Negev Bedouin and Livestock Rearing by Aref Abu-Rabia

Author:Aref Abu-Rabia [Abu-Rabia, Aref]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, Political Economy, Science, Philosophy & Social Aspects, Social Science, Anthropology, General
ISBN: 9781000323047
Google: V2kQEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2020-12-22T03:52:59+00:00

The Nomadic Basem Family

Care of the flock requires many working hands, as appears from a description of a typical working day.

Lambing in Basem’s flock began at the end of October and continued until the end of November. Basem and members of his family were required to devote many hours of the day to dealing with the flock, particularly with the new-born lambs. During this period, Basem, his wife and his sons Amir and Sultan, rose at five o’clock in the morning to prepare the morning meal for the sheep. Amir and Sultan set the feeding-troughs in rows and fed the sheep straw and barley. The feed was placed in large vats on the previous evening, in such a way that the flock had no access to it. While the feed was being prepared, Basem and his wife examined the new lambs and separated them from the rest of the flock. As soon as the sons had finished preparing the meal they allowed the sheep to go to the feeding-troughs. While the sheep ate Amir and Sultan watched over them carefully, to keep the rams under control and to prevent their butting the sheep with their horns, either because of jealousy of the females or greed for the feed. Only at the end of the feed did Basem, with the help of his wife and sons, let the lambs loose to feed from their mothers.

Close to six o’clock Ferdaus joined her mother. Together they guided each lamb to its ewe, and then supervised the suckling. Ferdaus paid particular attention to a ewe that had borne twins; she made sure that the lambs sucked properly, each on one teat, without interfering with the other twin. While they were feeding Ferdaus stroked their backs, and emitted pleasant sounds which soothed both the mother ewe and the lambs. In this way she dealt with one sheep after another. Her mother worked in the same way, watching over the feeding and instructing her daughter. Basem and his children supervised the rest of the flock. When the feeding was finished the family parted the lambs from their mothers.

Amir, who worked as a teacher in the tribal school, finished his work before the others at about seven o’clock, so as to reach the school before eight o’clock, together with his brothers Ibrahim and Sucad. Amir’s wife prepared a light breakfast for her two children and her husband, and also for her two brothers-in-law who attended the school. Only when Basem’s wife completed her work with the flock, close on eight o’clock, was she free to prepare breakfast for her husband and children. They ate breakfast at nearly nine o’clock, and with the help of Ferdaus she went on doing her domestic chores, cleaning, washing clothes and so on, until noon. Then they prepared lunch for the whole family. Some food was set aside for the schoolchildren to eat when they came home from school.

At ten o’clock in the morning Basem and Sultan took the lambs that were

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.