Identity and Culture
The Bedouin consider themselves Arabs with their origin being from what is today Syria, Iraq and Jordan, but mainly from Saudi Arabia. The Bedouins are seen as Arab culture’s purest representatives, "ideal" Arabs, but they are distinct from other Arab’s because of their extensive kinship networks, which provide them with community support and the basic necessities for survival.
The Negev Bedouin have been compared to the American Indians in terms of how they have been treated by the dominant cultures. The Regional Council of Unrecognized Villages describes the Negev Bedouin as an "indigenous" population. However, some researchers contest this view.
The Bedouin have their own authentic and distinct culture, rich oral poetic tradition, honor code and a code of laws. Despite the problem of illiteracy, the Bedouin attribute importance to natural events and ancestral traditions. The Bedouin of Arabia were the first converts to Islam, and it is an important part of their identity today.
Their outfit is also different from that of other Arabs, since the men wear long 'jellabiya' and a 'smagg' (red white draped headcover) or 'aymemma' (white headcover) or a white small headdress, sometimes held in place by an 'agall' (a black cord). Bedouin women usually wear brightly coloured long dresses but outside they wear 'abaya' (a thin, long black coat sometimes covered with shiny embroidery) and they will always cover their head and hair with a 'tarha' (a black, thin shawl) when they leave their house.
Read more about this topic: Negev Bedouin
Famous quotes containing the words identity and/or culture:
“Whether outside work is done by choice or not, whether women seek their identity through work, whether women are searching for pleasure or survival through work, the integration of motherhood and the world of work is a source of ambivalence, struggle, and conflict for the great majority of women.”
—Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (20th century)
“... there are some who, believing that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds, and that to-morrow is necessarily better than to-day, may think that if culture is a good thing we shall infallibly be found to have more of it that we had a generation since; and that if we can be shown not to have more of it, it can be shown not to be worth seeking.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)