Bedouin Place Names in the Eastern Desert of Egypt

Abstract

This paper analyses Maʿaza Bedouin toponymy in the northern half of Egypt's Eastern Desert. Maʿaza people started naming places as they began immigrating from northwest Arabia about 250 years ago. The main place objects are valleys, mountains, water sources, trees and tracks. These are named after individuals and groups, historic events, perennial plants, animals and their behaviour, material culture and environmental perceptions. Place naming helps assert the people's claim to this land. The named cultural landscape is a kind of autobiography that continues to be written and is perpetuated only orally. For nomadic pastoralists, place names help to reduce risk in a challenging environment and to conserve natural resources, especially woody trees that sustain livestock during drought. Sedentarisation is threatening this rich body of oral tradition.

Acacia trees on the cultural landscapes of the Red Sea Hills

“…The Ma'aza are Bedouin whose hearth is in northwest Saudi Arabia and who settled in the northern Eastern Desert beginning about 300 years ago (Hobbs 1989). The Ababda, though now mainly Arabic speakers, share a common heritage with the Bidhaawyeet speaking Beja tribes (Riad 1974).…”

“…All these tribes share a number of culture traits, notably a segmentary patrilineal kinship structure (but see Manger et al 1996, p. 150 andHasan 1973, p. 59) in which personal identity, social affiliations and many economic activities are rooted in lineage, clan and tribe (Hobbs 1989;Krzywinski and Pierce 2001;Barnard and Duistermaat 2012;Krzywinski 2012). They also share a strikingly similar use of resources.…”

“…This "autographed tree" was henceforth known as Sayaalit Ruwa'iy and had special status until its death in the 1990s. The place it occupied is still identified as a landmark in Ma'aza conversation and wayfinding (Hobbs 2014). Personalization of trees is characteristic of Ababda and Beja cultural landscapes as well.…”

“…Taking advantage of high market prices for charcoal in those portions of the study area adjacent to the most densely populated areas of the Nile Valley, the Ma'aza extensively charcoaled live trees for charcoal between the late 19th century and about 1950 (Hobbs 1989). Although charcoaling a living tree is forbidden in all tribal groups, to do so is a powerful temptation to resist because charcoal means money for poor people.…”

“…Acacias that belonged collectively to clan members remained so nominally but were subdivided into effective properties of their families, according to rights within traditional law ('urf Ar.). They proclaimed protected groves of trees on a family-by-family, wadi-by-wadi basis (Hobbs 1989). The claimant's direct male descendants, and thus eventually his entire lineage, became responsible for protection in the future.…”