Bedouin group in Eastern Desert facing cultural demise

Voice of America News (Cache Seel)

Sad report about the fate of the Egyptian Desert bedouin who live in Egypt.

Facing Drought and the loss of grazing land for their herds, many Bedouin of southeastern Egypt are giving up their traditional lifestyle. The Egyptian Government and aid organizations have stepped in to help, but critics claim they are doing more harm than good. Reporter Cache Seel has details from Shalatin.

The sword dance of the Ababda is performed in celebrations and is used to welcome guests. Two men with swords and shields dance in a circle around each other to a drum beat while the gathered men chant and the women ululate. As the music ends the dancers lay down their swords and back away from each other with their hands held up to show it was all in fun.

The Ababda are one of two main tribes that make up the Bedouin population of Egypt's southeastern desert. The other is the Besharin. Although their traditional lands reach from the Red Sea to the Nile, differences in language and their nomadic lifestyle kept their culture intact and distinct from the rest of Egypt. Until recently these nomadic tribesmen were little changed by the millennia. Today their culture and even their language are dying.

There is a very good book providing a detailed popular account of another Eastern Desert Bedouin group who live to the north of the Ababda, the Ma'aza of the Kushmaan, by anthropologist Joseph Hobbs, if anyone is interested in learning more: Hobbs, J.J. 1989, Bedouin life in the Egyptian wilderness, University of Texas Press, Austin. An excellent but more documentary account of another Eastern Desert tribe, this time in the Sudan, is provided by Leif Manjer et al: Manjer, L 1996, with Abd el Ati, H., Harir, S., Krzywinski, K. and Vetaas, O.R. - Survival on Meagre Resources - Hadendowa Pastoralism in the Red Sea Hills, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet