Review A Reed Shaken by the Wind, Travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq

Maxwell, Gavin, A Reed Shaken by the Wind, Travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq, Eland, 1957

 

Gavin Maxwell wrote one of the earliest Western accounts of life in Iraq’s southern marshes. In the 1950s he went along with a man named Wilfred Thesiger who acted as a traveling doctor to visit the Madan people of the region. Together they experienced the environment, the wildlife and the culture of the people there. Maxwell was taken with what he saw which translate into his book A Reed Shaken by the Wind, Travels among the Marsh Arabs of Iraq.

 

Maxwell’s first recollections are about the water that stretched all around. The marshes were created by the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Water was literally everywhere. Even when they reached a settlement it was just a small island. There were birds all over which were hunted for food, water buffalo which were the prized possession of the inhabitants for their milk and dung, and the bane of the locals the wild board which was constantly hunted. Instead of modern living where the elements and environment are manipulated and molded to fit humans here they were part of the larger ecosystem.

 

The Madan people were divided amongst various tribes and followed many different sheikhs. The author found large differences between the groups depending upon where they lived such as in the west or east which stretched into Iran. For instance Maxwell thought they dressed different and were more informal in the east.

 

He had to adapt to a completely foreign culture while with them such as only eating with the right hand. He also felt like a child because he only knew a few words of Arabic and thus was left sitting amongst groups of people not really knowing what they were talking about many times.

 

Another element the book was fascinated with were the reed houses that the people built which could range into huge size for a wealthy sheikh. He also noted that none of them trusted each other and every family had a pack of dogs outside their homes to protect their property. The party was actually robbed twice during their journey. It really is an amazing story because much of this life has disappeared due to Saddam and global warming destroying much of the marshlands since the 1990s.

 

The last element that was surprising was the proliferation of African slaves. Maxwell talks about the Zanji slave rebellion which occurred in the 9^th Century during the Abbasid Dynasty. It appears that slavery remained part of the culture for hundreds of years afterwards because almost every village they went to they encountered them. There were African guards, servants and even a male concubine belonging to one of the sheikhs. There’s only one other book I’ve read that mentions that bondage continued in southern Iraq up until at least the 1950s.

 

A Reed Shaken by the Wind is a very quick and engaging book that gives a brief introduction to Iraq’s marshes and culture. There are also a plethora of fantastic black and white pictures of the marshes and the people who lived there. It gives a real flavor of the people and place that a more academic book couldn’t.

 

Link to all of Musings On Iraq’s book reviews listed by topic