The Nomadic Alternative – Page 121

dumb, and she talked in sign language to the men, flicking her fingers and entwining her hands and arms about each other. As she 'talked' she smiled the same fixed smile. The men told her about the goat and she gave thanks; thanks, it seemed, not to me but for the gift of life itself. I was incidental, a privileged carrier, but nothing more. She stretched her arms out, whirled her hands round and round, and warbled the same soft notes. When it discloses itself, the power within is unmistakeable, like some unseen current transfixing you to the spot. For a few seconds I absorbed this flood of Sybilline authority. Then she turned aside, snapped a twig from a thorn bush, toyed with it, and walked back up the hill.

The Moors hate the Nemadi. They rationalize this hatred and say the Nemadi are bad Muslims and practice the black arts. But if you pry into this argument, you find this is the hatred of people with uneasy consciences. One story says the Nemadi are the rightful owners of the land and the Moors are usurpers. The Moors are afraid of the Nemadi's moral power. They know themselves to be violent, while the hunters are not. From experience the Nemadi have learned that all outsiders are bad people unless they prove themselves to be friends, but when oppressed they never retaliate. They run away. And their stories glorify sudden departures into the unknown to wait for better times. But the desert is far from unknown. They have named each section according to its plant cover, its food reserves, the tracks of animals, the size, shape and direction of the dunes, and the distance from this or that well. They cannot get lost.

The Moors ease their consciences a little when they tell you the Nemadi women are prostitutes, and even a hard-faced nomad will smile as he recalls the lyrical eroticism of Nemadi songs. Whereas the Moor will not allow another man to look at his women, the Nemadi freely offers his to strangers. But as far as I could discover she never goes away with the stranger. A Nemadi story tells of a young girl, who delighted a rich amir with her smile, was captured by him, offered every luxury and never smiled again till the day