Ethno-anthropological Documentation about the Baṭāḥira tribe of Oman
Methodology
The present study is based on fieldwork. Interviews with speakers focused on various aspects of past daily life, mostly inquiring about ethnographic details and personal stories prior to Qaboos’ rise to power. Recordings were made in high-quality WAV format (stereo, 44100 Hz, 16 bit) using a Zoom H4N recorder. The audio files hereby presented have been compressed and converted to 128 kbps. High-quality files, together with transcriptions, can be provided under direct request to the depositor.
Video recordings were made in MP4 format through a Go Pro Hero.
Data analysis was made through softwares like Praat, Elan and Flex.
Figure 1. Example of ELAN window
Fieldwork description
Finding a way to meet the Baṭāḥira required time and preparation. My first plan was to get to Oman and try to go visit the people of Shwaymiya and its surroundings by myself, but this naïve plan was surely too vague and uncertain in its outcomes to be pursued. Then I got in touch with Professor Miranda Morris from the University of St. Andrews, the only scholar who had been able to work with the Baṭāḥira so far, who very kindly agreed to help me by sharing her local connections. A first meeting with her and her main field collaborator, Khalifa Hamoud alBaṭḥari, a member of the community himself, took place in November 2015 in St. Andrews, Scotland, where the two were currently working on Morris’ corpus of ethnographic recordings. During this stay, it was possible to discuss with Mr. Khalifa about a possible period of fieldwork in Oman with his assistance, to which he gladly agreed. The following months were focused on a first analysis of a small selection of recordings and transcriptions from Morris’ corpus, in order to collect working hypotheses to be investigated during fieldwork with native speakers. It was necessary to wait until the end of the Kharif season to travel to Dhofar, due to the extremely high temperatures to which the area of the Batahira rise (and prohibitive travel expenses) before starting fieldwork, which was conducted over two stays between October and November 2016 and March and April 2017. During my first stay I settled in Shelim, a small town on top of the plateau surrounding the plain of Shuwaymiya mostly inhabited by South Asian labourers working in nearby oilfields and local shops, while the second time it was possible to arrange an apartment in Shwaymiya, which made the whole work much easier due to daily contact with the community. The recording sessions were planned with the help of Khalifa, which assumed the role of the gatekeeper in this context. His presence in the end turned out to be essential to reach a positive outcome and usable data. The material was checked and translated into Arabic with Khalifa, who proved to be a valid help, notwithstanding his not being a fully proficient speaker.
Consultants
The consultants I worked with are all elderly men and women from the Baṭāḥira tribe. Out of the few speakers left, I was able to work with 6 men and 3 women whose mother tongue was Baṭḥari. Their exact age is not clear, but they were born years before the advent of Sultan Qaboos (i. e. the ‘70es), by the time of whose arrival they were young adults, so that now they should be between 60 and 70 years old. Nowadays all of the interviewees are bilingual with Arabic, which has become their daily means of communication, and almost all of them know at least another MSAL, either Mehri or Ḥarsusi, as a consequence of frequent intertribal marriage. Reportedly, one of the speakers is a bilingual Baṭḥari/Arabic only, but I could not work with him. It took time and patience to let the elder speakers get acquainted with my presence and my visits, which were very limited during my first stay and negatively conditioned by my not having independent means of transport and relying exclusively on Khalifa’s schedule, and ultimately gaining their trust. However, the second stay turned out to be undoubtedly more satisfying, pleasant and well-received by locals.