Description
Object description
whole: the five images occupy the majority, with the left images each held within a narrow black border. The title is
separate and positioned in the upper right, in black, partially held within a green inset. The text is separate and placed in the centre
right and lower right, in black, and in the centre left and lower left, as captions, in green. All set against a white
background.
image: photographs depicting various aspects of Bedouin life; such as a male Bedouin sitting atop a camel, groups of men drinking coffee or
smoking, and Bedouin women standing beside tents they have erected.
text: LAND AND PEOPLE: 3
SONS OF ISHMAEL
Camels seem to have been introduced into Africa with the Persians about 525 B.C. A Bedouin saying has it that: 'A man of prosperity is he
who, sitting on the ground, sees his horizon limited in every direction by the bellies of his camels.'
The male Arab is quite content to pass the day smoking, chatting and drinking coffee. Herding the camels is his only office; all the other
work is done by the women.
Pictorial Review
No. 75
JULY 27, 1946
Crown Copyright Reserved
Army Education, M.E.F.
BEDOUIN means 'inhabitant of the desert' - a mode of living that demands much skill and craft. Life in the black tents is hard and
unchanged through the ages. Hardihood to support starvation, thirst, the fatigue of travel, the fierce heat of the sun, the blasts of the
sandstorm, is not acquired in one but many generations. The Bedouins of today are the unspoilt sons of Ishmael. They are herdsmen following
the rains on traditional grazing grounds, the rights to which are jealously guarded. A desert community is of necessity a poor one, and the
organisation of a Bedouin tribe has only reached a very simple stage. The Sheikh of a tribe is its representative in its transactions with
others, and his power is in fact very limited. He is not a law-giver, still less a law-maker; for all the possible complications of a
desert existence have already occurred long ago, and the customs dealing with them are already in force. The laws of the tribe are made and
cannot now be modified.
These are typical Bedouin tents, and the work of erecting them belongs to the women. The covering is made of strips of coarse cloth woven
from black goat's hair. The furniture consists simply of carpets.
Printed by The Printing and Stationery Services, M.E.F.-7-46
Physical description
Pictorial Review No. 75.
Produced as part of the 'Land and People' series of posters (see PST 16931, PST 16940, PST 16948, PST 16949 and PST
16952).