Revised English version of the Russian original Ethnography of Western Hadramawt, Moscow 1994
ISSN 1617-2469
307 Seiten, 97 Abbildungen
Preis: 17,50 EUR
Die digitale Version in der MENAdoc-Sammlung

This book is the fruit of ethnographic study of Western Hadhramawt by Mikhail Rodionov and his team in 1983-91, when the South Yemen has been practically closed for other foreign researchers. Being the corrected and enlarged version of the 1994 Russian edition, this monograph is based on extended ethnological fieldwork and detailed study of numerous printed and handwritten sources; it comprises three parts, two chapters each.

Introduction defines the Hadhramawt as a cultural region and provides the reader with basic ethnographic data collected there by Western, Yemeni and Russian scholars to 1991. The first part, Society and History, highlights local social organization – traditional strata, the tribal and strata composition of the Western Hadhramawt and its social institutions, as well as the cultural past and factual history by 1967. The second part, the Traditional Economy and Subsistence Activities, presents an account of local agriculture, crafts and ancillary occupations (irrigation, the cultivation of date palm and other crops; woodworking, blacksmithing, jewellery making, ceramics, basketry, and weaving; apiculture, ibex-hunting, etc.). It also depicts subsistence complexes – dwellings and settlements, clothing and its local variants, diet and folk medicine. The third part, Norms and Customs, focuses on kinship and marriage norms, rituals and family structure, property regulations, and personal norms. The last chapter analyses the oral and the written aspects of local tradition, social functions of the poet; it provides numerous examples of local poetry (in Arabic and English translation) collected, translated and commented by the author. Appendices include the stellar calendar, traditional weights and measures, etc.; the list of illustrations numbers 97 photos, sketches, and maps. Bibliography is enlarged with the most important works published after 1994.

Mikhail Rodionov is the head of the Department of South and Southwest Asia at the Peter the Great Museum of anthropology and ethnography (Kunstkamera), Russian Academy of sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia, and a professor of the Oriental Department of the St. Petersburg State University, author of many publications in Russian, English, Arabic and other languages.