Category Archives: Environment

Tuareg Blues

Anthropology/Sociology, Environment, Mali


[Tuareg man serving tea; photo by Jane Greenhalgh for NPR.]

“Climate Connections” on today’s NPR website has a slideshow and brief article on recent changes in Tuareg lifestyle in southern Mali. Known as the “Blue Men” of the desert (for their indigo clothing) and serving as a prime ethnographic example of a society where the men (rather than the women) veil, life for the Tuareg is undergoing rapid change. In this case it is prolonged drought that has served as the main impetus for change. The slide feature is well worth a look.

A Sailor and His Camel Ride

Animals, camels, Travel, Yemen


[Illustration: Arabian Camel from George Shaw, Zoology (1801)]

[Joseph Osgood was a Black American sailor who visited the Yemeni port of Mocha about a dozen years before the start of the American Civil War. He offers a rich, descriptive account of his visit to the Yemeni coast, including a sailor’s view of the ship of the desert.]

No wheel carriages are used here, the most general mode of transportation being by camels, for which the males along are serviceable. The flesh of the camel forms a staple article of food, the head and neck being excepted, because one of the race unwittingly rendered these parts unholy by obtrusively poking his head and neck into Mahomet’s tomb. Wellsted says that a camel is welcomed at its birth, by the Arab, with “another child is born unto us.” Continue reading A Sailor and His Camel Ride →