Iraq's Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden
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What can the present tell us about the past? From 1968 to 1990, Edward Ochsenschlager conducted ethnoarchaeological fieldwork near a mound called al-Hiba, in the marshes of southern Iraq. In examining the material culture of three tribes—their use of mud, reed, wood, and bitumen, and their husbandry of cattle, water buffalo, and sheep—he chronicles what is now a lost way of life. He helps us understand ancient manufacturing processes, an artifact's significance and the skill of those who create and use it, and the substantial moral authority wielded by village craftspeople. He reveals the complexities involved in the process of change, both natural and enforced. Al-Hiba contains the remains of Sumerian people who lived in the marshes more than 5,000 years ago in a similar ecological setting, using similar material resources. The archaeological evidence provides insights into everyday life in antiquity. Ochsenschlager enhances the comparisons of past and present by extensive illustrations from his fieldwork and also from the University Museum's rare archival photographs taken in the late nineteenth century by John Henry Haynes. This was long before Saddam Hussein drove one of the tribes from the marshes, forced the Bedouin to live elsewhere, and irrevocably changed the lives of those who tried to stay.
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IRAQ’S MARSH ARABS IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN
Edward L. Ochsenschlager
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In 1968 the marshes had already begun to shrink largely due to private irrigation projects of important sheikhs and landowners and to natural causes. The site of Nippur, from which we have drawn so much comparative material, stood on the northern end of the marshes in the late 19th century but was several kilometers north of the marshes in 1968. Over the next 10 to 12 years new canals and dams were built by the government and older ones cleared or reinforced in order, ostensibly, to prevent the consequences of dire seasonal flooding, to recover additional agricultural land, and to increase irrigation. As Pournelle points out this under-valuation of marsh resources and the desire to convert them into agricultural enclaves had been a part of Modern Iraqi policy since colonial times, and this same attitude toward wetlands existed in many other parts of the world.* It was not until the late 1970s that we realized a part of this program of marsh draining, whether by default or design, gave the government greater access to people seeking refuge in the marshes. The local villagers had a way of communicating in code on mud drums and mud whistles to warn others of police visits. Although we were not privy to the code, we recognized the nature of the message when half our workmen grabbed their knives, clubs, guns, and cloaks and disappeared into the marshes.
In the 1980s it dawned on us that a part of this activity might be a deliberate attempt to get rid of the Mi’dan. Relations between the Mi’dan and the Beni Hasan which had previously seemed quite congenial appeared now to be somewhat strained. Occasional allusions, in passing, characterized the Mi’dan individually or collectively as dirty, lazy, venal, and not too bright. Feelings were strong enough that it appeared better to separate men of the Mi’dan from those of the Beni Hasan on work teams, and visiting officials would regularly denigrate the Mi’dan and the way they made a living. I had a vague feeling that the Mi’dan were being targeted for unfavorable propaganda. Looking back at the end of the decade, I was certain that it had been the case, but by then it was too late as the Mi’dan had completely disappeared from our area and no one seemed able to explain why.
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