Bedouin solidarity and stories from the past woven through the 150 booths at the liwa dates festival's traditional market
Mariam Hassan Al Marzooqi was just a small girl 50 years ago, when she first started to weave palm frond threads. She would sit quietly watching her mother, her grandmother and her aunties do it. They were very patient and graceful, taking their time to weave those threads. Sometimes, her mother would sing to her or tell her old Emirati stories, like the ones about Abu Al Les, a very clever fox that would trick people.
"Slowly I began picking up the art of weaving palm fronds and I became very good at it," said Mariam. "We make objects that are actually useful in the household, like baskets for keeping dry dates, mats for placing food trays or brooms, food covers, even small fans for keeping the flies away.""The palm fronds are dry and have to be discarded, but in the old days nothing from the palm tree would go to waste. We would make these objects to use them in the house, not to sell them. Only in recent years, when authorities decided to revive old traditions, al khous became a lucrative business," continued Mariam.
Her "al khous" - palm fronds weaving - objects, mostly baskets of various sizes, mats and bags, are stashed up to the ceiling of her stall at the Liwa Dates Festival's traditional market. This year, the festival's organisers, the Cultural Programmes and Heritage Festivals Committee - Abu Dhabi, have set up 150 booths in the souk area of the festival.
Meant to shed light on Emirati heritage, reinforcing the cultural legacy the country's ancestors bequeathed to their sons and daughters, the traditional market is an instant attraction to the over 60,000 visitors who came to the festival so far.Decorated with meticulously woven palm leaves, the booths are run by Emirati women from all over the Abu Dhabi Emirate. Their handicrafts, bringing back memories of old oasis and desert living, are items made of date palms, not just baskets, but sweets too, including a lesser known one, the "jumar", the milky white inner part of the palm, which is sweet and can be eaten just like the dates.
All aspects related to the daily life of the Bedouin and oasis family are reflected in the traditional market through different crafts such as Sadu (carpet, blankets or camel coverings weaving) and Thalli (silver of golden embroidery for Emirati dresses), as well as hand mixed perfumes, brass dalla pots, used to make Arabic coffee for hundreds of years, spices, old photographs and incense burners. Madiha Jumaa Al Romaithi has been coming to the Liwa Dates Festival traditional market every year. In her home in Abu Dhabi city she makes bracelets and other jewellery for children and she decorates various accessories with her own traditional cloth designs, but her speciality is mixing scents.
"I love mixing bukhour. My mother and my grandmother did it before me and I now have my own special scents for bukhour," said Madiha. "I take the bukhour pieces of wood and soak them in different oil perfumes and leave them for a while, well covered, to get well impregnated. Then, when you open it up, smell it, it is very fragrant! All you need is one small piece, which you place on a burning charcoal and the smoke will perfume your entire house and clothes," she went on. Like many of the women in the market Madiha is not here at the market. She has a cousin and an aunt supporting her and also selling some of their handicrafts here.
In fact, for the close observer, the traditional souk is also a display of Bedouin solidarity and tribal unity, as each booth is not run by just one Emirati woman, but by a family group. They sit together, they eat together, they weave together, just like they did all these years ago.
The 12th Liwa Dates Festival, which opened on July 20, will close its doors at 10 PM on July 30.
