A narrative of the author's travels in the 1950s among the Marsh Arabs, people living in the marshlands of southeast Iraq.

Thesiger offers a lively account of his travels with an emphasis on the people he met and their way of life. Although this is by no means a systematic ethnography, the author was a keen observer and clearly took an interest in the lives of ordinary people in this unique environment. The result is a highly enjoyable read and a fascinating snapshot of a culture that has now largely vanished. ( )

I found this book to be engrossing and enjoyable. The author apparently did a great deal of traveling in the Islamic world (including some hair-raising trips in Saudi Arabia), and over the course of a number of years in the 1950s, spent time in the marsh country of southeastern Iraq, where the Tigris and the Euphrates merge to create vast wetlands. Even in the author's time, there were cultural and environmental changes that threatened the way of life of these people, who since that time suffered very badly (mainly in the 1990s, when the marshes were drained by Saddam Hussein). So in many respects, this is a snapshot of a vanished way of life. The author obviously has a great deal of sympathy for his subject, though that doesn't blind him to faults. One interesting side-note is the link to the famous book "Ring of Bright Water"; there's a brief reference to the author providing Gavin Maxwell with the famous smooth-coated otter that was the subject of that book, an otter sub-species previously not known to science. Recommended. ( )

The author spent many years, at intervals, and over decades, among tribal Arabs living in the reed marshes of the lower Tigris. He recorded a life style which had lasted thousands of years, but is now gone. These are the people Saddam Hussein deliberately sought to exterminate by draining the waters.

Thesiger writes as an eyewitness and adds well-researched history and science to a poetic travelogue through a unique and in many ways harsh environment.

Over an eight-year period in the 1950s, Wilfred Thesiger spent months at a time living amongst the Madan, a tribe of Arabs inhabiting the Tigris-Euphrates marshlands in the south and east of Iraq. His recounting of this experience gives witness to a way of life that was destroyed by Saddam Hussein’s draining of the marshlands in 1991, turning the land to desert and causing many of the Madan to flee to the cities or nearby countries. Only with Saddam’s 2003 departure from Baghdad did the process of re-flooding to restore the marshlands begin.

Thesiger provides a brief overview of the history of the marshlands, dating back to the fifth millennium B.C. and the earliest known human habitation in the Euphrates delta. Inhabitants of the time practiced a lifestyle remarkably similar to that observed by Thesiger in the 1950s. Reed houses were built on the edge of the marshes, wooden boats constructed, and fish harpooned and netted for sustenance. The years that followed brought the Sumerians’ development of what may have been the world’s first civilization, waves of invasions and wars by various peoples and religions, and governments based variously on urban and tribal systems. Yet despite these many influences, it was the tribal codes of the desert Arabs that provided the foundation for the Madan culture. Sheikhs served as leaders and judges, although lacking any formal governmental authority. A man’s status was dependent on his lineage and on his own character, with wealth being of little importance. There was a nearly complete lack of privacy and consistent with the requirements of tribal hospitality, a stranger in need of food or lodging was never turned away.

The Madan lived a life that was largely removed from the outside world, relying almost exclusively on the rich resources of the marshlands to meet their needs. The marshes of Thesiger’s day teemed with vegetation and animal life - reeds, tamarisk trees, carp and other fish, wild boar, wolves, otters, striped hyenas, a multitude of bird and migratory waterfowl species, snakes and frogs. The Madan loved firearms and Thesiger noted that helping someone kill something was a great way to establish positive relationships. Much time was spent in the marshes shooting wildlife, with the killing of wild boars of particular concern, as they were dangerous to people and devastating to crops.

The land was in theory owned by the State, which leased it to the sheikhs, who having paid the taxes considered it as their own. The sheikhs functioned in turn as landlords to tribesmen who farmed fields in return for a share of the crops, but lacked the security of permanent residency. There were no schools and only a few boys attended the nearest ones several miles away, often at the expense of their desire to continue in tribal life.

All homes were constructed of reeds fashioned into an arched structural framework and covered with woven reed mats. Lacking available solid land, they were often built on islands composed of layers of roots and decomposed vegetation. The residences of sheikhs included large meeting houses, or mudhifs, that were open on one end and served both as guest houses and audience chambers for conducting estate business and settling disputes amongst tribesmen. For sustenance, the Madan planted rice, speared fish, shot wildlife and raised water buffalo. Wooden boats provided the primary means of transportation, with even the young capable of navigating the bitumen-coated canoes of the common man, while larger, more graceful taradas were owned by the sheikhs.

Although the Madan were feared and avoided by other Arabs, Thesiger found them to be a friendly, happy people. Given the region's lack of medical facilities, he gained ready acceptance with the aid of his pharmaceutical supplies and ad hoc medical skills. While occasionally treating serious illness or injury, circumcision was his specialty and he performed more than six thousand of these procedures during his time in the marshes. Surprisingly, whether due to immunity or the killing of germs by the strong sunlight, the population seemed minimally affected by their atrocious hygiene practices, which involved defecating in the same water used for drinking, cooking and washing, collected while brushing aside the floating dung and excrement.

Thesiger’s account is heavily skewed towards the life of men, as would be expected for the period and the culture. But while referenced rarely, women were not without value. Remuneration for crime victims was made generally either in the form of cash or women, according to a scale commensurate with the loss incurred. While a man could simply declare himself divorced, a woman could only seek the protection of her male relatives, whose sole leverage lay in negotiating the return of part or all of the bride price. Sexual interactions of any sort were strictly prohibited between men and women, outside of marriage. Thesiger hints at the result being considerable homosexual behavior among unmarried males. Surprisingly for such a traditional society, he also mentions an individual born as a biological woman, but living and accepted as a man.

Thesiger was a keen observer, whose love for the tribal Arab people and culture is palpably evident in his writing, as he brings the Madan and their environs to life on the page. I discovered The Marsh Arabs after reading Arabian Sands, and I will gladly read any other books by Thesiger that I can find. My only regret is that the e-book edition that I obtained did not include the wealth of Thesiger’s photographs of the marshlands that were referenced as included in hardcopy editions. But in the end, Thesiger is so skilled at description that I came away with mental images that are perhaps more vivid than photographs could ever convey.

…I stood watching the sun go down behind reedbeds that stretched to the world’s end. High overhead, banks of cirrus cloud, blown to tattered streams, ranged from ebony to flaming gold and the colour of old ivory, against a background of vermilion and orange, violet, mauve and palest green. From all around, as if the Marshes breathed, came the massed voices of frogs, an all-pervading pulse of sound, so sustained that the mind ceased to take note of it. More than any other, even than the crying of geese in winter, this was the sound of the Marshes. A dog barked, a buffalo grunted with a noise surprisingly like a camel’s; a man called out a long, and to me, unintelligible message; a pause, and someone answered. More buffaloes swam across the open water towards the village, only their heads showing and each leaving a wake. Among the houses columns of dense smoke spread upwards from small fires, lit to keep the mosquitoes away from the herds. A boy, late back from the reedbeds, paddled down a waterway, a path of shining gold leading from the setting sun. He sang softly as he came towards me, the notes lingering in the air.

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A wonderfully readable account of the unique culture that existed in the marshland between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. ( )