Suchergebnisse

Abstract
The Red Sea brings together the coastal communities and seafarers of Africa and Arabia through a variety of folk beliefs and superstitions, which manifest something of a common tradition through time and space. This article explores a conceptual framework that might be called a "spiritscape," an amalgam of ideas and practices that embrace multiple layers of human and nonhuman relationships and interactions within the landscape and seascape of the Red Sea world.

Suakin (Ar. Sawākin) is the second important town of Sudan and a port for Muslim pilgrims bound for Jeddah. Its economy is primarily based on fishing. Long before the establishment of the present, new town, Suakin was an island town to which cargo ships from the Red Sea ports came and goods from India were transhipped via Jeddah. In its heyday, the island town was populated by merchants and traders who came to settle there from African and Arab countries, mainly Egypt and Sudan, and India and Europe. The majority of the inhabitants who lived around the island town belonged to the Beja (Ar. Buja or Bujā) groupings, whose ancestry goes back centuries; they were, as they are mainly today, pastoralists and cultivators. Around the late nineteenth century, members of a distinct Western Arabian ethnic group, the Rashayda (Ar. Rashāᵓida; s. Rashīdī), came to Sudan to look for work and live in the hinterland and on the coast. Though the majority were nomads and herders, several were involved in dhow trading, and a small number settled in Suakin. By the 1930s, however, many buildings in the island town started to crumble into rubble as its inhabitants abandoned the island for better economic prospects in other Red Sea port towns. Subsequently, a new town developed south of the island, including communities from the neighboring region, mainly Cushitic-speaking Beja groupings and other minorities such as the Rashayda, and in recent decades, they were joined by West African pilgrims who chose to settle there on their return from hajj (pilgrimage). Some members of the Beja groups follow occupations related to the sea; many come from the mountains to seek work as fishermen, or divers during the shell-collecting season, or laborers during the hajj season. Fishing activity is centered on the craftsmanship of the dhow builders: the dhows must not only be seaworthy but also specifically designed for fishing and shell collecting. This article will examine maritime activity on the Sudanese coast with particular reference to Suakin, past and present. It will discuss the level of involvement of the Beja and the importance of the role of the Rashayda in this multiethnic community from their arrival in the nineteenth century to the present time; further, it will show how they adapted their knowledge and skills and also show that the maritime terminology used is predominantly Western Arabian and not, as would be expected, Cushitic, as spoken by the Beja groups or linguistic registers of other ethnic groupings. The methodology applied in this research is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2004, together with consultation of primary and secondary sources.

"This volume contains a selection of fourteen papers presented at the Red Sea VI conference held at Tabuk University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2013. It sheds light on many aspects related to the environmental and biological perspectives, history, archaeology and human culture of the Red Sea, opening the door to more interdisciplinary research in the region. It stimulates a new discourse on different human adaptations to, and interactions with, the environment. With contributions by Andre Antunes, K. Christopher Beard, Ahmed Hussein, Emad Khalil, Solène Marion de Procé, Abdirachid Mohamed, Ania Kotarba-Morley, Sandra Olsen, Andrew Peacock, Eleanor Scerri, Pierre Schneider, Marijke Van Der Veen and Chiara Zazzaro"--Provided by publisher

Just as the sea has played a pivotal role in the connectivity of people, economies and cultures, it has also provided a common platform for inter-disciplinary cooperation amongst academics. This book is a selection of conference papers and other contributions that has seen the coming-together of scholars and researchers from backgrounds as diverse as archaeology, history, ethnography, maritime and heritage studies of the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Its strength lies in the way such diversity has been harnessed to provide an engaging and insightful study of the sea and its influences on various factors of life - both past and present