Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village (8 page)

strove for. Otherwise a man might wait ten years to get

married, for it took at least that long to save the required

amount.

Sheddir, Ali’s wife, while cutting grass in the garden one

morning, invited me to visit her, and I did, twice. After that I

did not feel as free to do so, for each time I came they spent an

embarrassing amount on delicacies, fruit, coffee, sweet

biscuits. I knew that wherever I went in the settlement, except

perhaps for the houses of the sheik and his brothers, my

arrival was bound to put a strain on the family’s finances.

Their traditional sense of hospitality always struggled with

their slim budgets, and usually hospitality won. I would

protest vigorously when this happened, but it did no good, for

I was only following the accustomed pattern: a guest always

protested at the honors done him to show his host how much

he appreciated them. So I made excuses to Sheddir and asked

her to visit me instead.

Occasionally, when I passed the house of our next-door

neighbors, a family of weavers and dyers, the gate would be

ajar and I could see bright yarns and rugs displayed in the

court. I had been debating whether or not I might call on the

weavers unannounced when one morning Bob came to tell me

to drop everything and come at once. Saleh, the weaver, had

been in the mudhif that morning. Bob had expressed interest

in his loom and Saleh had promptly invited him over, adding

that I would be welcome to come and sit with his family.

Since Bob was with me and the men of the family would be

around, I fully expected to be ushered into an inside room and

served tea behind a closed door while the men disported

themselves in the court. But when the gate was opened, the

women in their abayahs were sitting in full view at one end of

the court; they beckoned to me. That was one of the few

occasions when Bob and I visited within sight of each other,

although we did not speak. The men sat in another corner, far

from us, and the women covered their faces with their abayahs

whenever Bob passed near them. Still, the weaving

paraphernalia was spread all over the court, and there was a

good deal of covert peeping through the abayahs as Bob and

Saleh walked around, looking carefully at everything.

I recognized one of the women immediately by the thin,

scab-covered baby she carried on her hip; it had been she who

had given the baby her breast during my first visit to Selma.

“I am Hathaya, Saleh’s daughter,” she said.
“Ahlan

wusahlan.”
I sat down with the group of black-garbed women

who served as background for the vivid display in the court. A

swath of bright red wool six feet long and nearly three feet

wide splashed across the court from the pit loom near the

family house almost to the mud wall. Looking closer, I saw

that this was the woof of a rug in the process of manufacture;

long strands of red yarn were stretched taut and fastened to

wooden pegs driven into the hard-packed ground. Already a

geometric pattern of black and red pyramiding squares and

rectangles was emerging from the pit loom, where Hathaya’s

husband Mahmoud sat and threw the shuttle. I could not

understand why he seemed to be sitting on the ground until I

was told that the loom was set in a dugout nearly three feet

deep and pedals controlling the woof were operated from

below. All around us newly dyed yarn was drying in the

morning sun. Yellow, red, orange, green, the skeins were

draped over the wall, spread across the roof of the lean-to and

hung on makeshift frames of sticks, covering every available

inch of the dun-colored walls with gaudy loops of twisted

color.

Fluffy piles of raw sheep wool had also been spread out to

dry. Hathaya picked up a soft handful and tossed it to another

woman, who produced from the pocket of her dress a spindle

and showed me how she twisted the bits of fleece into strands

of yarn, which were then spun on the wooden spinning wheel

and finally woven on the loom. In addition to rugs the family

made abayahs, which were dyed black for the women but left

the wool’s natural color for men.

“How much does one cost?” I asked.

An old woman held out the corner of her abayah for me to

finger the rough homespun.

“For this kind, half a pound,” she said, “if you bring your

own wool. But a fine one, very warm, for winter, costs three

pounds.”

“How much wool does it take?”

“The wool of two or three sheep, washed and dried, will

make one abayah,” she said.

While Saleh took Bob around I drank tea with the women,

who talked to me so fast I could scarcely understand a word,

and who laughed hilariously at my stumbling answers. In this

house there was no restraining presence such as Selma, no

protection such as that offered by my special relationship with

Mohammed’s mother and sisters. These women had me to

themselves, to do with as they pleased. The children plucked

at my abayah and touched my shoes; the women would call

them off, then draw near enough to touch the material of my

abayah themselves. They talked loudly about me, indifferent

to my presence or possible comprehension. However, I caught

a few comments: my heavy shoes (horrible); my skin (white);

my husband (not bad); my skirt, visible when I sat down even

though I kept my abayah around me (good wool, but too

short); and my cut bangs (really strange, quite awful in fact).

They wondered audibly what I had on under my skirt; when

they asked me outright, I pretended that I couldn’t understand.

One old woman, who talked the loudest and the fastest, kept

insisting that I should drink another glass of tea (good for the

blood), patted my hand and told me not to worry (about what,

I was not sure), yet she simply could not restrain her mirth.

Every time she looked at me she would go off into a good-

natured cackle which was in itself so infectious that the

children and women would automatically join in. Somehow,

in this situation I was not upset at being considered an

amusing object, as I sometimes was on later occasions.

Perhaps it was the sun on the bright yarns, the lovely rug

spread in the court, the men and the women so proud of their

industry and so pleased to be able to show it off. Or perhaps it

was the naïveté of the women’s unashamed curiosity and

amusement. They did not laugh simply to observe my

reactions. They poked me and pinched me and laughed in all

sincerity, simply because they were curious and found me

terribly funny. After a while the waves of mirth became

contagious; I began laughing too, at nothing in particular, and

soon we were all guffawing together.

When the men sat down in the opposite corner to have their

tea, I was given the tour of the loom and the spinning wheel.

Would I like to see Hathaya spin? I would. She did. Everyone

was pleased. But the baby, in the arms of another woman,

began to wail and Hathaya picked it up and gave it her breast.

Would I like to see their house? I would. A small, dark room,

reminiscent of Ali’s house, then another larger, airier room

where Saleh slept, which was filled with neat piles of folded

rugs and abayahs.

“Tell your husband you want one of these beautiful rugs,”

said the old woman slyly; she was Saleh’s wife and no fool.

She had decided, and rightly, that I might very well be a

profitable source of business as well as a divertissement.

I said I certainly would. “Are these for sale?” I asked,

indicating the piles.

“No,” she said; these had been woven on order and were

now waiting payment. The people would come in about a

month after the harvest, when the fellahin were paid for their

grain by the merchant in El Nahra. “But don’t worry,” she

added quickly, noticing I was turning away. “Just save the

wool from five sheep, and we will make you a special rug in

beautiful colors.”

Hathaya pointed out that we had no sheep.

The old woman looked thoughtful for a moment. “Ask

Mohammed,” she said. “He will find you some wool to buy in

the autumn, after the sheep are shorn. And then bring it to me,

and we will draw a fine pattern and …”

She was interrupted by a shout from the court. Bob was

leaving and nodded to me to follow.

“You must come visit us every day,” said the old woman,

and went off into a final paroxysm of laughter. I said she must

come and visit me; the women looked at each other and

smiled. Would they come?

“God willing,” they replied, and I picked my way past the

yarns and the bright rug to the gate where Bob waited.

“Ahlan wusahlan,”
said Hathaya. Her baby was wailing

again; she turned from us and helped it to find the breast. The

gate shut and we were again on the dusty path, which was

drab compared with the gaiety and color we had left behind.

4

Women of the Town

Across the canal from the tribal settlement of mud-brick

houses lay the village itself—more mud-brick houses, shops, a

small covered bazaar, and a mosque distinguished from all of

the other mud-brick buildings only by a small mosaic. “There

is no God but Allah and Mohammed is His Prophet” was

spelled out in faded blue tiles above the door. Date palms and

a few eucalyptus trees gave shade along the bank of the canal.

The urban side of El Nahra was reached by a new cement

bridge which had recently replaced the pontoon footbridge;

the old bridge had risen and lowered as the canal filled and

emptied, but the new one arched proudly over the canal,

oblivious of the water or lack of water underneath.

The American Point Four engineer who advised the Iraqi

Government on the construction of this new bridge had

suggested it be built of cement blocks; it had been. He had

neglected to allow for the fact that it is difficult to get onto a

high cement bridge from a dirt road without proper

approaches, which did not of course exist in El Nahra. Hence,

although the villagers were pleased with the new bridge, many

of them cursed it in the winter, for when the dirt roads turned

to mud, the horses and donkeys and even the cars would slip

and slide and skid, trying to gain enough purchase to get onto

the slick cement of the arch.

The engineer had also pointed out that the old bridge was

really very badly situated—down the canal from the main

street, where it joined the tribal settlement with the mosque.

What was needed, he said, was a central location.

Accordingly, the bridge was built to accommodate such

modern ideas; it was moved up the canal and now spanned the

hub of the village, joining a group of busy coffee shops on the

tribal side to the bazaar entrance and taxi stand on the other,

urban bank. What the engineer did not know, and of course no

one dreamed of telling him, was that the old bridge was

inefficiently situated for a very good reason: to allow the

women to pass over, unnoticed, to either side of the canal, to

visit friends or pray in the mosque without being exposed to

the stares of the strange men who always filled the coffee

shops or lounged at the entrance to the bazaar.

Now the new bridge facilitated social intercourse among the

men, it was true, and it was certainly a time saver for the taxi

drivers who had to deliver passengers to the tribal side, but it

considerably cut down the social life of the women. They

could no longer slip across the bridge to see a friend and slip

back without their absence being noted. They could no longer

wind through alleys to the back entrance of the bazaar, make a

small purchase and return home discreetly. With the coming

of the new bridge, each foray across the canal became a major

undertaking. Who knew who might be sitting in the coffee

shop who might remark that so-and-so’s family was running

about town these days. For a model wife stayed at home, cared

for her children and for her house, prepared good food for her

husband and his guests, and kept out of sight of strangers. So,

although few people really noticed it and only one or two of

the women even remarked on it, in fact the women went out

much less often after the new bridge was finished and the old

bridge was dismantled and sold for firewood.

The main street of El Nahra, neon-lighted, was a

continuation of this new bridge. Here were the offices of the

government officials assigned from Baghdad to administer the

village and its immediate area. A boys’ primary school (400

pupils), a girls’ primary school (175 pupils), the mayor’s

office, the jail, the government dispensary with its resident

doctor, the police station, and the post office lined the street.

On a side road facing the canal was the office of the irrigation

engineer, the one indispensable man among the government

officials, for on his authority the floodgates which channeled