'File 35/64 Mineral deposits in Dhofar' [‎3r] (7/126)

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*Sir Arth
ur Keith
and Dr.
Wilton
Marion Kr-
ogman not
ing in
Appendix
I of Mr.
Bertram
Thoma s'
"Arabia
Felix 11 .
- 3 -
landscape, the Southern Arabians of the hills being distinct
types considered by some* to be Hamitic in origin. They are
a small limbed, dark skinned race v /ith well chiselled features,
still in a nomadic and troglodytic state. Living in their sylvan
hills they have left no mark on them. Only those who occasionally
visit the few towns speak any Arabic and they observe the forms
of Islam only during their brief visits. In their own hills
they do not pray on the flimsy plea that there is no water for
ablutions. To Islam they prefer pre-islamic rites to propitiate
the jinn, of whom they go in perpetual dread; rites which their
more orthodox Moslem rulers have so far been unable to eradicate.
A bedouin of the "Bait Katan" section averred to me that
travelling at night he was once dogged by an old hag who, when
threatened with a sword, retired growing larger and larger until
she was transformed into a tree. Another said he had heard jinns
in the running streams at dusk while a youth who was produced
before me, alleged to be possessed of a jinn, appeared from his
father's descriptions of his actions to be a somnambulist.
The bedouin have no irrigated cultivation and they
do not labour. Such cultivation as ^hey have is quite unsettled,
a suitable patch being broken up before the rains if the whim
takes them or necessity forces them. They live as parasites on
the camel, the cow and the goat and barter incense for grain
because collecting the former is easier than cultivating the
latter and well fits in v/ith their migrations in search of
grazing. The town of Salala contains a community of settled
hillmen of the Kathiri tribe; a long established community of
Saiyids hailing from the Yemen, mostly engaged in trade; a few
artisans; some former slaves of East African origin and
fishermen.
The Hindoo festival of "Diwali", until prohibited by
the present ruler's father, was regularly celebrated by many
professing Moslems of Salala. It is said to have oeen introduced
by a Brahmin who was shipwrecked on the Dhufar coast and
remained to initiate alien rites which found a ready acceptance
among the lower classes who had been but imperfectly assimilated
by/