| |
Dioscorida . . . is very large but desert and marshy, having rivers in it and crocodiles and many snakes and great lizards of which the flesh is eaten and the fat melted and used instead of olive oil. The island yields no fruit, neither vine nor grain. The inhabitants are few and they live on the coast towards the north, which from this side faces the continent. They are foreigners, a mixture of Arabs and Indians and Greeks, who have emigrated to carry on trade there. The island produces the true sea-tortoise, and the land-tortoise and the white tortoise, which is very numerous and preferred for its large shells, and the mountain tortoise . . . there is also produced in this island cinnabar, that called Indian, which is collected in drops from the trees . . . This island is subject to the king of the Frankincense country. Trade is also carried on there by those who chance to call there on the voyage from Damirica and Barygaza; they bring in rice and wheat and Indian cloth, and a few female slaves, and they take for their exchange cargoes a great quantity of tortoise shell. (Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, 1st century A.D.)
Of the many parts of Yemen yet littlestudied the major example is no doubt the island of Socotra, locatedsome 500 miles east of Aden. Apart from a few 19th century travelaccounts and a sparse traveler or two in this century, the island ofSocotra has been a well-kept secret, virtually isolated from the restof the world by a tough climate and a paranoid regime in the formerSouth Yemen.
When the PDRY was closely allied with theSoviet Union, an ethnographer named Vitaly Naumkin came to Yemen inthe 1970s and later in the mid-1980s. Having published two previousbooks in Russian on his research (Where the Phoenix Rose from theAshes, 1977; and Essays in the Ethnolinguistics ofSocotra, 1981 with V. Y. Porchomovsky), Naumkin now provides ahighly informative ethnography (in the old style) entitled Islandof the Phoenix: An Ethnographic Study of the People of Socotra (1993, Reading, Ithaca Press, xi, 421 pp.); this is translated byValerie A. Epstein. The text has a number of black-and-whitephotographs (most of which are poorly reproduced) and line drawings. It is interesting to note that this edition is actually printed inLebanon, which certainly belies the hefty price tag for the text. Would that it were in paperback for even half the price!
I noted above that this is an ethnographyin the old style, where kinship and material culture occupy centerstage &emdash; no postmodernist stains anywhere. It is in a wordold-fashioned (in the best sense of the word) documentation. Whileit cannot cover every aspect of life on Socotra, it provides awelcome introduction to much one finds of interest about this terraincognita. A glance at the table of contents certainly establishesthat.
A few words about Socotra are in order. The island is 250 kilometers from the closest landfall in Somalia. Asurface area of about 3,650 sq. km ranges over an east-west distanceof 135 km and the widest point at only 42 km. One must not forgetthis is hardly a featureless island. The jagged mountains of theHaggier Range rise up to 1,525 meters above sea level. The climateof the island is indelibly connected with the monsoon system; in Junethrough August gale force winds often rip around Socotra and inspring and summer high seas keep most ships at bay. The flora is,not surprisingly, a mix of African and Arabian types, the most famouslocal plant being the Dragon's Blood tree (Dracaena draco and D.serrulata). Although there are several endemic animal species&emdash; especially birds, reptiles and insects &emdash; the overalldiversity of fauna is quite limited. There is also a short chapterin the book on the nearby island of Abd al-Kuri.
Naumkin provides an interesting summary ofwhat are called in the text "glimpses of history," includingclassical writers such as Pliny and the author of the Periplus(quoted above) on the legendary "phoenix," from which the title ofthe book evolves. The history of Socotra is linked to the two nearbymainlands, especially Mahra on the southern Yemeni coast. There wasfor a long time a Christian population here, as recorded by MarcoPolo among others, and the Portuguese made their mark, albeitbriefly.
The primary value of the book is the richdocumentation of the material culture. The remarks on the "physicalcharacteristics" of the population are, unfortunately, way off themark, since the author is apparently unaware of recentanthropological assessments of "race." To say that Socotrans (andother southern Yemenis) may be "the missing intermediate link in therace-genetic 'west-east' gradient for which anthropologists search inorder to fill the gap between the African Negroids (!) and theAustralo-Veddo-Melanesian types in the equatorial race area" (p. 67)illustrates only that the Soviets are still mired in 19th-centuryracial thinking. It is slightly unnerving that such outmoded ideas,devoid of genetic reality, should be published without correction in1993, even though some of the physical measurements (such as onteeth) could be of use.
Archaeologists will be quite pleased atthe new information, merged to a certain extent with previous work byBrian Doe, including technical information in the appendices. Thestrength of the author, however, is clearly toward the culturaldomain, well supplemented by his linguistic bent. One learns many ofthe Socotran words for various objects and ideas. A detailed kinshipdiagram (p.281) gives 49 degrees of kinship links (from ego) by theSocotran terminology. When Naumkin suggests that there are traces ofa "matrilineal clan organisation" on Socotra, one has theuncomfortable feeling that he is not aware that Robertson Smith'sargument in this regard for ancient Arabia is over a century old bynow and has some need of revision, to put it mildly. A number ofcustoms are described &emdash; almost Westermarckian &emdash; butnevertheless of great value given the dearth of such folklore in thepublished literature. The folk tale of the "faithful woman and thethree liars" is especially charming, worthy of publication in afuture issue of Yemen Update.
While the cost of this book is quitehigh, not unlike the hardback version of Dresch's important work onYemeni tribes for Oxford University Press, this is certainly a bookworth having for anyone with a keen interest in Socotra. It not onlyfills a void, but provides a wealth of information that will be ofvalue for some time to come. If you can not afford the priceyourself, try your library. If they balk, tell them that it covers asubject no other book in print does (no lie here). If they buy that,they just might buy this book. And then you can read it with peaceof mind, such as comes from a fuller wallet .