Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
dialectal metaphor from the Ma
∞
rib
yed-
doh fī
ª
-
ª
ekwa i
£
ā mā
¡
bed el-lben ye
¡
bed
ez-zebda
! “He has his hand in the churn;
if he does not draw out buttermilk, he will
draw out butter!” to describe someone
who has found a situation which is very
lucrative and not very tiring, and paral-
lel to the French image “avoir trouvé un
bon fromage” (cf. American English “He
became a big cheese”).
Apart from the two daily necessities of
the watering and the milking, the shep-
herd's year numbers several major activi-
ties for the life and survival of men and
beasts. First, at the beginning of winter,
there is the shearing (
¡
azza
) of the wool-
bearers and the shearer (
¡
azzāz
) has to
know how to manage the shears (
¡
alam
)
with dexterity and rapidity on the animal,
while it is held on the ground; the mass
of wool obtained (
¡
azīza
) will serve as
exchange currency in the oases for uten-
sils and durable foodstuffs (dates, sugar,
flour etc.). Another crucial period and,
perhaps, the most harrassing for those
responsible for the flock who have to stay
awake day and night, is that of the partu-
rition (
nitā
¡
) of the pregnant females with
all the care demanded by mothers and
newborn, lambs and kids being confused
at the beginning under the names
sa
¶
la
(pl.
sa
¶
l, si
¶
āl, su
¶
lān
) and
bahma
(pl.
baham, bihām
). The latter, as they grow,
take on different names whose system of
nomenclature will not be treated exhaus-
tively here, as it varies from one region to
another. If a birth threatens to be difficult
and may endanger the life of the female
in labour and that of the young, there is
no hesitation in practising a Caesarian
section and the offspring saved is called
ullān, ullām
. In ancient terminology, the
distinction between lamb and kid only
appeared clearly at the age of weaning
(
fiām
) around four or five months. Until
then, the young lamb-kid (
ba
£
a
¡
, farīr,
beginnings of the agricultural zones and
after the cereal harvests, contracts of loca-
tion of pasture (
sara
) on the stubble and
fallow can be concluded between cultivat-
ing owners and wandering or migratory
shepherds (
uzzāb
). The encampment or
dawār
“circle of tents” is placed as near
as possible to a well, a spring or a pool
offering the watering place (
mawrid
) indis-
pensable for the animals. The circular
area delimited by the tents (
murā
), whose
enclosure is completed by a barrier of
thorny brushwood, assures the flock of a
relative nocturnal security reinforced by
the vigilance of these half-wild dogs called
with precision “camp dogs”. The twice-
daily milking takes place after the separa-
tion of the unweaned young, before the
morning departure of the flock for pas-
turage and in the evening on its return
from the watering place; in the East it is
mostly the men who perform it, whereas
in the Ma
∞
rib it is one of the numerous
women's chores. The fresh milk (
alīb
) is
immediately churned by swinging in the
goatskin container (
ª
akwa
) hung on posts;
there is derived from it, on the one hand,
buttermilk (
laban
) consumed immediately
either as a drink or as a food or put to
curdle with the rennet (
infaa
) to make a
mild cheese (
¡
ubn
) whose residual whey
(
mā al-
¡
ubn
) is given to the lambs and
kids or incorporated in culinary prepara-
tions. On the other hand, the fresh butter
(
zubda
), unwashed and separated from the
buttermilk, is immediately put in the goat-
skin, sometimes salted, to obtain, after
it has become rancid, preserved butter
(
samn
), a substance based on the fat and
used in all foods. To consume the fresh
milk and the butter as it comes from the
churn would be, in the eyes of the Bed-
ouin, an unthinkable waste in view of the
three or four sub-products present in the
milk; hence comes the interest shown in
the goatskin churn and its contents in this
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