Indian Antiquary Vol 50

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 301

NOVEMBER, 1921)
THE MARSH ARABS OF LOWER MESOPOTAMIA.
289
THE MARSH ARABS OF LOWER MESOPOTAMIA. BY P. A. BUXTON, M.A., FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; AND V. H. W. DOWSON, DIRECTORATE OF AGRICULTURE, MESOPOTAMIA.
Introductory Note. [The following Notes are published because very little is known about Marsh Arabs. The authors have confined themselves to known facts and also to those that have come within their cognizance. The notes are fragmentary, but may be found to possess value as a foundation for further study- 'ED.]
The Marsh Arab Country. The area in which the Marsh Arabs live is on either bank of the river Tigris between 'Amara and Başra. The area of Marsh is perhaps about five thousand square miles, and it is probable that the Tigris divides this area more or less into two equal portions. The marsh on the left bank of the river is roughly triangular in shape, and its eastern part, in the neighbourhood of Hawaiza, lies in Persian territory. It was in this region that Hubbard saw the Marsh Arabs, to whom he makes a passing reference. Ou the right bank of the river, the marshes extend south of a line joining 'Amâra to Nasarîyeh and combine with the Hamar Lake, a triangular area of reed beds and open water in the delta of the Euphrates, lying between Sooq Ash Shoyookh, Qarna, and Basra. Thus the northern limit of the home of the Marsh Arab of this region is in the neighbourhood of 31° 75' N. Lat., the southern, 30° 50' N. Lat., the western 46° 25' E. Long., the eastern 48° 0' E. Long.
The whole of this country is utterly flat, save for occasional mounds, which are presumably the sites of ancient towns: these mounds, though low, are conspicuous, and are sometimes occupied by Marsh Arab villages. The district is covered for the most part by great expanses of reeds, or rushes, or open water. Between a point near 'Amâra and a point near Hawaiza, there stretches a continuous bed of reed and rush for eighty miles, and in many places there are expanses of open water from the centre of which no land can be geen. 'Amára is about twenty-four feet above sea level, Nasiriyeh nine, Qarna nine, and Başra seven.
The depth of much of the marshes is about four or five feet, so that it is possible te punt the black Arab canoe (Ar. mash-huf, pl. mash-a- ). In places, the water is much deeper, and at one place where we tested it, namely at Tel Dhahab, thirty miles south-west of Amára, the depth was nearly twenty feet.
Owing to the huge expanse of marsh, the depth of water in it does not vary greatly, although the rivers discharge enormous quantities of water into it during the spring foods, and comparatively little in autumn when the river is low ; but, because the country is so Alat, the area under water varies considerably, a drop of a few inches in the surface level of the water being sufficient to leave dry a considera ble area of land around the edge of the marsh. It is possible that the area of permanent marsh is not much more than threequarters of that of the flood-time marsh. This marsh-border land which is subject to the so periodic inundations is that which grows most of the rice and great millet of the country. and that of it which is not put under crops generally bears an inferior growth of bulrushes,
1 The authors are indebted to the courtesy of Major R. K. Marrs, C.I.E., who has been Politi. cal Officer, 'Ansira Division and elsewhere in 'Iraq since 1915, for reading their manuscript and for making valuable suggestions,