence that there is more than one alternative explanation and that this is a good thing.

Slingshot Balls of mud, apparently used for ammunition (Figure 5.19) are found in great quantity at many ancient sites. At al-Hiba they occur in greatest profusion outside the walls of one of the areas excavated where they may well indicate an attack or siege which took place in antiquity. No doubt soldiers were required to achieve certain proficiency with the sling, and those who were the best probably received accolades similar to the youths in the modern al-Hiba villages.

Figure 5.19 Ancient slingshot from al-Hiba.

6 MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

Buildings Made of Mud Brick Modern houses built of mud brick in the area of al-Hiba are very scarce because they are more expensive in time and labor than pisé houses, which in turn are more expensive than structures made from reeds. They also require the services of a professional brickmaker from one of the nearby towns, for there are no brick makers living in the villages. Usually the brickmaker is engaged to make the bricks and supervise the building of the structure. Each expert has one or more apprentices who assist him with his work, and in the three cases known to me they are his sons or grandsons. All of these builders live too far from the villages to commute and are usually furnished with some sort of lean-to against the inner wall of a courtyard, or they build one for themselves for the duration of the building process.Their immediate families usually accompany them and reside on the building site for at least some portion of the building period. The professional brickmaker/builder’s status is high and seems to increase with each building project he successfully completes. Bricks are always made as close as possible to where they will be used. The brickmaker chooses a spot near the banks of a canal or at the edge of a marsh where he thinks the nature of the mud is appropriate for his purposes and because there is a flat space large enough to accommodate the drying process for the number of bricks he will make at one time. It is especially important to have some shade in the area if the bricks are to be made during the hot summer months, as too rapid drying of the bricks can cause problems. It is in the selection of the mud and the kinds and proportions of modifying 95

96

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

agents to be added, that the professional is worth every cent of his salary. It takes experience to be able to feel the clay and know what must be added and in what quantity.Wrong choices will result in bricks with too many shrinkage cracks or bricks that crumble too easily. Although the main content will be mud from marsh or canal banks, brickmakers may add a certain amount of drier soil from a hole dug in the field and always a certain amount of temper. The temper chosen is inevitably reed or straw crumbled to very short lengths. Manure is never used because it is thought harmful to the strength of the brick and using it, in the quantities needed, would deplete the winter’s fuel supply. The brickmaker digs a hole of varying size but usually 1 m deep near the water, and fills it with alternating layers of mud dug from the canal bank or marsh edge and layers of crushed reed or straw. He determines the proportions and may vary the amount of each in two successive batches based on the way the clay feels when he rolls it in his hand. The brickmaker and his assistants pour water from pails on top of these layers when they have attained a depth of 20 to 30 cm. Often the water is allowed to soak the mix overnight for it must permeate the entire mixture and soften any lumps.The next morning as many people as can be pressed into service tramp back and forth through the pit with bare feet mixing the material thoroughly. Members of the brickmakers’ families are always present for the mixing process as is the family which will occupy the new dwelling, and everyone from elderly parents to small children, participates. The brick maker again makes judgments regarding the consistency of the mixture while molding some of the substance in the palm of his hand, and he adds more mud, temper, or water if he thinks it is needed. Baskets or pails of the proper mix are brought to the flat area nearby, and each brick is made separately by packing the compound firmly into a four-sided, wooden brick mold that has been soaked in water overnight. The brick-maker presses the clay into the corners of the mold, and uses a stick or his hand to scrape the excess from the top and smooth the clay. He releases the formed brick by tapping the mold gently on the ground covered with reed mats, crumbled reeds, and straw or sometimes merely dust swept up from the surface of the surrounding fields to keep the bricks from sticking. One now sees the reason for the careful testing of the clay for consistency. If the mud is too liquid it will loose its shape when released from the mold, and if it is too sticky it will not release from the mold in a consistent shape at all.The brickmaker dips the mold in a pail of water between making each brick, and if any mud from the previous brick has adhered, he scrapes the mold clean. One of the brickmakers had two molds so he could put one to soak while he filled the other with mud. By alternating them in this fashion he was able to make more bricks in a day than the other two professionals. Bricks must dry for 20 to 30

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

97

days in the sun before they are ready for use and are usually turned daily, after the second day, to assure uniform drying throughout. Too rapid drying will cause excessive cracking. All bricks manufactured today are strictly rectangular, and their size is dependent on the forms owned by the master brickmaker. As the forms are made of wood and as wood is scarce and comparatively expensive, the size of each master’s bricks tends to remain the same for a long period, often for most of his lifetime.With only three brickmakers active in the general area, it is possible to distinguish the products of each by minor variations in size.The interior measurements of the molds used by the area’s brickmakers were 10.6 x 26.4 x 38.5, 10 x 25.5 x 35.5, and 9.8 x 24 x 32.7 cm. Interestingly, there is much more conformity in size among the bricks of baked-brick makers than among the sun-dried bricks. Bricks are laid in the same fashion as kiln-baked bricks. For a structure of any size, a trench is dug about 30 cm deep and leveled.The first courses of brick laid in this trench serve as a footing or foundation.The same mud is used to make the mortar, but considerably less organic material is added and more water, so the mud will squeeze out from beneath the brick, without tamping, when it is placed on the mortar. Two of the brick-makers put no mortar at all in the vertical joints in order to give the plaster, with which they will cover the walls, a firmer bond. Mud bricks are laid up with the joints of each layer overlapping the bricks below and with bonded corners.The finished building is plastered inside and out with mud plaster similar to the mixture for mortar but containing more reed and straw temper. Most structures built today call for vertical walls with either flat reed and mud or pitched reed-mat roofs. Rarely a structure is built with a vaulted mudbrick ceiling. I never saw this, but was told that bricks for such vaults are made with half organic and half mud content. After the mixture is placed in the mold, informants say, the maker gives the brick additional lightness by scraping out a good handful of clay in the center of the brick, creating a concave depression. Mudbrick structures are most often seen in the old fortified complexes of major sheikhs. High walls made of pisé or more often mud bricks usually surround these fortifications. They are as wide as 2–3 m on the bottom and as high as 4–5 m. Entrance is gained through a strong, solid, woodplank gate. Within one finds the sheikh’s dwelling apartments, a large reception room, storage facilities, and dwelling structures for guards and servants. Some part of this complex can be built of either reed or mud, but the family dwelling apartments and storage facilities are almost inevitably built of mud brick or baked brick.The reception hall is usually a large and splendid mudhif

98

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

(see pp. 145–8) or, more rarely, an especially grand mudbrick building. If the latter, it is usually of such size as to require roof supports made of smoothed palm trunks down the center of the floor space. These supports are usually erected with the top on the ground and the bottom, or part closest to the roots, supporting the ceiling.The roofs of these structures can be either flat or pitched. A few mudbrick houses can be found in the villages. It is the most prestigious type of building a villager can build and indicates that the owner is a man of considerable substance by village standards. The structure itself like the house made of pisé, is inevitably a single room used for most household activities.

Buildings Made of Pisé Whereas mudbrick houses are usually built by wealthy or important families and can use several workmen in addition to the master brick maker, pisé structures are normally built by the members of the families who are going to live in them. The mud mixture for a pisé house is made in the same way as for a brick house, but with much more variation from house to house as the person determining proper mixture and consistency is normally the head of household. Usually this results in more organic material being used in the mixture and often this temper is composed of larger and coarser pieces. In my experience, the mud mixture was never as carefully fabricated or mixed as it was for bricks. Lumps in the mud being used were perfectly acceptable. For economy of time and effort the structure is usually situated as close as possible to the source of the mud.The building site is converted into a level platform with good drainage, even if this requires bringing in mud and building up the location, or leveling the walls of a former house that stood in the same place, and thus creating a platform significantly higher than the surrounding ground level. The walls of the pisé building are usually laid directly on the ground or leveled platform, though shallow foundations are sometimes built. The builder carries mud to the site and constructs a wall by forming it freehand to the required width and in the required position. Usually not more than a 20 cm high section can be erected at one time without danger of collapse. After the lower section dries sufficiently he adds another section.The drying process for each section takes from two to four days depending on climatic conditions, water content of the mixture, and height and thickness of the wall segment. The builder joins the courses by smoothing the juncture with his hands. He hides most imperfections in his work by a final plastering as in the mudbrick structures. He chooses a fairly thick reed stick, dips it in water, and

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

99

Figure 6.1 A pisé structure which is actually two separate homes.

rubs it back and forth across the surface to create a smooth finish with the plaster.This plastering is crucial for the preservation of the structure and the plaster must be renewed every year. Usually this is done in the villages immediately after the wet season. A plastered mudbrick structure can survive in these villages for two or three generations. Builders sometimes place reed mat strips between courses or between every couple of courses. Those who use this device claim that the mats inhibit the absorption of salts from the ground into the mud wall, something that can weaken the structure.They also say that mat sections help in binding the courses of mud together.When such mats are used they are placed over the section below while the mud is still wet and gently pressed partway into the mud. Roofs of both mud brick and pisé buildings can be either flat or pitched and the beams supporting them of either wood or reed depending on the building’s size. Flat and slightly pitched roofs are usually surfaced with layers of loosely lain reeds over closely spaced reed-bundle rafters and tamped mud. Sometimes the layers of loosely lain reeds are replaced with layers of loosely woven reed or layers of reed mats, and of course both are covered with tamped mud. Highly pitched roofs are usually covered with reed mats alone. Certainly, to own a house made of mud was to count oneself among the village elite.

100

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Bayt: The Village Home Mud houses were rare among the Mi’dan who lived on the edges of the marshes, and nonexistent among those who lived in the marshes at the beginning of this study. On the other hand reed houses or some kind of reed lean-to structures could be found in quite a few Beni Hasan compounds. The pisé mud house or mudbrick house was inevitably but a single room with a door opening from the courtyard to the front of the house and often a door opening from the back of the house to what one might regard as a sort of inner courtyard where the women could go about their work without interruption. If there was no door to the rear there was at least a window-like opening which allowed cross ventilation. Front doors were sometimes made of wood or of wood and tin, but windows and back doors were more likely to be closed with reed mats. Window frames and door frames were set in the outer face of the wall, and windows and doors opened inwards.This eliminated the need for door or windowsills. The interior of the house, which was regularly used as living quarters, was minimally provided with a work platform, hearth, and a bitumencovered place for water and salt jars. Smoke from the hearth escaped through a well-placed window or a hole in the roof or side of the wall which could be closed in rainy weather.The bayt could be cleared of such mundane household items as food containers and cooking pots, and the floors covered with reed mats atop which woven carpets were rolled out along the walls and topped with kilim-covered pillows to receive guests. When the husband was entertaining his male friends, the women cooked outside in the tannur shelter (see p. 106-7) if one existed, or in a mud or reed hut or lean-to. As might be expected, population increases within the family unit could lead to a great deal of friction when all members lived together in an un-partitioned room. As a result separate structures were often built, sometimes as lean-tos, to accommodate family activities, and annexes were often constructed to house married sons and their families. A sheltered tannur with workbenches could become the main cooking area. Alternately, a kitchen hearth was built in a lean-to or separate structure. Most crafts required at least a semi-protected work place usually built of reeds. Accommodations for livestock might also required some kind of additional structure. Rarely, a separate structure was built for sons and their brides. Usually they were housed in additions or annexes to the original bayt.These additions inevitably opened into the courtyard, not into the original family structure. Despite close living the privacy of each family was strictly protected except in the courtyard, which was a communal activity area. The layout of the courtyards of both mud and reed (see p. 166–7) structures, and their general contents were quite similar. A major difference occurred because of the type of livestock kept and the size of the individual

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

101

herd.The courtyards of the Mi’dan who kept water buffalo and the Beni Hasan who kept cattle or large numbers of sheep were significantly larger than other courtyards in the community. Both the floors of houses and those of the courtyards were made of mud or dirt packed by the constant traffic of the inhabitants. In dry weather the floors were often sprinkled with water to keep the dust down, and they were frequently swept with brooms to clear away any debris. Dogs devoured anything edible before the courtyard could be swept. This included the feces of small children, who usually wore only a shirt. Often the dogs would lick the children’s bottoms clean as well.The reason for the domestication of dogs is often given as their hunting and guard capabilities.Their function as garbage and feces disposal agents in the community is often overlooked.

Persistence and Change Men built mudbrick and pisé architecture, without much change in construction detail throughout the period of this study. In the late 1960s and 1970s mud structures became more common in Mi’dan villages as Mi’dan households moved out of the marsh and onto the land at its margins. By the late 70s it was difficult to tell a land-based Mi’dan village from one of the Beni Hasan except for the presence of water buffalo in the courtyards and the multitude of boats at the edge of the water. Comparatively little building occurred over the course of this study and little was necessary. Population was controlled in the late 1960s/early 1970s by a high mortality rate, especially among young children, due both to lack of food and the reluctance to seek medical attention several hours distant from the village. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, in preparation for and during the Iraq-Iran war, there was heavy conscription in the area, and few of those conscripted returned. During the war fewer large mud structures were undertaken, and repairs to those already built were often postponed. When building did take place an older man would supervise, but women would do most of the work. In the mid- to late-1980s the Mi’dan abandoned their homes and villages to seek shelter in Iran.The Beni Hasan were able to acquire neighboring Mi’dan houses and compounds, as well as livestock, for extremely nominal sums. When the Bedouin ceased to make the area a stop on their seasonal migrations, the Beni Hasan acquired the rights to the once-seasonal pasturage made more or less permanent by the drying up of the marshes. One major change over the period of this study was the distribution of homes and their arrangement in village or tribal contexts. Even at the beginning of the study, two villages of one tribe or, for that matter, of two different tribes, could exist right next to each other with no more

102

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

space between them than between houses or compounds within the villages. The space separating them could widen, but it could also move into the territory of one village or the other as population fluctuated and one village grew smaller while the other enlarged. Abandonment of several house in a village can leave a family seemingly isolated in no-man’s-land but structurally still a part of the village to which it was joined in the past, or it could leave a family closer to an alien village than a village to which it belonged. Boundaries between adjacent villages of the same tribe were impossible to define, and it was more and more difficult to distinguish villages of different tribes when they were situated close together. People of different villages and even from different tribes assimilated each other’s building styles and compound arrangements, leading to a general conformity of style. In the late 1980s, with the withdrawal of the Mi’dan, it was strange indeed to look out from the site at the same villages and houses which had once housed two tribes and now housed but one. In 1968 the cheapest constructions were made of reed, the middle range were mudbrick and mud, and the most expensive were baked brick or cement block. In 1990, the drying up of the marshes had caused the giant reeds to all but disappear, and with the access provided by the building of new roads, the cheapest construction material, cement block, was easily obtainable everywhere, and the most expensive was reed. In an experiment we abandoned a small mudbrick building on the site, telling the guards that anyone who wished could have any part of it. The first thing to go, understandably, was the roof, for we had used roof beams made of wood which we had purchased in Shatra, and wood of any kind was very scarce. With the beams went the mats that covered them. The mud bricks went more slowly.The only restriction on their taking was my request that whoever wanted them should tell me for what purpose. They went for repairs to existing structures, both mudbrick and pisé, a stand near the hearth to hold cooking pots, a stand in the corner for water and salt jars, and an uncovered bin inside the bayt for holding bedclothes during the day, a raised door sill to keep out water which leaked in the door during the rainy season, a chicken coop, a baby bed with low walls to keep the baby from wandering if it awoke untended, and a room divider. Everything, including the foundation, disappeared in fewer than four weeks.

Archaeological Impact Knowing how a modern structure takes shape gives the archaeologist a concrete sense of the complexity and magnitude of the building task. It also affords a template against which one can gauge the expertise of ancient builders in avoiding known modern pitfalls such as improper structural

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

103

design, faulty drying of the mud, unsuitable making and laying-up of bricks, and amateurish or inept plastering. In addition, by giving us some idea of the time and energy required for acquiring the basic materials, their necessary modifications and the building of a modern edifice, it provides us with a basis for figuring the value of ancient structures to the people who built them. Certain building techniques encountered in the ancient world are sometimes imperfectly understood and gain new resonance when we are aware of their modern purpose. The lack of mortar in the vertical joints of some ancient buildings at al-Hiba, and the consequent difficulty this causes in neatly removing the plaster to reveal the underlying brick faces could possibly be an intentional device, as in modern times, to make the plaster adhere more tightly. Matting between courses of ancient brick also occurs at al-Hiba, and although one might reject the modern explanation for that device as the sole interpretation, it is certainly a reasonable possibility that matting was placed between courses of mud to increase bonding between sections and to help stop the absorption of salts from the surrounding soil. Studying village housing in the same area for over 20 years made us acutely aware of how quickly things can change without leaving much evidence in the archaeological record. The modern layouts of the villages of the Mi’dan and the Beni Hasan and the changing arrangement of houses in the landscape as a result of alterations in population remind us of how hard it can be to assign labels of affiliation to individual structures in a community in constant flux. In periods of general homogeneous design a given house can easily accommodate a family of either tribe. In 1990, when the area population had declined markedly, some herdsmen took possession of abandoned houses next door and by knocking out a few bricks or wall sections to make wider doors converted them into substantial shelters for their animals. It would be equally difficult to assess the rapid change that took place in the value of building materials. In 1968 it was far cheaper to build a house of reeds than of any other material. Pisé mud was the next cheapest and mud brick the most expensive on-site building material. To bring in the more expensive baked bricks or cement blocks would have cost a fortune, as they would have to be transported in boats on the canal. By the mid 1980s water that filled the marshes was already being diverted and there were fewer and fewer stands of the giant reeds increasingly distant from each other and from al-Hiba. As reeds became scarcer, they became more expensive. Meanwhile roads were being built on land reclaimed from the marshes, and the government built a serviceable road leading from Shatra to al-Hiba. Cement blocks were being made in large quantities and now that the shipping costs were negligible it was the cheapest building material to be found in the area.The possibility of such rapid changes in valuation need to be

104

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

kept in mind if one is to use construction materials to describe villages in terms of class structure or power hierarchy.

Large Mud Ancillary Structures Walls of Mud Pisé and mudbrick walls are constructed in the same fashion as the house walls described above.These walls, which are used for animal pens, to separate one family’s property from that of another family, or to ring a courtyard for privacy and security, occasionally have built-in niches for storage vessels. Modern walls of what appear to be plano-convex bricks can be found along the banks of canals or irrigation channels, and because of their association with Early Dynastic architecture they are quite startling (Figure 6.2). These walls are made of lumps of mud set on edge in a herringbone pattern, a model also closely associated with Early Dynastic times. Each lump consists of a shovel full of mud, and its plano-convex shape results from the form of the shovel paddle. Whenever possible, this is the kind of wall a villager prefers to build and maintain for it is much simpler and less time consuming than erecting a

Figure 6.2 A modern plano-convex mud lump wall.

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

105

wall of mud brick or pisé. Two simple movements of the shovel, digging and lifting to the proper position, are all that is required to build or repair such a wall as the digger simultaneously removes from the channel the silt which builds up over time and blocks the movement of water. The simplicity of the process and the marked resemblance of the finished wall to ancient building techniques has raised interesting questions over the years. There is certainly, however, no continuity between the plano-convex walls of the modern village courtyards, which exist because of the modern shape of the shovel, and the plano-convex bricks of the Early Dynastic period. Although they look alike from a distance, they are very different.

Troughs for Livestock Cats, dogs, chickens, turkeys, and the like are fed or watered in a sun-dried mud sahan or a potsherd from a broken water jar. Close to al-Hiba where most livestock has easy access to the marsh or canal, many families find watering troughs unnecessary. Other families, especially those with sheep that are penned into the courtyard overnight, have built narrow mud troughs which are used both for feeding grain in the winter and for watering their livestock year around.These troughs are inevitably built alongside an interior wall in the courtyard giving the sheep access from one side only. Occasionally a family will provide something similar for their cattle, but most families who raise cattle have incorporated a part of an irrigation channel or even an edge of the marsh in the courtyard where the animals can find something to drink during part of the year. In some villages to the northwest, however, large, oblong watering troughs of pisé are built of local mud. Men prepare the mud for troughs in a trench cut near the building site and partially filled with water. They shovel part of the dirt with about an equal amount of straw or chaff by bulk into the trench where a group of workmen or family members walk back and forth trampling and kneading the mixture.They shovel the mixture out of the trench as it is needed to build up the trough, a little at a time.They allow each layer of mud to partially dry before adding another.When the walls are from 30 to 40 cm high, the builder packs some of the mud mixture between them and carefully smoothes and compresses this floor. He continues the walls layer by layer, until they reach their intended height, at which point he once more carefully smoothes the finished trough inside and out. The largest such structure seen in the area measured 5.42 by 1.25 m on the interior and was built to water cattle. These mud troughs do a good job of watering livestock. When water is first put into them it turns a medium-brown color with rather gritty consistency. Left alone for a few minutes, the grit and dirt settle back to the bottom of the trough, providing reasonably clear liquid for the animals.

106

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Sheds, Lean-tos, and Large Tannur-shaped Structures A variety of structures, in addition to the bayt, are usually found in the family courtyard. Among the principal structures are those for cooking, a separate room for a son and his wife, shelters for animals, and for storage (Figure 6.3). These buildings can be made of mud or of reed and come in a variety of sizes. They can be oval, square, or rectangular in ground plan with flat, slanted, or arched roofs. Rectangular or square mud structures most often house either a new family in which case it is likely to be attached to the main house, or a kitchen which is likely to be a separate building. Structures to serve both functions are more often built of reeds because at the beginning they were cheaper. Lean-tos built against the courtyard wall or one of the inner courtyard structures and sheds, most often with arched roofs, built anywhere in the courtyard, are almost always used for animal shelters or for storage. Storage buildings often have a series of bins made of mud or mudbrick walls about 1 m tall enclosing spaces 1 to 2 m wide and 3 to 4 m long. These bins are usually used for the storage of fodder or reed and straw for use as fuel. Sometimes they are used for storage of household food items in various kinds of containers. Buildings which look like a very large tannur or storage jar, and are made in the same fashion, are used for a variety of purposes. Such truncated

Figure 6.3 A storage facility for animal fodder.

MUD ARCHITECTURE AND ANCILLARY STRUCTURES

107

Figure 6.4 A chicken coop in the foreground with a stack of dung patties on the left.

conical structures can be built over a regular tannur to provide shelter for the baker during the winter rainy season. It is made high enough to permit a woman to stand upright and wide enough to afford walking space around the centrally located oven. Usually one or more windows are cut in the upper part of the structure to allow the smoke to escape. The roof is made of reeds laid flat across the top and covered with a thick coat of mud. Occasionally one sees a truncated cone of this size or larger used as a hut, as an addition to a reed house, or as the central core of a lean-to-type reed structure. Slightly smaller structures of this type, with a hole of appropriate size cut in the sidewall to furnish access, are commonly used as chicken or turkey coops (Figure 6.4).

108

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 6.5 A storage facility for dung patties with a rare metal manqala in the foreground.

Piles of forage, straw, or cut young reeds and grasses, as well as conical stacks of dung patties look like buildings in the courtyard. The forage is often covered with reed mats and the dung patties are plastered with mud in the same fashion as mud structures (Figure 6.5).

Bed Platforms During the extreme heat of summer, villagers tend to spend evenings outside their houses. They construct sleeping platforms in their courtyards to raise their bedding high enough above the ground to avoid disturbance from household animals and ground-dwelling pests (Figure 6.6). Free movement of air beneath the bed is said to have a cooling effect. Foundations for these platforms consist of a series of parallel pisé walls, about 2 to 2.5 m long and 30 to 40 cm thick at the base. These are built about 50 to 60 cm apart and vary between 40 cm and 1 m in height.Women lay reeds across this foundation to form the platform proper and place bedclothes atop them to make sleeping more comfortable (Figure 6.7). During the winter, when the structure is no longer used, the reed platform is often used for fuel and the foundations, fall into disrepair. The following summer necessary repairs are made to the foundations and new reeds are cut in the marshes and laid over them.

Figure 6.6 A bed frame with its bundled reed mattress. On the left a tiniya covered with a tabag.

Figure 6.7 Ancient miniature models of mud and reed beds on exhibit in the Baghdad Museum in 1973.

110

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Persistence and Change Large mud ancillary structures survived throughout the entire research period.All were constructed by men until the Iraq-Iran war. During the war fewer large mud structures were undertaken and repairs to those already built were often postponed. In the late 1980s cheap, folding metal bed frames appeared on the market and threatened to replace mud sleeping platforms. This trend was reversed after a rather stormy spring in which numerous sheets of ground lightning awakened the village populations to the danger of sleeping on metal. We used folding metal beds on the excavation, and I remember awakening suddenly one night in a storm and noting that the person on the other side of the tent, in a similar bedstead, was bent like a folded paper, touching his shins to his face. Seconds later I realized that I was inadvertently in the same position. Ground lightning had traveled up the metal legs of the beds and struck both of us.

Archaeological Impact Almost all mud ancillary structures are built on top of the courtyard floor without foundations of any sort. Except for rooms for habitation and kitchen they tend to be rather ephemeral and suffer from a lack of the constant replastering and repairs characteristic of houses. As a result they are often rebuilt in the same spot or transferred somewhere else that seems more convenient. It would be difficult, especially when materials are re-used, for a future archaeologist to trace and date the various changes that have taken place in a single courtyard over the 22 years of our presence.

Plate 1 Village of Said Tahir.

Plate 2 Canal of Abu Simich near flood stage.

Plate 3 Boat path through the marshes.

Plate 4 Toys made by a father to comfort his son.

Plate 5 Khalaf Jassam, the excavations foreman from Shergat.

Plate 6 Workmen celebrating discovery of the statuette.

Plate 7 Woman of the Mi’dan making mud pots.

Plate 8 Woman using a tabag as a platform for making dung patties.

Plate 9 Baking rice bread.

Plate 10 Baking wheat bread in a tannur.

Plate 11 The home of a prosperous extended family.

Plate 12 A boy making mud ammunition for his multicolored sling.

Plate 13 The enclave of a sheikh.

Plate 14 The author watching the futile attempt of a husband to follow the directions of his basket-weaving wife.

Plate 15 Camels of the Bedouin engaged in hauling fodder.

Plate 16 Tea, coffee, and conversation in a Bedouin tent at dusk.

Plate 17 Young woman embroidering a blanket for her marriage bed.

Plate 18 Woman weaving a basket on a woven mat.

Plate 19 Men building courtyard walls of reeds.

Plate 20 Water buffalo on the bank of a canal.

Plate 21 Boat builders giving bitumen to women.

Plate 22 Covering a boat with bitumen.

Plate 23 Boatbuilders allowing village man to take bitumen.

Plate 24 Fishermen drying their nets in the marshes.

Plate 25 Churning by shaking a gourd partly filled with milk.

Plate 26 Fisherman making a net out of nylon cord.

Plate 27 Fisherman making a net out of nylon cord.

Plate 28 Young man weaving sling.

Plate 29 Young man casting a throw net.

Plate 30 Weaving a rug on a village loom inside a reed shelter.

Plate 31 Mi’dan woman selling the author a rug.

Plate 32 Two styles of village carpets.

7 BAKED POTTERY

T

he only baked-pottery vessel made in the villages near al-Hiba is the kuz used for water or salt. In each village, one or two women make these jars during the summer and sell or trade them to their neighbors. Prices for these vessels in 1968 varied from 50 to 150 Iraqi fills ($.13 to $.39) for a small vessel and from 100 to 300 fills ($.26 to $.78) for a large vessel. Unbaked or sun-dried objects are much more numerous and varied in form than are baked-pottery articles. There are several reasons for this. Unbaked objects can be made by anyone in a short time and require no investment beyond the time of the maker. Baked pottery takes longer to make, requires better clay, greater skill in building up the vessel walls, and some knowledge of the firing properties of the local materials. It also requires an investment in fuel for the firing process. As a result, only a few women make baked pottery as a specialty, and other villagers purchase these wares for cash or through barter. Occasionally a kuz is ordered to fit under a hib. The hib is a large terracotta vessel, now manufactured only by professional potters in the larger cities, and it is used for filtering polluted water (Figure 7.1). The size of the kuz, in this case, dependent on the height of the hib stand, and this height is carefully measured by breaking a reed to the appropriate length. Such orders are rare, for there are few of these water filters in these small villages. Except in this particular instance where a fairly accurate height is a necessity, there are only two recognized sizes, large and small. Under these two rubrics actual size can vary quite considerably. More consistency in size is shown by pots made by a potter in two successive years, least of all in the vessels made by two dif111

112

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 7.1 A hib or water filter on its wooden stand. ferent potters engaged in this craft. Whether used as a container for filtered water from a hib, unfiltered water collected directly from a nearby canal, or for salt, the kuz is highly valued. If kept in a shady place, usually on a part of the floor reinforced with a bit of bitumen, a moderate but continuous evaporation from its porous sidewalls keeps the water cool. Nor does the usefulness of the kuz end when it is broken. From those seen in the village, one can conclude that large chunks broken from the rim do not impede the vessel’s function. When broken into pieces, larger sherds are often used for feeding and watering chickens, cats, and dogs or as containers for small quantities of various household things. Village potters are women, usually of middle age, who are acknowledged to have special talent in making pottery. The basis of their craft is well known by men and women in the village, but specialists can do the job a little better. Making pots offers these women a chance to increase the economic resources of their households, and thus adds prestige to their positions inside and outside the family. On the other hand, potting is not allowed to interfere

BAKED POTTERY

113

with major household tasks such as planting, harvesting, gathering reeds, making fuel cakes, and the like. When the potter is ready to begin making pottery, she lets the other people in the village know by word of mouth. Orders are sometimes given to her directly. At other times information that a particular family might be interested in a new jar filters back through the good services of a neighbor, and the potter must then follow up this lead. Often this initiates an intense bargaining procedure that may last for several days. When she has all the orders she can handle, or as many as she can bake at one firing, the potter starts to work. Special orders are sometimes individually executed, even for a single pot, but such jars are considerably more expensive because of the cost of fuel for firing.According to informants, a village woman will occasionally make her own kuz rather than order one from a professional potter, but this is not very economical and is said to usually arise from serious quarrels between the woman and the village pot maker. No one orders a kuz from a potter outside her own village. I thought the details of pottery making I saw on my first contact with village potters had existed long before my arrival and would quite likely exist well into the future. But I was entirely wrong. I had begun my work with native potters at the time of a major conflict between the professional male potters of the towns with their wheel-thrown pots and the local female potters of the villages with their handmade jars. What I took to be a perfectly ordinary state of affairs was anything but ordinary. The village potters were battling to preserve their craft, income, and status using a wide range of tempers and fanciful decorative schemes. Each potter tried to convince her prospective customers that the temper she used would increase the strength and improve the porosity of her product. She hoped the aesthetics of her new decoration would catch and hold the eye of customers new and old. Neither my informants nor the potters themselves gave any indication that this use of many tempers and decorative schemes was anything out of the ordinary. When I later questioned, “Why didn’t you tell me?” They replied, “But you never asked.” When I returned the following year to find village potters out of business I was completely stunned. It was then that I began to ask the questions I should have asked previously. Their answers were verified by the striking consistency of the older water jars I saw in use while visiting many village houses during my studies. Through the records of what I saw and tidbits of information gleaned from long rambling discussions of the immediate past with a variety of villagers, I was able to reconstruct the course of this pottery revolution and local potters’ attempts to preserve market share. As a result, what follows is a reconstruc-

114

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

tion of what took place before I began my study. It is based upon discussions with potters and informants and close examination of the works of many potters made in the years before the project began. Later I will give an account of the dramatic changes taking place at the time of my arrival on the scene in temper and decoration and the local potters’ futile efforts to avert what was for them a major calamity. I did not observe, then, the construction of undecorated water jars with a more or less standard temper, but that this was originally the case is clearly confirmed by the many pots from that period which have survived.The remainder of the section on making baked pottery did not change, and I witnessed it on many occasions during my first season on the site.

Making Baked Pottery Collecting Mud The village potter collects mud for baked vessels with extra care. It comes from the canal banks or the edge of the marshes, as does the mud for sundried vessels, but she is more particular in her selection. She searches for mud unmixed with debris, often digging beneath the surface to find a quality that satisfies her. She then wraps the mud in damp cloth and carries it back to her house. It can be used immediately or put aside in a cool place still wrapped in moist rags. As with the mud for sun-dried vessels, there is no intentional curing process.

Adding Temper The kind of temper consistently used in all baked pottery is coma, or those hairlike appendages attached to the seeds of the reed.This material is available in quantity for reeds grow prolifically in the marsh area. The potter collects the reed pots when they are near maturity from the neighboring marshes and stores them until they are needed. She carefully works the temper into the clay by hand through kneading and wedging.When sufficient clay is prepared in this fashion, she puts it in a handy container, a pail or pan, and places a broken ripe reed pod on top for easy access.As she selects each handful of clay she takes a little extra coma with it and works it into the clay at the last minute.

Constructing the Vessel The potter carefully molds to shape and size a thick circular disk of mud on an old potsherd, a piece of flat metal, a section of reed mat, or anything which can be easily turned on the ground. She then pushes downward with the back of her left hand or clenched fist in the center of the disk, using the fingers of

BAKED POTTERY

115

her right hand to pull up and form the first level of the sidewalls, usually about 10 cm high.When this base section is roughly fashioned, she uses both hands and fingers to equalize the thickness and improve the angle of the sidewall, to improve the symmetry of the interior opening, and to smooth and finish the entire section.The base section is usually very thick and solid, and when completed is put in the shade and allowed to dry for one or two hours. When the base section has dried slightly, the potter adds the next stage. A handful of mud with additional coma, carefully kneaded and then rolled in the palms of the hands, is then worked with the fingers into a short, flat strip of appropriate thickness, and applied to the sidewalls of the base section (Figure 7.2). She joins the new section with a firm downward pressure of her fingers, inside and out, while the pot is turned on its mat or potsherd to afford the potter easy access. Usually two or three short, flattened strips of mud 4 to 6 cm in height are used for the first course. Later courses require a greater number of clay strips as the belly of the jar curves outward. Coma from the reed pods tends to collect in little balls, even when the mud is well kneaded, and these must be pulled out as the potter works.The potter either smoothes the mud from above downward to cover the subtraction, or uses a new bit of mud from the pail to

Figure 7.2 A man building a pot with strips of clay under the supervision of his wife, who refused to be photographed.

116

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 7.3 Joining the strips with downward pressure. make the necessary repair (Figure 7.3). The partial pot is allowed to sit for another hour or two, while the first course of clay dries, and then an additional course is added. Each course of clay is approximately 5–6 cm high.After the second course, she carefully smoothes the pot with her wet fingers or with a ball of muddy coma, and sometimes with a reed stick, to obliterate signs of juncture inside and out. At this point she usually puts the pot away to dry overnight. An attempt to continue to build the vessel on a wet base would result in its collapse. The next day the potter continues the construction of the pot one level at a time. During the joining of each course to its predecessor, she uses her hands alternatively as anvils and forming agents, inside and out. Many water jugs do not have handles, but smaller ones of portable size sometimes do.To make a handle, the potter rolls tempered mud between her palms to form a thick rope-shaped piece, one end of which is flattened into a short strip of the same kind used in building the sidewall. She makes this strip a part of the sidewall at the beginning of the construction of the third

BAKED POTTERY

117

Figure 7.4 Beginning the handle. from last course. She holds this strip in place by means of the additional wedges adjoining it, to which she carefully attaches and smoothes the strip. The potter bends the rolled extension to the appropriate angle (Figures 7.4 and 7.5), and allows the vessel to dry.Two or three hours later, when the next to last stage is being applied, she prepares another roll for the handle. It is somewhat thicker than the first, and is not flattened at either end. She bores a hole in one end with the second finger of her right hand so that the new roll will slip over the semi-dried roll already in place. She puts the new roll over the old and firmly anchors the two with a downward pulling motion of her hand.The potter then applies a thick coating of clay around the juncture point and carefully smoothes upward and downward to make certain the joint is a good one, and also to encourage the new part of the handle to stay in its proper position during the next drying period. She makes another roll with a flattened end and builds it into the final course. She makes this roll thicker than either of the previous ones, bores a hole with her finger, slips it over the handle section already in place, and fastens it to the second roll in the same way she fas-

Figure 7.5 Building up the handle.

Figure 7.6 Fastening the top of the handle firmly in place.

BAKED POTTERY

119

tened the second roll to the first.After the last course of the sidewall is finished, the potter applies bands of mud inside and outside of the flattened handle strips and smoothes them into the adjoining sections of the vessel’s sidewall to make certain the top of the handle is firmly anchored (Figure 7.6). When the last course is completed, she carefully smoothes the vessel inside and out. No special attention is given to the lip and rim during this process, and as a result variations in these features are created on the same pot which would seem strikingly different if they were observed from broken potsherds. Whether the potter makes only one pot at a time or makes several at the same time, doing one stage on each in order, seems to depend on individual preference or the potter’s ability to influence several buyers at the same time. There is a tendency to dismiss a rival potter by saying that she is only capable of making one pot at a time or that conversely she makes many pots at the same time and cannot give each her individual attention. There is usually no decoration of any kind applied to the older pots.

Firing the Vessel After the pot or pots have thoroughly dried (from 2 to 4 days in the summer) the potter digs a trench of appropriate size well away from the village houses. She lines the bottom with two layers of dung patties (each patty ca. 20 cm in diameter) laid flat. She places the jars on top of these in the center of the trench and on their sides, and carefully fills the trench with dung patties laid on their edges and leaning at an angle against the vessels to be fired (Figures 7.7 and 7.8). When the pit is completely filled, there will be two layers of dung over the vessels’ tops.The potter then lays an abundance of small dried reeds around the patties and starts the fire.The reeds burn with a hot, intense flame that ignites the slower burning dung patties. In about 10 minutes the patties are burning brightly, and in about 15 minutes the whole becomes a mass of red-hot coals. At this point, the potter adds more dung cakes, and she continues to do so at intervals of about 10 to 15 minutes for a period of one to two hours. A normal firing of 5 pots requires from 350–450 dung patties which cost altogether about 350450 Iraqi fills ($.40 to $.59) if purchased on the open market. Make no mistake, dung was an important commodity. While dining in one of the villages with friends, we were disturbed by an outburst from the edge of town. After heated verbal exchanges, two men drew their knives and were prevented from using them only by the tears of their wives and children and the swift action of their fellow tribesmen who intervened to keep them apart. The argument was over the droppings of a single water buffalo on her way to the marsh. Before the child of the buffalo’s owner could collect the dung in her basket, the daughter of a neighbor swooped in and gathered it up. Peace was restored when the manure went to its proper owner.

Figure 7.7 Placing the completed vessel on top of the dung patties in the firing trench.

Figure 7.8 Adding dung patties to the burning fire.

BAKED POTTERY

121

When the potter finishes hand feeding the fire, it is allowed to burn itself out and left to cool slowly over night. She removes the baked pottery the next morning, often with two sticks, as the surface is still too hot to be touched comfortably. It is most important that the vessels be absolutely dry before firing in this manner, for any moisture in the clay would cause the vessel to crack under the quick and intense heat of the firing process. Considerable difference was noticeable in the color of the kuz, as measured on the Munsell Soil Color Charts (Baltimore, 1954), depending on the length of time that the fire was actually fed.When the fire was fed for an hour only, the pottery emerged colored 5yr 6/4 light reddish brown, but when fed for two hours, the color was 5y 7/2 light gray. In the case of the reddish brown pottery, those parts of it facing away from the center of the trench often showed a whitish surface describable as 10yr 8/3 or 7/3 very pale brown. Although one might expect that an individual potter would be consistent in the length of time that she hand-feeds her fires, this is apparently not the case. Informants and potters agree that potters gauge the number of dung patties needed for the firing and fill the trench with as many of these as possible. They hand feed only those left over from the original estimate. Therefore, if the trench is a little larger at one firing the hand feeding process is shorter, but if the trench is a little smaller, the fire is fed for a longer period.

Curing the Vessel When the pottery emerges from the kiln it is not yet ready for use.The potter first thoroughly moistens it with water, usually on the canal bank, and then liberally rubs clean mud all over its inside surface with sufficient pressure to force the mud into any cracks or imperfections in the vessel. She then scrapes out the excess with her fingers, fills the jar with water, and allows it to sit for one or two days. At the end of this period the vessel is rinsed several times with fresh water and is finally ready for service (Figure 7.9).

Persistence and Change Village potters made two changes in their construction techniques my first year on the site. One was in the temper used, the other concerned decoration (Figure 7.10). Every potter in the vicinity changed one or the other or both. Furthermore they vigorously suggested that the changes they had made dramatically improved their pots. The potential for increased material advantage is a great impetus for change. One maker of baked pottery added a new ingredient to her pottery in addition to coma, the traditional temper. She claimed, to prospective buyers that the new temper, water buffalo dung, made her pottery significantly better then her

122

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 7.9 The finished kuz new style.

competitor’s. Because she successfully lured buyers away from them and held her own against the male potters in the market towns, other village potters began adding something new and distinctive to their own tempers. This change resulted from a deliberate attempt to influence the market in favor of a specific product. Water buffalo manure and straw chaff from the threshing floor are available in every village, while dried reed stalks from the nearby marshes are easily crushed to small fragments in the palms of the hands. One woman even used crushed potsherds as temper. She collected them from lightly or incidentally baked objects, such as abandoned ovens. She first broke these into fairly small pieces with a stone, and then crushed them into smaller fragments in a mortar made of bitumen-covered sun-dried mud. Among the potters interviewed at this time (totaling about 12 to 14) all used coma and four of them used coma alone.Two potters added crushed reeds or straw chaff interchangeably, one added crushed reeds, one added cow manure and chaff or crushed reed, and, as noted, one added ground potsherds. Elaborate claims were made for increased sturdiness and durability of the finished product on the basis of these various tempers. However, as I observed at the time, these claims had little basis in reality.

BAKED POTTERY

123

Figure 7.10 An old-style kuz.

Meanwhile, more and more wheel-thrown water jars of a uniformity of shape and size that could not be matched by the village potters appeared in the suq of each market town (Figure 7.11). As the number of these jars increased, their prices decreased and all village potters were threatened with a loss of income. In response the village potters began to make their wares with great variation in form and decoration in addition to varying the temper. Although each variation was in one sense an expression of the potter’s individuality, it was also a deliberate attempt by the potter to make her jars attractive enough to hold market share against the encroachment of the wheel-thrown examples. Broken bits of china, glass, and even plastic may be inserted in a pattern. Bands of clay may be applied and impressed with the fingers or incised with a sharp reed stick. Barbotine decoration may be applied, and the vessel can be incised directly on its shoulder or belly. Perhaps the most amazing decoration of this time is a pattern from the Early Dynastic period which the potter presumably copied onto her vessel from an ancient potsherd found on the mound. Decoration and the choice of temper used seem to be the two areas where the potter expresses her own individuality and in the former at least, her originality as well. A potter of this period seldom decorated two pots in

124

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 7.11 Wheel-thrown water jar from a nearby market town.

identical fashion, but apparently there was a certain uniformity or sufficient similarity to allow any villager to identify the particular maker of the kuz at a glance. None of these changes succeeded and the village potters continued to lose ground to the town-made ware. In a year or two local potters no longer made baked pottery, even for themselves.To do so would be to spend time and money foolishly, for a kuz in the suq could be purchased for much less than the cost of the dung patties needed to bake a home-made example. It was an especially difficult time for the potters themselves who had grown accustomed to added income from their craft and the increased status this afforded them in the family and in their villages. In the world of so many opportunities in which we exist today it is hard to understand the depth of despair brought about by this change in the potters’ lives. One old lady, who was reluctant to talk to me about making pottery in the past, said “Then I was someone, now I am nothing.”

BAKED POTTERY

125

Archaeological Impact Some interesting questions arise from watching this competition among potters. How would a future archaeologist understand this sudden blossoming of new kinds of temper and a multitude of new decorative schemes in handmade wares much less their subsequent rapid replacement by more uniform, undecorated, wheel-thrown pots? Changes in pottery have always been considered one of our most sensitive indicators as they usually occur rather rapidly and often reflect the taste of the community.Would future archaeologists see these changes at al-Hiba as a reflection of village taste, or would they recognize it for what it was, a rather sophisticated business ploy in the attempt to hold or increase market share? Such sudden and sweeping change as we witnessed in the villages, not once but twice in a little over a two-year period, might convince archaeologists that it was the result of some truly catastrophic event when in fact, aside from the potters who suffered the loss of their occupations with all that implies, it had minimal impact on villagers’ daily lives. Clearly immense change in pottery need not always imply enormous change in society. We may never know for certain if such things as modern claims for the beneficial effects of a certain temper or the varied methods employed in building a series of pots played a role in the pottery production of Early Dynastic times.We can conjecture, however, that something of the sort existed when we discover technological innovations unaccompanied by improvement in results or ease of manufacture. An important part of this study was the way it supplemented our study of the ancient Sumerian pottery at al-Hiba. Increased attention to variety of form and manufacture led us to speculate that we might have some evidence for a home pottery industry at al-Hiba in Early Dynastic times.A small quantity of handmade, baked-pottery potsherds have been found in Early Dynastic levels, and it seems curious that professional potters would throw most of their vessels on pottery wheels while making a few similar shapes by hand.The firing of these potsherds is markedly different from the accidentally fired, sun-dried mud containers and shows far greater variety than do those potsherds from wheel-made pots.This same noticeable difference is characteristic of modern trench firings, where the length of the firing is often accidental.Although this evidence is not conclusive, it seems possible, given the ubiquitous nature of the necessary raw materials, that a modest home pottery industry flourished in the Early Dynastic period. Although a modern pot was made and purchased for a particular purpose, it usually had multiple functions when new and different ones were damaged or broken into pieces. In other words, the function of the pot is in part determined by its physical condition at time of use.We live in a culture of disposal where even the most minor imperfection leads to discard. It is good to be

126

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

reminded that this does not happen in most cultures.We are not always certain of the basic function or functions of ancient pottery and tend to confuse our analysis of function with our modern experience of similar shapes. Study of function in other cultures can expand our list of options from among which we try to pick the right one to account for a pot’s use in a particular context. One finds a surprising range of variation in size and form among these jars manufactured by modern villagers.The necks can be nearly the same diameter as the vessel body or considerably smaller. Rims can be straight or can curve outward or gently inward, and can occasionally be interrupted by a loosely defined pouring mouth. Lips can be rounded or flattened, and they are sometimes rounded in one part and flattened in another on the same jar.Although one village potter’s works show more consistency than this general picture, the range of variation is still very wide. It is not unusual for one side of a single vessel to show a different profile and/or lip treatment on the other side. This same broad variation occurred among our ancient potsherds as well, especially those representing ancient “bowls” and “cups.” In addition to the fact that these vessels are made in many sizes and are often very carelessly thrown, the bases of these forms are string-cut, usually tapped, and sometimes wedged. Tapping the base on a flat surface after removing it from the wheel assures that the vessel will be able to stand upright, but it can also increase the size of the base and create irregularities in the base’s diameter. Sometimes it causes deformities in the sidewalls themselves, for they can partially collapse if the base is tapped too hard or the clay is too moist. It is these changes to the bases and sidewalls that show that a pot has been tapped. If the vessel could still not stand upright, the potter sometimes added a small wedge of clay to the base to correct the imbalance before firing. As a result these vessels are often highly irregular in form.The largest number of profiles or whole vessels recovered in the excavations were from these conical bowls and goblets. If the diameter of the base or rim of a single whole specimen is taken from two separate starting points, the results are seldom the same. In addition the height, lip treatment, surface color, and even the entire profile of the pot can be very dissimilar if taken at different points. The range of variation in a single ancient pot can be as great as 5 cm in rim diameter, 3 cm in base diameter, and 4 cm in height. If these pots were found in non-joining potsherds, the measurable variation would be even greater, and unless one had seen and examined whole pots of this type, one would never believe that they belonged to the same vessel. It seemed totally unproductive to classify these into a large number of types based on minor variations, especially when two potsherds from the same pot could easily end up in two different types.These “bowls” and “cups” are obviously very carelessly thrown. Other forms are sometimes more carefully made, but regular variations of slightly less magnitude occur in medium-size vessels and

BAKED POTTERY

127

much greater variations occur in coarse-ware vats. It would seem, therefore, that a proliferation of types made on the basis of minor differences in shape and size of rims and bases reflects little but the accuracy of one’s measuring tools. We are often not clear about what modern, let alone ancient, people see as the essential characteristics of an established type. What characteristics allowed villagers to distinguish one potter’s products from those of another? I once asked a village woman to make me ten copies of a small sun-dried mud sahan thinking they would make useful ashtrays in our headquarters. When I went to collect them I was astounded to discover that none of them were of the same size. Indeed they ranged from one three times the diameter to half the diameter of the example I had given her.The important characteristic of the sahan for her was the overall shape.As I had ordered ten of them, she was going to make sure I had one of appropriate size for any need that might arise.The three “tabag” (pp. 47–50, 135) and two “quffa” in local parlance clearly demonstrate the importance of shape to the way these villagers see their world. How then could we classify pottery into meaningful categories that actually reflected the working of the human brain.Ann Farkas, Israel Abramov and I set out to try to answer this question by examining 159 examples of conical forms of either complete pots or full profiles found in the al-Hiba excavations.* We entered their specific details into a computer database from which they could be extracted for numeric and graphic analyses in spreadsheets (see Figure 7.12). The shapes drawn on the graph can be considered the prototypes of each group. Questionnaires asked subjects to separate the drawings of 73 of these conical forms into the appropriate categories they perceived. Astonishingly they did not mix the two groups established by the graphic analyses.No matter how many divisions each established, he or she did not put “cups” in the same set as “bowls,” except occasionally, when a pot’s measurements put it on the computer-analyzed borderline between the two categories. It would appear from this study that the actual process by which people determine that one conical form is similar to or different from another is based on simple correlation of lines and angles formed by the pot’s profile. No wonder studies of pottery are accompanied by profile drawings as well as photographs. The colors of the cores and the interior and exterior surface of the pieces analyzed above, determined by finding the reflectance standard on the Munsell Soil Color Charts were a part of the data base of the same study. It was our practice at alHiba to color code every type and sub-type added to our classification system as well as all cataloged pottery under conditions that adequately approximated the illuminant required by the Munsell system. In spite of our care in the field we had noticed over the course of excavations that there were a variety of different notations chosen for very similar colors and that the same individual could chose two different notations * I. Abramov, A. Farkas, and E. Ochsenschlager, “A Study in Classification: Style and Visual Perception,” in preparation.

Figure 7.12 Graphic analyses showing the resulting bimodal frequency distribution based on the silhoutte of each pot defined by the angle that its side forms with the surface on which it sits.

on successive days.This had led to some skepticism about continuating of a difficult and time-consuming process.When during the course of our study the Munsell codes were converted to CIE numbers* it became very clear how similar the chosen Munsell notations were to one another and how remarkably uniform were the colors of our potsherds. Since the pottery from al-Hiba had previously been subjected to a neutron-activation analysis by James H. Frantz in 1971 and to a proton-induced Xray emission analysis in 1973-75,† both of which showed a remarkable uniformity in trace-element composition, our color results are quite startling.They would seem to show no basic differences in kiln conditions, temperatures, or length of firing for a very long time at the ancient site of al-Hiba. Clearly questions posed or suggested by ethnoarchaeological research can make significant contributions to our understanding of the past. * G. Wyszecki and W. S. Stiles, Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae (New York:Wiley, 1982). † E.Williams, S. Bauman,A. Bond, P. Lesser, and L. Ochsenschlager, “Proton-Induced XRay Emission: Applications to Archaeology,” paper presented at the International Symposium of Archaeometry and Archaeological Prospection, Philadelphia, PA, March 16–19, 1977.

8

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

T

he marshes of southern Iraq provide an ideal environment for reeds (gramineae), rushes (juncaceae), sedges (cyperaceae), and other grasses. It is difficult for a botanist to describe or identify the many species of the plants that exist here because of their extraordinary variety and the similarities of their basic structures. During the excavations I became quite interested in the ways reeds and rushes were used by people in the surrounding villages. Reeds are called qasab, rushes are known as bardy, and sedge is kaulan. Although the inhabitants clearly know what kind of growth each plant will produce, the difference between the words qasab and bardy in common usage seems to be based largely on function rather than scientific botany. Small, young reeds can be referred to as bardy when harvested, as can certain sedges. The term qasab is usually confined to the growth of the larger, thicker plants even if in reality they are a variety of rush or sedge. This identification according to function is further borne out.The Mi’dan spend most of the day foraging for fodder to feed their water buffalo at night. During the rainy season when the marshes are too deep for the water buffalo to graze, their owners (often the entire family) must provide the animals with sufficient fodder for both day and night. They harvest grasses, sedges, and the young shoots of reeds and rushes. All of these are referred to as hashish, a word usually translated as “grass.” One should note that people eat certain reeds and rushes. The tender young shoots of reed are chewed like sugar cane to which their taste bears a distant resemblance. Young shoots of certain rushes have a kind of licorice taste, and a hard yellow cake is made from rush pollen in the springtime.The pith from yet another rush is eaten raw and is also cooked in a sweet pudding. 129

130

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The importance of reeds in everyday life is indicated by the many names identifying stages in its development. The reed begins to grow in January with a soft green growth called hashish. In about three months the growths are called angir. It is in these two stages, and until the reeds are about six months old, that the reed beds furnish the best fodder for sheep, cattle, and water buffalo. At about ten months of age the reed still retains its green color and softness but is stronger and taller and is called agga. At this stage it can first be used for making mats although most weavers consider reeds of about one to one and a half years old—jiniba, which is of thicker texture, dry and yellow in color—to be the best for this purpose. Once the reeds reach 18 months they are called rubakh and are dry and crumbly, suitable only for fuel. In spite of the fact that dung patties are manufactured in large numbers and the taller reeds used for architecture are disappearing, small reeds are still the principal fuel of the people in this area.

Mats and Baskets Plaited Mats Practically every adult in the Mi’dan villages is capable of plaiting a mat and will do so from time to time, especially when a special size is needed. Several families of the Beni Hasan who possess little land or few animals in the near-by villages, used to supplement their income solely by plaiting mats. They no longer do so to the same extent, for fishing with nets is a much more rewarding occupation. Men harvest the reeds with a sickle-shaped, toothed knife and cut off the tops and bottoms. Wives, sons, or daughters tie bundles of reeds together and either bring them to the edge of the marsh or load them aboard a boat in which they will be transported to shore. On the shore each reed is skinned, split with a short, curved knife, and peeled. Women then lay ten to twenty sections flat on the ground and pound them with mallets, heavy wooden sticks, or even bitumen-covered pestles until they are pliable. Each stem produces three to six connected strands that can be stored and still retain their flexibility.Anyone can freely collect reeds from anywhere in the marsh, but an individual or a group of individuals may cut a swath around a stand of reeds and thus earn the right to cut everything within that circle without interference from others. When enough material is collected, both men and women plait the mats.They lay out the requisite number of flattened reed strands next to each other on the ground and plait a weft of the same material across them at right angles in a twill pattern of either over two, under two or over three, under three.The ends of the weft are sometimes pointed with a small knife and always turned to create extremely sturdy borders. Mats are plaited in several sizes.The

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

131

usual commercial size is about 1 x 2–3 m. From cut reed to finished mat takes a little more than two hours.The largest mat I saw was about 4 by 7 m. Mats are often sold or bartered to a local merchant whose stock, aside from mats, consists only of basic household necessities.The mat weaver usually receives less from the village merchant in a barter deal, and the merchandise the weaver gets in exchange is usually over priced. Collectors of mats, who regularly ply the waterways in boats, buy the finished mats either from the local merchants or directly from the weavers. They often advance money to the weaver who promises a certain quantity of mats in a certain period of time. It is not unusual for the weaver to over-estimate the number of mats he can produce and fall behind in his obligation, thus increasing his indebtedness. Collectors in turn sell mats to dealers who ship them to market towns throughout Iraq. These mats are used as both floors and roofs, sometimes topped with unwoven reeds, dung, or mud in most houses (see pp. 99). For receiving guests or on special occasions the mats are covered with carpets and pillows. Used between the ground and a mud brick wall or between layers of mud brick, they are thought to inhibit the passage of salt (pp. 99). They are also used for making fences as well as for storage bins for grain and sometimes fodder, usually of a temporary or seasonal nature.A small plaited mat or reed tray serves as the bottom.The sides are formed of reed matting, and the top is covered with another tray or section of reed mat.The top and sometimes the sides are sealed with buffalo dung plaster.

Woven Mats Only one woman in the area in 1969 occasionally made woven mats. In the past, she used finely split rushes twisted into cord for the warp. Today she uses leftover nylon cord bought in Shatra by her husband for his fishing nets. The loom consists of two beams set about 2 m apart and tied to stakes driven into the ground. Each cord of the warp was separately tied to each of the two beams under tension. Finely split rushes were used for the weft, which was passed alternately over and under the successive warp cords by hand, for there was no heddle. Each course was pressed in (rather than beaten in) with a toothed comb similar the one used by carpet weavers.The product she was working on was an oblong about 1 x 2 m, but she showed me other examples of different sizes and shapes, including an oval mat, that she had for sale. These are used over reed mats as a kind of tablecloth on which the food is placed and around which the diners sit. Today these mats have been replaced in many households with squares of oilcloth bought in Shatra. The weaver reported that it was increasingly difficult for her to sell her mats.

132

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

When I visited this family again, two years later, her husband told me he had made his wife give up weaving, and indeed there was no evidence left of the loom she once used. He took special pains to show me a new piece of oilcloth in bright, luminous colors, which they now used for their dining cloth. He told me that there had been talk in the village. People were saying that his family must be extremely impoverished to go on using such old-fashioned eating mats when beautifully patterned oilcloth was available for so little in the market towns.

Plaited Baskets Plaited baskets are still made by most Mi’dan women and some village women.Women maintain that at least in this area everyday basket making was always a cottage craft practiced by women. Baskets are made from both split rushes and split reeds and the plaiting is done in a strip. Split young reeds or rushes, sometimes still green, are made pliable by pounding and then separated into lengthwise sections. The basket maker begins a strip of weaving by bifurcating ll split sections from the top to about 4 or 5 cm from the bottom. They are then interlaced, their bottoms held in the left hand, and the process of plaiting begins (Figure 8.1). The weaver bends the outer two split pieces toward the center, passing them in an over two, under two pattern alternately working from right to center and from left to center. As new sections are needed, they are split, added to the old sections

Figure 8.1 Plaiting reeds into a strip.

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

133

Figure 8.2 Binding the final section to the top of the basket. at the center, and held there with the left hand until they are tightly bound in the course of plaiting.Wider and narrower strips can be made by the addition or subtraction of two or multiples of two sections at the beginning of the plaiting process. Throughout the plaiting if one is using rush (but not reed) the material must be kept moist, usually by occasionally immersing the part being woven in a large pan of water, and by keeping the sections to be added later covered with water until they are needed. In basket weaving the strip should constantly decrease in width, a process that requires careful control. As the weaving progresses, quarter sections are added rather than half sections, and greater pressure is exerted to tighten the plait. Such strips are sometimes tied together with string but baskets made in this fashion are not very sturdy. Usually the strips are bound together in the process of weaving. Unbound edges are strengthened with ribbons made of sections of reed or rush knotted at their ends and rolled in the palms of the hands, over which the outer woven sections are always bent (Figure 8.2). Outer sections of bound edges are passed around the ribbons in the previously woven strip before they are woven into the pattern.This process creates a sturdier join that will with-

134

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

stand a great deal of pressure.They are still less sturdy than the rest of the basket, as a basket almost always disintegrates first at the juncture of the strips. A rolled edge is produced at the top of the basket by bending the top edge of the last strip outward and downward inserting the outer section through the previously woven strands before that section is woven through the cycle. When the cycle is complete, the section is pulled tight and the edge thoroughly secured in its doubled-over position. At the conclusion of the last cycle, the remaining sections are forced through the basket sidewall and tied in a knot. Women make deep and shallow baskets in many different sizes and plait large trays which are used for drying threshed grain in the sun. Baskets are used for transporting goods to market, from the house to the field or vice versa, and from large storage containers in the courtyard to the place where the contents will be used.The smallest-size baskets are made for carrying a lunch usually composed of a handful of dates and a folded disk of wheat bread. Baskets can be tailor made for specific contents such as the oblong tablets of holy mud from the religious center of Najaf that were used by the faithful in prayer.

Wrapped Coil Baskets Usually the coil of these baskets is made from split reeds and the wrapping from split rushes, but they can be made entirely from reed or rush and sometimes from straw. Craftswomen emphasize that proper selection of the wrapping material is of paramount importance to a successful basket.

Figure 8.3 Finishing the edges of a tabag.

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

135

Figure 8.4 A finished saba. The reeds for the core are usually split and pounded. Several split sections are bundled into a coil of appropriate size, which is sometimes loosely tied together in several places to facilitate its use. Coils may be lengthened by marrying additional reed sections into the coil bundles as one begins to run out of coil material. The work always begins at the base with a simple coil or snail, which is often slightly raised at its center. Split rush strips are passed around the latest coil and then through the edge of the previous coil and through the previous coil wrapping which is immediately next to it. An awl made of wood or reed facilitates this process.When the end of a strip of wrapping material is reached, it is tied off on the interior of the basket and a new rush section introduced. If the basket is decorated, the design is made with dyed rush splits. Three forms are commonly seen: the tabaq (a flat tray),* the quffa (a deep dish shape),† and the saba (a jar-shaped basket) (Figures 8.3 and 8.4).The tabaq is used for carrying bulky items atop ones head, for drying small quantities of produce and for winnowing chaff from grain. The quffa is used for hauling small quantities of goods to or from storage jars, for carrying heavier material from place to place and, with bitumen coating on the inside, for collecting fresh dung.The saba is used mostly for storage inside the house. Its contents can be of one substance such as corn or of small quantities of several sub* Note that mud and iron discs of similar shape are given the same name, pp. 47–8 † Note a boat of smilar shape is given the same name, p. 254)

136

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

stances wrapped in individual packages. Sometimes a bitumen-coated saba is used for milking water buffalo or cows.

Other Objects Made of Reeds Double-reed Pipes The double-reed pipe consists of two reed-tubes of approximately 20 cm in length with an outside diameter of approximately 13 mm, and two slightly smaller tubes for the mouthpiece with an outside diameter of approximately 7 mm. The pieces for the body are cut to size and tied together temporarily with string (Figure 8.5). A fire is made in a mangala, and a small portion of bitumen is heated in an old tin can. A small amount of oil is added to give the bitumen the right consistency. This bitumen preparation is used to fill the crack between the two adjacent reeds and is extended over both reeds in the areas where holes will not be made. This process binds the two wide reed tubes permanently together and helps create an airtight seal between the mouthpiece (narrow tube) and the wide tube. Holes are now made in the two reeds forming the body with a nail heated over the mangala fire (Figure 8.6). The vibrating tongue is cut out of

Figure 8.5 Binding with bitumen the two reeds of the double-reed pipes.

Figure 8.6 Making holes in the reed pipes with the pointed end of a hot nail.

Figure 8.7 Adjusting the pipes’ mouthpieces.

138

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 8.8 Playing the double-reed pipes.

the mouthpiece (narrow tube) itself, a construction known as an “idioglot” tongue. The ends of these mouthpieces are slit and tied open with a thread, usually torn from the maker’s khafiya (Figure 8.7). The mouthpieces are put in place and the pipes tried for sound. At this point adjustments may need to be made in the size of the holes or the angle of the slit in the mouthpiece. When the maker is satisfied with the sound he ties a piece of string to each mouthpiece to keep them from getting lost.The string is long enough to allow the mouthpieces to be put in place but also to allow them to be pushed into the slightly larger opposite ends for storage. These pipes usually accompany song and dance and are made and played by men (Figure 8.8).

Reed Boats Simple reed boats can still be seen in the marshes or even on the canals, but nowadays as playthings built by children. They are easily made. A bundle of

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

139

reeds is tied tightly at the top and these top, reeds are bent upward.The bundle is then fanned out somewhat in the center where two or three strong reeds or a piece of wood are wedged across the width of the boat to hold this spreadout shape.The stern of the boat is also tied. Children use these boats for both fun and fishing. Informants claim that larger and more comely boats were once made entirely of bundled reeds and covered on the outside with a layer of bitumen. These boats, they claim, seldom lasted as long as a year. With increased prosperity, everyone who needs one can afford a wooden boat. It would be a great shame, they said, for a man to be seen punting a reed boat.

Reed Cradles Two kinds of baby cradles are made from reeds. One consists of a bundle of reeds tied together at both ends and hung from the rafters so it can be moved back and forth.The reeds in the central part of the bundle are spread apart to create a well that is lined with cloth or raw wool.The second resembles a box made of reed sticks that are laid one on top of the other where the ends meet. The end of each reed stick is tied to the ends of the sticks which rest above and below it with cord. This cradle is usually lined with hay and topped with cloth or raw wool.

Reed Pens Reed pens are made from reed sections about 20 cm long with one end sharpened with a knife.These are regularly employed by the few people in this area who can write, but are also used for drawing sketches or plans in the dust. There are but a few people in the surrounding villages who can both read and write.They are kept very busy helping their neighbors carry on necessary correspondence and helping them fill out public documents.

Bird Blinds In the deeper parts of the marsh, a man can stalk birds holding a bunch of reeds to screen his body.This of course requires timing and a certain coordination to allow him to drop the reeds and raise his gun before the birds escape. More efficient by far is the simple device of tying two short bundles of reeds together in a v-shape with a wedge at the point of juncture to keep the two sides from coming together. A forked stick above the point of juncture provides a place for him to rest his gun. Stems of rushes and grasses are stuck in the bundled reeds to give the whole a natural appearance. Stationary blinds are built of reeds for the netting of birds. Two or three small reed poles are dug into the mud to a depth of ca. 30 cm. For a first-class hut designed for multiple usage, the poles support a short wall of reed mats, with all kinds of rushes, grasses, and fringed reeds

140

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

tied to their front to give them the look of dense marsh foliage. Two holes are made at convenient height for eye and hand: one for viewing the trapping area, one for the cord that will trip the net. In less elaborate structures the mats are omitted and loose brush arranged in a more or less naturalistic way supported by the reed poles. Several people net birds, especially coot and teal, for family consumption. Although they never eat domesticated ducks they sometimes take wild ducks for the table as well. During the winter birds are so abundant that netting is easy work. Although two or three families sell the netted birds quite profitably in the market town of Shatra, the majority of bird netters consider selling birds repugnant to their traditions.

Cords of Twisted Reeds Rope bought in the market towns is nowadays substituted for most uses of twisted reed cord and no one in the area regularly twists reed segments. On the other hand, quite a bit is amateurishly twisted on the spur of the moment to fill a variety of needs. If someone runs out of commercial rope toward the end of a project, he will often finish his project with hand-twisted reeds, thus saving time on the trip to market and money on the price of more rope than he needs.Then, too, if an urgent need for lashing or binding arises, one can usually make an appropriate piece from the raw materials that are certainly plentiful everywhere in the area.

Lavatories Lavatories are seldom seen, but two do occur in the area in connection with the houses of sheikhs, and those built for the excavation were patterned on them.A hole is dug in the ground and mats wound around them in nautilus fashion to make a passageway. Posts made of bound reeds support the mats. A hole cut in the mat makes it possible to see someone else coming down the entrance passageway and so signal them that the facilities are occupied.The excavated holes were very deep and had two planks laid across them to provide a place for one’s feet. The two which already existed in the area were built on the side of the canal.Their holes were shallow and were designed so that the contents could be flushed into the canal periodically with a pail of water.

Temper The ubiquitous reed is a very popular source of temper. Dried reed stalks can be easily crushed in the palms of hands and are often used for temper in making sundried mud objects, bricks, and pisé mud structures. The seed and its hairy appendages which cause it to disperse on air currents, is used widely in making baked pottery, mud toys, and musical instruments and can be used as temper in anything else as well. Often the temper used is determined by what is closest to hand or more readily available at the moment of manufacture.

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

141

Fuel Reeds are the primary fuel in the area. They are especially necessary when a high, quick heat is needed in order to warm the tannur walls or to start less flammable substances. Broken reeds are often used in place of straw in making dung patties, especially when straw is in short supply. The old, dried reeds closest at hand are chosen for both fuel and temper. During the winter, the reeds that covered the outside bed are recycled. In the late summer or fall when reed fences or structures are repaired, the old reeds are carefully set aside in a pile somewhere in the courtyard where they can be accessed easily.

Handles and Pestles Reed sticks are often used for mace and pestle handles. Especially sturdy ones from other parts of the marshes can be bought in the market towns and are preferred, but they are too expensive for most. An hour or so search through the nearby marshes is likely to yield a reed of sufficient diameter and strength to make a good substitute, though it won’t last long. The reed tends to become friable and weak long before the bamboo. Few pestles are made, but every man carries a mugwar or mace everywhere he goes for defense against dogs, sometimes wild boar, and even occasionally against other men.

Poles Poles for moving boats through the water are also made of reed. They are never made of wood, which is considered too heavy and too hard to balance because the usual form in which it is readily available is a somewhat irregular tree branch. It is also far too expensive. Pushing a boat through the water with a pole is not an easy task, nor is it monotonous as the kind of muscular activity varies with the depth of the water. These poles are always capped with a bitumen knob which is designed to help balance the pole as well as provide a stop for the boatman’s hands when he retrieves it after a long push.

Spear Shafts Shafts of fishing spears are usually made of reed although straight pieces of wood are preferred. Finding reed sticks which are strong enough and are of proper diameter is not as easy as one may think in a world of reeds. The best solution is to use the split section of a giant reed and with knife or adze work it into a shaft of oval cross-section. The main problem with reed is that it is frailer than wood.

Soap Ashes from a reed fire are a necessary ingredient in making soap (see pp. 216).

142

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Spindles Both shafts and whorls of the small spindles used for twisting thread and the large spindles used for twisting yarn are usually made of freshly harvested reed. Although the shafts are sometimes made of reed sticks of the appropriate diameter, the usual practice is to split a large reed stick down the middle and modify one side by stripping with a knife to the diameter of the stick considered desirable. The whorl, too, is made from the half section of a split reed by cutting such a section to the length desired. The stick is notched with a knife in the appropriate place. A hole is made in the whorl just big enough to force it down the shaft a little over 1/3 of its length. As the two pieces dry, the juncture becomes all but immovable.

Thread- or Yarn-covered Boxes The cores of these boxes are always made of reed or rush (see pp. 222–3).

Amulets Certain kinds of amulets are made on a reed stick frame.The frame seen most often is of crossed sticks bound together at their juncture with thread or yarn. Less often they are made of four sticks bound together in the same way to form a square frame. All of these have apotropaic powers and most are designed to avert a particular evil threatening the individual or the family of the owner.

Looms Reed is sometimes substituted for the wooden loom parts on those looms used for making smaller objects. Here again they are cut from split sections of reed and shaped into appropriately rounded breast and warp beams, heddle rods, shed sticks, and stakes for holding them in proper position. Many households have a set of these, tied together with yarn, stored in some part of their house where they can be easily retrieved should their use be required. For belt making and the like, the heddle rod and shed stick are sometimes omitted and the cords separated by hand.

Bandages Strips of reed or rush are often used to secure bandages over wounds. The basic material is made from split sections of small reeds or rushes, which are placed in the water until thoroughly soaked and then beaten with mallets until soft and pliable. Once they have been wrapped around the injury several times, the ends can be tied or woven closed. If the bandage is applied while the strips are still moist, keeping the patient from moving for a short time will allow the bandage to dry.The bandage then becomes so tight that it is impossible to remove it without something sharp like a knife.

MATS, BASKETS, AND OTHER OBJECTS MADE FROM REEDS AND RUSHES

143

Persistence and Change Woven mats disappeared as rapidly as toys and for the same reasons. Oilcloth and linoleum-type products had already appeared on the market and were commonly used for eating mats, replacing the old woven reed mats. At the beginning of this project there was but one woman I know of who still made woven mats in the area. She had already lost that special status of craftswomen that comes with earning extra income for the family, as no one was buying her mats. She kept on making them even though she had no buyers because she claimed she enjoyed working on her loom. Meanwhile her husband was convinced that people were talking behind his back about how he was so poor that he could not afford beautiful oilcloth like the rest of the village. He tried to talk his wife into stopping, which she did for a few days, but then she would set up the loom and weave a new mat or two. Convinced that his honor was being questioned for keeping the family in poverty, he tore down her loom piled it in front of the house and set it on fire. I do not believe there was another woven mat produced in the neighborhood. Pestles of reed with bitumen knobs could no longer be seen. They had been replaced by wooden and metal examples from the suq. In the mid-1970s no one saw children playing with reed boats any more. Reed pens had a fashionable renewal when one of the local schoolteachers, an Egyptian, made them for his students because of a lack of supplies for the school. Paper to write on also being in short supply, he taught them their letters in the dirt in the corner of the schoolyard until a new shipment of supplies arrived from Nasiriya. Lavatories of the type discussed above had disappeared because so had the sheikhs who used them. Most people merely did their business behind a tree or in a gully. By the early 1980s material life was improving. Those who still stalked birds had better guns so one could aim from greater distances and one seldom saw blinds. Cords of twisted reed were no longer made at all for they had been replaced by cheap rope and cord that could be bought in the market towns. More and more Mi’dan left the area, and as a result very few baskets were made in the al-Hiba area. When baskets were needed people bought those made of old inner tubes in the towns. If one wanted to buy reed mats in any quantity they also had to be bought in the towns for only one or two families near the excavation continued to make them. In 1990 the only reed products regularly seen were the occasional double-reed pipes, reed temper for mud buildings, thread- or yarn-covered boxes, amulets, the occasional loom, spindles, and bandages for animals. Reed poles and spear shafts were much more expensive as the stands of giant reeds which once populated the marshes were extremely scarce. Of course with the disappearance of the Mi’dan and the marshes there was less use for boat poles and none at all for

144

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

spear shafts. Soap was bought in the suq, as were bandages for human injuries. No one in the immediate area made mats or baskets although both were still available in market town suqs. It was no surprise that mat making had been abandoned. Even when mat making was a thriving business, most people engaged in the craft hated it.They considered it extremely hard work for very little benefit.

Archaeological Impact Evidence for the existence in antiquity of reed objects similar to those used in modern times has been found in many archaeological excavations (Figure 8.9). At al-Hiba, for instance, we have evidence for reed mats, baskets with and without bitumen coating, cords of twisted reeds, and of course the traces of reed temper (both crushed reed and reed coma) used in making pottery. Our modern study which touches on these objects gives us a good idea how these particular things were processed, how much time it took, and what kind of skills were necessary for the craftsmen or craftswomen to possess. Modern evidence can also give us some insight into how these ancient objects may have been used. As a result, archaeologists may find information about individual modern artifacts a useful tool in interpreting similar artifacts from the past.

Figure 8.9 Diagram of plaiting.

9

REED ARCHITECTURE

Buildings Made of Arched Reeds Because of their size and architectural splendor, the grand mudhif built by sheikhs as guest houses many years ago still dominate the horizon as one approaches a village lucky enough to preserve one. But at least in modern usage, it is neither size nor beauty of construction alone that differentiates it from other arched reed structures such as the raba or the bayt. The mudhif is used solely as a meeting place and guest house and for no other purpose.The raba, on the other hand, has an entrance at both ends, a partition (bench or screen) in the middle, and while one end may be used as a guesthouse, the other end is a dwelling. The bayt is strictly a one-room dwelling but may be used to entertain guests when cleared of household paraphernalia and furnished with reed mats and carpets. Both mudhif and raba are sleeping places at night for guests passing through the village. A mudhif is quieter than a raba either day or night, for it is usually built somewhat separate from the rest of the village. It is not only the architecture that is different. A guest in a sheikh’s mudhif will find himself surrounded by staid, stolid, older men properly dressed and on their best behavior. He should not speak unless someone speaks to him, and no matter how emotional he must speak with precision, clarity, and calmness. Conversations are considered and punctuated by silence; jokes and laughter are out of the question. In a raba men of all ages, children, and even occasionally a woman are present. Conversations are loud and boisterous. Spontaneous songs and dances may provide part of the visitor’s impromptu entertainment. 145

146

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 9.1 Guests in a sheikh’s mudhif. Brass coffee pots sit on the edge of the hearth.

In the mudhif everyone has his proper place according to his rank or status and seats himself accordingly (Figure 9.1). The sheikh or his representative will escort a guest to his proper place.When someone enters the mudhif or the raba he greets everyone already there saying “As-salamu ‘alaykum” (peace be with you) and all assembled reply “Wa ‘alaykum is-salam” (and peace be with you). If the person entering has higher rank than you, you must rise to your feet when you greet him. For people of significantly higher rank you should stand completely upright, for those only a little above you it is sufficient to rise a few centimeters off your haunches. All local men know the exact standing of everyone else and treat them accordingly. For an outsider it is more difficult as there is also age status. That means that an old man with lesser social status may outrank a young man of higher social status. Modesty is not allowed. If you choose to sit in a place of lower rank, those of lower rank seated above you will abandon their positions to find a place below you. Heavily sweetened tea is prepared in aluminum kettles and served with a camel-thorn in the spout, which acts as a strainer. Water for tea, coffee, and other needs is usually gathered from alongside the nearest canal or marsh bank. Muddy color, gritty texture, or the nearby floating, bloated corpse of a water buffalo are not likely to be seen as sufficient reasons for changing the place where one habitually gathers water.

REED ARCHITECTURE

147

The ritual of coffee (no more than three small cups of a few drops each of highly concentrated liquid) and tea drinking is the same in any kind of structure. A guest who finds one or two cups satisfactory may shake his cup when he is surfeit and the coffee server will retrieve the communal cup and pass him by. Although three cups of coffee are generally the limit, a very important guest is sometimes offered a second round after an hour or so. In the mudhif of a village sheikh or the tent of a Bedouin sheikh the coffee beans are roasted over the hearth in an iron ladle while stirred with an iron stirrer to assure consistent roasting (Figure 9.2). Once roasted the beans are ground in a metal (usually brass) or wooden mortar with a pestle of the same material. The rhythmic ring of metal striking metal or thump of wood in hollow wood carries a long distance and serves as an invitation to all men who hear it to drop in for coffee. In the raba or in the private home the coffee is sometimes ground in a less expensive mortar made from sun-dried mud, reed sticks, and bitumen. Evaporating the liquid in the coffee pot over the fire, moving the coffee from large to ever-smaller pots until it is ready to be served, produces the rich, concentrated coffee. The first coffee pot in which the new brew is prepared often contains the leavings of the previous brew which adds to the freshly made drink’s bitter pungency.

Figure 9.2 Roasting the coffee beans on the hearth of a private reed house.

148

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Meals offered vary considerably according to who is giving them and where they are held. In a sheikh’s mudhif or tent the meal almost inevitably consists of whole sheep surrounded with mounds of rice served on a huge tray. Grease from the sheep is poured over the rice and should drip from the sides of the tray to indicate the unsparing and plentiful hospitality of the host. The tray and its contents are carried in and set before the diners by two or more men. Men eat with their right hands only, in relays. When a man eats depends on his status and the number of people who can crowd around the tray at one time, sometimes in two concentric circles. Once the men have finished eating, the somewhat depleted contents of the tray disappear into the women’s quarters.When the women are finished the children take their turn, and the leftovers are distributed to the needy.Although the host will eat apart, from a portion saved for him after the men have finished, he or someone he has designated will likely sit next to an honored guest at the first serving and feed him the choicest morsels with his fingers.These choice parts, in descending order of local delicacy, include the eyes plucked from the carcass, the ear lobes with a bit of hair attached, and the rather strong fat from the base of the sheep’s tail. Fat is in short supply in the local diet. This was almost certainly true in Sumerian times as well. In a raba or in a private home the procedure is the same but the main course is likely to be chicken and chicken gravy served either on a large tray or in individual bowls (Figure 9.3). In the private home, however, the host leaves the room once the meal is served and does not return until the meal is finished.This is to remove all pressure from the guest who can then eat as little or as much of any dish offered as he pleases. In all cases hands are washed before and after the meal with water poured over them by the host. It is appropriate at the end of the meal to catch some of this water in one’s hands and use it for rinsing out one’s mouth. During a meal there is no conversation.The objective is to put away the necessary amount of food as quickly as possible. Noises of appreciation such as belching or smacking of lips are considered good manners. Both mudhif and raba are sleeping places at night for guests passing through the village. Usually the host furnishes the guest with a blanket and usually the guest sleeps on one of the carpets which were used for people to sit on earlier. Although an ordinary guest can simply go off to an unoccupied corner of the room, curl up, and go to sleep, it is not considered polite for an important guest to retire until most of the men gathered to receive him have left.These rules do not always apply to foreigners. In one mudhif time went on and on and on with no sign that anyone was prepared to leave. Finally one old man whispered in Muhammad’s ear that there had been considerable discus-

REED ARCHITECTURE

149

Figure 9.3 Laying out dinner for guests in a private home.

sion in the village as to whether Americans slept in their outer garments, and if they did not as to what kind of underwear they wore. A public retirement seemed advisable following which every one drifted off rather quickly with their curiosity satisfied. A mudhif is usually quieter than a raba either day or night. In a raba or any village house there is little privacy, for these structures are built quite close together.A family dispute is likely to be heard by most of the village, and a good number of those listening may offer advice or even take part in the argument.Toilets do not exist in most villages. One simply squats on the edge of a canal, marsh, or, if one is out in the marshes and sufficiently skilled, the edge of a boat. The left hand is used to wash oneself clean with water, which is why it is never used for eating. If in a village, at least one person must accompany a stranger with a mugwar to fend of dogs. When ready to continue one’s journey, it would be an insulting breach of good manners to thank your host for his hospitality. The host, who has helped you in, insisting on carrying your backpack or belongings, will not lift a finger to help you when you leave least he be thought to be anxious to get rid of you.

150

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Constructing an Arched Reed Dwelling We were able to watch and record the building of two arched reed houses for excavation use and one small raba in one of the nearby villages. In building these reed structures, the matter of size was an important consideration in terms of labor. For anything over 5 arches, we were informed, we would need the supervision of a specialist from one of the nearby villages. Candidates for the job all had a fairly sizable mudhif of their own, and the details of building them had been passed from father to son in their families. Sheikh Mersin was chosen to superintend the job. Perhaps a word is in order about the meaning of the word “Sheikh.” Sheikhs with absolute power as in the past no longer existed. A few survived under the auspices of and as officials of the Baghdad government, but with their power greatly restricted and their unequivocal submission to government dictates. Perhaps the closest approximations of the old Sheikhs’ independence were to be found amongst the Bedouin tribal, clan, or lineage chieftains, all of whom were addressed as “Sheikh.” In the villages, the word became a title applied to leaders of all kinds whether they were of religious or secular notability. It was also often used as a conversational form of address in an attempt to curry favor or to try to influence the course of events. Mersin was a son of one of the old Sheikhs who had wielded tremendous influence in the area. Although he had no power except for his ability to persuade and the reputation of his family, he was still accorded the honorific title of “Sheikh” and was respected by the villagers. The mudhif built by Sheikh Mersin’s father in the nearby village was still standing and was very large. The interior floor of this mudhif covered an area 7 m wide by 21 m long.The 11 arches were about 1 m in diameter at their base and the centers of the arch about 15 m above the ground. One hundred and eighteen ribs were tied to the arches as a foundation for the reed mats. According to Mersin, it took l70 men three weeks to erect this structure. Members of the tribe freely contributed their labor in gathering the reeds, constructing the building, and weaving the mats that covered it. Indeed, according to Mersin, individual families and lineages competed with one another in the speed and excellence of their work.The memory of individual contributions was fresh and both Mersin and the men of the village could still point out which arch was contributed by whom and could recall the electric atmosphere with each group working at full speed while exhorting their fellow workers to greater effort and taunting their competition. The sheikh, Mersin’s father, furnished whatever material was not locally available and provided two meals a day for the workmen engaged in the preparation of raw materials or construction that day.When the building was finished. Mersin’s father gave a banquet to which all the luminaries from the surrounding area as well as those tribesmen who had constructed the mudhif

REED ARCHITECTURE

151

were invited. Older villagers claimed to remember the words of praise heaped on them by their own sheikh in front of this distinguished company as well as the praise from the assembled notables. Nowadays, although Mersin still occupied a prime position in the hierarchy of seating arrangements in the mudhif, it was maintained by the men of the village as a meeting place for discussing current events, addressing problems that affect the village such as taxation and land problems, and making decisions about individual and village responsibilities. It is also a place for gossip, which is used to reinforce the interlocking principles of moral value and social order. The mudhif is falling into serious disrepair and its future is in doubt. Although its survival is important to the village, neither the village nor Sheik Mersin have sufficient money to repair it.Without repair it will surely collapse as more water leaks through the rotting roof and weakens the arches, but older men still use it daily as a social gathering place. Some thought has been given to erecting a smaller mudhif when this one falls, but so far it is only talk. Few sizable guesthouses, we were told, had been built in the area in the last 20 years, and none of these were of the size and splendor of a the major mudhif of the past. Sheikh Mersin engaged 7 men who would help him build our mudhif and 12 women who would strip the reeds of their leaves and carry them from the marshes to the building site (Figure 9.4). It took six days to build a 7arched mudhif from start to finish.

Figure 9.4 Women bringing reeds from the marshes and plaited mats to the building site.

152

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The ground plan was laid out with rope and stakes outlining the interior space that would result when the building was finished. All measuring throughout the building process was based on forearm lengths (dhiraa’) and hand spans (shibir). Reed sticks were cut to Mersin’s forearm length and hand span and used throughout in the measuring process. One man, carefully supervised, was put to digging the holes for the structure’s main supports. He dug the holes, a little over two forearms deep, at an angle slanting toward the interior of the building. Meanwhile the other men built simple supports, rather similar in concept to sawhorses, on which the major architectural members would be assembled. They made each of these supports of two small bundles of reeds sunk in the ground about 4 forearms apart with a third bundle tied between them at about chest height. Reeds for this pair of supports came from the growing pile that the women were bringing on their heads from the edge of the marsh for the building. Men had harvested them the previous day with a sickle-shaped saw (mingal) and the women had cut off their leaves and plumes. Men constructed the large bundles which would be converted into arches (sabba) on these supports (Figure 9.5). For the core of these bundles they used reeds from the arches of an old ruined mudhif in a neighboring village which had lost their resiliency. Using all new, flexible reeds could result

Figure 9.5 Men putting together an arch bundle on specially constructed reed “sawhorses.”

REED ARCHITECTURE

153

in the collapse of the arches.They chose individual reeds for the core and laid them atop the supports. They surrounded the old reeds with approximately double the thickness of new reeds and lightly tied the bundle with rope.Then came the process of teasing the chosen reeds to elongate the bundle, adding new reeds as required, until a bundle ca. 3 forearms in diameter at the bottom and steadily diminishing to ca. 2 hand spans in diameter at the top and of ca. l0 forearms in length had been formed. The appearance of these bundles, like all such bundles used in smaller buildings in the area, is quite different from the bundles used in the large buildings of the past. In these grand structures longer reeds were brought from deeper in the marshes where reeds grow to 7 or even 9 m in height and as a result required less teasing to form a bundle of proper size. Furthermore, in the past the outer surface of each reed was peeled and the reeds meticulously sorted according to diameter. Diameters of each reed used in the facing of the bundle were matched and an equal diminution in the diameter of each reed, from bottom to top, was maintained. Women did the peeling at the edge of the marsh. Creating the old-type bundles would require purchasing and shipping reeds of a proper height and a great deal of extra labor, effectively doubling the cost of building the mudhif. The modern bundles have a rather shaggy appearance when compared to the sleek, shiny surface of the bundles of the past. Once the bundle is fully formed men bind it tightly together with double rings of cord. Sheikh Mersin showed me the oldest arches in his own mudhif which were bound with rope made of finely split reeds pounded, woven into cords, and the cords twisted around each other to make a rope. He estimated that each of these arches required l60 meters of cord binding. These days, however, each mudhif seems to be built with commercial rope bought in the market towns. As each bundle is finished men place it in the hole dug for it, leaning outward at an angle of about 70o, and thoroughly tamp the soil around it to hold it in place (Figure 9.6).The process is repeated until all the bundles are in their proper positions. Arched reed buildings must have an uneven number of arches. The only response to my inquiries from many people as to why this should be so was that an even number of arches is unlucky. Men now force reeds through the center of each bundle on the long sides, about one forearm span from the ground level, until the bundles on each side are joined together by a reed member ca. 2 hand spans wide and 3 hand spans high (thalthala). A tripod or multipod of sufficient height and suitable to bear the weight of two men is made of bundled reeds and set up in the center of the space to be enclosed by the first arch

Figure 9.6 Tamping the soil to hold arch bundles firmly in the holes dug for them.

Figure 9.7 Bending the bundles to create arches.

REED ARCHITECTURE

155

(Figure 9.7). The foreman on top of this support reaches up with a spade to snare first one side of the arch, then the other. He attaches ropes to the tops of these bundles, which are pulled by men on the ground until the bundles come together forming the arch.The foreman and his assistant on the tripod tie the bundles together. This is a job that requires a good eye, for one wants the arch as near perfect as possible.The assistant on the tripod helps the foreman adjust the bend and tension in each pair of supports. Sometimes no amount of adjustment of the tension on the bundles can make the arch symmetrical and in that case more reeds are tied in the appropriate place to correct the imperfection. Rafters or ribs (ihtar) are made of bundles of reeds teased together to form a roll the length of the building (Figure 9.8). These ribs are one to two hand spans in thickness and are bound with cord every four inches. These are tied about one forearm apart to the arch bundles across the entire frame of the sidewalls and arch. Men next cover the framework with reed mats (baria). In the larger buildings the lower exterior portion of each side, up to the point where the springing of the arch is most obvious, is covered first. In most cases these sidewalls are directly covered with mats sewn to the ribs, sometimes single-length mats and sometimes double-length mats whose edges have been sewn together on the short sides. In other cases a shallow trench is first dug along each side and a latticework of reeds constructed. The bottom end of each reed is tamped firmly into the soil, the latticework members are tied off at the ribs and the top parts of the reeds are cut off. The sidewall is then completed by sewing mats over the latticework. In the summer the mats can be untied and rolled up to provide ventilation through the latticework, which also keeps out small animals. The mudhif’s arched roof is covered next with pairs of two reed mats sewn together along their shorter edges (Figure 9.9). These double length mats are then sewed to the ribs. In the larger buildings they may be only long enough to cover one side of the arch and slightly overlap the sidewalls. In more modest structures their length may be sufficient to cover the arch entirely and overlap both sidewalls. In smaller buildings a single or double length mat may reach from ground level to ground level on each side and no additional sidewalls are necessary. Another overlapping pair leaves one or two forearms of the first mats exposed and are sewed both to the ribs and the matting it overlaps. The process is continued to the center of the arch which receives a pair of capping mats. Mats are still plaited in the area, but for the sake of uniformity the large quantity of mats needed for a mudhif is usually bought in one of the market towns.

156

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 9.8 Attaching the hitir, rafters or ribs, to the arches. Two additional ribs are now constructed for each exterior side of the structure (Figure 9.10). One is placed, at approximately the height where the arches spring. It is sewn to the matting and, where appropriate, through the matting to the arches and ribs on the interior. The second is sewn in the same fashion about two forearms below it. Small bundles of a few strong reeds are then put in place vertically by forcing them under the exterior ribs. They are approximately centered on the arch bundles and midway between them. Sometimes this vertical reinforcing is sewn to the structure and sometimes it is not in order to facilitate their removal. A large mudhif may have a third rib placed longitudinally between the two described above in order to give additional support (Figure 9.11). Winds in this area can be very strong. One sometime sees two other methods of further reinforcing the roof. Additional reed ribs can be tied on the exterior above the springing point of the arch and longitudinally across the mats. Most people prefer not to do this for it facilitates rot at the points of contact. Ropes are sometimes tied across the roof from the upper rib on one sidewall to the upper rib on the other. Sometimes these are put in place in the late fall and taken off in the spring. Spacing between these ropes is likely to depend on the condition of the roof. The roof of a new mudhif is very leaky during its first year. Only as time, windstorms, and rain fill the matting with dust and debris do the mats

Figure 9.9 Covering the roof with reed mats.

Figure 9.10 Making the outside ribs.

158

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 9.11 Sewing the outside ribs in place.

reach their peak of efficiency. Then, as more time passes, the mats become less effective due to rot and disintegration.The roof can be renewed the first time by turning the mats over and placing a fresh layer of mats on top. The second time it needs renewal, another fresh layer can be added. More than three layers, however, can prove too heavy for the arches and usually all the mats are removed and replaced by a new single-layer roof. The sides are now finished except for the addition of loosely laid rushes on top of and beneath the thalthala on each side. This will help to weatherproof the interior (Figure 9.12). The builder next selects reeds to flush out the interior sides of the arches in the front and back creating a more or less flat exterior face. He ties and sews these to the arches and the roofing and the sidewall mats they abut. He then fixes a horizontal bundle of reeds across the opening at the height of the future door. Sometimes he holds it in place by forcing its individual reeds into the framing reeds on each side, sometimes he ties it in place, and sometimes he uses a combination of the two methods. Bundled reeds that will frame the sides of the doorway are then fixed in the ground in holes dug about one forearm deep.The builder ties them to the horizontal bundle and the arch fillers and then cuts off the tops.

REED ARCHITECTURE

159

Figure 9.12 Inside view of a portion of a finished side. Men then sew mats to this framework (which can be more complex than described here in a larger mudhif) and cut out the place to be occupied by the doorway.They then tie in place additional small bundles of reeds on the exterior sides, doorframe, and arch, whose contours they follow. Farther north extremely large bundles of reeds are placed upright on either side of the doorway and often at the corners of the building itself, but that is not the practice here. The back is constructed in the same way but without a doorway unless it is a raba. Doorways, which in private houses are seldom more than eighteen inches wide, are closed with mats in inclement weather. Alternatively, a lattice work of reeds can be constructed at one or both ends (as described above) then covered with mats that can be removed for added ventilation in warm weather (Figures 9.13, 9.14, and 9.15). When the building is finished its arches are marked with blood from the head of a freshly slaughtered animal. A mudhif whose arches are collapsing is repaired by digging a hole outside and up against the arch bundles, one side at a time. One bundle at a time is pulled into the new hole, its bottom cut off, and the new

Figure 9.13 Constructing a latticework end.

Figure 9.14 The back of a mudhif with finished latticework.

REED ARCHITECTURE

161

Figure 9.15 The front of the same structure with a doorway.

bottom of the arch pushed back into the old hole and tamped firmly in place. For taller structures this kind of repair can sometimes be done twice. With care and reasonable repairs a mudhif can last 25 years or more. Houses built with these methods vary from fairly good-sized structures to mere shelters. The average village house is usually a little more than 2 m wide, about 6 m long and a little less than 3 m high.These houses have the additional advantage of being portable. In the spring, if the marsh rises too high, a 5-arched raba can be taken down, moved to higher ground and re-erected in less than a day.

Constructing a Sarifa A sarifa is built much like a modern pole building using bundled reeds in place of poles. The builder sets bundled reeds upright in holes ca. 2 forearms deep and ca. 4 forearms apart along the sides. He places an especially tall bundle in the center of each end and places additional tall bundles between them ca. 1 to 2 forearms apart. He makes a ridge pole either of wood, usually the trunk of a small palm, or of married bundles of reed, and ties it in place to the central bundles at each end. The builder then

162

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

ties rafters (usually of reed) at increasingly lower elevations to the poles that run from the ridge pole to the considerably lower sidewalls. These create the framework for a fairly steep roof slope. Ribs of reed are then tied to the sidewalls about one forearm apart. Sidewalls may be covered with latticework or directly with reed mats.The door for a sarifa is on the long side rather than at the ends. Occasionally one sees a sarifa used only as a private dwelling, but they are most often built as an adjunct to a sheikh’s mudhif, village stores or purchasing centers. Sheikhs sometimes built a sarifa near their mudhif to house their more important overnight guests. Most guests, of course, would sleep in the mudhif but for the favored few the sarifa offers the chance of earlier retirement and at least semi-privacy.They also offer excellent ventilation, for when used for guests the sarifa is usually latticed on all four sides.Two sheikhs in the area still maintain them. Local merchants often use a sarifa as both shop and home. Sometimes they partition off one corner, with a separate door, in which they display their goods, which are likely to consist of cigarettes, matches, and small quantities of sugar, flour, cheap tea, and coffee beans, and perhaps a sheet or two of pressed dates or apricots.The door leading to the shop is likely to be of wood or tin and is closed with a large and impressive padlock.The elaborate door and the rather distinctive style of the structure may serve, like the white flag attached to a pole above the ridgepole, as a guide to prospective customers. Bulk buyers of reeds, reed mats, and fish often have similar structures at some place where a road comes closest to the edge of the marsh or a canal. Perhaps the reason for their choice of type of structure is also to afford easy visibility and identification.

Constructing Lean-tos and Temporary Buildings Men construct lean-to buildings by setting bound bundles of reeds as close together as possible in two parallel rows, sometimes in a shallow trench in the ground, sometimes on top of it.They set the bundles to lean inward at about a 70o angle and tie them together at their tops. They usually close the front and back with closely placed bundles of reeds, leaving an opening for a door and cover the roof with reed mats.These lean-tos are usually quite small and are used as auxiliary buildings rather than houses. Temporary structures can also be constructed by draping reed mats over a reed pole. Although such structures are small, they provide sufficient shelter for fisherman or hunters abroad at nightfall, people traveling from one place to another, or those whose home has been destroyed by fire.

REED ARCHITECTURE

163

Although fire is one of the most feared calamities in a reed structure, few precautions are taken to avoid it. Fires are usually caused by a live cigarette flicked carelessly onto the reed matting with which the floor is covered, sparks from an open cooking fire, or occasionally sparks from a rifle fired carelessly inside in despair at death, in joy at the birth of a son- or in celebration of a wedding. Fires are always a disaster racing through the tinder-dry house with such speed as to destroy the family’s entire possessions and often members of the family as well. Because houses are usually built close together, the fire almost inevitably spreads to other houses in the village.

Constructing a Sitra A sitra is a reed structure built adjoining one’s house to protect the family’s water buffalo during the inclement weather of late winter and early spring. Men lay out the floor plan of the building with string and dig two parallel trenches to a depth of 1 to 2 forearms for the sides of the building. The back or front of the owner’s house will provide one end of the sitra and the other end is left open as an entrance for the water buffalo. The builder places bundles of reeds close together in these trenches. He constructs ribs of five to ten reeds in thickness and married to create continuous bands of the desired length and places one rib on the inside and another on the outside at about one third the distance of the height of the sidewall bundles. Men then tie these ribs together through the bundled reeds, simultaneously loosening the bottom portions of the sidewall bundles spreading out the bundled reeds along the trench to create a wall of somewhat equal thickness. They then fill in the trench and thoroughly tamp the earth into place. Repeating the process they tie an inner and outer rib at two thirds the height of the sidewall to the sidewall bundles and, removing the upper binding, spread the bundled reeds. The builder bends the tops of the two sidewalls inward, their tops interlacing, over a ridgepole made of married reeds to which he ties them.The height of the roof is planned to taper downward and inward toward the entrance the buffalo will use to give them more protection from the elements. The owner digs holes around the interior of the wall to keep the buffalo at bay and protect the comparatively fragile structure from their lumbering strength. These buildings have a particularly shaggy appearance for neither the reed leaves or plumed tops are removed.When the winter is over and the animals no longer need protection, the sitra is often dismantled and used as fuel.

164

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

House Furnishings Most reed houses are divided into two rooms. The owner sometimes ties a reed mat of appropriate size to a reed frame, which he then ties to the sides and top of one of the arches. If both rooms created are for living, the partition will have a doorway or opening. Such partitions, however, are most often used without doors for separating the living space from the animals’ quarters especially in the houses of the Mi’dan. A wide bench made of a tied reed framework and reed bundle top most often separates living spaces in a dwelling. This structure juts into the room from one of the long walls. A chest made of wood, usually studded with iron or brass and with a domed lid, is placed on the women’s side of the bench (Figure 9.16). Toward the center of the women’s side is the sunken hearth for the cooking fire. Mud bricks or narrow walls of pisé support the vessels used for cooking or heating. Coffee pot (aluminum or brass) and tea kettle (aluminum) stand in close proximity as do a variety of aluminum objects including a large deep tray used for washing-up and mixing and one or two large bowls used for mixing, cooking and sometimes serving.A variety of sizes of conical bowls are also nearby made of aluminum, porcelain, or even plastic. These are used for drinking water and for serving food. They are bought in market towns, and bright, multicolored decorations are much sought after.

Figure 9.16 A chest and other objects and supplies from inside a home moved outside temporarily for housecleaning.

REED ARCHITECTURE

165

On one side are the sun-dried mud objects of everyday use. An aluminum or brass water jar or perhaps an old teakettle stands handy by the door filled with water. This will be taken with them by members of the family who need to urinate or defecate, for it is necessary to wash oneself thoroughly with water, using the left hand, after either of these functions. Also near the door are the baskets used for collecting dung. Along one side is a shallow well dug in the floor and lined with bitumen in which sits a water jar with drinking water and a jar for salt. Near the bench, or perhaps even under it, are baskets (either plaited or coiled) with staples such as wheat, rice, or dried fish, and perhaps a sabat with a variety of small packages of tea, coffee, and spices. The latter three items might also be kept in the chest along with clothes or the material for making new ones, special amulets, jewelry, and money.A mortar and pestle of metal, or of reed, mud and bitumen, or of wood is nearby. So too is a mud disk flour grinder with reed handle, pin and socket or a rice pounder made of wood, and sometimes both. Some of these things are simply piled on the bench when not in use as are bedclothes, pillows, carpets, money box, paddles and poles for boats, fish nets, agricultural or craft tools, baskets used for special functions, and other family possessions. The bench is seldom used as a sleeping platform at night except for the sick. Beds for small children vary from fairly elaborate homemade constructions of reed or wood to small piles of rushes with soft bedclothes on top. Simple swinging cradles, hung from an arch, are made for babies out of a bundle of rushes. A simple opening is made in a bundle of rushes tied at both ends. The well is lined with clothes, a sheepskin or raw wool. More elaborate cradles are sometimes made of reeds or wood. Rattles (khorkhasha) are often used to amuse the baby. Although brightly colored plastic ones are available on the market, some fathers still make them for their children. On either the men’s or women’s side one might find vivid amulets made of colored thread or seeds attached to reed sticks.These served as decoration on the walls, but were intended to avert the evil eye.A reed or woven wool case designed to hold a brick of sun-dried mud from three to four inches thick and about two feet long and one foot wide, held bricks of mud collected at major shrines by some member of the family who had made a religious pilgrimage. The men’s side is more sparsely furnished. Sometimes it has a permanent hearth and sometimes merely a portable cooking dish or mangala. Reed mats cover the mud floor.When guests are present the mats are covered with carpets and pillows, otherwise these are kept on the bench.When water buffalo or other livestock share the quarters, the mats are removed. The owner often booby-traps both entrances at night to keep out intruders by stretching string from one tin can to another.

166

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 9.17 Building walls inside the courtyard.

Courtyard Walls Although walls are often built of mud, reed walls are also very popular (Figure 9.17). Reed fences for livestock are usually built of tall reeds by the Mi’dan for their water buffalo and by the villagers for cattle and sheep.As such a fence is called a sitra, it is not surprising to find that its method of construction is the same as the building of that name (Figure 9.18). The sole difference is that the reed walls are left upright, perpendicular to the ground, rather than bent inward and joined to form a roof. Holes are dug around the inside of the wall and the outside of the house this fence abuts or encloses to keep the livestock from causing serious damage. Sometimes these walls surround the house, leaving space on all sides, and sometimes the back of the house forms a portion of the wall. The walls are used for fuel at the end of the winter season especially in the tannur where a reed fire is considered the best for baking wheat bread.

Courtyard Furnishings During the summer, the courtyard contains most of the sun- dried mud household goods the family uses regularly such as grinders and containers. Large cone-shaped storage jars or rectangular storage chests made of mud and

REED ARCHITECTURE

167

Figure 9.18 Building the same walls from outside.

the family tannur would be conspicuous at all times of the year. In one corner one is certain to see a large pile of dung patties neatly stacked to and provide dry fuel during the entire year. Stacks of old dried reeds for use as fuel or heaps of young reeds and stems of grains harvested from the fields for animal fodder are sometimes stacked in the courtyard, sometimes housed in auxiliary buildings. One also finds subsidiary structures of mud or reed for outside kitchens, storage or sheltering small animals like chickens and turkeys.These range in design from simple lean-tos to large tannur-shaped structures. Very prominent, and usually central, would be the large reed platform on mud legs or walls. These are used for sleeping on hot and sticky night, as well as a place for men or women to sit and chat with friends of the same sex. Raised above the level of the courtyard these platforms offer refuge from domestic animals, creepy crawlies, and other things that go bump in the night.

Persistence and Change By 1970, the year after Sheikh Mersin fled into exile in Kuwait, his old mudhif collapsed as expected. A year or two later, as the local economy improved, a much smaller mudhif was built by the town headman at least in part at pub-

168

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

lic expense. Indeed a number of guesthouses sprang up throughout the countryside as each official or important man in the area felt that proprietorship of a guesthouse was necessary to preserve his community standing.The functions of the guesthouse as a forum for problem solving and a force for moral and social tradition changed very little. When we returned to our last year of excavations at tell el al-Hiba in 1990, we found the reed structures which we had built in 1968 to serve as living and working quarters for the excavation in ruinous condition. No one had been present the past few years to effect simple and comparatively inexpensive repairs on their roofs of reed mats. Once the mats started to come loose, progressive deterioration of the rest of the exterior mats and the collapse of the arches, which were no longer bound together in a cohesive structure, was inevitable. Even more shocking was the discovery that the repair of these structures would be more expensive than building new housing out of cement blocks. Building with reeds, which had previously been the cheapest, was now the most expensive option available. One excavation mudhif, built in 1968 and abandoned in 1974 because of a weak arch, is being allowed to disintegrate naturally over the years (Figure 9.19). It is our hope that information gained from its progressive deterioration will give us a clearer perception of what traces of such a structure we might expect to find in the archaeological record. Clearly this is a somewhat artificial experiment for in most historical periods there would have been people living in the area to cannibalize the remains. This was

Figure 9.19 The abandoned reed structure as it looked in 1990.

REED ARCHITECTURE

169

brought home to us when we told the guards that they might have any of the remains of another decayed mudhif that they wanted. They used fragments of torn reed mats to make floors or windbreaks, ribs for the roofing of mudbrick houses, or as posts. Some of the arch bundles were sold to form the center of new arch bundles, and the rest were used for roofing or fencing material. Even the seemingly unusable fragments and debris were piled to one side to be used as a sort of quarry for fuel. In the end, nothing remained but the refilled holes from which the arch bundles had been pulled and a layer of chaff. Amazingly enough, the buried end of the arch bundles were still in fairly good condition on the inside although the outer layers showed signs of rot.

Archaeological Impact Our experiment shows why little evidence in archaeological strata has survived for the mudhif in antiquity. The remains of an ancient mudhif would have certainly been as useful to the people who lived near by as the modern remains were to the villagers near al-Hiba.That the mudhif existed in early times is clear from a carved gypsum trough from Uruk (British Museum, WA 120000) dating to ca. 3000 BC. Sheep apparently exiting from the rear of the structure makes us think this house is similar to the modern structures described above which a family shares with its animals.The crossed-over feathered reeds at the roofline are characteristic of modern structures built for animals since the leaves and plumes of the reeds have not been removed as they would be in modern structures built solely for human habitation. From studying the physical properties of reeds used today as well as details of their use in construction, we have learned a great deal about the details of their use in the past. As difficult as it might be to identify the remains of an ancient mudhif in an excavation, consider the near impossibility of recognizing the smaller, highly portable, reed structures used by the majority of villagers for housing in the modern villages. Most of them can be whisked away in a day or less and erected at some more convenient place if the inhabitants decide to move.

10 WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

V

ery few trees of any size exist in the villages around al-Hiba. Most are palm trees or willows, all softwoods.They are usually the property of individual families, and if another wishes to make use of one of them, he must purchase the wood for barter or cash.To buy a whole tree would make the process of small-scale woodworking in the village prohibitively expensive. Luckily there are other ways that one can acquire wood. Dead branches from trees are sometimes available, and the local woodworker can re-use old and broken pieces of wood discarded by householders because they can no longer fulfill the use for which they were designed. For instance, the wood salvaged from a broken wooden plow can be used for many purposes. Roof supports and beams are often salvaged in their entirety for use in new structures. For smaller projects such as mallets, tool handles, grain pounders, and loom parts pollarding is regularly practiced. A branch is harvested from a tree by breaking or sawing it off so that the tree continues to survive. Other kinds of wood, usually already sawn into more or less standard lengths and widths, are available in market towns such as Shatra, with a greater variety of size and type available in Nasiriya.These, I am told by merchants in both places, are almost entirely imported, and they are very expensive.Today most carpenters and wood craftsmen live and work near their source of supply in the market centers. The majority of wooden articles and tools used by the villagers are bought ready made in these towns. There is still, however, a certain amount of wood use and manufacture in the villages.

170

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

171

Wood Objects Mudbrick Forms Mud bricks are molded in forms made by the brick maker from hardwood planking bought in the market towns. The forms are usually nailed, but sometimes are put together with screws. All bricks manufactured today are strictly rectangular.Their size is dependent on the forms owned by the master brick maker. As the forms are made of wood and as wood is scarce and comparatively expensive, the size of each master’s bricks tends to be exact for a fairly long period of time. With only three brick makers active in the general area, it is possible to distinguish the products of each by minor variations in size. The frame is filled with mud, it is lightly compressed by the brick maker, and then tapped lightly on the ground or a reed mat. The mud is of fairly liquid consistency so the brick is easily shaken free from the frame (see p. 97).

Wooden Gates, Doors, and Windows Mudbrick structures are most often seen in the old fortified complexes of major sheikhs. High walls made of pisé or mud bricks usually surround these fortifications. They are as wide as 2.5 m on the bottom and as high as 5 m. Entrance is gained through a strong, solid wood gate sometimes studded with large, flat-headed nails. In the two cases still extant in the area, the gates are made of imported hardwood planks joined together, perpendicular to the ground, by nailed horizontal planks with a diagonal plank between them. The hinges are mounted on the horizontal planks and attached to heavy wooden posts sunk into the ground on each side of the gateway, capped with a wooden lintel, and incorporated into the mud walls. Inside are the sheikh’s dwelling apartments, a large reception room, storage facilities, and dwelling structures for guards and servants. Some parts of this complex can be built of either reeds or pisé, but the family dwelling apartments and storage facilities are almost inevitably built of mud brick or baked brick and have wooden doors which are often smaller variations of the outer gates. Some rooms at least have modern framed and glazed windows. These gates, doors, and windows are inevitably made and installed by carpenters hired from the market towns. A merchant’s sarifa and a village mudbrick or pisé house may have similar doors or doors made of tin nailed to a wooden frame.The mud houses may also have framed openings of wood for windows and sometimes

172

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

wooden shutters. Unskilled local workmen who make doors, frames, and shutters tend to use wood from local trees (preferably willow) if it is available.

Columns and Roof Supports The reception hall in a sheikh’s compound can be either a large and splendid mudhif or an especially grand mudbrick building. If the latter, it is usually of such size as to require column-like roof supports made of smoothed palm trunks down the center of the floor space. Occasionally a larger mud building in a village will require one or two roof supports of the same type and material.

Roof Beams Roofs of both mud brick and pisé buildings can be either flat or pitched and the beams supporting them of either wood or reed depending on the size of the buildings. If of wood, the trunks of native palm trees are generally used. Sometimes these are squared with adzes before use, but usually they are merely smoothed. Flat roofs are surfaced with layers of loosely lain reeds, saplings, and tamped mud or layers of reed mats and tamped mud. Pitched roofs are covered with reed mats.

Mallets Wooden mallets can be used for pounding rice but are most often used for softening reeds used in making mats, baskets, and occasionally rope. The wooden handle is thrust through a hole drilled in the side of a cutoff section of larger branch, split, and splayed open with a small wedge of wood. Although quite functional for the tasks for which they are designed, the wood they are made from is usually too soft for their successful use in pounding hard materials or in driving nails.

Handles Tool handles are usually made from a tree branch of the appropriate diameter. In most cases the handle is partially shaped with an adze, but it retains the less than symmetric shape of the natural tree branch from which it was made.The handle can be attached by either pushing the handle through a hole in the tool to be attached and splaying the end, or by embedding the end of the handle and the particular tool in a matrix of bitumen which is allowed to harden. For special sturdiness both methods are used together.

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

173

Grain Pounders and Mortars Among the Mi’dan a ca. 60 cm hollowed-out section of palm tree is used as a grain pounder for husking rice (Figure 10.1). Two or more women usually participate in the pounding process. Each strikes downward into the hollowed palm section mortar with her wooden or reed pounder in disynchronous rhythm. As her pounder lands, she utters a grunting sound in a different key from that used by her companion or companions. The palm tree section is hollowed out with an adze and chisel. The pounder can be made in several ways. One way is from a smaller section of palm fastened to a wooden (usually willow) handle by drilling a hole of appropriate size through the palm section, pushing the handle through and splaying it with a wedge of wood. A second way is to slightly round the thicker end of a wil-

Figure 10.1 Woman with wooden mortar and grain pounder.

174

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

low branch. A third way is to shape a bitumen head on the end of a length of wood or reed. Mortars are made in similar fashion from smaller sections of palm tree. A piece of tree branch of correct length can be used as a pestle. The branch is cleaned of its bark and sometimes (but not always) rounded at the bottom with an adze. The pestle can also be made by building up a bitumen head on the end of a stick or reed.

Milk Pails Pails made from a hollowed out section of palm trunk with an adze and chisel are used most often for milking both water buffalo and cows (Figure 10.2). They are considerably heavier than the bitumen covered basket made of coiled reeds (quffa). The pail is shaped on the outside so that it diminishes in diameter from top to bottom. The conical bottom ends in a knob. Some of these pails are very old and prized as family heirlooms.

Figure 10.2 Milk pail.

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

175

Baby Cradles Baby cradles are sometimes made from small-diameter tree branches interwoven to form a basket-like cavity. Sometimes these are hung from the ceiling so they can be swung from side to side, and sometimes they are attached to rockers made from the same material. The cavity is usually lined with hay topped with cloth or raw wool.

Loom Parts The parts for a loom can be made from a wide variety of wood or even from reeds depending on the size of the object to be woven. The looms of the village carpet weavers are made of imported hardwoods, but there is usually someone in every household who can make woven belts, small bags, or slings. Looms for these smaller objects tend to be temporary and can be made from whatever wood is available in the village.

Plows Even at the beginning of the study, almost all wooden plows were bought in the town suq, though one could still find home-made, family plows in use. Unfortunately I was never able to arrange to watch a plow being constructed. It would seem from examination of the object that a section of tree was selected where two fairly large and strong branches came together.The larger of the two branches was cut .5–1 m on each side of the place where the branches joined. One end was cut with an adze to a point, the other end was cut to give proper balance. The plowman used the smaller branch as the steering mechanism. Even in the lightest soils such a plow made of local wood did not last very long. Sometimes the maker would try to prolong its useful life by encasing it in metal cut from oil barrels or cans. More time was spent repairing the sheathed plows, however, than actually plowing. Most people who had a significant amount of land to plow found some way of acquiring the hardwood examples in the market

Digging Sticks Women who tilled small plots most often used digging sticks. They made them from long branches, as straight as possible, and shaped a point at the thicker end with knife or adze. These sticks were useful for kitchen gardens and were easily renewed when the pointed end broke or blunted.The owner merely shaped the digging end once more.

Foot Rest for Digging Wooden foot rests for shovels, digging sticks, and the like could be purchased in the market towns or made at home from soft woods. They consisted of a

176

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

piece of wood, usually shaped to fit the sole of the foot, drilled at one end with a hole which, while large enough to fit over the handle, was small enough to keep the foot rest from slipping over the digging stick or the rim of the shovel. Using the full weight of a bare foot on the metal rim of a shovel was extremely uncomfortable. When used with the digging stick, it allowed the digger to put considerably more force behind the point than could be done with the arms alone.

Stakes Stakes are usually made from pieces of wood too short for other functions. It is rare to see a good-sized branch sawed into short lengths for this purpose. A point is simply made at one end with an adze.

Tripod Tripods formed from three pieces of wood lashed together at the top with cord are used in churning. Sheep skins, sewn together to leave only an opening at the top (neck end), are filled part way with milk, then blown full of air by one of the family’s women and tied to a rope beneath the top of the tripod. A women squatting or sitting on the ground jerks the filled skin sharply back and forth churning the milk into butter. The skin churn can be used without a tripod by tying it to a ceiling rafter or by merely rolling it back and forth on the ground. About 40% of the Mi’dan and Beni Hasan who raise animals for milk have a tripod made of wood.

Boats The use of boats is rather unequal among the three groups of peoples living in the vicinity of al-Hiba. The Bedouin, migratory Arabs who spend but a few months in the area at the end of the summer, the fall, and sometimes early winter, never own boats. They swim their livestock across the canals when moving from place to place or if absolutely necessary rent boats from others. Their favorite transportation, the majestic and sometimes bitterly complaining camel, usually conveys them safely and dryly from canal bank to canal bank or across the shallows of the marshes during the driest season of the year.The average village household, members of the Beni Hasan tribe, may or may not own a boat of some kind. In case of need, those who have not borrow from those who have . Those who own boats are usually fisherman, proprietors of small village stores or men otherwise engaged in trade. Bitumen covered boats are most frequently found among the Mi’dan where every family owns at least one.They use them constantly for transporting fodder for their water buffalo, for fishing, and for transportation. Every morning the men set out in their

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

177

boats to harvest enough fodder to feed their buffalo that evening. During the spring, when high water prevents the buffalo from grazing the marshes, they must redouble their efforts and if short handed are joined by their entire families. Moving back and forth through the sheltered channels made through the tall reeds, the water is always calm and placid. Every so often, however, one comes upon a large space of open water that can be quite dangerous in stormy weather. Strong winds frequently cause white-capped waves high enough to sink a traditional boat. In the villages near al-Hiba, two categories of bitumen-covered boats are regularly used. The mashuf is a long, narrow boat of graceful line and is made in many sizes (9–10 m; and about 1 m wide at widest point). Today all the larger ones are usually referred to as a tarada, a name formerly applied only to a very long 11–12 m) example of this category. In the front and back it curves upward from the water line, terminating in a long, tapered bow and stern. Decked areas at front and back serve as platforms on which men stand to pull the boat through shallow water by reaching forward with a long reed pole, fixing it on the marsh or canal bed, pulling the boat toward it, and giving a strong push on the pole as the tarada glides by. In deeper water they are paddled with spade-shaped boards fixed to lengths of reed. If two people are paddling in the same boat each paddles on the same side. The smallest example (ca.3 m long) of the mashuf category is called a mataur and is of the same general design. It lies much lower in the water, however, and is designed to carry only one man.These boats are used primarily for hunting and fishing in the marshes. They can be poled through the water in a similar fashion to the tarada by their single occupant standing mid ship. Frequently the punter uses the reed shaft of his fish spear (falah) for a pole.This allows him to bring the spear into play more quickly.These spears, with 10–12 foot shafts, have 5 pronged, barbed, iron heads and are used for spearing fish or retrieving birds, which have been wounded by shot from the punter’s gun.When stalking birds feeding in the marshes, a hunter usually uses his arms for paddles while lying on his stomach in order to be less visible. The belam is wider and has higher sides than the tarada. Its bow and stern terminate in fairly heavy, carved pieces of wood, sometimes of a rather fanciful design.These serve a utilitarian function and can be used for binding two boats together, side-by-side, for towing one boat behind another, or for pulling a boat upstream from the towpaths along canal banks.The belam is usually moved forward in open water by a man or boy setting the pole in the marsh bed at the bow and then walking along the side to the stern, pulling the boat to the pole.The punter then removes his pole and moves back along the other side to the bow where the process is repeated.

178

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Constructing the Frame The center of boat building for the area is located at Chubayish and nearby Huwair, where a whole village specializes in making boats. Some craftsmen are very well known, and the boats they build are recognized on sight and highly prized.The price for a new tarada about 10 forearms in length is from l4 to l5 ID. Although boats of any kind are seldom made in the al-Hiba area, they are frequently so thoroughly repaired and patched as to be almost entirely rebuilt. These boats are built or repaired with salvaged parts by itinerant craftsmen whose work, it is generally acknowledged, is not up to the standards of those in the famous boat building centers farther to the south. For replacement ribs the repairer uses acacia or mulberry wood, as did most of the craftsmen who originally built these boats.They use any of a number of hardwoods, all of which are imported from abroad for the keel. For the rest of the boat the carpenter tends to use any size or kind of wood or wood fragments available, including the wood salvaged from empty packing cases. The keel of the boat consists of a large plank that will become a part of the outer wood surface in the finished product.To this the carpenter attaches the bottom sections of the ribs, which vary from 4 to 7 cm in width, are about 3 to 4 cm thick, and are placed l2 to l4 cm apart. Such measurements are misleading, however, for I have never seen a boat maker measure anything. He works by eye alone. He then nails planks on the outside of the ribs to form the bottom of the boat. If boards to stretch the entire length are not available, several pieces can be fitted between ribs. Major holes in the boards or gaps between planks can be repaired with pieces cut to fit with an adze. Even a section of local palm wood is regarded as suitable for this purpose.The nails that are made by blacksmiths out of iron brought from Basra are driven through the planks and into the ribs.The heads of the nails are slightly blunted and they are sometimes dipped in oil to help keep them from splitting the wood. Longer nails are either cut off by hammering or clenched into the wood of the rib. The boat builder adds side or middle sections of rib when the bottom is completed and nails them precariously to the bottom section. The ground on which the boat is built, upside down, will serve to hold the ribs in place until they are secured by nailing the side planks to them. When these middle-section ribs are completely covered by planking, the builder adds the top section of ribs and covers them in similar fashion. Although the outer boards are now nailed to the central part of the boat, they gape open at prow and stern without support of any kind. In the smaller boats these ends are nailed to shaped prow and stern pieces of wood which project a considerable distance above the sides of the boat. In the larger and wider bellam, fairly large, but lightweight pieces of wood, shaped at the top to accommodate the ropes by which they are towed upstream in the

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

179

canals, or behind fishermen setting out nets in the marshes, are used for prow and stern pieces. When wood of appropriate size is not available, they can be manufactured by nailing two or more smaller pieces of wood together. In both kinds of boat, an additional pair of ribs, usually of less sturdy wood than those in the main body, are then added to both the bow and the stern. The bow and stern are then often capped with flattened tin cans. The boat is strengthened on the interior with two or three braces across the width of the boat, nailed to the interior ribs as well as the exterior planking. A series of narrow boards cut to fit over these braces then nailed to the interior surfaces of the ribs around the top of the boat. In the past, if the tarada was intended for a sheikh, according to an informant, this wide planking around the top of the ribs was decoratively studded with rows of large, flat-headed, round nails (sometimes of bronze). No boats with such decoration or of the size reported for a sheikh’s tarada (ca.13 m long) now exist in the area. In the belam the boards that make up the interior part of the gunwale are especially strong to bear the weight of the pullers who move it through the water. The basic framework is finished at this point, in spite of cracks in the surface and unseaworthy joins (Figure 10.3).

Figure 10.3 Filling cracks in the boat’s frame with wood and bitumen.

180

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Covering with Bitumen The same itinerant craftsmen who repair or rebuild boats also recover them with bitumen. New bitumen, which is said to come from Hit, can be purchased in Chubayish or Basra (about 80 kilos for one ID), but is not often needed in large quantities, for bitumen can be used again and again and is usually salvaged from an old boat (as are most of the wooden boards) to build a new one. If a boat is leaking from small cracks and the bitumen coating is still in good condition, the cracks can sometimes be sealed by heating them with a length of burning reeds and then rolling the area with a short section of reed. Ordinarily people strip a boat of its bitumen with a hammer and chisel every year, and repair its hull (Figure 10.4). Small pieces of wood are thinned and shaped with an adz, then nailed over the larger holes in the framework or fitted between the wider cracks. The old bitumen, with whatever new bitumen is necessary, is heated to a liquid consistency and stirred occa-

Figure 10.4 Stripping old bitumen with hammer and chisel.

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

181

Figure 10.5 Transporting bitumen from fire to boat. sionally with a stick. Sometimes a trough is made in the mud at the side of the canal. The bitumen is liquefied in this trough by a fire fed by reeds in a hole dug below it from the side of the canal bank. Most often a split and unrolled metal drum suspended on parallel mud-brick or mud walls over a fire of dung patties serves as an open-air heating oven (Figure 10.5). The top of the drum, coated with ashes from the fire to keep the bitumen from sticking, serves as a carrying tray for the hot liquid. A shovel full of liquid bitumen is distributed over its surface like a large pancake and carried to the repaired boat. One or two workmen spread the bitumen evenly over the surface with sobay, wooden rollers with conical ends (Figure 10.6). They frequently moisten the rollers with water and pick out lumps of extraneous material or unmelted bitumen. The exterior of the boat is coated in sections, the bottom first, next one side, and then the other.Two or more layers are usually applied until the protective coating is ca. 1 to 3 cm thick (Figure 10.7). One man quickly spreads wet mud from the canal bank over each section as it is finished, while another throws cans of water over the mud to keep it moist and pliable (Figure 10.8). According to informants, the mud fuses to the bitumen and gives the coating extra strength. When the bottom and sides are completed the boat is turned upright and layers of bitumen are spread over the decks, the top of the prow and stern, and the edges of the boats sides (Figure 10.9). The final stage is packing the bitumen in the interior rib joins or wherever a large crack in the

Figure 10.6 Spreading bitumen over the surface with a wooden roller (sobay).

Figure 10.7 Spreading wet mud from the canal bank over the newly applied and still-warm bitumen.

Figure 10.8 Throwing water over the mud to keep it moist and pliable.

Figure 10.9 Applying bitumen to the prow.

184

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

wood or a poor joint seems to require it. The boat is usually allowed to dry overnight before launching. A Mi’dan family whose water buffalo had developed a taste for bitumen moved to a local village. The villagers forced them to locate at some distance from the village on a spit of land from which the buffalo can make their way to the marsh without coming in contact with village boats. If they come upon an unprotected boat they will eat away the bitumen from keel to top and from end to end, often destroying the wood in the process.

Boat Building, Bitumen, and Village Morality The most interesting part of bitumen application is the semi-carnival atmosphere that prevails. Smoke from a boat builder’s fire serves as a beacon drawing many spectators from the nearby village or villages, among them some who need a small amount of the substance. There are many uses for small quantities of bitumen in the village households. Although each villager could purchase separately small quantities of raw bitumen and liquefy it for his own purposes, this is almost never done.The itinerant craftsman, usually with one or more helpers, provides the knowhow and whatever additional bitumen is needed beyond that salvaged from the job at hand.The boat owners who pay for the additional bitumen and the craftsmen’s labor render assistance to him but also moderate the distribution of small bits of bitumen for home projects. This is for them an excellent opportunity to reinforce friendships and their positions in the community. More important, it serves as a public forum for regulating inter- and intra-village affairs by calling to account those who have violated traditional modes of behavior. The approach of people seeking bitumen seems to be self-regulated. No more than one or two request some of the sticky substance at any one time. Only when one villager’s project is completed does another take his place.Those who have acted appropriately in the past are allowed to dip into the hot liquid or have it delivered to them on a slab of tin while spectators and boat owners recall what they have done for others or the community in the past. They have inevitably brought their projects with them and squat out of the way of the boat makers to complete them. Sometimes one of the boat craftsmen will even lend a helping hand.Throughout their stay they keep up a friendly banter, to a certain extent with each other, but more especially with the boat owners. Those who have not behaved appropriately are also allowed to have bitumen for their needs eventually, but the tenor of conversation is much different in such cases.The individual is openly and publicly chided for poor spirit or particular unfriendly and ungenerous acts before his or her request is granted.

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

185

The banter in these cases usually continues for some time and in a rather sharp vein with the spectators joining quite freely in the discussion. Even close friends or relatives, whose lack of civic spirit the boat owner might be inclined to overlook, do not escape unscathed. Spectators feel entirely free to initiate discussions of someone’s behavior. How effective these exchanges are may best be judged by imagining oneself praised for good behavior or chastised for bad by the majority of the population among which one lives and works.The importance of this kind of verbal exchange and material sharing in building and maintaining a sense of community should not be underrated. The role of village crafts in promoting community cohesiveness has probably always been a large one.

Other Uses of Bitumen Mace Among the most interesting objects fabricated here is the mugwar, a mace used for protection when walking abroad, most often against dogs.The end of the wood or reed handle on which the mace head is to be formed is first roughened with a knife or saw and then dipped into the hot bitumen and twirled until some of the substance adheres to it.When this is cool enough to touch, it is formed into a knob, balanced and secured by rubbing between the palms of both hands.The head is repeatedly dipped, cooled, and rubbed in the hands until the head has attained the required size and shape. The bottom of the knob, which has spilled over on the stick, is then cut away with a knife to give an even appearance, and the knob is burnished with a wet piece of reed and a wet cloth. Dogs around local houses are extremely territorial and will attack anyone who gets too close, but they have great respect for the mugwar, and waving it in their direction is often enough to keep them at bay.That it can also be used against people was brought home to me one afternoon while treating people with minor wounds. One young chap approached with a serious bruise on his upper arm. As I looked at the bruise the men surrounding us began to laugh and guffaw a most unusual reaction to human suffering. Only after I gave him an aspirin for the pain did I discover the reason for their laughter. It seems that Muhammad had walloped him on the arm with his mugwar when the young man reached into my mudhif and tried to steal a pack of cigarettes I had left lying on the table. Everyone thought it funny that I should show such concern for the wounds of someone who had tried to steal cigarettes from me.

Pole Knobs Boat poles are made from local reeds or the larger and stronger reeds brought from elsewhere in the marsh and sold in the local suq. Moving any of the boats

186

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

at speed puts great stress on the pole. Even the most skillful boatman is likely to fracture the more friable reed pole. As a result, the stronger poles sold in the suq are more often used by those who make a living from their boats. Those who use reeds select them very carefully and always carry two or three replacement poles with them except on the shortest trips. Knobs of bitumen are made on the upper end of the poles, the part that stays out of the water, and are formed in the same fashion as the mugwar head. During the building up of the knob the maker continually checks the pole for balance.The purpose of the bitumen knob is to provide a counter-balance to the poling action of the boatman.

Repairing Leaks Metal cans and pottery jars used for carrying water can be repaired with bitumen when they begin to leak (Figure 10.10). The bitumen, in this case, can be smeared either on the exterior or interior. With metal cans a thin bitumen coat on the outside often helps preserve the metal and keep it from rusting. Some women prefer to build up the outside of the water can bottom in order to create a kind of depression in the center which makes it easier to carry atop her head.The source of water for drinking in most households is the nearest canal with flowing water. Sometimes this is a considerable distance from the house.

Figure 10.10 Women repairing leaks in their metal water cans.

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

187

Waterproofing Baskets Both the saba and quffa can be waterproofed or liquid proofed by coating the interior with bitumen. The liquid-proofed saba, a jar-shaped basket, was, according to informants, regularly used for carrying water from the canal to the house before metal cans became common in the area. Now it is sometimes used by the Mi’dan for milking water buffalo. The waterproofed quffa is used for carrying fish, moist produce (greens, tomatoes), and laundry from the canal bank where it is washed and scrubbed. Little girls collecting fresh dung from which their mothers will make dung patties also use it.

Stands for Water Jars The kuz is porous, and water evaporates from its sides and bottom. If it is placed on the ground it tends to create a mud hole. Therefore, a recess is often dug in the ground and the hole lined with bitumen.Water leakage thus tends to be contained, and evaporation from the bottom of the kuz helps keep the contents cool. Alternatively, some families build a raised platform for the jar with a slight depression in the top to hold the vessel securely and keep too much water from running down the platform sides before it has a chance to evaporate.

Grinders Grinders made of mud disks will mill grain into flour but tend to abrade rather rapidly. When covered with bitumen they last longer and grind better because of their harder surface. In an area with little stone, these mud grinders are a major part of every household. One can easily tell whether the flour for bread has been ground on a mud grinder or a mud grinder covered with bitumen, for each has a slightly different taste derived from the grinder’s surface.

Mortars Mortars of various sizes and shapes are sometimes made of bitumen over a sun-dried mud core. The shape varies from round to oblong, usually with fairly low sidewalls from l0 to l5 cm high. Pestles consist of bitumen knobs built up over one or more reed sticks of appropriate length. Most villagers pride themselves on mortars of wood or metal.

Toolmaking and Repair Blades and teeth of various kinds can be attached to their wooden or reed handles by means of a daub of bitumen. In some cases they are originally constructed in this fashion. In other cases they are repaired with bitumen only when a socket or other kind of join is weakened or broken.

188

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Waterproofing Storage Facilities Occasionally bitumen is used for waterproofing the interior or exterior or both of a storage chest.As this is a major job, it is usually contracted for with the boat repairman while he is in the area re-covering boats.The amount of bitumen needed is too great to seek as a gift. This usually means that the craftsmen set up a dung fire to prepare the bitumen inside the owner’s courtyard and as close to the storage chest as possible. Interestingly enough, this is mostly a private affair, for applying bitumen to storage chests does not seem to draw lookers-on in the same way they are drawn to boat covering. Perhaps this is because, according to one elderly informant, the gathering for boat repair started in the past when workmen arrived to repair the sheikh’s tarada. Gifts of small amounts of bitumen were given then for loyalty as well as for other proper behavior. In the past it was a reward for loyalty to the sheikh, while today it is dependent on the magnanimity and moral values of the boat owner.Then too, it may be because the covering takes place in the privacy of a family’s courtyard, not on what is regarded as public land at the edge of the canal or marsh. Sometimes the tops of containers are sealed with bitumen, but this is most unusual except when they are to remain closed for long periods of time. To seal something with bitumen that was regularly opened and re-sealed is too expensive and time consuming.

Building Drainage Channels Small drainage channels are often needed near the family’s water jars inside the house and at particular places in the courtyard outside. Inside it is sometimes necessary to provide a small channel to drain excess water, leaking from the porous kuz or water accidentally spilled in that area, through the house wall to the courtyard. Other such channels are sometimes built in the courtyard to drain water from relatively low spots, to protect foundations, or to protect the stands of storage chests from erosion during the rainy season. These channels are often quite small, four fingers wide by four fingers deep and are frequently lined with bitumen to promote the free flow of water. During my observations bitumen was never asked for an entire channel much less the whole drainage network. Instead small quantities were requested in order to repair a damaged section or to make “small extensions.”

Persistence and Change Most objects of wood continued to be made into the 1990s. Milk pails, however were largely replaced as early as the mid-eighties by pails made of tin sold in the suq. Plows used in the area were mostly manufactured in Nasiriya and sold in the local market towns.The handles and frames continued to be made of wood, but the plowshare was now made entirely of metal.

WOOD, BOATS, AND BITUMEN

189

Although the Mi’dan had disappeared by the mid- to late-1980s, the Beni Hasan who had previously despised the Mi’dan’s water buffalo began to raise them. After all they provided the best way of exploiting the flora of the marshes. They had also taken over the Mi’dan’s share of the fishing industry. Both of these activities required boats, and the old forms of boats continued to exist. Specialists continued to visit the area to repair and re-cover boats, but not with the same frequency. In 1990 two inflatable boats and a small metal rowboat made their first appearances in the surrounding marshes. Bitumen continued to be used in the many ways it had been used from the beginning of this project. It was no longer necessary, however, to wait for the boat repairers in order to secure some of the material. Pieces of raw bitumen were brought from where they were found and sold for cash in the local market towns. Bitumen was no longer free and was no longer able to influence village morality.

Archaeological Impact In addition to giving us comparative material for the study of the manufacture and use of ancient artifacts, this study gives us an alternative to an often-used explanation of similar elements in the archaeological record. Schwartz and Hollander were intrigued with our study of the communal aspect and moral impact of the free distribution of bitumen, moderated by owners of boats being covered with bitumen: The archaeological implications of this study [the ethnoarchaeological work at al-Hiba] are significant.The organization or production of goods and redistribution of raw materials has always been an important focus for archaeologists attempting to reconstruct the inner workings of an ancient economy. One interpretation of archaeological evidence of centralized pooling and redistribution of raw materials is elite control over the access to goods. The material remains of the marsh Arabs [near al-Hiba] would yield such a pattern but this interpretation may be an inaccurate one for this case. However, this is an often-used explanation of the archaeological record. Obviously this type of data could be interpreted in other ways and elite control is not necessarily a prerequisite.* The more alternative explanations of archaeological phenomena the better, for it forces the interpreter to wrestle with the evidence, not merely borrow the rationale that is currently most popular. * M. Schwartz and D. Hollander “Annealing, Distilling, Reheating and Recycling: Bitumen Processing in the Ancient Near East,” Paleorient 26,2 (2001):85.

11 BOVINE HUSBANDRY

Cattle The Beni Hasan keep cattle.They are gentler, easier to care for than water buffalo and smaller and thinner than Western breeds. Most of them are yellowbrown and slightly humped and they give a much smaller amount of milk than cattle of the same type kept in other parts of the country.This lack of production is generally attributed to the larger amount of more nourishing fodder fed farther north along the course of the river. A story circulates in the village of the government’s providing a magnificent, large, imported bull for the purpose of improving cattle in the region. It was bred to a few of the village cows who produced larger than normal calves. Unfortunately it took twice as much fodder, ample grain, and cool shade to keep the bull alive and well.The bull, local people claim, lived in better circumstances than they did themselves. Only one of the bull’s progeny survives,-a large and painfully thin cow. The others, like the bull himself, perished because they could not adjust to the food or climate afforded in the local villages. A group of 16 animals is the largest herd near al-Hiba but three of those, bull calves, were for sale.Villagers consider eight to ten animals a medium-size herd, and most herds in the area consist of four animals or less. Owning a large herd of cattle does not increase a person’s status in the community as any successful, non-traditional endeavor is regarded with great suspicion. The herdsman seldom escapes the envy of his neighbors who may resent his good fortune and attempt to cast spells on his cattle to cause the supply of forage to dry up, calves to be aborted, or livestock to sicken and die. As a result cattle-owning families never let the price they receive for their cat190

BOVINE HUSBANDRY

191

tle or how much milk the cows give be publicly known. Cattle are valued for food and manure. When mixed with straw their manure provides an important fuel, the dung patty.Their milk is sold fresh and as sour milk, butter, and curds. It is never sold as cream or cheese as is water buffalo milk. Cattle are also valuable as a reservoir of wealth, for they can be sold as needed to pay for unexpected tribal levies, a bridal price, or other emergencies. Calves are given supervised access to their mothers in order to nurse, but they are allowed only enough milk to meet their needs and they are encouraged to eat fodder as quickly as possible. Children will select the greenest and softest parts of the fodder available and try to tempt the calf to eat within two weeks of birth.The calf will not be deprived of his mother’s milk entirely until he is old enough to get his entire nourishment from the fodder available. Although the villagers occasionally drink fresh milk, they prefer the taste of sour or curdled milk. In fact, fresh milk is drunk only in the morning before the sun is too high, and even then it is generally partly soured from being stored in the same containers that are used for curdling it. Milk stored in such containers will curdle in two to three hours on warm days.Those who drink sour milk as opposed to sweet milk maintain a different set of enzymes in their digestive tract, which makes sour milk more digestible.When curdled the curds are whipped with a wooden spoon until they look like heavy cream (laban). Part of the raw milk is kept standing in containers to separate the cream from the skim milk, which can be drunk but is most often left standing in covered containers until it sours and ferments. The white curds formed in this process are eaten with boiled rice or bread. The cream is placed in a sheepskin bag (see pp. 275, 300), which is fully inflated by the maker blowing it up like a balloon after the cream has been added (Figures 11.1 and 11.2). The cream is churned by rolling the bag from side to side on the ground or moving it back and forth with short jerks while the bag is suspended by a piece of rope from the ceiling or a tripod of wood. Sometimes the woman making butter will wait a day or two, adding cream to the contents of the bag at each milking before actually churning. One family has a wooden churn which they use for this purpose.The butter forms a solid that can be removed, washed in water, and stored in a separate container. Part of the remaining liquid from the churn, buttermilk (rubb), is drunk by dairy families with their meals. Another part of the buttermilk is put into a container with rennet and boiled to make a white curd cheese. When the curds form they are drained through a cloth.The butter and cheese are stored in separate pans. If a family has milk remaining after they have satisfied their own needs, it is usually turned into buttermilk cheese and one of two kinds of clarified butter that can be kept without spoilage for future consumption.

192

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 11.1 Sealing the sheepskin after filling it with milk, air, and sometimes a coating of oil. In making the first kind of clarified butter, butter is heated over the fire until the milk solids drop to the bottom of the container and a layer of white foam appears on top.The white foam is scooped off, the pure butterfat middle layer decanted, and the layer at the bottom containing the milk solids is usually discarded or mixed with animal feed. In the second type of clarified butter the butter is heated until the milk solids coagulate and harden and the butter darkens slightly, intensifying the butterfat flavor into a kind of ghee. Individual families usually prefer one of these types of clarified butter to the other. Beni Hasan family members may occasionally sell butter in the market towns but do not want to be seen doing so in their own communities as the Mi’dan sell butter and the Beni Hasan are willing to do just about anything necessary to avoid comparison with the Mi’dan. Cattle are usually kept in stockades during the winter. These range from little more than the owner’s courtyard to a fairly large area of land enclosed in a high fence of reeds. If the latter, they must be rebuilt each year to make sure they are strong enough to hold the cattle. Some kind of shelter for the cattle is also provided. In the area of al-Hiba this was usually a reed lean-to structure built against a section of the courtyard wall, a portion of which was always included in even the largest cattle pen. In one case, the nearby, abandoned house of a neighbor was included in the corral

BOVINE HUSBANDRY

193

Figure 11.2 Churning by rolling the filled sheepskin back and forth on the ground. and with a few variations served nicely for the cattle. Knocking out irregular, jagged sections of pisé enlarged the door, and one of the windows was blocked up with mud to help keep the interior warmer in winter. It is necessary to provide feed for cattle in the winter. Stalks of grain raised in the area are collected and preserved for winter forage. It is usually possible to barter for the forage left in a neighbor’s field after the crops have been harvested which gives the herdsman a larger supply of forage than that obtainable from his own fields. Often part of the agreement calls for the cattle to pasture for a certain length of time after the crop stems have been cut and carried off.This leads to a natural manuring of the field which is extremely beneficial for the farmer’s next crop and an additional supply of manure for making dung patties.The arrangement may also call for a daily portion of specified milk products to be paid the owner of the field. As soon as possible in the spring the herdsmen collect new reed shoots and rushes from within the marsh to help supplement their cattle’s diet.When the marsh waters begin to recede, ample pasture emerges along its borders, and cattle will sometime wade a short distance into the marsh for a particularly choice mouthful of young reed. Cattle are butchered for meat, but more rarely than one might suspect for meat is not a staple of either the Beni Hasan or Mi’dan diet.There is,

194

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

of course, no refrigeration in the villages, nor is there any other provision for the long-term storage of meat. Cattle are butchered by important people for major celebrations, for a sacrifice pledged in the fulfillment of a prayer wish, or because an animal is sick or dying. In the last situation the meat is usually eaten at home and distributed free to clan members and friends rather than being sold. Most animals destined for the table are sold to butchers in the market towns.

Water Buffalo The water buffalo of Iraq are river type buffalo (Bubalus bubalis). Some think they are most closely related to the water buffalo of India, but a white patch, which is rather common on the foreheads, indicates some influence of the Nile breed.This latter influence, of course, could be quite recent. It was estimated in 1970 by an official from the agricultural department that cattle outnumbered water buffalo in Iraq by about 6 to 1. A well cared for animal can live for about 18 to 20 years, and several have lived to be 25 years old or older.

Use The Mi’dan near al-Hiba keep water buffalo primarily for milk, dung, and hides. Of the three, dung is the most important. One of the primary tasks for little girls, at a very early age, is to follow the water buffalo-collect their dung, and bring it back home carried atop their heads in baskets water-proofed with bitumen. It is mixed with straw or crushed reed, patted into thin disks by the women of the family, and then allowed to dry in the sun. One water buffalo movement is enough for four to six dung patties.These disks are used for fuel when one desires to maintain a fairly even temperature over a period of time: for cooking, baking food or pottery, and providing heat in cold, rainy weather. During summer dung patty fires provide an acrid smoke that keeps mosquitos and fierce biting flies at bay for both owners and their animals. When the Mi’dan build a fire at the height of the insect season the whole herd jostles for the best position on the downwind side in order to push their heads and faces into the smoke. In spite of their rugged appearance, water buffalo are very sensitive to large numbers of insects, and an unhappy water buffalo soon loses condition. The dung is also used for repairing leaks in a reed structure and for both waterproofing and sealing storage containers in the courtyard. Applied fresh, it dries to a cement-like hardness in the sun. It is applied to the forehead for headaches and used as a healing agent for burns. For cuts and wounds it is used to stop the flow of blood as well as for healing. Water buffalo milk is served at room temperature, either fresh or sour, as well as heated or sweetened with sugar. It is frequently used for making sauces or gravies for rice, with a vegetable, a piece of fish, or more

BOVINE HUSBANDRY

195

rarely chicken or a piece of meat. Butter is made in the same fashion as butter from cow’s milk, and water buffalo buttermilk is a favorite drink. Clarified butter is made by heating the butter, but the white froth that forms on top (gamer) thickens and is scraped off to be eaten on bread. The curds of water buffalo milk are usually heated to a higher temperature than those of cattle until they sink to the bottom of the heating vessel. The container is taken off the heat, but the curds are left suspended in the liquid until they have time to soften.They are then collected and compressed into small cheeses. Both butter and cheese are sold by Mi’dan women in the villages and in the market towns. When a Mi’dan has but one or two water buffalo cows, butter is sometimes made in a hollowed-out gourd, shaken from side to side, but more often it is made in a sheepskin. A sheepskin is prepared for making butter in the same way that a water buffalo skin is tanned.A freshly flayed skin is turned inside out, the surface scraped as clean as possible with a knife, and the skin spread out to dry in the sun. Sufficient water to cover it is brought to a boil in a vessel with ash from a reed fire, lye, salt, and one kilo of dry pomegranate or pomegranate skins.The mixture is then allowed to cool.The skin is put in the solution, which is heated again and then allowed to cool overnight. Again the skin is scraped with a knife. This process is repeated at least twice, but sometimes three or four times until the leather is clean and pliable. When the sheepskin is thoroughly dry its apertures, except for the neck, are sewed shut. The skin is blown up and filled with a small amount of water mixed with oil.The neck is tied shut, the skin twisted around to make sure the oil covers the entire inside surface, and the inflated skin allowed to sit in the sun for a day or two.When fully cured, cream is put in this leather bag, air blown into it (as into a balloon), and the neck tied tightly closed. Butter is produced by rolling the skin from side to side, shaking it briskly, and in the final stages kneading the sheepskin with both hands. Water buffalo skins are used as covers or blankets, as mats for sleeping, as cradles for babies, or cut into pieces for smaller functions. Both men and women milk water buffalo into wooden pails with tapered, knobbed, or pointed bottoms or into a saba, a basket coated with bitumen on the interior. Most people milk them from their flanks, but one man was seen milking from behind the water buffalo cow.When questioned, he claimed it was easier to milk this way if the water buffalo cow was as quiet and reliable as the old one he was milking.Younger ones were too nervous and could cause serious injury to the milker if they kicked.Water buffalo calves are restricted in their access to their mother’s milk at an early age.They stay tethered in the courtyard within reach of a supply of fodder while their mother forages for grasses during the day (Figure 11.3), and they wear muzzles made

196

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 11.3 Baby water buffalo tethered at home while its mother forages for grasses in the marshes. out of cord when the adults return from the marshes in the evening until the mother’s owner has first drawn part of her milk for his own use. Meat from the water buffalo can always be found for sale in the market towns, but it must be clearly labeled as water buffalo. Selling it as meat from cattle is considered dishonest as the Beni Hasan despise the water buffalo and consider its meat unclean.Water buffalo meat usually comes from male animals sold by the Mi’dan for cash. It is very unusual for a Mi’dan to slaughter a water buffalo himself, although they will occasionally do so if an animal is injured past saving or if the family is very hungry during a period of food shortage. Male water buffalo are as productive as females when it comes to one of the most important products of these animals—manure. No water buffalo in the area is ever used as a draught or pack animal. Even in other parts of Iraq where cattle are often used for draft, water buffalo are usually not. A good cow will produce between 18 and 19 pounds of milk, while a good water buffalo cow will give as much as 25 pounds daily.

Feeding Water buffalo exist almost entirely on grasses, sedges, and young reeds from within or on the edge of the marsh. For most of the year they forage for themselves during the day while their owners collect fodder to feed them when they return from the marshes. Most of the forage collected comes from

BOVINE HUSBANDRY

197

either within or on the edges of the marsh, but some comes from the nearby field of the Beni Hasan farmers. These farmers make similar arrangements with the Mi’dan as they do with their own tribal herdsmen to rent out their harvested fields for fodder and pasturage.The Mi’dan, like the cowherds, cut down the stalks of the harvested grain for storage and pasture their animals in the field for a certain number of days. Part of the rental price, in the case of both tribes, is likely to be a share of dairy products. During the rainy season the marshes are sometimes too deep for the water buffalo to reach the grasses, and their owners and the owners’ families must collect enough to feed them during the day as well. If the water is very high, the forage must be carried to the banks of the marsh or to the owner’s house for the water buffalo to eat. If it is only moderately high, the water buffalo may accompany a member of its owner’s family into the marsh.The harvester will cut the young growth beneath the water’s surface, and the water buffalo will eat it as it floats to the surface. This is probably also the way the animal is trained to crop forage from beneath the water’s surface, as grazing beneath the water is not natural to the water buffalo. If the water is altogether too deep or if there are too few people in the household to cut forage for them, an owner may feed his herd barley and chopped wheat or barley straw for a brief time, usually paid for by a commitment to furnish certain milk products for a specific amount of time. Like the cowherd water buffalo raisers endeavor to put up enough forage, especially in the fall, to meet all contingencies. Water buffalo are more stubborn than cattle about the introduction of a new food should a dietary supplement be needed.They will resist trying something new for days, often until their condition has deteriorated. Cattle, on the other hand, tend to experiment with the new food after a few hours of hunger.

Housing Some owners of water buffalo provide a roofed structure or sitra to protect their livestock against inclement weather (see pp. 163). Occasionally an owner will tether his water buffalo to stakes at night in the lee of his dwelling, but most keep all their livestock in a courtyard fenced with reeds or mud. During the chilly weather of late winter and early spring, the closer the water buffalo are kept to the family’s dwelling the warmer the interior of the house will remain. If the animals are not tethered to stakes but allowed to roam free in the courtyard, ditches 2/3 to 1 m in width or holes of the same width are dug every 2/3 m alongside interior walls of mud or reed to protect them against the lumbering strength of the water buffalo. Such protection is particularly needed in the spring when the animals seek anything solid against which they can scratch off their itchy winter coats.

198

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Husbandry In the villages around al-Hiba the largest herds of water buffalo numbered near 20.The ordinary well-to-do owner kept closer to 8 to 10. Middle class families usually owned between 4 to 6, and the poor family owned 3 or less of the animals. In the morning the water buffalo cows are milked, their calves allowed to nurse, and then the adult water buffalo are released from their evening’s confinement to make their way across the mound to the marshes. The animals seem always to follow the same paths from the villages, emerging eventually into long lines on three main paths which the water buffalo from the surrounding villages seem to share. Most of the time they set off without urging when released from their compound. If the water is still fairly deep or if a water buffalo cow has a calf at home, the animals may require some urging.Village boys or girls will prod them along with a stick until they are caught up in the mass movement and move off on their own. The breeding of the water buffalo seems to be very haphazard. Owners apparently exercise no control. The water buffalo cows can mate indiscriminately in the marshes with any of the water buffalo bulls from the surrounding villages. In most cases, an owner would be hard put to tell you who was the father of a newborn water buffalo calf. Holes are often drilled through the end of the horns and pieces of yarn or cloth are tied through them.These are talismans to prevent injury and bring luck but also function in making each of its herd recognizable to their owner, even at some distance. Water buffalo cows carry their young for eleven to twelve months. When they are about to give birth it is not unusual for the owners to bring them inside their houses for the event, and some water buffalo calves left behind when their mothers go to the marsh pastures during the day seem to have free use of the house interior, wandering in and out at will. A water buffalo cow sells for about 75 ID and a water buffalo bull for 45 to 50 ID. Sick animals are usually treated with a hot shish (a narrow shaft, usually of metal, on which pieces of food can be impaled for cooking over a fire), and wounds are dressed with a concoction of reed ashes and salt. Water buffalo appear stolid, peaceful, and content and most of the time they are so, but they are capable of building up great resentment against an owner if mistreated or against another water buffalo of either sex whether in or out of their own herd. Once they attack each other, the battle is almost impossible to stop until one of the animals is dead or dying. Such a confrontation between two water buffalo cows broke out on the mound at al-Hiba one day, and the owners were joined by 60 of our workmen who did everything possible to distract the water buffalo cows’ attention and herd them away from each other. All was to no avail. Lumbering beasts turned into skilled

BOVINE HUSBANDRY

199

fighters who charged and maneuvered with deadly speed and grace unfazed by blows from sticks and clubs and apparently totally incapable in their frenzy of seeing anyone but their enemy. Water buffalo can acquire a taste for bitumen.This can be very hard on bitumen-covered boats which the Mid’an depend on for transportation(see pp. 184). Although the Mi’dan and water buffalo live together in a symbiotic relationship one should probably not think of the water buffalo in this area as fully domesticated. Man offers some protection and at times food in return for what the animals produce naturally. There has been no attempt to “improve” them by controlled breeding programs or to train them as draft animals.

Persistence and Change Over the years we found many changes, one of the most striking of which was the complete disappearance of the Mi’dan, who no longer lived anywhere in the area. In 1970 the Beni Hasan had looked down with contempt on the Mi’dan for keeping water buffalo. They considered the water buffalo as at least partially unclean, for many would not knowingly eat its flesh, and as somewhat useless when compared with the productivity of domesticated cattle. Imagine our surprise, then, to find that despite the absence of the Mi’dan in 1990, the number of water buffalo in the area had only decreased by about 20% to 25% (less than the amount of decrease that had occurred in the size of the marshes). Furthermore, the Beni Hasan who had so thoroughly disparaged them in the past were now keeping water buffalo. The reason for this change in attitude was made clear by some rather embarrassed owners who remembered elaborating twenty years before on the disgusting nature of the water buffalo and the Mi’dan who kept them. Water buffalo exploit an ecological niche in the marshes in which no domestic animal can function. Manure was less important to the Beni Hasan in the late 1980s than it had been to the Mi’dan earlier, and as a result they sold more water buffalo bull calves for meat, allowing more water buffalo heifers and cows which produced milk and cheese to survive on the same resources. The water buffalo calves were sold in the market towns. New owners of water buffalo seldom ate them because of surviving prejudice. Although water buffalo meat is eaten more frequently in the area than it used to be, it is still against the law for butchers to sell it labeled as meat from domestic cattle. During our stay in 1990 two butchers in the area were closed down by the police for doing

200

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

so, and one who was said to have done so knowingly was put in jail. One would be hard pressed to find evidence for this change in artifacts that might survive in the immediate area of any of the villages. Keeping water buffalo brought the Beni Hasan increased material benefits, but it was also a somewhat traumatic change for them which required a radical attitude adjustment. Clearly the economic benefits derived with but moderate effort is enough to justify a change in attitude (the marshes rarely flooded to the depth where families must forage for their water buffalo as in the past because of the state-sponsored marsh draining). With the departure of the Bedouin encampments and the drying up of the marshes, there was much more cultivatable land, and what remained of the seasonal pasture was completely in the hands of the villagers. It is no wonder then that herds of cattle grew in number and that they were kept by more families. Surplus cattle were more often butchered, for with the advent of electricity came the refrigerator and freezer which could preserve the meat for a long time. No longer did one have to wait for some prime public event where the flesh could be entirely consumed by a large crowd. Meat began to appear more often in the herdsman’s diet, and because it could now be purchased in small quantities, more often in other villager’s diets as well. In 1990 two members of the Beni Hasan who had large herds of cattle and some water buffalo as well had each bought a centrifugal separator to be used for separating the cream from the milk. Although the women of these households and their families had always gotten along before, they now became rivals. While enlisting supporters with the promise of free access to their new machines, they were ignoring each other whenever possible.

Gender Roles At the beginning of this study men of the Mi’dan milked water buffalo except for four or five families in which this chore was interchangeable, and women of the Beni Hasan milked the family cows. Imagine the errors in interpretation and the resulting confusion in an analysis of gender roles based on archaeological data that survived from only one or two households! Even when a gender role seems well established it can change temporarily in an individual household because of sickness, emergency, temporary absence, or crisis. As the expedition members learned in 1990, gender roles can change radically and permanently after the death of one partner in a marriage, or during a war that saps the energy of the entire community. Many widowed women with children continued to live with their husbands’ families after the Iran-Iraq war. The resulting imbalance of available labor not only caused women to take over most roles that had been previously of ambiguous gender designation, such as the feeding of animals and milking of water buffalo,

BOVINE HUSBANDRY

201

etc, but also to take on such duties as clearing the fish nets of trapped fish, which had previously been unquestionably a masculine role.

Disposing of Animal Bones Most water buffalo die of disease, injury, or old age. Only the most extreme hunger would drive the Mi’dan to butcher a water buffalo, and many of the Beni Hasan and the Bedouin consider the meat inedible. Sometimes the skin will be harvested from a dead animal, but this probably happens in less than half of the cases. When an animal dies, its body is dragged to a place downwind of the village where it is torn apart by village dogs. Because none of the tribes would eat water buffalo meat we were amazed when we noticed in passing that many of the village refuse pits held water buffalo bones. To try to understand why this should be so, we decided to conduct a study of two of these garbage pits. Refuse pits are associated with each family’s housing complex. A single pit serves the entire family and is located outside the courtyard and within 10 to 25 m of the same. They consist of rather shallow holes about 1 m in depth and from 2 to 3 m in diameter. Household refuse is disposed of in these pits.When they are nearly full, they are covered over and a new pit dug close by. Among the items consigned to these pits are the leftover remains from meals, which usually consist only of some of the bones, cartilage, and sometimes pieces of skin. Butchering animals for meat is always carried out near the currently used pit, and the remains from this process are cast into them as well. One would imagine that these pits would become quite odorous, especially in the summer, but that is not the case. Dogs who have attached themselves to the family stake out their independent territories around this pit and pick it clean of anything remotely digestible. Domestic birds such as chickens or turkeys and domestic cats which die of natural causes are also consigned to these pits, but not the larger domestic animals such as dogs, sheep, or cattle. The latter are dragged off as far as possible so that the odor of their decay will not affect the quality of life. A large carcass such as this immediately becomes the focus of all the dogs in the neighborhood.They descend on it, fight over it, and if the carcass is particularly large, such as a water buffalo, establish temporary territories as close to it as possible which they maintain until the animal is fully eaten.Weaker dogs take advantage of an opportunity to race toward the carcass, grab some edible morsel, and retreat with it to their permanent homes, the environs of their family’s garbage pit. When the dead animal is reduced to bones, dogs will continue to frequent the area

202

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

selecting an appropriate bone to chew on and often carrying it off to their permanent territory. The same is sometimes true of the remains of the dog’s regular quarry, the wowie, if it is successfully hunted by one or two dogs. If a whole pack is involved in the chase the entire animal disappears in an eating frenzy and the ground where it’s captured is spattered with blood, not always just that of the captured animal. As a result of all this, the refuse pit and its environs take on a most interesting pattern or configuration. Our study of two of these pits shows that by the time the pit is buried, it contains less than 10% of the surviving fragments of bones that were deposited there by humans. About 20% of the surviving fragments can be found within a radius of 10 m. The remaining 70% have either been entirely consumed or are scattered all over the village and its surroundings. Family dogs carry them off to shady places for leisurely gnawing, and dogs belonging elsewhere make successful forays and raids. Furthermore, there are bones represented, sometimes in the pit itself, which are the results of scavenging and hunting by the dogs and are not the product of human activity.

Archaeological Impact In addition to the general information about agriculture and raising livestock in this part of the world, two surprising discoveries are worth special consideration. The replacement of the Mi’dan by the Beni Hasan as owners of water buffalo they had previously despised would show little or no evidence in future archaeological records.This should serve to warn us against too easy acceptance of, or over-reliance on, so-called cultural or tribal markers. Without other evidence, one would assume from the very existence of the water buffalo, and the prejudice of the Beni Hasan against them, that the Mi’dan were still in residence. Then, too, the study of the al-Hiba garbage pits has implications for the study of other garbage pits both modern and ancient. Raw data from excavation of such pits cannot be taken to accurately reflect the eating customs and dietary habits of the people who created them unless one can eliminate the possibility of contamination or discover its source and establish its nature and volume.

12

SHEEP

T

he following description is based on information collected in the seven Beni Hasan villages closest to al-Hiba during the l970–71 excavations .These villagers did not keep goats. Some had tried in the past but claimed that goats did not do well in this environment on the edge of the marshes and were subject to many diseases, especially in the summer. This account does not include, except in passing, data concerning the large flocks of sheep and goats owned by Bedouin tribes who regularly arrived in the area at the end of September and moved on during the month of December. It is interesting to note, that the villagers never purchased breeding stock from the Bedouin although the Bedouin’s sheep appear to have a significantly higher rate of fertility than the local strain. Both Bedouin and villagers agreed that the mortality rate among the Bedouin sheep of all ages, if confined to this area the year around, would be greater than 75%. The life style of the migratory Bedouin sheep herder would appear to be a necessity for the health of his flock.The Mi’dan who lived here did not keep sheep or goats. Since the primary reason for keeping sheep is their wool, only a few shepherds milk their sheep.Those who do use the milk to make curds that they press into the bottom of the container and allow to settle.After the curds have dried they are cut into strips and matured in a cured sheepskin at least six months and sometimes as long as a year. The resulting cheese smells like a sheep but has a sharp and excellent flavor. For most of the year sheep secure their sustenance from the grasses and sedges available at pasture, but during the winter there is a period of up to four months when little or no pasturage remains and they must be fed grain.This period can be shortened to two or three months for those who have 203

204

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

land on the edge of the marsh or those who own a piece of irrigated land.The receding of the marsh during the late summer and early fall causes new grazing land to appear up to the time of the first winter rains. Some of this grass is cut and stored for winterfeeding, as are some of the more tender late-growing reeds and rushes. This is usually stacked on the roof of the house if the structure is made of mud. If the house is made of reeds the grass is stacked against its side. Growth of grasses can be forced on irrigated land in late summer sufficient to carry small flocks of sheep into the early winter. An individual sheep without sufficient pasturage is fed two handfuls of barley twice a day. If the barley is in short supply, dried reeds from the marshes can be rubbed between one’s hands to break into small pieces or chopped with a knife, and a certain proportion of this added to the grain. It is not as nourishing as the grain but in temporary circumstances can help satisfy the sheep. During the day sheep are guided and guarded at pasture, usually by a young boy or girl but sometimes by an older woman of the family (Figure 12.1 and 12.2). Extended families usually pasture their sheep together, and the shepherding duties are alternated. The shepherd’s duty is to guard the sheep against predators and guide them to the more succulent patches of growth available without trespassing on pasturage claimed by one’s neighbor. A sheikh or religious figure usually mediates conflicting pasturage claims among residents of the same village and seeks a solution rooted in consensus. Resolution

Figure 12.1 A village shepherd with his flock.

SHEEP

205

Figure 12.2 Shepherds guarding their sheep. of conflicting pasturage claims between individuals from different villages is not so simple and can result in serious and prolonged inter-village quarrels. Shepherds are usually assisted in their duties by one or more dogs. In spite of the dogs’ lowly position in the area, some become quite adept at the simple guiding of sheep. As no one takes on the job or admits to doing so of actually training the dogs, they must pick up details of herding from other dogs. Dogs with herding abilities are treated quite differently from run-ofthe-mill animals.They are singled out as recipients of whatever scraps of food are discarded, encouraged to stay near the compound, and given some protection against other dogs. Dogs are also useful as they fiercely guard their own sheep from would-be predators and give loud warning at the approach of strangers. Common predators include other dogs and foxes which prey especially on the lambs. One must also be on guard against personal enemies or hungry people from other villages, who may carry off an unguarded sheep, kill it, and eat it, leaving little or no evidence of the crime. If a dog is injured, I was told, one need not treat the injury, for dogs like cats can lick their wounds and are better left to their own curative devices. During the night the sheep are kept within the courtyard for their own protection. If their owner keeps other animals as well, the sheep are usually provided with a fenced enclosure at one side. Sometimes an owner maintains a sun-dried pisé mud watering trough within this corral. Other owners, however, believe that it is not necessary for the sheep to drink during the

206

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

night’s confinement as long as there is ample water available during the day. It is not unusual, especially in winter, for members of the family to use the sheep pen for a toilet. Just outside the courtyard, on the most sheltered side of the compound, is a feeding trough made of sun-dried pisé mud where the sheep are fed their grain rations in winter. Even in the winter, except in the most inclement weather, the sheep are herded out of the courtyard in the morning and kept outside until late afternoon. Most herds of sheep belonging to an individual owner are rather small, consisting of 8 to 10 ewes and a ram. On the other hand, several members of a family may have their own individual herds but tend to graze them together so in the countryside herds look much larger.The largest individually owned herds in the area (aside from the herd of the most powerful local sheikh, which numbered 126) were one of 35 sheep and another of 47. Most herds in this area are begun when a boy is given a ewe from his father’s flock. Those not so lucky can begin a herd by buying one or more sheep. A proven ram costs about 35 ID, a good ewe 25 ID and a lamb can be bought for 10 to 15 ID, depending on its age and condition. Most individuals with sheep own their own rams. In family herds each member usually owns his own ram as well as ewes, and there are several rams running with the flock throughout the year. One ram is considered ample for 10 to 15 ewes, in spite of the fact that modern veterinary science shows that a healthy ram can impregnate many more than that in one day. There are two breeding seasons falling roughly from the end of April through June or from August through October. When rams run constantly with the herd, lambs are usually born from September to November or from the end of January through March. Ewes with newborn lambs are not separated from the flock, but the shepherd usually carries their lambs to and from the pasture. Some individual owners do not have rams for their herds and borrow one from a neighbor. Usually a ram is borrowed for the months of April through July or August through October in return for special favors, to satisfy an obligation of the owner, or sometimes for the promise of one or more of the resulting lambs. The ram’s owner can then use the ram in his own flock during the alternative breeding season. A few owners separate the ram from any contact with ewes from the end of October through March and give it special pasturage and added rations. It is nearly universally believed that the condition and number of lambs is dependent on the virility of the male. Most rams are decorated with colored wool yarn or strips of colored cloth tied into the wool of the tail near its juncture with the body. Especially prized ewes (because of production) or especially comely lambs (conformation) are also

SHEEP

207

decorated, but usually on the neck. Such decoration may be with colored yarn, or cloth or even dye applied to strands of the sheep’s own wool. Sickly sheep of any age may be decorated with one or more amulets to ward off evil spirits. Average production in the flock consists of 50% of the ewes giving birth to a single lamb. If 60% of the ewes bear lambs it is considered a very good year. Twins are rare and when they do occur usually only one survives. One ram that produced healthy twins in l969 was still pointed out in l971 to strangers as an especially virile member of his species. The ordinary owner of a flock tries to keep all the ewe lambs and either eats, sells, or barters the males, except for one or two of special “beauty” (conformation) which are kept as future herd sires. Scarcity of food or social obligations often make it necessary to butcher female lambs as well. Inquiries as to what size herds individual villagers would eventually like to own reveal a deep division between reality and aspiration. Answers begin at 50 head and go up to astronomical figures. The more realistic limiting factors here seem to have to do with the amount of pasturage available, the sizable cost of barley necessary to winter the flock, and the loss of sheep through predators and disease.When this is pointed out to someone who has just said he would like to have 200 sheep, he inevitably replies that if he had 200 sheep he would be rich enough to buy all the feed he needed and feed his sheep on barley the year around and could more easily bear the losses from predation and disease. Actually, losses of sheep to predators, whether human or animal, are rather minimal. Close guarding of the sheep by members of the family and the family dogs as well as the habit of confining the sheep to the courtyard at night successfully prevent most predatory attacks. During l970 only two of the 615 sheep in the neighboring villages were lost to predators. Disease, injury, and treatment of injury account for more substantial losses (28 in l970). Branding with a hot shish is the most prevalent form of treating the symptoms of disease. A sheep that staggers is branded on the top of its head, while one that loses orientation and wanders around in tight circles is branded behind the ear opposite to the direction of its revolutions. When a sheep breaks out with pustules it is branded on its chin, while a ewe having difficulty giving birth to her lamb is sometimes branded just below the vulva. Most sheep owners are quick to recognize the nature of the difficulty in a delayed birth and are adept at correcting a lamb’s presentation by thrusting their hand into the ewe’s birth canal by helping to pull an oversized lamb. I even watched with amazement as one shepherd cut up and removed an oversized lamb within the ewe in order to save her life. For cuts, a shepherd makes a preparation of equal parts of molasses (dibis) and flour or of sugar and flour. He spreads this preparation on the

208

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

wound and covers it with a cloth soaked in the same mixture. He then secures the cloth over the wound with strips of rush and leaves it there for one month. This is sometimes successful, but not always. If a sheep breaks its leg, the shepherd applies sticks as a splint, usually 3, and wraps the leg tightly with wellcured sheepskin.When he removes it 10 days later, the leg often appears to be mended. If a snake or a scorpion bites a sheep, I am told, one must cut the ear with a knife from the center through the lobe and beat the ear with palm fronds until it begins to bleed profusely.This, it is claimed, will cure the animal completely. The highest mortality rate of all is among the lambs during their first winter as a result of frost or heavy rains.This is reflected in the local nomenclature for ages of sheep. In addition to giving the actual numerical age of a sheep you can say that the sheep is old, five to six years, hirfi; that the sheep is one who has survived the first winter, shitwi; or that the sheep is one who has survived the first chill of winter, shillawi. During l970 over 40 new lambs were said to have died from “winter complications.” The lack of sufficient pasturage, especially in the fall, which leads to a prolonged period of costly supplemental feeding also seems to provide a major limitation on herd growth. In view of this it is difficult to understand the easy acceptance of the Bedouin who arrive in the area in late September with large flocks of sheep and goats. The Bedouin flocks graze on the newly emerged and emerging grasses and sedges along the edges of the marshes that would otherwise be used by the local villagers’ sheep. Although this would seem, in effect, to limit the size of local herds by depriving them of additional forage, it is tolerated because it is both customary and economically advantageous. Both Bedouin groups that spend time here have a weaving family. They trade woven goods for villagers’ raw wool or for the sajada (pile carpets) and bassat (flat woven rugs) made by village craftswomen. In an economy where cash is hard to come by, it allows the villagers to barter their wool and wool products directly for the cloth they need for clothing and blankets (see Weaving).

Shearing Shearing sheep takes place from the middle of April to the middle of May. Exact timing of the operation seems to be dependent on (l) the arrival of the kawili, itinerant gypsies who serve as the local blacksmiths and who sharpen the zaww, special scissors used for shearing (Figure 12.3) (2) the availability of the shearers for there are only two or three men in the area generally regarded as competent, (3) the weather, and (4) the personal inclination of the herd’s owner. It is important to make the right decision about shearing time, for a

SHEEP

209

Figure 12.3 The shearer holds a zaww, scissors for shearing.

delay can produce an inferior quality of wool as the sheep begin to molt.Two or three days before the beginning of the operation the owner, usually accompanied by several members of his family, takes the sheep to a nearby canal or into the shallows of the marshes. The sheep are washed with water. A soap made of the ashes from the tannur is used on especially stubborn stains and matted hair is pulled apart. On the day of the shearing the main room of the family’s dwelling is prepared by thorough sweeping, and reed mats, old cloth, or sacking are laid down near the open doorway to protect the sheep’s fleece from dirt. Usually three or four friends of the owner are present in addition to the shearer. The shearer has previously made arrangement for reimbursement. Sometimes this takes the form of returned favors, sometimes he shears for a portion of the wool (an average of 10%), or sometimes for money (50 to 100 fills per sheep). Sheep are brought into the mudhif one at a time from their night corral in the courtyard. The sheep is thrown on the cloth or matting by seizing the two legs on the side of the sheep farthest from the shearer. It is then pulled over on its side while the shearer retards and softens the fall with his own legs. Three of the sheep’s feet are tied together with a length of cloth (never rope or twine as this may cut into the sheep’s flesh). The shearer starts on one side near the neck, works down the flank, around the tail and rear, over the back and down the other side

210

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 12.4 Shearing the sheep. (Figure 12.4). [fig. 12.4] The tops of the legs are done last.The blades of the shears are forced through the wool and then pressure exerted to cut. This is very hard work, requiring enormous pressure even when the shears are at their sharpest (Figure 12.5). The handles of the shears are wrapped with raw wool to help protect the shearer’s hands. Results are somewhat ragged, preserving a coat of wool on the sheep varying from 3 to 6 cm in depth.The wool is left intact around the neck, on the head, on the belly, and on the lower legs. Otherwise I was told, “the sheep would not look like a sheep” or “it would look ugly rather than beautiful.” Inevitably the skin is sometimes nicked with the shears. A compound composed of equal parts of ashes from a tannur and salt is applied to such cuts. While the shearer is at work, the owner and whoever else is about keep their eyes firmly on the sheep searching out ticks (grad) which were previously undiscovered, pulling them off when they see them, and squashing them. The finished sheep is ushered out the door and put into the charge of the shepherd. The fleece is stretched out, with leg wool and other fragments placed in the center and then rolled up (Figure 12.6). Two twists of wool pulled up from the bundle are used to tie the roll together. Before use by the villagers, the wool will be unrolled on mats and exposed for three to four days to the hot sun of summer. Another unshorn sheep is then brought in. After every three sheep at the beginning and every two sheep later on, rest periods

Figure 12.5 Preparing to force the blades of the zaww through the sheep’s wool.

Figure 12.6 Rolling up the fleece.

212

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

of increasing length are taken for cigarettes and tea furnished by the sheeps’ owner. A longer break is taken around noon during which the host provides dinner for the shearer and his other guests

Use of Sheepskins Sheepskins can be sold to commercial leather makers in Shatra or processed at home for use as containers for liquids, churns, covers for drums, straps, and belts. The home process, while fairly simple, does not result in leather of the same quality or as long lasting as the commercial process (see pp. 195–6).

Sheep Manure Sheep manure plays an important role as fuel in the ordinary household. The householder usually has three fuel choices: reeds, sun-dried dung patties, and sun-dried pellets. Those who do not own cows or water buffalo can make, with somewhat more effort, dung patties from sheep manure collected from the courtyard or courtyard pens after the sheep have been turned out for the day. Such material is usually fresh and moist enough to be worked with straw or dried reeds into respectable patties which can be dried in the sun. Sundried pellets collected from the pasture are especially used for making coffee and tea. Initially they burn hotly enough to bring water to a boil and later, like hot coals that have lost some of the intensity of their heat, keep the brew warm without over boiling.

Sheep Sinews The sinews of dead sheep, taken fresh from the carcass, are much sought after for the permanent binding of one object to another such as the heads of spears or other tools to their shafts, or pieces of wood or reed to each other in the making of tripods, and baby cradles.As the sinews dry they contract and grow rigid, giving a much stronger and longer-lasting bond than does bitumen, which is also used for similar purposes.

Sheep Blood Blood from a freshly slaughtered animal is considered to have important power in warding off evil. It is absolutely necessary that new

SHEEP

213

rooms be marked with this blood either administered from the severed head or, preferably, by hand in such a way as to leave a bloody hand print on the wall and door posts. Such treatment is said to prevent evil dreams (nightmares) among the inhabitants. It is also sometimes applied by finger to the ailing part of an animal or human being in order to aid recovery.

Sheep Meat and Fat The preferred age of lambs for food is between 6 and 8 months. Large dinners of an important sheikh feature a whole lamb served atop a tray filled with rice. Grease from the sheep is poured over the rice and should drip from the sides of the tray to indicate the bountiful hospitality of the host. Fat is often more popular than meat, a phenomenon explained by the extremely low fat diet of the ordinary villager. A “formal” dinner given by an ordinary member of the community usually features a leg and part of the fat tail of the sheep. Sometimes these are served on a large tray, but sometimes they are pulled apart and apportioned as a garnish to several smaller dishes filled with rice. Each of these smaller dishes will serve two or three people. Because meat does not keep well in this climate and because there was no refrigeration until the mid 80s, a series of complex arrangements or agreements with others provided for the distribution of the meat the family could not use in a day or two to other families in the village. They were then obliged to return in kind the portion of the animal they received the next time they slaughter a sheep.

Local Terminology Sheep by Sex Male Female Ram Ewe Male Lamb Female Lamb

thakar untha kharuf najah fahl tli tlia

Sheep by Age One who survives first chill of winter One who survives the first winter “Old,” five to six years

shillawi shitwi hirfi

Sheep by Size of Ears (Representing Two Different Strains) One who has short ears One who has long ears

tamsha aussiyah

Sheep by Color White Red (Dark Brown) Yellow (Light Brown) Black Grey

baydha hamra safra sawda ashma

Persistence and Change The most dramatic change at al-Hiba since 1986, the complete disappearance of the Mi’dan and Bedouin and the progressive draining of the surrounding marshes, has increased the amount of land available to the local villagers for grazing sheep. One would expect to find a large growth in the sheep population as one did in cattle, but this is not the case.A few more people keep sheep than did before, but average herd size has grown by only two or three animals. Part of the reason for this is certainly to be found in the diversion of some of the best land to the raising of vegetables or barley as cash crops on plots of newly irrigated land. This has been made possible by the widespread ownership of water pumps. Another reason is the increased market for fish, which occupies many of the village men now that roads permit potential buyers to come right to the villages. Both fishing and raising of crops are labor intensive and the farmerfisherman can make use of even his youngest children, a part of whose day is already occupied by attendance at school. Consequently shepherding has become a part time job for most members of the family, depending on who is free at what hour and on what day. A third reason is that while wool is a cash crop (a fleece sold in 1990 for 6 to 7 ID) a good part of the income it produces goes to purchase the barley for winter feeding. Nor is there any attempt to optimize one’s income from the wool, for, as in the past, a significant part of the fleece is not harvested for aesthetic reasons.The main purpose for keeping these small family herds would appear to be the meat they furnish for the

SHEEP

215

family, with the sale of wool a secondary consideration. The availability of electricity and ownership of freezers increase the frequency with which meat appears on the family menu. Perhaps the most important reason of all is that in these days of school obligations for the children and alternative profitable crops, most families have about as many sheep as they can handle. It is important to note that fewer sheep are now lost to disease and the treatment of the same. If a sheep becomes ill its symptoms are reported to the veterinarian living in Shatra, and appropriate remedies are secured and administered. The use of a hot shish in the treatment of sheep disorders has almost completely disappeared. Cuts and abrasions are still mostly treated in the old way, to prevent them from becoming infected, and amulets are still often tied to the sheep in order to assist in its cure.

Archaeological Impact One would expect to find many similarities in the raising and utilization of sheep in modern and ancient times. Neither the needs of sheep nor their potential benefits to mankind have changed appreciably. Certainly, for instance, the low fat diet of people, presumed in antiquity and documented in modern times, was responsible for the emphasis on breeding fat tailed sheep in both periods. On the other hand, this modern study also warns us to be aware of the role of the irrational and not be surprised to find it functioning in antiquity as well. Modern villagers regularly engaged in economically wasteful practices. They left a great deal of wool on a sheared sheep because they thought a sheep looked better that way. They tied apotropaic bits of yarn to the sheep’s tail and/or through a hole in the ear, and they smeared henna on its face and feet. A future archaeologist who discovered an image of such an odd-looking sheep would be likely to interpret it as the image of a ritual animal or a fertility symbol, rather than an everyday ram or ewe.

13 VILLAGE WEAVERS

A

mong the modern villagers in this area, only sheep wool is regularly used for spinning and weaving. All of the weaving and related crafts in the village are practiced solely by women except for spinning and twisting thread into yarn for very specific purposes such as making slings, fishnets, and braided or twisted cords.

Preparation for Spinning If they are especially dirty, the short-wool sheep are washed, usually in the running water of a canal, with a soap made from the ashes of a reed fire mixed with oil and clean mud (mud as uncontaminated as possible with organic debris). This preparation is also used as soap for other cleaning purposes. Sheep are then shorn with a pair of shears, and the fleece is rolled up for later use. When the time comes to prepare the wool for spinning, the fleece is opened to remove burrs and sticks, and if the woven work is to be special, to chose which parts of the fleece to use. For very fine work the wool from the back and the sides of the sheep is considered the best. If the wool is still not clean enough it is washed once more in the running water of the canal.Among the Bedouin, the wool is sometimes washed in a urine bath if running water is in short supply, and then further combed and teased by hand. The village women pass the locks of clean wool through a comb with sharp iron teeth set in a wooden paddle to form a roving. Wool is salvaged from a dead sheep by plucking, but this wool is carefully segregated, sold, but never used for rugs or carpets by the villagers.

216

VILLAGE WEAVERS

217

Spinning The spindle (mokhzal) consists of a long reed shaft with a whorl usually made from one or more oblong sections of reed or wood drilled to fit on it (Figure 13.1). But the shape and fabric of the whorl often varies. In a pinch anything can serve, such as a drilled potsherd, an ancient toy chariot wheel from the surface of the excavation mound, even a glob of dried mud.The hole is almost never dead center and the whorl never in perfect balance. If the spindle is to be used only by men, the tip of the short end of the shaft is notched, if only by women, the tip of the long end. Occasionally it is notched at both ends so it can be used interchangeably by either sex. Both men and women in the villages wrap the roving or fluffed wool around their wrist and wrap the finished thread around the spindle above the whorl. Men use the “drop and spin” method, twisting the short end of the shaft clockwise with the fingers of their right hands. They let the spindles drop, spinning, while they tease out wool with the fingers of their right hands from the wool wrapped around their left wrists, held in their left hands or

Figure 13.1 A reed shaft spindle with an oblong piece of reed serving as a whorl.

218

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.2 Men use the “drop and spin” method creating Z-spun thread.

stuffed up the sleeves of their dishdashas (Z spin) (Figure 13.2). After a length is spun it is wound around the staff, its end caught in the notch, and the process repeated. Men usually make slings, gun belts, and cord for binding, tethering, carrying and so forth. Women usually spin in a sitting or crouching position (Figure 13.3). They rub the spindle against their right thigh, from the hip to the knee, with their right hand to start the spindles spinning counterclockwise, again teasing out the wool with the right-hand fingers (S spin) (Figure 13.4).Women most often sew clothes, embroider blankets, and weave such things as bags and pillows. Spinning wool is a primary task for women but usually not for men. Men and boys are most often seen spinning when shepherding animals at pasture. The spin direction of the wool made in the village can give indications as to the prevalent use of one or the other type of spindle and in this case the sex of the spinner.When the spun wool is removed from the spindle, it comes off in a cone-shaped form. The spun wool is usually stored in a chest or sidana

VILLAGE WEAVERS

219

Figure 13.3 Women rub the spindle against their thighs to create S-spun thread.

until sold or needed for a project. Single-ply spun thread is used for sewing, making thread-covered boxes and decorative amulets, and for spinning into yarn.

Dyeing When the spindle is full, the thread is wound from it around the left upper arm and hand to make a skein. When a number of such skeins has been prepared, the woman is ready to begin her dyeing. The primary dyers in each village are the one or two women who regularly weave carpets. Usually they dye a quantity of a single color when they run low on that particular hue. Most other women in the village will borrow or barter for the small amount of dyed wool they might need for small projects. Some women weavers prefer to wait until they have twisted the thread into yarn before dyeing.

220

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.4 Woman spinning thread into yarn.

Preparations for dyeing are seldom elaborate. Pails or large vessels of the required number are set on mud supports over dung-paddy fires. Some women wash each skein in a warm solution of potash immediately before dyeing but most do not. Today all dyes used in the area are industrial dyes, usually imported from Poland or Germany and purchased in the local market towns. Although vegetable dyes were once employed, informants claim that these were also purchased. If true, this probably accounts for the completeness and rapidity of the change to industrial dyes in this area. The dyes are stirred into boiling water until fully dissolved, and the skein or skeins are then placed in the mixture on the end of a stick. Dyeing takes 5–10 minutes, during which time the wool is frequently stirred about and lifted from time to time on the end of a stick to judge the color.When the color satisfies the dyer, the wool is held over the pot on a stick until the excess

VILLAGE WEAVERS

221

moisture drains off.When nearly dry the skeins are rinsed in water, the running water of a canal always being preferred, and hung in the sun to dry thoroughly. All dyes used by the villagers are water soluble, and they fall into two categories: Crystal Dyes Deep violet (mauve) Deep blue (monastral blue) Powder Dyes Lemon yellow (cadmium lemon) Orange red (geranium red) Deep red (carmine) Pink (cobalt violet) Green (monastral green) White, brown, and black can all be obtained from the natural colors of the wool, but sometimes wool is dyed black by mixing several of the above dyes together. It is usually nearly impossible to match exactly a color from a previous dyeing. In the shops where the dyes are sold, all colors are measured out with the same implement, introducing particles of alien dyes into each. A color is never exactly the same, therefore, from one batch of dye to another.

Twisting Thread into Yarn: Plying Except in special cases such as preparing thread for making a sling, for binding, tethering, and carrying cords, and before the introduction of nylon string for making fishnets, women do all twisting of thread. They use a much larger spindle (mabarim) than that used for spinning thread. Although this large spindle is used in the same fashion as the small one, it is always used with the notched short end of the shaft at the top. Men make yarn from thread by attaching the centers of long threads to the side of their dwelling, a stake, or whatever is convenient. Holding the two ends under tension with the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, they rub the two threads lying against the left palm with an upward movement of the right palm until the thread is thoroughly twisted (Figure 13.5).

222

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.5 Boy spinning thread into yarn.

Things Made from Thread and Yarn Sufat: Thread- or Yarn-covered Boxes Sufat, usually kept concealed in the bedclothes, are used for all kinds of valuables, but especially for money (Figure 13.6). They are constructed in the same fashion as baskets made of wrapped reed or rush. Pounding them with heavy sticks and soaking them in water at the edge of the marsh, usually for a day or two, prepare pliable strips of reed or rush. The reed or rush, when properly prepared, is easily bent to any shape required. The framework of the box and its top are built up like coil-made pottery. The section of reed or rush, which will occupy the center, is thoroughly wound with thread until completely covered. It is then bent double, and the portion now lying next to the central spine is likewise wound, a needle being used to insert the thread of the new wrapping through the wrapping the previous section. The process continues as the reed or rush is coiled around the core and wound and bound with thread. The angle of the sidewall as it joins the base for such boxes is usually perpendicular, but any angle can be constructed using this method.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

223

Figure 13.6 A sufat or yarn-covered box.

Decoration of these boxes is accomplished through the skillful use of colored threads.When the initial application of a decorative color occurs, the middle of a long thread of proper hue is tied to the reed and wound around it for the distance required by the pattern.The ends of the cord are left dangling until the next reed section is in place above it, at which time the colored thread is wound once more for the requisite distance and the ends left dangling once again. This process is repeated until the pattern is completed, at which point the thread is caught and tied off on the interior of the box.

Dila’a: Decorative Amulet These are used partially for decoration but most particularly to avert the Evil Eye.They are simply made by wrapping thread around a frame of crossed reed sticks. Their often-pleasing effect is the result of carefully chosen color combinations, but an older woman in the area who is thought to have special powers as well dictates their arrangement. She bases her instructions on the type of evil eye the maker is seeking to avert. She may determine, for instance, that a neighbor has cast a spell on your family and that is why some family member is sick. This will call for a dila’a of a particular design. Among the problems a dila’a may be expected to cure are inattentive husbands, lack of male

224

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

offspring, sickness, injury, difficulties in finding a mate for your son or daughter.Young girls are also likely to use this device to keep a rival from casting a spell that might jeopardize their chance of marrying a chosen suitor by influencing his parents against her or her parents against him. Amulets are considered good things to have in the house because they can avert problems long before they occur and even before one is aware of them.

Minchal: Sling Three four-ply cords of suitable length are wrapped into small egg-shaped balls for easy use. The warp (sida) for the sling is made by wrapping a length of cord five times around one finger of the left hand and a toe, the two of which are about 25 cm apart, leaving a long loose end near the finger (Figure 13.7).This loose end is tied tightly around the cords beneath the holding finger, and the resulting eye around the finger is lined with half hitches of the binding cord. The long cord, now firmly attached to the eye, is tied to the weaver’s belt or a rope around his waist with a slipknot, which makes it easier for him to increase or decrease tension on the warp. A round reed stick of small diameter is then inserted through a loop made in each of the ten cords. The stick keeps the warp cords firmly separated and is pushed down toward the toe as the upper sections of the weft (lahma) are finished. When the weav-

Figure 13.7 A boy weaving a sling while using his big toes to hold the warp under tension.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

225

Figure 13.8 A boy with his sling waiting for prey to come within striking distance.

ing is completed, an eye is made of the strands around the toe in the same fashion as that previously made around the finger. A length of four-ply cord is tied to each end of the spoon-shaped sling.That at the elongated end is fitted with a slipknot, which holds it to the little finger during the throwing process, while that at the bowl-shaped end is held in the palm of the hand and released at the proper moment to send the shot on its trajectory. The most common slingshot is made of small egg-shaped balls of mud dried in the sun, but small stones, when available, and potsherds can also be used. Both boys and very young girls use the sling, primarily for edible birds but occasionally for small animals (Figure 13.8). As the boys get older they often become providers of small creatures for the table.This was especially true in the early days of this study when many families were close to starvation.

Fish and Bird Nets According to informants, nets used to be made of tightly spun, 2-ply yarn, preferably made of long goat hair purchased from the Bedouin. Now the villagers use exclusively the stronger nylon cord that can be bought in most market towns. The process of making nets, whether from yarn or cord, remains

226

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.9 The mashia which is used to make fish and bird nets.

the same. The raw material is wound tightly around the central portion of a wooden implement (mashia) which has narrow openings at each end of sufficient width to allow the passage of a single strand of cord (Figure 13.9). The net is formed by passing the mashia around a fairly thick section of reed (bakra), which is held in the left hand, and the cord from a previously made section of net as indicated (Figure 13.10). Tension is maintained by first wrapping one end of the string, and later the woven portion of the net around the big toe of the right foot (Plates 26 and 27). Two types of fish net are regularly made and used in the area, an oblong net, the largest nearly 30 m in length, and a circular net, the largest ca. 3 m in diameter.The oblong net is used in four ways. As a set-net, sometimes with two nets tied together on their short sides, it is staked out in the marshes with reed or bamboo poles. Fish enmesh themselves of their own accord or are driven into it by the fisherman who moves his boat toward the net from several hundred meters away smacking the surface of the water with his pole, beating metal pots, and uttering loud cries. They are also used as seine nets by several fishermen working together to sweep an area of special promise either in an arc toward the shore, or in an ever-tightening circle in deeper water. Sometimes they are used as drift nets in the canal with their lower edge

VILLAGE WEAVERS

227

Figure 13.10 Diagram of the process of making a net.

weighted and their upper edge attached to the sides of boats.They can also be used in connection with two rush or reed fences which meet in the center of the canal at an angle with the point of the juncture facing upstream. A short net covers the narrow opening between them and is rigged with a bell. Fish going upstream become enmeshed in the net setting off the bell and the fisherman leaps into the canal, stuns the fish with his mugwar and grabs it with his bare hands. Using large nets is usually a group effort of one or more families of commercial fishermen from among the Beni Hasan who often set off on fishing expeditions from February through April hiring additional fishermen for shares in the returns from fish caught. These expeditions can last for several days to over a month. The fishermen live aboard their boats or in makeshift huts they construct on islands in the marsh.They bring a quantity of provisions but if they stay long enough they must send one of their number back for additional supplies at regular intervals. Each fisherman is usually allotted one fish a day for his rations. The fish caught are cleaned and salted by the fisherman and then sold to suffat or fish buyers who maintain market places at points where a road comes close to the edge of the marsh or a canal.These fish buyers often ply the marsh in boats when they know there is a fishing expedition in their vicinity and buy the fish on the spot.They salt the fish again and ship them to Basra or Baghdad. Throw-type fishnets are circular and are attached to a metal ring, which is approximately l2 to l4 cm in diameter.The outer edges are lined with iron or lead. Ten lines a little longer than the radius of the net are cut and tied at the top to form an eye.The net is flattened on the ground (Figure 13.11), and the eye of the ten lines is secured around a stake driven into the ground

228

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.11 Stringing a throw net.

in the center of the metal ring. The lines are then spread an equal distance apart and attached to the bottom of the net.Two subsidiary cords are attached to the middle of each main line and also to the circumference of the net, one on either side of the line to which they are attached and one-third of the distance between it and the neighboring main line.The net is then turned inside out and a long cord attached to the eye at the top.When throwing the net, the caster grips one edge in his teeth and the balance of the net in his right hand with the long cord wound around his wrist from which it will unravel as the net flies through the air (Plate 29). Drawing in the cord brings the weighted bottom of the net together below the surface of the water ensnaring the fish between it and the more buoyant top (Figure 13.12). Non-commercial fishermen use these nets on the shore of the canals to provide fish for home consumption. The fisherman always casts the net at specific fish he has spotted. One often sees young men vying to see who can catch the most or the largest fish with their throw nets alongside the banks of the canal.Younger children also fish with line and hook using a section of dried reed for a float. Until recently only the Beni Hasan villagers used nets for fishing (Figure 13.13). The Mi’dan speared fish from their boats using lights on the boats for lures, from the shore with trident-shaped iron spears mounted on reed shafts (falah), or poisoned them with datura secreted in shrimp or cut-up

Figure 13.12 Retrieving the trapped fish.

Figure 13.13 Beni Hasan men setting out their fish nets in the marshes.

230

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.14 A falah or iron spear mounted on a shaft.

fish bait (Figure 13.14). Fishing was a part time activity, when they had finished with their other chores, designed to put a few fish on their own tables. To net fish, as the Beni Hasan did, was considered unmanly. Spearing fish in the marshes requires a skill and strength which the Mi’dan believed exhibited the best qualities of manhood. Later, because of the price that fish were bringing and because of the success of the Beni Hasan in making fishing a valuable source of income, the younger Mi’dan also netted fish to the despair of their elders. Many Mi’dan, in a compromise to avoid breaking tradition, roundedup the fish in nets but then harvested them with their spears (Figure 13.15). There was a continuing market for fish in which supply never caught up with demand. Small clap nets for birds, usually no bigger than 3 m by 7 m are sometimes set for waterfowl in the shallow water at the edge of the marsh. A roughly oval trench is dug to conceal the folded net where the water is no more than 3 to 5 cm deep. A reed blind is built at one end

VILLAGE WEAVERS

231

Figure 13.15 A Mi’dan harvesting fish from his net by spearing them with the falah.

with two holes, one from which the hunter watches, the other for the pull rope. Grain is regularly scattered in the trapping area for a few days to accustom the birds to feeding there. On the appointed day the hunter again spreads grain early in the morning and hides behind the blind until as many birds as possible are in the netting area. He then pulls the cord. A skillful hunter can capture twenty to thirty teal and ducks at one time.

Ropes Mostly men make braided ropes from yarn, although women will sometimes make a rope for a specific task.These ropes are used for tying up bundles, for belts, for suspending objects from the bayt ceiling or holding guns over the owner’s shoulder.They are also used for tethering and leading animals and for making emergency repairs. Belts, and ropes for guns and for leading horses are always made of multicolored yarns.

232

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Carpet Weaving Setting Up the Loom and Warping Ground looms used by women are the only looms seen in the villages. The wooden components of this loom are: a breast beam and a warp beam (each known as a misdat), a heddle rod (nira), a shed stick (haffa), and several sturdy stakes (watad). When the loom is to be used for the time consuming task of making carpets, it is almost always set up in a separate reed structure to protect the weaving from inclement weather and provide shade for the weaver on hot sunny days.The ground is covered with one or more reed mats (Figure 13.16). The breast and warp beams are set at an appropriate distance apart behind stakes. Each has a cord made of 4- to 6-ply yarn stretched along its length and tied tightly at both ends, and another lighter length of cord tied at the right hand side only.The latter will be used to hold each warp in its proper place by tying the warp to the stretched cord on the beam with a half-hitch (Figure 13.17). Warp cords at the outer edges are made especially thick, usually of 8-ply yarn and are called minina.Warping begins with the tying of such a minina around the right-hand side of the breast beam and fastening it in place with a half-hitch of the breast beam cord.The minina is then passed under the warp beam, cut, knotted to a warp cord of regular size (usually 2 to 4 ply), and fixed

Figure 13.16 A loom with work in progress sheltered by a reed structure.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

233

Figure 13.17 Diagram of the warp beam.

in place with a half-hitch of the warp beam cord.The warp is passed back and forth around the two beams, first under, then over each, and held in place with half-hitches of the beam cords, until the required number for the width desired have been laid out. The last warp thread, again a minina of special thickness, is pulled tight to insure equal tension on all the warp and tied around the warp beam with a slip knot.This will provide a means of adjusting the tension of the warp, especially of individual cords should one be broken or eaten through by a mouse, which is an all-too-common occurrence. Several makers use a double minina on each side of the rug to give it additional strength (Figure 13.18). Two stakes are now set about two or three feet below the warp beam and are attached to it by means of ropes bound tightly to the beam, wrapped around the stakes and tied to the beam once more with slip knots.The stakes, which previously held the warp beam in place, are now removed. This new arrangement permits the increasing or decreasing of tension on all the warp cords simultaneously. The warp cords now describe an ellipse crossing near the center of the loom.A shed stick is inserted through the loop at the foot of the loom, and a heddle rod attached to the alternate warp threads raised at the head of the loom by means of a continuous yarn leash. Both the shed stick and heddle rod are movable. The heddle rod is moved toward the bottom of the loom as the section above it is finished. The shed stick is moved toward the heddle rod in order to depress the set of cords tied to the heddle rod and raise those that are unattached.

234

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Figure 13.18 Diagram of the type of ground loom in use in the area.

If the edges are to be bound, almost always with pile carpets and occasionally with flat woven carpets and pillows, a stake is set on each side of the warp to which the binding cords (khait laff) are tied in order to maintain their tension. These binding cords are usually made of 6 to 8 ply of varicolored strands.

Weavers Only one or two women in each village, because of their acknowledged skill, regularly weave pile or flat-woven carpets. Other villagers desiring such a carpet will either furnish the wool and pay the weaver for her time (ca 2? ID), or purchase it outright for cash or barter. Because of her skill, the weaver is a decided economic asset to any household. Her community wide status which is greater than that of the ordinary woman is in part due to the money she brings into the household, in part to the fact that she is an important buyer of wool in the village, and in part to the fact that most women and some men and boys in the village are in debt to her for the loan of small quantities of

VILLAGE WEAVERS

235

dyed wool or dye, the loan of her dyeing vessels, or the repair of their household carpets.Then too, most households would prefer to have her good will, for when they can afford a new carpet they will probably buy it from her.The number and quality of the carpets that a villager can display over his reed mats in the public reception area of his families compound on feast days is an important status symbol. Although it is possible to buy a carpet from a neighboring village, this is seldom done. Just how highly a village weaver is regarded is best indicated by the fact that the decision as to whether the weaver could be photographed or even watched at her work was usually made by the weaver, while in other crafts it was always made by women’s husbands or eldest sons. Women weavers wield considerable influence in their individual villages on the moral fabric of village life. Her methods are simple. When a neighbor wishes to sell wool, buy a carpet or borrow goods or supplies, she will readily agree to the transaction with those who have behaved according to traditional morality. She will also probably agree to the transaction with those who have behaved improperly, but not without first publicly calling their transgressions to their attention. A similar mechanism for promoting village cohesiveness was noted in the distribution of small quantities of bitumen by itinerant boat repairmen (see pp. 184–5). The main difference between the two approaches is that women weavers concern themselves with a person’s family responsibilities as well as his or her community responsibilities. The two major markets for the weaver’s carpets are the people in her own village or those in the nearby Bedouin encampments. One can also sell them in the suq at Shatra, but this involves a long trip both ways. Sales in Shatra are most often to rug dealers who ship them to the center for village carpet trade in South Iraq. There is also a good market for used carpets there, but both villagers and Bedouin shun them.There is a fear that they may be buying the possessions of someone who died. Within the village one can barter the carpet for wool, staples, livestock, or products of other crafts or sell them for cash. In the Bedouin encampments one can also sell the carpet for cash or barter it, most usually for woven goods. Bedouin Weavers

Bedouin women who visit this area use ground looms similar to those of the village women for making tent panels, and traditional, multicolored, tent dividers of bands of natural camel, goat (idil), and sheep hair, and bags, single or in conjoined pairs for placing over the backs of transport animals.The goat hair tent panels, which measure ca. 4 to 5 m by ca. 45 m, are woven on looms that can be extended to embrace the required dimensions. Goat threads make

236

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

a perfect material for tent panels as they are porous enough to allow air circulation during the heat of the day and expand when in contact with water providing protection from rain.The Bedouin tent is ideally suited to nomadic life. For the average householder two center poles ca. 2.3 m in height, ten side poles ca. 1.5 m in height and the tent cloth rolled up will fit on a single camel. In cold weather all four sides are closed with tent panels suspended from the rectangular roof cloth, and with a fire in the hearth the interior is snug and warm. On warm days the sides can be tied up or even removed to afford the maximum ventilation.Village women are not interested in purchasing either the plain tent panels or more decorative dividers which separate the women’s and men’s side of the tent.They will, however, sometimes buy or barter kilim-like bags made by Bedouin women, although they make similar ones themselves; they are particularly liable to buy those of finer material than usually seen in the villages. Most of the Bedouin groups who visit the area have at least one family of weavers whose men folk weave cloth, blankets, sacks, and bags of various shapes and sizes on horizontal treadle looms (Figure 13.19 and 3.20).

Figure 13.19 A Bedouin weaver operating his horizontal treadle loom from a trench dug inside his tent.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

237

Figure 13.20 The son of the Bedouin weaver spinning thread into yarn on a wooden spinning wheel. The usual wool cloth varies from extra fine, almost see-through, used in the best summer abbas by men with material resources, to a medium grade used for regular clothes, to a heavy fabric used mostly for blankets. Some of the village craftswomen barter their carpets for this Bedouin cloth, which is used for making clothing or for blankets, which they or members of their family will embroider. Bedouin weavers set up their treadle looms just inside one edge of their tents. During the day they rolled up or removed the tent wall to take full advantage of the light. At night or in inclement weather the weaver lowered the sidewall to protect the loom.The weaver dug a pit below the loom 60 to 80 cm in depth (depending on the length of his lower torso and the construction of the treadle peddles). He sat on the inner edge of the pit if the earth was compact or on a plank placed across the pit’s edge if it was not. The warp threads ran from the breast beam, to which they were attached and which was directly in front of the weaver, between the spaces in the reed beater. Alternate threads then ran through the leashes attached to the upper and lower heddle rods, across the warp beam, and out into the open where they were tied with slip knot to a stake driven into the ground. The weaver pressed the treadle down with his foot, which raised one of the heddles with its alternate warp threads creating a space (shed) between its threads

238

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

and those attached to the other heddle. When he removed his foot pressure the threads returned to their former position and by pressing down the other treadle he raised the second set of alternate warp threads creating another space (the counter shed).The weft thread is usually wound on a short stick in a shuttle, which is passed back and forth through the shed and counter shed to create the weft. One Bedouin weaver I encountered did not use the shuttle; he merely wound his threads around a stick and passed that back and forth. The reed beater was pulled forward vigorously to force the threads tightly into place against the previously woven weft. When the area between the breast beam and the reed beater was fairly full of woven material, the weaver asked an assistant to untie the knot at the opposite end of the warp to release tension, wound the woven material onto the breast beam, then had the assistant retie the warp to the stake, restoring the proper tension. The weaver’s assistant is usually one of his sons. Like the craftswomen, the Bedouin can barter his woven goods for things needed in the villages or sell them for cash either in the villages or a nearby market town. Mi’dan, Beni Hasan, and Bedouin hold male weavers in ill repute. Members of his family inherit this low status and only marry members of another weaving family. Village Carpet Weavers

Village women weavers of carpets sometimes have one or two assistants who help them with the work and in this way learn the craft. Usually these women belong to the same household as the weaver, but sometimes they are her married daughters.The women often sing songs to pass the time away while weaving. Like songs associated with other crafts and occupations in the area, these tend to glamorize the particular craft and extol hard and careful work. It is not possible to overemphasize the contribution of these work songs to village life for they play a most significant role in building and reinforcing the work ethic of the community.

Basat: Flat-woven Rugs The warp (sodda), aside from the minina, and the weft (daggag) consist of 2-ply yarn. The weaver or weavers sit on their haunches atop the portion already woven at the breast beam end.They form the counter shed by moving the shed stick toward them, and reaching over the heddle to pull the warp threads apart by hand.The shed is made by pushing the shed stick away from them and pushing and pulling the warp with their hands. It is important to note that the heddle rod is never raised and lowered, it is moved only in the direction of the warp beam as the section above it is completed.The wool, previously wound

VILLAGE WEAVERS

239

tightly in egg-shaped balls, is passed between the warp threads by pushing and pulling, and pressed against the previously woven portion with a shaped reed stick (khlal) (Figure 13.21). After two courses of wool are woven in this manner, they are beaten against the finished portion with an implement consisting of several iron teeth mounted on a wooden handle with bitumen (mothrab). The wool is always passed around the outer minina. The often elaborate decoration of these carpets is produced through the use of different colors in the wool and is woven in a tapestry technique with dovetail join. Tapestry technique is often described as a discontinuous weft because a weft cord does not necessarily go from one side of the carpet to the other.Wool of the appropriate color is woven into the particular warp cord at which it begins and for the distance required by the pattern. It is passed around the terminal warp and left dangling, while the weaver continues with another color. The weaver returns to each color needed and uses it in the next weft course. This process continues until the particular color of cord is knotted, cut, and the remainder laid aside until it is needed once more.

Figure 13.21 Implements used for weaving. From left to right, the khlal, the mihsaja, and the mothrab.

240

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Among the 15 weavers studied, it would seem that the average width of such a carpet is about 80 cm but can vary from 70 to l00 cm, while the average length is about 3 m but varies from 2 to 4 m. It should be emphasized, however, that the unit of measurement employed in the making, buying, and selling of carpets is the hand span (shipir) for width, and the length of the forearm (thira) for length. It takes a single weaver from 15 to 20 days to make such a carpet out of the wool of 4 to 9 sheep. Prospective buyers judge the completed carpet on the basis of the appeal of its decoration and the closeness of its weaving, which indicates both the skill of the weaver and the amount of wool the carpet contains. The latter judgment is made by holding the carpet over one’s head to see if the light of the sun can penetrate the wool. Cost of a new basat can range from 6 to 12 ID depending on size and quality.

Sajada: Pile Carpets The same women weavers make pile carpets in the same general sizes as the flat-woven carpets. Both ends of such a carpet are made in flat-woven style for a length of about 30 cm. The pile consists of 2-ply yarn cut in appropriate lengths, and the shorter the strands, the cheaper the rug. Strands are cut on a grooved wood or reed stick of appropriate diameter (mihsaja) (Figure 13.21).The yarn is wrapped around the stick, and a knife blade run down the groove cuts several strands at once. As long as her stick is in good condition, the pile of a weaver’s carpets is fairly uniform. The design in the pile section comes of course from the use of various colored threads knotted to the warp, but the weft is almost always also dyed wool, usually of a single color and in the majority of cases the color chosen is orange. Four to 6 rows of weft are woven, with each 2 courses beaten in as is the weft of the flat woven carpets. Then rows of strands for pile are added. Each is tied with a ghiordes knot to two adjacent warp threads, one from the shed and one from the counter shed, and these in turn are beaten tight. At the conclusion of each such cycle, a binding cord (khait laff) consisting of two or three strands of 2-ply cord (most often one of green and one or two of orange) are wrapped around the outer manina and adjacent warp cord on each side of the carpet. These are pulled tight and tied under tension to stakes driven into the ground, one on each side of the loom. It takes one woman 20 to 25 days to complete a sajada. She markets them in the same fashion as flat-woven carpets, although they require more wool (from 6 to l2 fleeces) and more effort. In 1970 weavers sold these carpets for from 8 to 16 ID.

Shirpesha: Combination Carpets These are essentially flat woven, but with several squares (from 30 x 30 to 40 x 40 cm) or oblongs (from 30 x 40 to 40 x 50 cm) of pile woven in a line down

VILLAGE WEAVERS

241

the center. They were less common than the flat-woven carpets or the sajada and sold for 10 to 18 ID.These are much prized by the Bedouin who often buy them. The central rug in the Bedouin tent, reserved for honored guests, is almost certainly a shirpesha if the owner can afford it.

Other Weaving Women who make carpets can also make pillow covers, small sacks, small money purses, and belts or straps from time to time, but so do most other women in each village working on looms smaller than those required for carpets. In the construction of these smaller looms reed is frequently substituted for all or some of the wooden parts of the more massive carpet loom. Although these can be made in any of the carpet techniques, the flat-woven products are considerably more popular. Needless to say, the quality of workmanship and attractiveness of design varies more widely in these products than in the carpets.

Embroidered Blankets Young girls elaborately embroider blankets purchased from the Bedouin or in the nearby market towns for their marriage beds. In the villages it would seem impossible to start off married life without such a blanket. Mothers also embroider blankets for an unmarried son, especially if he is going to be sleeping away from home because of the nature or distance of his work. The most common examples are comparatively lightly embroidered, but those most prized are heavily embroidered over their entire surface with a multitude of colorful patterns. Although, according to informants, the sale of these blankets is a relatively recent phenomenon, the best embroiderers have always occupied a position of respect within the community second only to the rug weavers. This is especially interesting when one considers that at least a part of the carpet weaver’s status is the result of her economic contribution to the family. The price of these blankets varied widely in 1970 from 6 to 18 ID depending on the quality of workmanship.

Design Right angles dominate in the repertoire of stylized geometric designs used in the area, although the lines are often slightly curved and the angles slightly skewered. All weavers agree that the major part of these designs are abstract adaptations from environmental subjects such as the frog, scorpion, date palm, dome or minaret.This seemed to offer the investigator a unique opportunity to explore the significance of design combinations. Although the weavers were most cooperative when asked what a design combination was or what it meant, our hopes proved illusory. Not only did two weavers from

242

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

nearby villages interpret the same designs differently, unless they were clearly self-evident, but a single design was often assigned an entirely different significance by the same weaver if she was asked about it on two successive days. It is all too easy to over-stress the meaning of the designs as well as the relationships of elements of carpet design to village culture. There are enough recurrent similarities in the carpet weavers’ explanations, however, to indicate that a more standard and focused identification of the meaning of design elements existed at al-Hiba in the past, although the motifs were not necessarily given the same meaning as similar rug motifs reported from elsewhere. On the other hand, in the 1980s weavers used an ever-increasing number of small, more or less realistic representations of men, women, animals, birds, flowers, and mosques whose meaning is as clear to the prospective buyer as to the maker.While geometric designs still seem to dominate on woven materials, the embroidered blankets are often especially inventive in combining the geometric and small figural in a wide variety of interesting ways. Carpets are woven without drawn patterns of any kind. Each weaver keeps in her head the position and size of the patterns she wishes to appear on the finished work and weaves accordingly.Two carpets woven by the same weaver can display quite different arrangements of the basic elements.

Social Significance In addition to the economic role played by weavers through technical expertise, they, like other craftspeople, play a remarkable social role in the building of a cohesive village structure. They provide a sense of security not only for themselves, but for the village, through traditions passed from generation to generation which give social coherence through their meaning, their order, and, at least in the eyes of the community, their beauty. A weaving shelter is built with easy access from and in full view of the front gate of the weaver’s compound. During the day the weaver works at her loom alongside her assistants if she has any.Women from the village drop by to chat between their chores while the weaver plies her trade. For the visitors it is a place for a brief rest and for gossip.The power of gossip as a stabilizing force in village life is very great. The importance of public opinion, especially when related to such meaningful concepts as honor and morality, cannot be overstated. It is crucial to supporting the power and rights of women. Indeed, through its airing of controversy, its guardianship of relationships, traditional customs, and morality, its ability to mobilize community action, it exerts enormous influence. The weaver’s shelter, open to public view, presided over by a woman of the highest status in the village who has the authority to lead and influence the discussion, provides the perfect location for this activity to take place.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

243

Traditional community rules of social intercourse and morality are further reinforced when someone wants to borrow a bit of wool or dye, persuade the weaver to make a new carpet, or repair an old one. Her friends and supporters all tag along when she sets off to ask the weaver for a favor. This unusually large congregation inevitably attracts the attention of other village women who follow along to hear and often participate in the ensuing discussion. Once the supplicant makes her request the assembled women comment on her accomplishments and failures in living up to socially accepted standards of moral and civil conduct. After a woman’s character, actions, and motivations are thoroughly discussed in her presence by all her neighbors, the weaver will weigh in with a kind of summation stressing the good points made without ignoring the criticisms and inevitably grant the request. After this kind of experience in which she has usually been both praised and criticized, it is a unique woman who does not alter her behavior to conform to village norms if she has been found lacking in even the smallest respect. The songs weavers sing during their occupation are also important in maintaining village traditions.The repertoire is well known to everyone in the community and the visitors often join in the songs.All these songs reinforce the work ethic that is the village norm by rhythm, for the rhythm of the song is punctuated by the passing of the shuttle. Some, like those below, reinforce the work ethic by words as well. Contents of songs vary from things like “Your efforts [work] are your means of dealing with good people the rest of your life” and “Oh beautiful woman!Your hard work makes your name a song on my lips,” to “Don’t accept a lazy bastard even if he fasted and prayed all night/ Lazy snakes cannot become good by praying” and “A man whose lazy father is garlic and lazy mother an onion will never be industrious and smell of incense.” Another class of songs, with craft-related rhythm, is seemingly chosen by the weaver to ease the heart of a particular women who has stopped by or to bring comfort to all assembled from village wide troubles and problems. Sometimes these songs will produce tears and words of comfort for each other from the women. It helps to make life more bearable when you know you are not alone in your distress. Among such songs are this one of a mother with sick children: “My heart rotted like wet reeds/ over them I got physically sick/ I have nobody to help me in my worry/ unlike everybody else I am over distressed.” Songs of son’s or husbands gone to war were popular through the Iraq-Iran war: “I don’t think he that is separated from his loved ones ever recovers/ nor his wounds if they are stitched ever heal/ I shall never forget my beloved even if the pigeon forgets to sleep and the wolf stops howling” Of course songs of unrequited love are heard often such as: “Their lamb comes to me fondly/ the one I care for never comes to me/ the one I want to

244

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

see never comes for me/ my liver is mal-functioning and my heart is melting” or “I cannot eat and my running has weakened/ I wish my longing will stop when lovers meet again.” A similar position in the community was occupied by other craftswomen who augmented the family income through their skill, promoted stability by solving problems through gossip and in bargaining sessions over cash or barter, taught work ethics through song, and helped neighbors absorb the sorrows and disappointments of everyday life. It brought home to me that the great personal sense of loss experienced by women who had once engaged in now-failed crafts, such as the village potters and woman who wove place mats from rushes, was also a great loss to the stability of the community.

Persistence and Change By 1990 enormous changes had taken place in weaving crafts in the villages. A primary factor was the total absence of the Bedouin, who used to camp in the area during the fall and early winter. In the past a major part of the carpet weaver’s output was traded to the Bedouin.Although there was still a market for carpets in the villages themselves, the village craftswomen, where they still existed, no longer had a near monopoly on this trade in their own villages. Draining of the marshes and the building of a network of dirt roads had made the trip to the nearby market town of Shatra a matter of minutes rather than hours as in the past.As a result of this change a prospective carpet buyer could easily shop for traditional carpets in the suq at very competitive prices. Mass produced, so-called Egyptian carpets of horizontal colored bands are also available at about one half the price of a traditional product. It is no wonder than that among the villages previously studied only two carpet weavers existed in 1990. Both were elderly women who learned the craft from their mothers and grandmothers. Neither had anything like the moral authority wielded by their predecessors and both had rather large stocks of unsold carpets (8 for one and ll for the other) which they periodically took to the suq.There they sat with three or four other weavers from the area around Shatra bargaining with prospective customers. Both these ladies maintained the mainly geometrical patterns of the past, but some of the weavers found in the suq had ventured into very large, “realistic” figurative representations often depicting such scenes as a full length man and woman holding hands with a small figure of a child standing between them. Among certain purchasers this type of carpet is more saleable than the geometric designs. The prices of both flat-woven and pile carpets had increased dramatically and cost from 90 to 150 ID in 1990 depending on tightness of weave.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

245

They are still woven on the same kind of loom with one difference.The ropes tied to stakes and the warp beam, which produced tension on the warp and must therefore be constantly tightened, have either been replaced or augmented with metal turn screws. Changes have also occurred in other products. The thread- or yarncovered box has been replaced in most households by colorful tin boxes originally designed for biscuits or candies. Decorative amulets are still made, partly for use on significant occasions or for special events and partly by children. The sling is still made, usually as a toy, out of old inner tubes rather than yarn. Nets for trapping fish and birds are now purchased ready made in the market towns. Though sometimes repaired in the villages, they are no longer made there. Printed cottons have largely replaced woven pillow covers. Reused composition feed sacks, sometimes edged with yarn to reinforce the seams, have mostly replaced the large and colorful woven bags of the past. Plastic or leather purses have replaced small bags. Woven cloth belts and straps have seemingly entirely disappeared and been replaced by leather. Embroidered blankets are still made. The blankets themselves are usually purchased in the suq and are seldom of 100% wool.The designs, while pleasing and decorative, are seldom as densely applied as in the past.

Archaeological Evidence Some aspects of ancient production at al-Hiba can be inferred from the evidence recovered during the excavations.

Spinning Thread The spinning of fibers into thread is attested at al-Hiba by an abundance of spindle whorls of roughly hemispherical form and with flat bottoms.The fact that not all of these are in perfect balance would not impair their usefulness. From a study of modern whorls, which like the spindles are usually made of reed or wood, it is clear that minor imperfections in balance have very little effect on proper functioning. It is interesting to note that one modern spinner was observed using a blob of hand-formed, sun-dried mud for a whorl and that two were seen using Early Dynastic terracotta toy chariot wheels picked up from the surface of the ancient mound.

Twisting Yarn Twisting yarn from thread in Early Dynastic IIIB is attested by impressions of cord found on mud jar sealings. Microscopic examination of these impressions found at al-Hiba indicates that both 2-ply and 4-ply yarn of animal fibers were used. This opens the possibility of distinguishing two kinds of spindle

246

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

whorls, a smaller and lighter one for spinning of thread and a larger and heavier one for spinning yarn. Such a size variation does exist among the roughly hemispherical, flat-bottomed whorls and it is possible that the larger variety of these were used for making yarn. On the other hand, among the terracotta donut-shaped objects from antiquity there are some of rather good balance and with genuinely circular openings which are considerably heavier and would have been even more suitable for this purpose.

Dyes The fact that I could discover no dye plants growing in the vicinity, plus the fact that villagers claimed that their dyes had to be bought even before the industrial dyes now available in the market towns were available, makes one wonder if colors were imported even in antiquity.There is the tradition of the “grand teint,” used also by the industrial dyers of earlier ages—fast colors: woad, indigo, weld, madder, kermes, cochinille, and the “peasant” traditions of lichens and local plants, mostly yellows and browns. Trade in textiles and all that goes with it seems to have been one of the very earliest incentives for exchanges. Dyes and spices have much the same routes in historic times. Some localities were producers, some trading stations and market places, others developed as recipients. It is also interesting to note that certain colors (e.g., red or purple) always seemed to be luxury items.

Slings The use of yarn for slings in antiquity is a reasonable possibility although they may also have been made of leather or woven grass. That Early Dynastic IIIB people used slings is quite clear from the abundance of sundried mud slingshot found in archaeological levels, the same kind of shot which is most often used by villagers today. Certainly in antiquity the sling was a weapon of war, which made its effective use a matter of priority.

Fishing Nets Fishing nets similar to those used today were probably made of yarn in antiquity as they were formerly made of goat hair yarn in the local villages, according to informants. Although nets can be set in shallow areas with little or no current by attaching them to reed poles, fishing in the canals would probably have required some kind of weights. A second class of donut-shaped terracotta objects seems most carelessly formed with little or no attention paid to the shape of the central openings. In contrast to those mentioned above which may have been used as whorls and whose central openings appear to have been made by inserting and twisting

VILLAGE WEAVERS

247

around a reed or stick, the opening in these are made with the craftsman’s fingers and are highly irregular as is the shape of the object itself. These may have served as sinkers. The third class of these terracotta objects may also be related to fishing. They are considerably larger in diameter and have much larger central openings. Although somewhat smaller than the metal central rings used on modern throw-nets, experiments indicate that they are capable of performing well the same function.

Weaving That weaving was practiced at al-Hiba in antiquity is attested by numerous impressions of fabric preserved on mud jar sealings and on copper objects from the votive deposit in Area B of the excavation (Figure 13.22). Examination of these impressions indicates that the material was a simple 2-ply weave of animal fibers which might have been made on any kind of loom. The absence of identifiable loom weights at al-Hiba would tend to rule out the use of warp-weighted looms on the site. Indeed, as Professor Richard Ellis points out in his study of the lexical sources collect-

Figure 13.22 Impression of woven cloth left on a jar sealing from the Early Dynastic period at al-Hiba.

248

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

ed by Armas Salonen,* it is not possible to find a word that can be recognized as referring to a loom weight either among parts of the loom or among weights. Professor Ellis says that a word which should be translated “beam” when referring to looms is usually mentioned in texts from the late 3rd and early 2nd millennia BC in pairs, which suggests that a double-beam loom is indicated. The sole pictorial representation of a loom from the Mesopotamian cultural area, an archaic seal impression from Susa dating to about 3000 BC, shows two weavers at work on a horizontal, double-beam loom of the same type as that used in the modern villages near al-Hiba today. Next to the loom, on this seal, Professor Ellis has identified the representation of two vertical posts standing in supports as a warping frame and points out that such a frame is consistent with New Kingdom Egyptian practices in warping the vertical double-beam loom. He also calls attention to the use of the terms “upper beam” and “lower beam” in a lexical text of the 1st millennium BC, which implies that the vertical double-beam loom existed in that period. It is certainly possible that vertical double-beam looms were used in Early Dynastic times as well as horizontal ones, and also possible that a similar division of labor existed in antiquity as today with women weaving on horizontal looms, men on upright looms. On the other hand, another possible explanation of this warping frame is worth noting. In one weaver’s household visited during this project, a mother and two daughters were rushing to complete several pillowcases before the rainy season began. Space in the weaving shelter was limited and only two pillowcases at a time could be woven on horizontal looms. The mother, who was the master weaver, supervised and helped her daughters on the two cases, which were in different states of completion. When one was nearly finished she would drive two beams perpendicularly into the ground at one side of the enclosure and warp them. As soon as a pillowcase was finished it was removed and the warped frame set horizontally in the newly available space. No evidence for the weaving of carpets has been discovered at alHiba but they may have existed. Impressions of reed mats are often found on Early Dynastic IIIB floors and it is at least possible that in antiquity as at present reed mats were used for everyday, but were covered with some kind of woven animal fiber on special occasions. Garments in figural representations of the period are sometimes represented with a heaviness of texture and the fringed salvages characteristic of modern village-made rugs. * Richard Ellis, “A. Salonen, Die Hausgerate der alten Mespotamier 1,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 92 (1972):294–96. See also Richard Ellis, “Mesopotamian Crafts in Modern and Ancient Times:Ancient Near Eastern Weaving,” American Journal of Archaeology 80(1976):76-77; and Elizabeth J.W. Barber, Prehistoric Textiles (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), 249 ff.

VILLAGE WEAVERS

249

Design Dealing with the meaning of design is especially difficult. At first I was convinced that the lack of meaning I found in carpet design stemmed from my inability to overcome the villagers’ reluctance to reveal them. After many interviews and talks with weavers and with the people who bought the carpets I was convinced that what they told me was both correct and honest, that the aesthetic element of the design was the central feature even if it was based on half-forgotten layers of meaning of which some traces remained. To assume that a motif, similar to an earlier or later documented counterpart, has the same significance is probably a mistake. Meaning can change markedly in a short time, sometimes from the simple to the complex as most analysts of phenomena in the ancient world have thought, but at other times, as in the modern villages, from the complex (such as carpets in which every design had a meaning augmented by the meaning of every other design) to the simple (“We use these patterns because they are nice to look at,” as one weaver told me). It is also essential to try to trace the evolution of a design’s significance in the context of a given culture and its contacts and not to pick similar material helter-skelter from remote times and places when documenting the meaning of a particular decorative pattern, that is, if a researcher is interested in conscious aspects of human culture. On the other hand a writer can give life to almost any fantasy without criticism if he or she attributes it to the subconsciousness of the subjects being studied. Today it is common to see labels for paintings in some art museums “identify” the meaning of gestures or expressions previously thought to be enigmatic. Apparently, the meanings reveal the deepest, though undocumented, thoughts or feelings of the artist and his or her subjects. Even more amazing, regardless of a work’s date, it turns out to be politically and socially at home in the mainstream of the 21st century.

Identifying Culturally Important Criteria Ethnoarchaeological parallels can help archaeologists classify objects in new and better ways by distinguishing meaningful cultural criteria from those that are less revealing. For instance, the elaborate classifications of spindle whorls in many archaeological publications would be totally worthless if applied to objects from the villages around al-Hiba.The villagers arbitrarily use whatever is handy for a whorl, including a broken piece of stick, a daub of mud, or an ancient toy chariot wheel found on the surface. What is important is not the shape or material of the spindle whorl, but where the spindle itself is notched.The position of the notch indicates which sex uses it, the type of spin put on the thread, and, if the thread or yarn is being spun for an immediate project, the possible functions of the woven thread or yarn. Both women and

250

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

men contribute to the household supply of yarn, which is used in carpet making if there is a weaver in their family, and sold if there is not. Occasionally spindles are notched at both ends and can be used by either sex. Study of these modern spindles and their products raises the important question of the difficulty of identifying gender roles in antiquity and stresses the necessity for re-examining basic assumptions. What evidence could a future archaeologist use to identify and separate gender roles in the spinning of thread and yarn in these villages? The spindle sticks, made of perishable material, would not survive. Even if they did, they would tell the archaeologist little unless she or he understood the significance of their notchings and the different ways in which they were used. And if all that information somehow survived intact, along with the material woven from the spun thread and yarn, knowledge of gender roles in spinning would explain neither gender roles in weaving nor the relationship between the two activities. Although yarn is usually spun for foreseeable family projects and used immediately for those purposes, many skeins woven by both men and women are put aside for sale because spun wool brings a higher price than a sheep’s fleece. Once all the season’s wool is spun, skeins are chosen from the storeroom or chest for further projects without regard to who spun them, and they can be sold to both male (town and nomadic) and female (village or nomadic) weavers. Thus men’s weaving sometimes uses female-spun yarn, and some women’s weaving uses male-spun yarn. Some major projects, like carpets woven by women, usually have a proportion of male-spun thread, while others, like blankets woven by men, use some female-spun thread. Clearly one cannot identify the gender of the weaver on the basis of the “Z” or “S” spin of the yarn used.

14 THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOHN HENRY HAYNES

I

n 1888 John Henry Haynes joined the Babylonian Expedition to Nippur in Iraq sponsored by the University Museum of the University of Pennsylvania (now the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology). At that time Nippur was on the northern boundaries of the great marshes, in a situation similar to that of alHiba down in the southwest in 1968. I was not aware of the ethnographic content of some of the glass plate photographs of John Henry Haynes until well after my research at al-Hiba was finished. Imagine my delight to discover that these 19th century photographs showed many of the same things I saw in my studies and have described in this volume. Although they were not taken methodically to illustrate a study of a way of life, they have captured with sensitivity, predicated on a real interest in these people, aspects of everyday life among the workmen at Nippur.

Life of John Henry Haynes John Henry Haynes was born in Rowe, Massachusetts, January 27, 1849. The son of John W. Haynes and Emily Taylor, Haynes grew up on his parents’ farm, and in 1868 entered Drury High School in North Adams. In 1872 he entered Williams College. Following graduation, Haynes served as principal of the Williamstown High School for four years. In the fall of 1880, he took a similar position at the South Hadley Falls High School, but resigned after a few weeks to go on an expedition to Crete. 251

252

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

The expedition to Crete that Haynes joined was refused permission to dig by the Ottoman government, and he went instead to Athens to await instructions. Haynes was to have served as an assistant to W. J. F. Stillman, a writer, landscape painter, and photographer, and while they were waiting in Athens for a permit to dig, Stillman taught him photography. In 1881, Haynes went to Assos as photographer for the Archaeological Institute of America’s expedition. After the Assos expedition, Haynes tutored in Robert College, Constantinople, until 1884. During his time at Robert College, Haynes traveled extensively. In the summer of 1883, for example, he traveled in Bithynia; in the following summer, he went through Turkey as far as the Euphrates. In 1884 Haynes was asked by William Hayes Ward of the University of Pennsylvania to join the Wolfe Expedition, and he accepted. Catherine Lorillard Wolfe, who had inherited a fortune from her father, funded this endeavor. The publication of The Wolfe Expedition to Asia Minor by John Robert Sitlington Sterrett (Boston, MA: AIA, 1888), focused attention on the neglected history and monuments of the ancient Near East. The expedition made important surveys, collected many ancient inscriptions, and recommended Nippur as a site for major systematic excavation. On all his early travels Haynes kept a detailed diary and made photographs. All are a crucial source of information on the Wolfe Expedition. From 1885 through 1887 Haynes taught at Central Turkey College in Aintab (now Gaziantep) for the American Board of Christian Foreign Missions. He also had charge of the College’s treasury and was later responsible for the Board of Missions’ treasury. Haynes joined the University Museum’s expedition to Nippur, he served the expedition not only as business manager but also as photographer and field director. John Punnett Peters, the director at Nippur in those early years, wrote of the expedition.* His account of the details of excavation, the finds, and the expedition’s workmen is instructive. Details that emerge from time to time of John Henry Haynes and others and the enormous difficulty of running an excavation in an area of fragmented political responsibility and uncertain access to essentials are fascinating. In order to facilitate the work of the expedition, its organizers convinced the U.S. State Department to establish the position of Consul * John Punnett Peters, Nippur or Explorations and Adventures on the Euphrates:The Narrative of the University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Babylonia in theYears 1888-1890.Volume I, First Campaign,Volume II, Second Campaign (New York: Putnam’s 1898), now available in an Elibron Classics Replica Edition.

THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF JOHN HENRY HAYNES

253

at Baghdad. Haynes was appointed Consul in 1889.William Pepper wrote the State Department, asking that a salary be granted Haynes as consul. In response, on December 5, 1889, Alvey A. Adee, Second Assistant Secretary of State, wrote to William Pepper that the position had been created largely to facilitate the work of the Babylonian Expedition and since Haynes was at the time working at Nippur, and therefore away from his consular post in Baghdad, no salary had been budgeted for him. Clearly it was the Babylonian Expedition that paid Haynes’s salary as consul. John Henry Haynes died June 29, 1910, at the home of his sister in North Adams, Massachusetts. His grave marker, unveiled at a ceremony attended by a number of prominent scholars on December 5, 1913, is a replica of the Black Obelisk of the Assyrian King Shalmaneser III, but with a carving of Nippur’s ziggurat on the front. Taking photographs in southern Iraq was difficult enough in the 19th century, but shipping the glass plates back home was even more taxing. John Henry Haynes has left us detailed instructions for packing them: If the glass plates are put up according to the English method in millboard boxes of one dozen each they should be packed in the following way and no harm will come to them on pack animals. Put 4 doz. plates neatly put up in cardboard boxes into a wooden box fitted to them to allow a very little straw about their edges not on the flat sides. Four of these boxes should then be put into another strong box, well bound, and cover fastened with screws. A selection of Haynes’s photographs (Figures 14.1–14.31) from the Archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology have been selected, as their captions explain, to show similarities and differences between the material culture of the al-Hiba villages we studied and the Nippur villages of the past. They demonstrate considerable continuity in the use and manufacture of artifacts over time and distance. On the one hand this shows that things we saw at al-Hiba in the beginning of our studies were part of long-standing traditions that had served the marsh people for at least several generations. On the other, they put into perspective the rapid changes precipitated by drying up of the marshes, resulting in the disappearance of the Mi’dan and the Bedouin. In effect they help expand our knowledge of both stability and change.

Figure 14.1 The Tigris near Baghdad with skin boats or quffa in the foreground.

Figure 14.2 Two boats from Nippur returning from a visit to Haji Tarfa.

Figure 14.3 A spring of bitumen at Hit.

Figure 14.4 View of the interior of Haji Tarfa’s guest house or mudhif taken on December 17, 1899.

Figure 14.5 View of Haji Tarfa’s guest house with summer pavilion in the rear.

Figure 14.6 Black tent of Nippur Bedouin workman.

Figure 14.7 A part of a camel caravan laden with goods for the Nippur expedition.

Figure 14.8 A group of Shammor Arabs with their mares and long spears watching their herds from the summit of the Nippur mound.

Figure 14.9 The herds of the Shammor.

Figure 14.10 Group of boys mixing temper with mud as they tamp up the mortar with their feet.

Figure 14.11 A group of workmen’s huts repaired, or about to be repaired, for the winter, December 3, 1899.

Figure 14.12 General view looking northwest from atop the expedition house.

Figure 14.13 A village scene with mud storage jars, cooking utensils, and bundles of reeds.

Figure 14.14 Native houses in course of construction.

Figure 14.15 Two houses of reeds and an outside bed covered with thin muslin to ward off insects.

Figure 14.16 Workman’s reed hut with child standing in doorway and household utensils scattered in usual confusion.

Figure 14.17 Three men making baskets and one man cleaning a brace of pistols in front of a native house.

Figure 14.18 Two women pounding rice to remove the husk from the kernel.

Figure 14.19 A mill made of mud for grinding grain.

Figure 14.20 Women in foreground mixing clay while the man behind her plasters it over the top of a storage jar filled with barley.

Figure 14.21 Workman’s hut with one woman spinning and another making large storage vessels of clay.

Figure 14.22 Storage vessels made of clay by women for storing cereals. Note the decorative applique figures on the mud storage jar and on the mud vessel in Figure 14.21.

Figure 14.23 A donkey with cropped ears, punishment for wandering into a neighbor’s fields.

Figure 14.24 A fat tail sheep freshly sheared.

Figure 14.25 A young, wild boar in the Nippur garden.

Figure 14.26 A baby cradle made of palm wood next to a woman pounding grain with the handle of a wooden mollet.

Figure 14.27 A native cradle made of mulberry wood.

Figure 14.28 Bedouin women sitting in a tent beside a baby hammock.

Figure 14.29 A weaving scene among the workmen’s houses using the same kind of loom used by the village weavers near al-Hiba.

Figure 14.30 Bedouin women build very long looms in order to weave their tent panels of goat hair.

Figure 14.31 One of the Arab guards with his abba filled with camel thorn, a thorn with spikes used in teapots to filter tea and in windows to keep insects out.

15 DEATH UNDER GLASS

M

any artifacts lie securely under glass in museums, labs or storerooms around the world. How they were made, how they were used, and why they were prized, is only partially understood.The ambiance of human activity that surrounded them is often gone and forgotten.As J.A. Fodor and Z.W. Pylyshyn,* distinguished cognitive scientists, point out, “What you see when you see a thing depends on what the thing you see is. But what you see the thing as depends on what you know about what you are seeing.” Ethnoarchaeology can help us put fragmentary evidence of the past into a larger, more complete context. While it cannot provide us with all the details of the manufacture, use, and disposal of artifacts that we might like to know, it can give us some facts, some hints, and some possibilities that help us to more intelligently assess the artifact and the culture in which it was imbedded. Ethnoarchaeological parallels useful for evaluating archaeological discoveries usually arise from people’s exploitation of similar material resources in a similar environment, not from continuity of tradition.The raw materials that we have examined in this project, wood, bitumen, reeds, and mud were much the same in antiquity as they are today. Knowledge of their physical properties, strengths, and weaknesses gained from our modern studies, gives us a good idea of the problems ancient craftspeople struggled with daily and a better perception of the mechanics of their everyday lives.Without some understanding of the process of making artifacts, whole areas of human function are missing the therefore our understanding of cultural process is inevitably acutely simplistic.

Artifacts Some ethnographic parallels from this study offer direct evidence for the processing of raw materials and the manufacturing of artifacts at al-Hiba, Nippur, and other sites. In some cases we can restore complete processes that have left no trace in the archaeological record. In others we can even infer the nature and composition * “How Direct isVisual Perception? Some Reflections on Gibsons’Ecological Approach”Cognition 9.

270

DEATH UNDER GLASS

271

of missing artifacts from artifacts that are present by supplementing archaeological evidence with ethnographic knowledge. Furthermore, knowing the worth of raw materials and the time and skill involved in the manufacturing process gives us a way to determine an artifact’s value to the people who made it in antiquity. Other discoveries lead us to question previous conclusions or offer interpretive options formerly overlooked or unrecognized. Still others help us unlock the meaning of archaeological phenomena that have no direct parallels in our previous experience.

Form and Function Parallels in form do not necessarily indicate parallels in function, but modern artifacts of similar shape can be suggestive of what might have been. It certainly would not be surprising to discover some degree of overlap between the past and the present. Many modern artifacts in the local villages have multiple functions while they are intact and, sometimes, distinctly different purposes, when they are damaged or broken. Those of us prone to discarding damaged and shattered things often think of broken artifacts as unusable and fail to seek uses for the pieces. But that was not true of modern people at al-Hiba and was probably not true in antiquity. Awareness that broken artifacts can have utility can help us avoid the serious miscalculation of considering anything found broken as garbage or debris. A misunderstood context in archaeology can leave an artifact just as useless, where knowledge of the past is concerned, as one with no context at all. Even worse, a misunderstood context or artifact can permanently distort our understanding of the past. Ethnoarchaeological studies also encourage the questioning of traditional functional assessments of ancient artifacts, sometimes changing our minds completely, sometimes offering new or additional alternatives. Having a variety of interpretive options to choose from makes us much more observant of every detail of our evidence. Having but one standard interpretation can make us lazy and unobservant excavators. We can even end up doing the unthinkable, using our predetermined opinion of the artifact to describe the context in which the object was found. Ethnoarchaeological parallels can help archaeologists by alerting them to problems in distinguishing meaningful cultural criteria from those less revealing in the classification of modern objects. For instance, the elaborate classifications of spindle whorls in many archaeological publications would be worthless if applied to whorls from the villages around al-Hiba.The villagers arbitrarily use whatever is at hand for a whorl.What is important is where the spindle itself is notched.The position of the notch indicates which sex uses it and the type of spin put on the thread.

272

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Social Value of Craftspeople It is not only details of manufacture and basic functions that are missing from our glass covered artifact, but the whole environment of its construction and use. The social value of crafts is certainly missing and will probably always remain undetectable in the archaeological record. On the other hand, because social value is the cornerstone of the status of crafts and village morality in modern times, it is important to recognize that it may have had a similar impact in antiquity. Craftspeople, whose workspace provides a center for social gatherings, play an astounding role in modern communities like the villages around al-Hiba.The giving and withholding of favors (i.e., a small bit of bitumen from the boat maker, a bit of dye from the weaver) are used as public occasions for verbally rewarding appropriate moral behavior and condemning behavior that is not up to village standards. Craftspeople also bring solace to the grieving and hope to the despairing by their songs, sympathy, and ability to rally community support. One cannot overestimate craftspeoples’ ability to influence the course of village events through the power of gossip.

Status of Craftspeople Equally elusive is knowledge of the status of craftspeople in antiquity, but the status of modern village craftspeople offers us some interesting suggestions. As pointed out throughout this study, the status of craftspeople is very high in the modern villages.The difference in status between the ordinary woman and a craftswomen is especially significant, for the craftswoman brings economic resources into the family with her labor and this adds enormous prestige to her position inside and outside the family. One cannot help but feel sorry for the weaver of mats who continued to weave in the desperate hope that her mats would sell once again, only to have her husband burn her loom or the old potter, near the end of her life, who tells us that without her craft she is “nothing.”

Gender and Age Initially, in coming to this study I had a neophytes conviction that defining tasks for men and women and tasks for the old and young would be straightforward and that rules of conduct would make these roles inviolable. From the beginning I was proved wrong. In spite of a general uniformity in the assignment of duties to one gender or one age group in the family, variation was a constant. Even under normal conditions there was always one household that did things a bit differently and in some households certain tasks were interchangeable. Even when a gender role seemed

DEATH UNDER GLASS

273

well established in a particular household it could change temporarily or permanently as a result of illness, absence, emergency or crisis. One can only imagine the errors in interpretation and resulting confusion in a study of gender roles based on archaeological data that survived from only one or two households.

The Use of Artifacts and the Status Accorded a Job Well Done In order to fully understand the nature of an artifact, one must understand how it is used, the difficulties in using it, the level of skill required to make it completely effective, and above all its role in the community. Much of this is simply unknowable for the ancient world. But we can learn from modern observation how artifacts can change people’s lives and perhaps even bridge the gap between the realities of the present and the possibilities of the past. Our goal is to learn about human conduct to prevent the artifact from becoming a frozen article in a museum diorama. Few people appreciate the amount of coordination and training necessary to catch a bird or fish in a throw net or to hit a moving target forcefully and accurately with a mud ball shot. Ethnographic evidence shows that not everyone can be trained to be expert.Those who excel are blessed with natural coordination; they usually practice long hours and rightfully attain a status in their community akin to other cultures’ athletic heroes. In 1972 the two villages just east of the mound, one Mi’dan and one Beni Hasan, each had a young man of exceptional ability with the sling (Bohan from Said Tahir, and Salah from Hagi Rachid).Although the boys were only 14 and 16, they were accepted as men by the village elders who drank tea and coffee with them in public and allowed them to speak in a sequence and manner that were the envy of other boys. The two villages became initially friendly rivals tabulating which of the two boys put the most food on the table in a particular day.The winner was praised and congratulated, the loser urged on to greater efforts, and each day’s events analyzed again and again by the men over coffee. Both boys spent most of the day hunting for game or seeking to perfect their ability by experimenting with different lengths of string, widths of pad, or materials of construction for their slings, as well as with different weights and shapes for their mud shot. Other boys in the two villages strove daily to emulate their successful and popular brothers.Through practice and experimentation the boys had become expert at making and using slings. Indeed they had become heroes because of their outstanding ability to enhance the very basic quality of life in their communities. Such was the road to heroism in a hungry marsh village in the 1970s.

274

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

Information for a Better Understanding Ethnoarchaeology gives us a better understanding of basic stratagems for human survival and makes us aware of important details or problems we might not ordinarily look for or notice in our excavations. We are so far removed in our daily actuality from such basics that it is sometimes hard for us to imagine they exist.

Climate and Fauna Clearly the area around al-Hiba cannot boast the optimal environment for nurturing livestock, but certain strains of animals can survive if not thrive there. Sheepherders have tried to improve their herds by buying more productive sheep from the Bedouin, and the government has tried to improve the quality of cattle by furnishing free a more productive bull for breeding purposes. Both of these adventures failed, as the animals’ chosen for improvement did not have the stamina to survive in this climate on the available food. As a result the people of the area are stuck with raising less productive animals that will bear up under the extreme heat and high humidity of the marshes. Indeed, local farmers have long despaired of raising healthy goats. Only the water buffalo seems completely suited to the area, and in the marshes it is the only animal kept by man that is technically not domesticated. No breeding program is carried out with these animals. It is the water buffalo, not their masters, who decide what animals they will breed with on their daily sojourn into the marshes. Our study clearly shows that the care of cattle, water buffalo, and sheep is a full time job. Responsibilities of pasturage, collecting fodder, building structures and fences to protect them, raising calves and lambs, and dealing with their products, are time consuming and difficult jobs that involve the entire family. Knowing what it costs in time or effort to make an essential artifact, to care for domestic or semi-domestic animals, or to raise crops gives us a more realistic appreciation of the daily burdens born by people of the ancient civilizations who lived in this area. After all, they had to deal with many of the same problems as the modern day villagers.

Variation in Terminology Archaeology can benefit from the study of formal systems of modern classification, which often provide new ways of looking at or organizing natural phenomena and offer alternatives to the general classificatory schemes with which we are more familiar. For instance in the villages around al-Hiba a functional and a scientific classification can occur together using the same terminology.Although every villager knows the difference between reeds, rushes, and

DEATH UNDER GLASS

275

grasses, he or she will refer to young reeds and sedges as grass when collecting animal fodder, or to middle-sized reeds as sedge (the most widely used waterproofing material) when collecting material for waterproofing certain architectural elements. In classifying sheep according to age, the villagers use terms referring to life-threatening crises the animals have survived more often than terms indicating their age in months or weeks (i.e., “One who survived the first chill of winter,” “One who survived the first winter,” “One who survived the big drought”). Those unacquainted with this phenomenon would sometimes find it very difficult to understand exactly what was being discussed. If language is a reflection of how we see things, the three discs of different materials denoted by the single word “tabag” or the boat and basket of widely different size denoted by the word “quffa” are convincing evidence for the primacy of shape.

Change Ethnoarchaeology can enrich our understanding of cultural change as well as illustrate some problems in interpreting archaeological evidence. Change in the pots of village potters, a wide variety of tempers and an explosion of unique forms and decoration, resulted from a deliberate attempt to influence the market in favor of a specific product or potter.The town potters convinced buyers that their product was significantly better and more desirable, and as a result the old tradition of village potters disappeared entirely. Such changes would be immediately obvious in the archaeological record as a series of important and abrupt transformations, which would look from size and extent to be of major cultural importance. However, in reality its effect on peoples’ daily lives, except for the potters, was minimal. The explosion of imagination in unique forms and designs at al-Hiba not only illustrates the fact that change in form and design need not imply massive change in a society; it also raises questions about the exotic meaning and significance archaeologists sometimes read into decoration. Village weavers agreed that their patterns were mostly abstract adaptations from nature, but they interpreted them only after persistent questioning. Weavers from adjoining villages often offered different interpretations of the colorful basic patterns. Indeed the same weaver sometimes gave a different meaning when asked on two different days. Clearly whatever meaning these geometric forms had previously, they were now just pleasing designs. It drove home the danger of assuming that a motif similar to an earlier or later documented counterpart had the same meaning, as meaning can change in a short time. Some changes will be readily apparent in the archaeological record but not signify great cultural change. On the other hand, a change scarcely apparent in the archaeological record can have a great impact on a culture. In

276

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

the late 1980s the Mi’dan disappeared completely but not so their water buffalo which had long served as a marker of their presence. The Beni Hasan, who previously would have nothing to do with these animals, now owned the water buffalo. Finding themselves in control of acres of marsh filled with sedge and reed when the Mi’dan fled, they realized that only herds of water buffalo could productively harvest this newly available resource. The material benefits of filling this ecological niche proved stronger than generations of prejudice. A similar important change had taken place in the early 1970s, about 15 years previously.When the Beni Hasan began to catch more fish with nets than the Mi’dan, who fished solely with spears, the Mi’dan started fishing with nets. They would trap fish in their nets and then harvest them with their spears, thus, they believed, escaping the stigma of unmanliness they had previously attributed to net fishing. Changes in ownership of water buffalo or methods of fishing left almost no evidence for the future archaeologist, but the consequences of both were widespread providing increased material benefits to village families.The changes, for those who participated in them, were also traumatic and required a radical attitude adjustment. Even when we can plainly see that change has taken place, the reasons for it often prove elusive. In 1972, as detailed above, plastic toy figures of animals in vibrant colors replaced children’s handmade mud toys, and colorful dining mats made of oilcloth replaced dining mats woven from reed and sedge. Initially, people claimed that the vibrant colors, attractive patterns, and durability of the new objects attracted them; before long almost everyone in the villages used them. However, it was not a matter of freedom of choice. Children were punished for making their own toys from mud, and the one woman who persisted in weaving food mats had her loom broken apart and burned by her husband. To persist in using these traditional forms, after the wide acceptance of the new, became a sign of poverty. Cheapness was considered the sole or most important criterion for continuing to use the old forms, and it impacted the fathers’ “honor,” which depended in large part on their ability to provide adequately for their families. Without being present when these changes were discussed and implemented, archaeologists would be unable to give cogent reasons for the sudden and complete disappearance of mud toys and woven reed mats.When asked, a year or so later, people would claim that mud toys and woven mats disappeared because of the bold colors and increased durability of their replacements. That was certainly part of the story. One had to be present to see the anguish of the old weaver and the frustration of the children to understand the rest. Change must be experienced first hand to be fully understood in all its complexities, an impossibility for the archaeologist.

DEATH UNDER GLASS

277

Not considered as irrational by the people who make and use them, amulets are found everywhere at al-Hiba (Figures 15.1 and 15.2). Amulets of all kinds, purchased and made, for the protection of animals as well as human beings, written prayers, and mud from the holy shrines at Najaf or Karbala encased in woven cloth or basket work are as important a part of everyday existence as are the ills or evils they are thought to avert (Figures 15.3 and 15.4). Archaeologists tend to interpret a site in rational terms and thus may miss the profound contributions of the irrational to everyday life and cultural change. Then too, the al-Hiba villagers commonly engaged in economically wasteful practices such as leaving a great deal of wool on a sheep around the neck, on the head, on the belly, and on the lower legs, otherwise “The sheep would not look like a sheep.” A future archaeologist who discovered a representation of such a peculiarly sheared sheep, complete with apotropaic bits of yarn tied to the tail and/or through a hole in the ear and smudges of henna on its face and feet would be more likely to interpret it as the image of a ritual animal or fertility symbol than simply an animal. Transgressions or misunderstandings that could normally be negotiated, such as a child’s taking dung for fuel from a water buffalo that belonged to another family, could on the wrong day turn into bitter personal or even inter-village feuds that ended in gunshots and bloodshed.The friendly competition between two village youths, Bohan and Salah, mentioned above, is a case

Figure 15.1 Simple amulet of colored thread built up on crossed reed sticks.

Figure 15.2 Back of the same amulet shows details of construction.

Figure 15.3 Amulet made of pieces of cloth and seeds.

DEATH UNDER GLASS

279

Figure 15.4 Woven bags used for sacred mud bricks from Najaf. in point. After months of keen rivalry that seemed to be enjoyed by all, poorly chosen words from one village elder to another resulted in an un-thoughtful retort. Relations between the two villages rapidly disintegrated, and six months later the village of Salah moved further into the marshes.

Modern Surprises Help Avoid Archaeological Ambushes Throughout the project we discovered many things that made perfect sense after we had seen them but which we would never have taken into consideration archaeologically had we not been reminded of their existence. Broken pieces of artifacts taking on new functions and new names could make it extremely difficult to know exactly what the remains represented, the nature of their function, and what it should be called in an archaeological context. How to evaluate ancient garbage pits similar to those we found in modern villages, dug by humans for disposal of waste but whose chaotic contents village dogs largely dictated? How do we determine to which village an ancient household belonged when in modern times we find a house of one tribe considerably closer to a village of an alien tribe than to the one with which it is associated by blood ties? What kind of evidence would show us that the purpose of a building, such as a mudhif, had changed markedly in less than 5 years although its structure and function remained the same? How can we evaluate

280

IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN

changes in the value of raw materials in antiquity when similar fluctuations happen so quickly and are the result of extremely complex factors in modern times? Clearly ethnoarchaeology helps us to solve problems, to look at old material in new and different ways, and to discover new possibilities and methods of interpretation. On the other hand, it also creates problems in the interpretation of archaeological evidence. Some would say that ethnoarchaeology poses more questions than it answers, but exposing weaknesses in archaeological explanations is a healthy practice. Only when a problem is exposed can serious thought be given to its remedy. Most of all, it helps us evaluate the daily life of ancient people in a realistic way. The most important lesson to be learned from the everyday activities of these modern villagers is the enormous effort required by the entire family to make their way of life work, and the need to factor this into our view of ancient people.What we see is far different from the often subtly racist painting and prints of 19th century orientalists who often show Arabs taking their leisure near the ruins of what, I think, we are supposed to presume were the results of a far more industrious civilization. One of the first things I learned at the beginning of this project was that people challenge scientific dogma just by being different. Once one has studied these villages it is no longer possible to be blinded by the frozen nature of museum dioramas or those references to poor people of other cultures as “primitive,” “fate compelled,” “tradition-bound” beings. Nor can one support the theoretical persistence of substantially unchanged attitudes, and material and spiritual conditions as applicable to people of antiquity. Ethnoarchaeology profoundly illustrates that the nature of human nature is to adjust, to innovate, and to change constantly.

INDEX Italic page numbers carry figures forms, 135; plaited, 132–34, 8.1, 8.2, 144, 262, pl.18; wrapped coil, 134–36 Basra: 33, 178, 180, 227, 269 bayt (home, one-room dwelling):100–101 bed platforms: 6, 45, 108–109, 266 Bedouin: 7, 9, 12, 14, 15, 19, 20, 27, 28–32, 33, 35, 39, 40, 46, 48, 50, 67, 101, 147, 150, 201, 203, 208, 214, 216, 225, 235–38, 241, 244, 253, 256, 257, 267, pl.15, pl.16 belam (wide, high-sided bitumen-covered boat): 177, 179 belts: 16, 41, 175, 212, 218, 231, 241, 245 Beni Hasan: 3, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 27, 28, 32, 46, 53, 67, 90, 100, 101, 103, 130, 176, 189, 190, 192, 193, 196,197, 199, 200, 201, 202, 227, 230, 238, 276 bitumen: 5, 13, 16, 34, 41, 60, 61, 66, 67, 69, 73, 112, 122, 130, 135, 136, 139, 141, 143, 144, 147, 165, 170, 172, 174, 176, 177, 179, 180–189, 194, 195, 199, 212, 135, 239, 255, 270, 272, pl.21, pl.22, pl.23; archae ological impact, 189; connection with village morality, 184–185; covering boats, 180–184; drainage channels, 188; grinders, 187, pl.21; mace head, 185, pl.23; mortars, 187; pole knobs, 185–86; repairing leaks, 186, 186; stands for water jars, 187; tool making and repair, 187; waterproofing; 187, 188 boats: see wood; reed, 138–139; skin, 254; wood, 4, 5, 6, 13, 28, 41, 44, 80, 83, 93, 101, 103, 131, 141, 143, 165, 176–185,186, 188, 189, 199, 227, 228, 254, pl.21, pl.22, pl.23, pl.24 bovine husbandry: archaeological impact, 202; cattle, 3, 16, 27, 34, 59, 101, 105, 130, 166, 190–94, 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201, 214, 274, pl.25;

aba (wool cloak worn by men): 16 abaya (shapeless black cloak worn by women): 16, 25, 27 Abu Simech (main Shatra canal, “father of fish”): 13, pl.2 agga (reed 10 months old): 130 ammunition 6, 16, 74, 75, 77, 79, 81, 83, 88–91, pl.12; archaeological evidence, 94; persistence and change, 90 amulet (dila’a): 142, 143, 165, 207, 215, 223, 224, 245, 277, 278 angir (reed at 3 to 6 months old): 130 architecture: mud, 95–104, 99, pl.11, pl.13; archaeological impact, 102–104; brick, 95–98; persistence and change, 101–102; pise’, 98–101 reed; 145–69, 259, 260, 261, pl.1, pl.13; archaeological impact, 169; arched reed structures, 145–61; courtyard furnishings, 166–67; house furnishings, 164–65; lean–tos and temporary buildings, 162–63; persistence and change, 167–69; sarifa pole building, 161–62; sitra ( livestock enclosure adjoining house), 163–64; walls 166 baby cradles: 139, 165, 175, 195, 212, 266, 267 baby rattles: 85–86, 5.12, 5.13, 92, 165 Baghdad: 9, 12, 15, 33, 67, 109, 150, 227, 253, 254 bakra (reed section): 226 bandages: 43, 142–144 bardy (rushes): 129 baria (reed mat): 155 basat (flat-woven rug): 238, 240 baskets: 6, 21, 27, 96, 129, 132–36, 143–44, 165, 172, 174, 175, 187, 194, 195, 222, 275, 277, 262, pl.14, pl.18;

281

282

I NDEX

disposal of animal bones, 201–202; gender roles, 200–201; persistence and change, 199–200; water buffalo, 3, 10, 27, 28, 34, 57, 64, 66, 80, 81, 101, 119, 121, 122, 129, 130, 136, 146, 163, 165, 166, 174, 176, 184, 187, 189, 190, 191, 194–200, 201, 202, 212, 174, 176, 277. boxes:142, 143, 219, 222, 223, 245, 253 bread: 31, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 67, 69, 134, 166, 187, 191, 195 brick forms: 97, 171 carpets: 5, 13, 29, 42, 47, 53, 100, 131, 145, 148, 165, 208, 216, 219 232–235, 237, 238–241, 242, 244, 248, 249, 250, pl.31, pl.32 cattle: see bovine husbandry camel: 16, 28, 29–32, 40, 80, 81, 176, 235, 236, 257, 258, pl.15 change: 6, 7, 8, 12, 32–33, 34, 37, 38, 67, 68, 69, 88–90, 101–102, 103, 110, 121–125, 143–44, 167–69, 188–89, 199–201, 214–15, 220, 244–45, 249, 253, 173, 275–76, 277, 280 Chubayish: 178, 180 collecting data: observation, 36–38; problems, 38–42; winning peoples respect, 42–44 columns and roof supports: 172 coma (hairlike appendages): 70, 74, 77, 81, 114–116, 121, 122, 144 containers: mud, 54–58; reed baskets, 132–136; thread or yarn covered boxes, 142, 222–223; wood, 164,164 cooking and heating devices: 46–52 cooking meat and fish: 51 courtyard: 18, 21, 25, 45, 54, 59, 65, 66, 68, 69, 73, 81, 95, 100–101, 104, 105, 106, 108, 110, 134, 141, 166–67, 188, 192, 194, 195, 201, 205, 206, 207, 209, 212; walls, 166; furnishings, 166–67 craftspeople: moral value, 4, 6, 7, 8, 23, 33; work ethic, 243; social value, 242–43, 272; status of, 272 daggag (weft): 238 datura (plants rich in tropane alkaloids): 228 death: 25–26 decoration: mud objects, 67, 264; pottery,

113, 114, 121, 123, 275, 264; sheep, 206–207; weaving and embroidery, 223, 239, 240–42, 275 dhiraa’ ( forearm length): 152 dibis (molasses): 207 dila’a (amulet): 223–24, 277, 278 dishdasha (long, straight garment): 16 disposal of animal bones: 201–202 divorce: 22 dog: 10, 55, 58–59, 81, 101, 105, 112, 141, 149, 185, 201–202, 205, 207, 279 drainage channels: 188 drum: 74–77 dung patties: 24, 40, 42, 46, 48, 49, 50, 60, 107, 108, 119–21, 124, 130, 141, 167, 181, 187, 193, 194,212, pl.8, pl.9 dyes: 219–21, 246 ecological setting: 4–5, 11, 14 education: 23–25 embroidery: 241, 242, 245, pl.17 falah (reed-shafted fish spears): 177, 228, 230, 231 family: 16–19 fishing: 4, 5, 24, 68, 130, 131, 139, 141, 176, 177, 189, 214, 226–230, 246, 247, 276, pl.24, pl.26, pl.27, pl.29 food processing: grain grinder (majrasha), 59–60, 66, 69, 73; mortar, 60, 69, 84, 122, 147, 165,173–74 food protection: cover (mich faya), 58–59, 62, 63, 69 foot rests for digging: 175–76 form and function of artifacts: 271 foundation figurine: 2, pl.5 fuel 24, 27, 30, 31, 49, 60, 96, 106, 111, 113, 130 141, 163, 166, 167, 169, 191, 194, 212, 277 gamer: 195 Garden of Eden: 1–2 gates, doors, and windows: 171–72 gender and age: 272–73 goat: 9, 29, 30, 81, 203, 208, 225, 235, 246, 268, 274 grad (tick): 210 grain pounders: 170, 173, 262, 266 grinders: 4, 45, 59–60, 66, 69, 71, 73, 166, 187, 263 gun blinds: 139–40

I NDEX Hadij (al-Hiba Bedouin tribe): 28–32 haffa (shed stick on a loom): 232 handles: 63, 71, 116, 141, 170, 172, 187, 210 hashish (grass): 129–30 Haynes, John Henry: 7, 251–253 hisa (carrying sack): 60 Hit: 180, 255 home furnishings: 100–101 honor: 4. 16, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 28, 30, 35, 36, 38, 42, 89, 90, 143, 242, 276 horse: 21, 32, 81, 82, 257 hospitality: 8, 28, 35, 36, 148, 149, 213 Huwair: 178

283

Lagash: 1–2 lahma (weft): 224 language and research: 38–40 lavatories: 140, 143 loom: Bedouin treadle loom; 29, 236–238; ground loom, 142, 170, 175, 232–234, 240, 241, 242, 245, 247, 248, 268; rush mats, 131–32, 143, 272, 276

manina: 232 mansab (mud legs): 47, 48 marriage: 19–22 mashia (wooden tool used in making nets): 226, 226, pl.26, pl.27 mats: 3, 6, 10, 13, 14, 27, 28, 31, 47, 53, 57, 65, 66, 70, 80, 85, 96, 99, 100, 102, 108, 130, 139 140, 144, 145, 150, 248; plaited, 130–31, 151, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 162, 165, 168, 169, 172, 195, 209, 210, 132, 235; woven, 131–32, 143, 244, 272, 276 mataur (bitumen wood-covered boat): 177 michfaya (heavy cover): see food protection mihchal (sling): see sling mihsaja (grooved stick for cutting pile): 239, 240 milking pails: 174, 188, 195 mingal (sickle-shaped saw): 152 minina (outer warp cords): 232–33, 239 misdat (a breast or warp beam): 232, 233 mogad (dish with interior supports): 46, 54–55, 64, 67, 68, 72 mokhzal (spindle): 217–19, 245, 249, 250, 271, 264 mortars; 60, 66, 69, 173, 174, 187 mothrab (iron teeth on a wooden handle for beating weft) 239, 239 mud: ammunition; see ammunition; ancillary structures, 104–110, 110; architecture, 95–104, pl.11, pl.13; archaeological impact 102–104; persistence and change, 101–102; utensils and containers, 45–73 , pl.7; jewelry, see “jewelry musical instruments, see “musical instruments”; toys, see “toys” mudhif (large arched reed structure used solely as a guest house or meeting place): 20, 21, 22, 24, 35, 52, 97, 145–61, 162, 167, 172, 185, 209, 255,256, 279 mukhtar: 29 musical instruments: 74–79, 90–91, 140 mystica (incense): 53–68

mabarim (spindle for plying): 221 mabkhara (incense burner): 53–54, 65, 67 mace (mugwar): 16, 42, 141, 185, 186, 227 majrasha (grain grinder): see grinders mallets: 130, 142, 172, 262, 266 mangala (fire dish): 46–47, 53, 55, 63, 67, 72, 108, 136 165

naga (female camel): 31, 32 Nasiriya (provincial capital of al-Hiba area): 33, 143, 170, 188 Najaf: 25, 26, 134, 277, 279 Nippur: 7, 11, 251–53, 254, 256, 257, 266, 270 nira (heddle rod on a loom): 232

idil (goat hair): 235 ihtar (rafters or ribs made of reeds): 155 incense burners: 4, 45, 68, 71–72; with handle (tunga), 52–53; without handle (mafkhara), 53–54 jamal (generic name for camel): 40 jewelry: 26, 39, 45, 87–88; persistence and change, 89–90 jiniba (young reeds): 130 kaulan (sedge): 129 Kawili (itinerant gypsies): 208 khait laff (binding cords): 234, 240 khlal (reed stick): 239, 239 khorkhasha (baby rattles): 85–86, 165 kuffiya (headcloth): 16 kuz (water jar): 11–21, 187, 188; persistence and change; 121–124

284 observation: 36–38 pens for writing: 139, 143 pestles: 60, 130, 141, 143, 187 pillow covers: 241, 245 pise’: 98–99 plows: 175, 188 plying: 221–22 pole: for architecture, 161–162; for moving boats, 80, 141, 177, 226 pole knobs: 185–86 pollarding: 170 pottery (baked): archaeological impact, 125–128; manufacturing, 111–121; persistence and change, 121–24 problems of relationships: 41–42 protecting others: 22–23 purses: 241–45 quffa (dish-shaped basket, and circular skin boats): 127,135, 174, 187, 275, 254 qasab (reed): 129 raba (reed structure with two rooms divided by a bench or screen): 145–49, 150, 159, 161. reed architecture: archaeological impact, 169; arched reed structures, 145–61, 259, 260, pl.13; courtyard walls, 166, 167, pl.19; furnishings, 166–67; leantos and temporary buildings, 162–63, 261; persistence and change, 167–69; sarifa pole building; 161–62; sitra enclosure for livestock adjoining; house; 163; house furnishings; 164–65 reed objects: 130–42; archaeological impact, 144; persistence and change, 143–44 reed pipes: 136–138 with figs 8.5–8.8, 143 roof beams: 85, 102, 172 rope: 140, 143, 152, 153, 172, 176, 191, 209, 224, 231 rubakh (dry reeds 18 months or older): 130 rubb (buttermilk): 191 saba (jar-shaped coiled basket): 135, 136, 187 sacks: 236, 241, 245, 187, 195 sodda (warp): 238 saffara (whistle): 77–79, 90 sahan (shallow dish): 55–56, 59, 61, 66, 67, 68, 72, 73, 105, 127

I NDEX sajjada (pile carpet): 208, 240, 241 sarifa (pole building made of reeds): 161–162 shamal (hot wind from the southeast): 9 sharaf (collective honor): see honor Shatra: 7, 12, 13, 26, 33, 42, 43, 102, 103, 131, 140 170, 212, 215, 235, 244 sheds and lean-tos: mud, 106–108; reed: 162–163 sheep: 3, 5, 9, 16, 29, 30, 34, 35, 36, 58, 59, 81, 101, 105, 130, 148, 166, 169, 176, 201, 216, 235, 240, 265, 274, 275, 277, 265; archaeological impact, 215; breeding and nurture, 203–208; important uses, 212–13; local terminology, 213–14; persistence and change, 214–15; shearing, 208–12; treating sick animals, 207–208; use of dogs for herding and; protection, 205 shibir (hand span, used in measurements): 152 shirpesha (combination carpet): 240, 241 sida (warp): 224 sidana: (storage chest with stand): 57–58, 65–66, 68, 73, 219 sitra (reed water buffalo enclosure): 163, 166, 197 sling (mihchal): 6, 94, 221, 224–225, 245, 246, 273, pl.12, pl.28 sling shot: see ammunition soap: 141, 144, 209, 216 sobay (wooden roller, applying bitumen): 181, 182 sodda (warp): 238 spear shafts: 141, 143 144, 219, 220, 230, 231 spindles: 142, 143, 217, 218, 145, 250 spinning: 217–19, 220, 245–46, 264 stakes: 131, 142, 152, 176, 197, 232, 233, 240, 245 stands for water jars: 187 sufat (thread- or yarn-covered reed box): see boxes suffat (fish buyers): 227 Sumerian: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 125, 148 suq (marketplace): 42, 89, 123, 124, 143, 144, 175, 185, 186, 188, 235, 244, 245 tabag: iron disc, 46, 50, 127, 275; mud disc, 46, 47–49, 50, 51. 57, 63, 66, 67, 71, 109 fig 6.6, 127, 295, pl.8, pl.9; flat, coiled basket tray, 127, 134, 275

I NDEX tabol (drum): see drum tannur (conical oven): 31, 46, 49, 50–52, 62, 65, 67, 70, 71, 100, 106 167, 209, 210, 263, pl.10 tarada (bitumen-covered boat): 13, 80, 177, 178–184, 188 temper: 60–61, 74, 81, 96 97, 989, 113, 114, 121, 122, 123, 125, 140, 141, 143, 144, 258 terminology: 40, 213, 274–75; alter nate, quffa, 127, 275; reeds and rushes, 129; sheep, 213–214; tabag, 127, 275 thira (forearm span): 240 Telloh: 1 thread and yarn: dyeing, 219–21; objects, 222–31, 277, 278; preparation for spinning, 216; spinning, 217–19, 264; twisting thread into yarn or plying, 220, 221, 222 tiniya (storage chest without stand): 56, 57, 58, 65, 66, 68, 73, 109, 260, 263, 264 tool making and repair: 187, 212 toys: 6, 38, 45, 46, 79–86, 87, 88–89, 91–94, 140, 143, 276, 279, pl.4 tunga (incense burner with handle): 46, 52–53, 63, 64, 65, 67 tripods: 152, 153, 155, 176, 191 troughs: 45, 105 village morality: 7, 8, 17, 39, 184–85, 189, 235, 242, 243, 272 walls: mud, 45, 104–105; reed, 166, 166, 167 warping: 232–34 watad (wooden stake): see stakes water buffalo: 3, 10, 27, 28, 34, 57, 64, 66, 80, 81, 101, 119, 121, 122, 129, 130, 136, 146, 163, 165, 166, 174,

176, 184, 187, 191, 194–99, 200, 201, 202, 212, 274, 276, 277, pl.20 water proofing: baskets, 136, 186–87; boats, 180–84; storage facilities, 188 weavers: Bedouin weavers, 235–236, 268; male weavers, 236–238; village carpet weavers, 219, 235, 240–44, 248, 249, 250, 268, pl.30 weaving: archaeological impact, 245–50; carpet weaving, 232–234, 238–41, pl.30; design, 241–2; dyeing, 219–21, 246; embroidered blankets, 241; other weaving, 241; persistence and change, 244; setting up the loom and warping, ground loom, 232–34, 268, pl.30; treadle loom, 236–38; social significance; 242–45; spinning, see spinning; things made from thread and yarn, 222–31, pl.26, pl.27, pl.28, pl.29; twisting thread into yarn or plying, see plying whistle: 77–79, 90 wild boar: 9, 81, 141, 266 winning respect: 42–44 wood: 5, 34, 42, 60, 97, 99, 100, 102, 135, 139, 141, 147, 161, 162, 16, 165, 170–185, 187, 188, 191, 212, 217, 240, 245, 266, 267, 270; avail ability, 170; boats, 9, 10, 13, 14, 26, 28, 44, 47, 67, 77, 80, 84, 130, 135, 139, 143, 149, 176–85, 188, 189 226, 235, 259, 272, 275, pl.3; constructing the frame, 178–9; covering with bitumen, 180–85; other objects made from wood, 171–76, 266, 267 zaww (special scissors used for shearing sheep): 208, 209, 211

285