While I am definitely now ready to leave back for Amman, I did have a lot of fun today—mostly on account of my being invited as guest to a large Mensar Arabee feast that all the sheiks of the tribe’s surrounding villages came to.  With goats and sheep being the main source of income for Bedouins, they are rarely eaten by Bedouins; therefore, Mensar Arabee, a large platter of goat or sheep meat laid over rice, is a huge delicacy for Bedouins.

My day started out with being there for the very first step of the feast, the slaughter of the goats.  Being the first time that I have ever seen an animal get killed, I was obviously a little unnerved and nauseated when I saw the blood spray out of the goat’s jugular onto the village roadside where the slaughter took place.  I saw only one goat get slaughtered; however, I saw all get skinned and gutted.  Following this process, I helped set up the seats and mats in the tent that the feast took place in.  In total, there were about 50 seats, with 40 of them being filled by the sheiks that came.

Resembling the welcoming of dignitaries at a state dinner, the arrival of the sheiks to feast was an amazing sight.  As each sheik arrived, everyone in attendance rose and greeted him as he walked by to his seat.  A few of the sheiks (the tribal heads I’m assuming) even arrived with security details.  During the feast though, I was bit annoyed at the fact that my limited knowledge of Arabic prevented me from having any in depth conversations with the sheiks that I sat next to.  Either way though, this feast was certainly the best experience thus far of my Bedouin home stay.

In addition to the fact that it provided me with meat for the first time since I left Amman, the feast also gave me a better perspective for the organization and depth of the influence of tribes in Jordan.  Before living with the Bedouins, I had thought a tribe consisted of one tribe, but I was wrong about that fact.  Rather a tribe seems to be composed of many villages that hold a shared values system and descent (sometimes manufactured).  In turn, each village has a sheik who serves as the village’s head and representative to the rest of the tribe.  When I say head of the village, I do not want anyone to confuse this with meaning something to effect of “mayor” of the village.  Instead, a sheik is not only unelected but he also possesses a much greater reach and responsibility as he serves as judge, administrator, counselor, and philosopher to his village.  Thinking about the differences between a mayor in America and a sheik in Jordan really demonstrated to me the gulf that exists in both the political systems and political cultures of the America and the Middle East.

Placing me around all these sheiks, the feast also showed to how entrenched and engrained in Jordanian culture this tribal system is; however, it is so entrenched not because of oppression but because it works and has maintained stability in this region for over a millennia.  After this experience, I have no idea how neo-conservatives such as Bill Kristol, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz thought that America’s political culture could be imported overnight into the Middle East through the barrel of a gun.  Had they even lived in the Arab world at all in their lives?

Note to the reader: In this entry I focused on tribalism in rural Jordan; however, I do not want the reader to leave thinking that tribalism is not a factor in urban Jordan.  Throughout the Middle East tribalism exists in both rural and urban settings.  In addition, I hope to examine urban tribalism at some later point during my stay in Jordan.  Also, my comments about how tribes are organized are from my observations from only this week.  If anyone with greater expertise in this area wants to modify them, please feel free to do so!