Food Sources: Earth, Water, and Air - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 102

tribes of the Ma ∞ rib and to the Touareg
(in Tama ª e, enhel pl. inhal , fem. tanhelt
pl. tinhal ). In Mesopotamia, where the
sub-species Str. cam. syriacus was known,
the Sumero-Akkadian tablets mention it
generally (Sumerian ∞ a- ª ir-mu ª en , Akka-
dian lurmu ). The Bedouins had the leisure
to observe in detail this large biped with
the silhouette of a camel, and its inability
to fly caused it not to be regarded as a
bird but as a near neighbour of the camel
family. An abundant terminology (some
fifty adjectives) defined, among the people
of the desert, the external characteristics,
bearing and habits of the ostrich whose
plumage, meat and eggs were quite sought
after; fixed by the poets of the tribes, this
linguistic baggage was preserved in the
works of the Arabic-speaking lexicogra-
phers, encyclopaedists and naturalists.
The sexual dimorphism of the ostrich
was much noted by numerous epithets
applied to each sex according to its char-
acteristics. The male ( sala ), larger and
stronger than the female, is commonly
called alīm (pl. ulmān, ilmān, alima )
“oppressed”, for, according to the Bed-
ouin fable, his ears were cut short when
he was attempting to have horns; despite
such an explanation, it seems that one
should see in alīm an intensive with the
meaning of “very dark”, an attribute of its
plumage, similarly as with its other adjec-
tives asam and ∞ ayhab . As it takes its turn
sitting on the eggs, as well as the three or
four females of its harem, it is surnamed
abu 'l-bay “father of the eggs and abū
º alā º īn “father of thirty [eggs]”, as a par-
allel to the sitting hen, who is umm al-bay
and umm º alā º īn “mother of the eggs”,
“mother of thirty [eggs]”. In the mating
season, the male becomes ¶ āib “red-
thighed”, for the skin of his thighs and
his beak takes on a coral hue; the female
always remains ramdā or rabdā “grey” or
hird “yellowish” due to her ashen plum-

age, whereas the male is a ¶ ra ¡ “mottled
black and white” and a ¶ af (same mean-
ing). One of the most striking character-
istics of the ostrich's anatomy is its long,
thin and bare neck, which earned it the
names hay, hayam, al, a ¶ a, asaf, asa,
asla and, for the female, ¶ ayā ; a group
of ostriches also used to be called banāt
al-hay “long-necked ones”. The smallness
of the flat head with the sparse, wiry hair
of the ostrich and the hardness of its skull
were also described by the words untu
and iwann , while it is called a ¡ am due
to its strong beak, elongated like the muz-
zle of a camel and often slightly curved.
The absence of an external ear, common
to all birds, led the Bedouins to believe
that the ostrich did not have ears and was
consequently malūm, muallam , and totally
lacking in the sense of hearing ( asakk ); it
supplemented this, according to them,
with its faculty of sight and a very subtle
sense of smell, hence the simile a ª amm
min al-naāma “with a better sense of smell
than the ostrich”. As a means of defence
and safeguard, the ostrich only has at its
disposal the rapidity of its flight ( za ¡ a ¡ ),
always with its face to the wind, being able
to equal the swiftness of a horse spurred
into a triple gallop.
In the mating season, the male ostrich,
like the camel, has a high-pitched voice
( ha ¡ hā ¡ ), making different raucous sounds
with its complex shrill cry ( na ), when it
is frightened. Despite being oviparous
( ahūl ), the female ostrich does not make
a nest; she is content to scratch and flat-
ten in the sand a shallow hole ( udī, idī,
uduwwa, udiyya, madā, balad ) which is
sufficient to accommodate her clutch ( tūm )
of six to eight eggs in general. As several
females of the same male pool their eggs
in the same breeding place for security
and to make it easier to sit on them, the
Bedouins used to attribute this behaviour
to the stupidity ( ¶ ur ) of this large bird,