'Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. I. 1918' [‎97] (106/568)

INHABITANTS 97
(a) Nomads. The nomad Arabs are to be found mostly on the
borders of the western deserts and in upper Mesopotamia ; there are
only a few in Irak, fewer, proportionately, it seems, than in Arabistan.
They are pastoral tent-dwellers, and breeders especially of camels,
sheep, and horses. For much of what they eat, drink, and wear they
are dependent on the urban markets. They are tribally organized.
Each tribal unit has certain pasture-grounds, which it visits or leaves,
according to the season of the year, its movements being dictated
by the need of pasture and water. Some of the tribes which at
certain times appear on the western borders of Irak or upper
Mesopotamia, are at others far away in the Syrian Desert or in the
Nejd. Much of desert policy and warfare hangs on these tribal
rights over certain areas. A stronger group will sometimes oust
a weaker from a part or the whole of the latter's territory, and this
may setup a wide-spreading movement. Some of the nomad sheikhs
own, or have some more or less recognized claims over, cultivated
lands in oases or near rivers; these lands are worked for them by
negroes or fellahin Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. .
(b) Semi-nomads. —The tendency of the nomads to settle down and
turn to agriculture has had the result that there are a number of
Arab tribes living in various intermediate states between pure
nomadism and the condition of wholly settled cultivators. The
process of settlement is liable—especially at first—to be easily sus
pended or broken off; a tribe may do a little cultivation for some
years, and then, owing to a quarrel with its neighbours or the
Government, or a failure of its crops, may go off elsewhere. A
community may cultivate first one piece of ground and then another
more or less in the same neighbourhood, shifting its dwellings as
it moves its fields. The semi-nomads are generally mainly dependent
on their live-stock—sheep, cattle, horses, sometimes camels. In the
spring, when there is abundant pasture in the open desert or steppe,
the greater or a considerable part of a semi-nomadic tribe will range
over the plains with its flocks and herds. Some semi-nomads live
in tents all the year round, even where they raise their crops;
others have villages of mud or reed huts near their fields.
(c) Settled Arabs. —Most of the Arabs who can be regarded as
wholly settled cultivators still keep more or less to their tribal
organization, but in some of the most highly cultivated areas Arabs
belonging by blood to several different tribes will be found living
together in the same village, and here the tribal bond will be weak
or absent. This is the case on the right bank of the Shatt el-'Arab,
except in so far as the Sheikh of Mohammareh has kept his hold on
his tribesmen who have settled on this side of the river.
mes. i Cr