Camel Raiding of North Arabian Bedouin: A Mechanism of Ecological Adaptation
T HE Bedouin camel breeding peoples of Arabia are among the most conspicuous in the public tradition of romanticized warrior nomads, but among the least used in current ethnological theory. Yet they inhabit a desert zone marked by varying and extreme geographical conditions for human survival and display in their modes of adaptation a wealth of features useful for developing cultural ecological theory. Moreover, their contiguity with regions occupied over millennia by complex states provides a host of problems of intercultural adaptations. Most prominent among these, perhaps, has been the persistence and elaboration of kinship as the organizing basis of these desert societies. This paper is concerned with examining some of the features and adaptive functions of one of the core mechanisms of Bedouin socio-cultural systems, institutionalized raiding, as a major factor in the persistence of such kin-based societies.2 Raiding is variously regarded as a sport, a passion, an industry by Western writers; it has been labelled brigandage, feuding, and warfare, and has been denounced and deplored, and rarely admired. But few serious students of Bedouin life have failed to appreciate its significance for the Bedouin, regardless of the moral or political stand from which the writers might evaluate it. Burckhardt, for example commented upon the precariousness of wealth in camel herds among the Bedouin, the rapid changes of individual fortunes as parties of men raided and counterraided each other's encampments. But he also calculated in monetary terms the cost of living as a Bedouin camel pastoralist. He concluded:
OVARIAN STEROID CONCENTRATIONS AND FOLLICLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE FEMALE CAMEL (Camelus dromedarius)
The main objective of the present study was to investigate the changes in ovarian oestradiol and testosterone concentrations as follicles develop in the camel. Ovaries were collected from 15 non-pregnant females from a slaughter house. All follicles ;::::4.0 mm diameter were dissected from each ovary, follicle size was recorded and follicular fluid was aspirated from each follicle and analyzed for its oestradiol and testosterone contents. A bi-modal distribution of follicles was observed when frequency was plotted against oestradiol:testosterone ratio. On this basis, individual follicles were classified as oestrogenic or non-oestrogenic if they had follicular fluid oestradiol :testosterone ratio of ;:::: 6:1 or < 6:1, respectively. The total number of follicles did not differ between the two ovaries (right 56.9%; left 43. 1 %). Similarly, the number of oestrogenic and non-oestrogenic follicles was similar between the two ovaries. Moreover, no difference was observed between the percentage of oestrogenic and non-oestrogenic follicles within the right or the left ovaries."'In addition, there was no difference in the diameter of oestrogenic and non-oestrogenic follicles. The results suggest that in the camel. both ovaries are equally capable of producing normal preovulatory follicles.
PLEASURE, POWER, AND THE PURSUIT OF COMMUNISM: SOVIET YOUTH AND STATE-SPONSORED POPULAR CULTURE DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR, 1945-1968
art, with certain students accused of “showing political immaturity, failing to understand the Party’s positions on art.” This episode constituted part of a broader crackdown on abstract art by the Khrushchev administration from late 1962, precipitated the the Soviet leader’s derision of such art forms in December 1962 at the Manege exhibit. Such instances demonstrate the limitations of the top-level promotion of youth grassroots initiative, as the Khrushchev leadership reigned in youth autonomy when it threatened to go beyond the boundaries of the permissible. The dates cited above have particular resonance, since both 1957-58 and 1962-63 represent two periods when those at the top of the Party hierarchy moved away from pursuing a more pluralistic, tolerant policy course, due to anxiety inspired by both sharpening Cold War hostilities and domestic developments. In these periods, official rhetoric censured what it labeled as 639 TsAOPIM, f. 635, op. 13, d. 546, ll. 56-57. This is likely related to criticism of the Party associated with the fallout from the Secret Speech and the Hungary invasion. For more, see Polly Jones, “From the Secret Speech to the Burial of Stalin: Real and Ideal Responses to De-Stalinization,” in Jones ed., The Dilemmas, 41-63. 640 TsAOPIM, f. 6083, op. 1, d. 52, ll. 166-67. 641 Susan E. Reid, “In the Name of the People: The Manege Affair Revisited,” Kritika 6.4 (Fall 2005): 673716. 642 On these anxieties, see Dobson, Khrushchev’s Cold Summer, 156-88.