The desert is not dead
By Magen Broshi

"A Culture of Desert Survival: Bedouin Proverbs from Sinai and the Negev" by Clinton Bailey, Yale University Press, 478 pages

For many years, our sole source of information on the Bedouin in the Negev was the work of Aref al-Aref, a district administrative officer in Be'er Sheva and Gaza. Al-Aref, an educated man, proficient in many languages, was the author of the two most notable scholarly works by a Palestinian during the British Mandate: "Bedouin Love, Law and Legend" and "A History of Be'er Sheba and its Tribes," both translated into Hebrew in the 1930s by Menachem Kapeliuk.

Since the 1960s, not only the Israeli public but the whole world has been enriched by a crop of excellent anthropological studies by Israeli academics like Emanuel Marx and his students, as well as intelligent, serious-minded "amateurs" like Shabtai Levy of Beit Hashita.

Dr. Clinton (Yitzhak) Bailey, who has devoted 35 years of his life to researching the Bedouin of the Sinai Desert and the Negev, has also made a distinguished contribution. This man - a one-man institution who has pursued his research with almost no public funding - is the author of a series of publications on a vast array of topics. He has studied Bedouin wedding customs, the useful information the community gleans from observing the stars, and the Saluki dogs they breed. Now he has written two hefty, groundbreaking books, both in English. One of them, published in 1991, "Bedouin Poetry from Sinai and the Negev," is probably the best collection of Bedouin poetry in print. Bailey has collected the poems not only of the Sinai and Negev Bedouin, but of the nomads who roam the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Iraq.

Browsing through this book, one discovers that "Ya khalili ya amali," the famous line from a popular Hebrew song composed during the First Aliyah (the wave of immigration) period, has nothing to do with musical instruments or the value of hard work (in Hebrew khalil is a flute, and amal is labor). It is taken from the refrain of an Arabic song (not included in this anthology) - "ya khalili ya mali" - which means "my wife, my property." Noah Shapira (Bar-Nash) of Zichron Ya'akov wrote the Hebrew lyrics in 1895, when the pioneers were still captivated by the charm of their neighbors.

Popular with Israelis

Proverbs provide an invaluable insight into the culture of a society - any society (for our purposes, proverbs and parables are synonymous). As my grandfather used to say: "A proverb is not a verse of the Torah, but the Torah in a verse." The values, customs, laws and special flavor of Bedouin society are summed up in the 1,350 proverbs collected in Bailey's book. Bedouin society, like the State of Israel, has no written constitution (for different reasons, of course). The Bedouin have only an oral tradition that is passed down from generation to generation.

Some of the proverbs in this book are also popular among Israelis. Examples are "Kul kalb biji yomo" ("Every dog has his day"), i.e., his day will come, and "Illi fat, mat" ("The past is dead") - don't cry over spilled milk. Many of them can also be found in rabbinical literature, such as "Oy larasha ve'oy leshkheno" ("Woe to the sinner and woe to his neighbor") or "Kidra debay shutafay la hamima vela kerira" ("The dish of two partners is neither hot nor cold") - i.e., too many cooks spoil the broth.

As one would expect, camels are a favorite theme. After all, where would a Bedouin be without his camel? Bedouin and camels have been inseparable since 1300 B.C.E. Without the "ship of desert" nomadic life would not be possible. One proverb extols the virtues of the camel: "A camel is money, its dung is fuel, its hair is a tent cloth, its milk a source of food in sustenance in black days." Obviously, these are only some of its assets. Others, such as providing meat and transportation, were probably omitted because the author couldn't find a rhyme.

"No camel will carry a load of stones unless they stink," goes another proverb (referring to the odor emitted when the camel is in heat, as the author explains). The squeamish will forgive me, but one of the greatest Arab lexicographers in the Middle Ages compiled a whole list of different camel farts. Even after the introduction of motorized transport, the camel, which costs next to nothing to raise and feed, has retained its place of honor in Bedouin culture. The horse, of course, also figures highly in Bedouin proverbs. "May Allah bless me with an obedient wife, a swift horse and an ample tent," goes one. This saying is popular not only among the nomads, incidentally. I have also heard it from peasant farmers.

Bedouin society, which had no centralized governing body up until recently, with all the advantages and disadvantages of such a system, did need judges and some kind of sanction for members of the community taking the law into their own hands. Blood revenge is one of the topics that comes up in Bedouin proverbs. We learn that killing women and uncircumcised children is forbidden. Among the Bedouin, circumcisions are performed between the ages of 8 and 13. But we also learn that for seekers of revenge, there is no need to hurry. On the contrary, as we see from this proverb: "The Bedouin took revenge after 40 years and said `I was hasty.'"

Judgment and judges are the most common theme of all. Three of the book's nine chapters revolve around proverbs on this subject. Trials were voluntary and subject to a complex set of rules. There were various kinds of judges with expertise in different spheres. In serious cases, a panel of three judges was called in ("It takes three stones to support a pot"). If the charges were very grave, a bisha ceremony was conducted in which the accused was forced to lick a red-hot metal rod. An unscorched tongue was a sign of innocence. Today, this ritual is still practiced by the Saltna tribe, which lives west of the Suez Canal.

Cousins and wives

Another leitmotif is hospitality, which is explored in minute detail. A large number of proverbs offer practical advice, such as "Steal a camel, not an egg," or "He who is shy with his cousin will get no child from her" (the "cousin," in this case, being the wife). In Arab society, the preferred bride is one's cousin. One is even allowed to pull her off the horse when she is on her way to marry another man (which is the only time a Bedouin woman is permitted to ride a horse).

These are only a few examples of what this attractive book has to offer. Each proverb appears in Arabic script, in a phonetic
transliteration that shows how the Bedouin pronounce it, and in English translation. There is an introduction for each topic, and
nearly every proverb is accompanied by additional explanations.

Yet another point in the book's favor is that Bailey has managed to swoop down at the last second, so to speak, before many of the cultural trademarks of Bedouin society disappear. Vast changes in this society - the most far-reaching in its 3,000 years of existence - are threatening to make extinct much of what Bailey has documented. The creation of permanent townships, new sources of livelihood, exposure to the outside world (radio, television, tourism) - all are taking their toll. The image of a Bedouin man riding a camel while clutching a cell phone illustrates what is happening in our day to these veteran denizens of the desert.

The introduction, written by one of the greatest Assyriologists of our time, Prof. William Hallo of Yale University, is a blessing in its own right. Among his other work, Hallo is known for his expertise in paroemiology - the study of proverbs. In his scholarly, yet utterly charming introduction, he discusses the long life of proverbs and the great distances they travel. A good example: The two mythological heroes Gilgamesh and Enkidu go out to fight the monster Humbaba. "Two together will not perish," Gilgamesh says to his friend to boost his spirits. "No one can cut through a three-ply cloth." Dozens of generations later, we find in the Book of Ecclesiastes: "Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken."

The same is true for "Cast your bread upon the water" in the Book of Proverbs, which appears in Egyptian lore. In Mesopotamia (Akkad, Assyria and Babylonia), students at a school for scribes recited Sumerian and Akkadian parables to improve their minds and linguistic skills. It is quite likely that the same teaching methods were used in Canaan.