BOOK - covers plant use by bedouins in Arabia

Bedouin Ethnobotany offers the first detailed study of plant uses among the Najdi Arabic-speaking tribal peoples of eastern Saudi Arabia. It also makes a major contribution to the larger project of ethnobotany by describing aspects of a nomadic peoples' conceptual relationships with the plants of their homeland.

This volume includes a CD-ROM featuring more than 340 color images of the people, the terrain, and nearly all of the plants mentioned in the text as well as an audio file of a traditional Bedouin song and its translation and analysis.

A review published in Saudi Aramco World (Sept/Oct 2012) notes that the author, James Mandaville has an impressive knowledge of Arabian plant life. "His insights into the nomadic way of life makes this book a treasure for anyone who wishes to know how the Bedouin survive in so harsh and unforgiving an environment."

Bedouin Ethnobotany: Plant Concepts and Uses in a Desert Pastoral World costs $55US.
Published by University of Arizona press

Herders and farmers clash in west Sudan

El-Geneina — During a meeting in El-Geneina, West Darfur on Thursday November 8, the High Committee for Protecting the Agricultural Season, headed by Abdullah Hamdan, adopted several decisions to solve the longstanding issues between farmers and herders, Radio Dabanga has learned.

The committee includes the national administration of farmers and herders, head Commissioner and Sultan of Dar-Massaliet, Saad Bahr al-Deen, as well as civil society representatives and government officials.

The decisions include prohibiting of early grazing, which will be implemented from 28 February 2013.
Furthermore, fines of 200 pounds will be imposed in case of deliberate trespassing and damaging of farms, the committee's chairman stated.

Additionally, a decision on a military or police intervention was adopted. The intervention will be requested in case of a dispute between herders and farmers that local commissions cannot resolve on their own, Hamdan added.

During the meeting, the farmers expressed their deep concern about the repeated attacks on their farms by herders and the trespassing onto their lands.

http://gmsudan.com/20121107/east-sudan-communities-in-europe-to-hold-exceptional-conference/

PICTURE: Hadendowa man - sepia

From a 1920's postcard selling on ebay...

VIDEO: Mongolian nomad yert

Watch a time lapse video as a traditional mongolian home is set up in about 1 hour. It is well structured and designed in a way that it can be easily assembled. The video is only two minutes long.

Celebration of ethnic tribes in Egypt!

From the website of the host organization.

The Characters of Egypt Festival is an annual 3-day encounter of diverse cultures from 33 different ethnic groups residing in Egypt.

From 2008 to 2010, Characters of Egypt was hosted by Fustat Wadi el Gemal, 50 kms south of the Red Sea resort of Marsa Alam. This year, in 2011, the festival will be relocated from the desert environment to the Island of Heisa in Aswan on the River Nile. This new location offers an opportunity for the participants to experience different landscapes and cultures in their places of origin.

An estimated 3,000 guests are expected to participate in this year’s event. These are composed of 350 individuals from a variety of Egyptian ethnic groups, 100 volunteers, 100 journalists, media personnel and press, politicians, ambassadors, business people, academics, artists, visitors from Cairo and Alexandria along with foreign tourists.


The festival envisions creating a platform through which a variety of isolated ethnic groups can converge in a festive, communal atmosphere. The event offers a rare opportunity to link diverse cultures and to inculcate values of mutual respect, understanding, tolerance and equality.

Join us in celebrating Egypt’s cultural diversity on October 27-29, 2011 at Heisa Island, Aswan, EGYPT.

Nomadism - like an entertainer's lifestyle?

Nomadic life requires moving a home and all of the family belongings. The men ensure the animals are cared for on the move to a new location. Beja women are responsible for constructing the home, which is traditionally made of woven palm mats laid over a framework of large tree branches. The interior of the home may have woven blankets hung to acts as decorative walls. A raised sleeping platform keeps crawling bugs out of the bed.

It's unclear how frequently a traditional rural Beja family moves, but seasonal efforts are common as the need is to find pasture for the herds of goats and camels. Rain falls in the Red Sea Hills in the winter, and elsewhere in the summer. Overnight camps are very basic if a destination is more than a day's journey away. Some Beja go to the Atbara River or Nile River, while others make their way to the harvest fields in the Tokar Delta or Gash Delta north of Kassala.

In parts of the developed world, there are many occupations that have a somewhat similar lifestyle. There is the circus. Large operations Cirque du Soleil may set up in town for a few weeks at a time, and then move on to another city. In America there are about 30 travelling circuses. The people live temporary lives, not settling down in any one place, because the economics of their work demands that they move on.

Amusement or carnival shows may run a weekend in a small town, or three weeks in a large city. Demand for midway rides is especially high during the fall fairs. The season may call for 30 different locations. The community needed to support such shows may be a dozens of people. They are guests in the city, but not always well served, though they entertain the citizens.

Who has time to get to know the workers? Who cares for them? How do the children of circus families get a good education?

Other examples of nomadic lifestyles include Nascar or Indy style car racing, professional tennis and golf tours; these visit a different region every weekend.The sportsmen are usually paid enough to travel home during the week.

There's a rodeo circuit. Cowboys visit a different town to enter a competition each week. Farm workers will travel with the harvest, so teams of  combine drivers move steadily north from Texas to the Dakotas working the corn or wheat fields. This may take a few months away from home. Small music bands may go on tour for months at a time.

Many immigrant farm workers in the USA and Canada are from Mexico. They live in very basic barracks supplied by the farm operator and work hard in the fields harvesting vegetables like onions, carrots and peppers. Their time is limited, but their work is far away from home, and their life is fragile because not all their support systems are in place.

Top photo source

Here's an example of a Catholic priest who has a ministry to circus people for many years. He travels with them part of year, and he mentioned that there were 30 different travelling circuses in the United States in 1993. The people really seem to respond to his availability. He offers his spiritual services when he's there, or he can connect people to his network. Many circus performers are taken advantage of when they need help in a town they are visiting, so he has a list of trusted helpers, like car mechanics and dentists.
 More info about an outreach ministry to circus nomads in the USA.

UN projects support Darfur nomads

Darfur clan leader [2005] Irin photo.

A workshop at El Fasher University was critical of the efforts of aid agencies in Darfur.

"North Darfur’s nomads may number one million and make up some 60 percent of the state population," said Hassan Abedlaziz. He said that for years the term nomad never appeared in humanitarian agencies programmes and that now they have begun to work with nomads, but stark needs remain in terms of water, health care, education and vocational training.

While some elementary education now covers nomadic communities, young people are frustrated when their educations end early. With no water services available outside the urban areas and suffering the effects of desertification, nomads have critical water needs and are still dying from water scarcity said Abedlaziz.

UNAMID’s nomad projects include a capacity-building program to train members of the Nomadic Forum for Peace and Social Coexistence to increase their administrative management and proposal writing skills. Another project will do awareness raising on conflict prevention and peaceful coexistence between farmers and pastoralists. A third will help the Forum establish an administrative office. And a fourth will raise awareness among nomadic women of the issues of early marriage and circumcision, as well as on developing income generating activities.
 
UNAMID Press Release.

UPDATE: Further articles describing this nomad conference can be found here and here. One interesting item mentioned is that of 200,000 girls, only 1,000 were able to go to school.

One of the official stories is on the UNAMID website.

Video: Introduction to the Beja People

enjoy!

Eastern Desert academic conference

A conference takes place in Cairo: the main lecture is titled "The History of the Peoples in the Eastern Deserts of Egypt and Sudan."

The region between the Red Sea and the Nile Valley in Egypt and Sudan is referred to as the Eastern Desert. The desertification of this region started with the end of the Holocene pluvial period and continues until today. The mobile hunter-herder-gatherers that left the region to settle in the Nile Valley are regarded as one of the driving forces behind the advent of Pharaonic civilization. Despite environmental degradation and scholarly neglect, the Eastern Desert has native inhabitants and a history of its own.

The mineral wealth in the Eastern Desert has attracted outsiders from early times onward, who in turn have been the focus of the attention of historians and archaeologists. The same is true for the trade routes that connected the Nile Valley with sub-Saharan Africa, Arabia Felix, India and the enigmatic Land of Punt. The study of the Eastern Desert is also hampered by the limitations of the historical sources, by the low archaeological visibility of the remains of the desert dwellers, and by ambiguous ethnographic parallels.

A conference organized by the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology (University of California, Los Angeles) at the NVIC aims to address the problems and possibilities of the study of the dwellers of the Eastern Desert, as well as to provide an overview of the current state of our knowledge. The preliminary conclusions of this conference will be presented in this Cleveringa Lecture. The region and its inhabitants, ancient and modern, also bring into focus some ethical issues, especially appropriate as this lecture was instituted to commemorate the courageous moral stance taken by Professor Cleveringa during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands.

Government control of nomadic routes

The Beja do not live in Darfur. But many are nomadic, and ideas and policies that are put in place in one part of the country can be started in another place too.

The government is planning to limit the range of travel of nomads in west Sudan. Does this kind of control have hidden dangers? What happens when there is not enough rain? Traditional behaviour among nomadic people would mean that their range of travel would be increased until pastures are located.
Here's the short report.

Nomads Must Observe Corridors Determined by Commission in South Darfur/ Nomads Commission (SMC)

Nomads' commission in south Darfur state has set a plan targeting nomads' settlements.

The move aims at preventing frictions between nomads and formers, said nomads' commissioner Issa Allyan. Besides settlement camps which should be provided with basic services such as school, health and water services, the commission is arranging for setting corridors and that nomads should observe the commission decisions.

From UNMIS Daily Media Monitoring Report - Jan 15, 2008