The Mountain Village of Dahr, Lebanon ^ 



By Raymond E. Crist 



Department of Geography 

 University of Florida 



[With 8 plates] 



As ONE travels in the Near East through the mountains or plains 

 that are under cultivation he is struck by the fact that isolated farm 

 dwellings are hardly ever seen. The great majority of the population 

 lives in the country, but they live clustered in villages and not in 

 single farmhouses dispersed about the countryside. Those of us 

 with a North American background tend to think of human 

 agglomerations in terms of their economic bases. A city, a town, 

 or a hamlet is situated where it is because the site was favorable 

 and economic factors were propitious. A ribbon settlement is 

 pressed against the highway in a fertile farming area, or a village 

 has come into being at a crossroads, or a town has risen where there 

 is an easy river crossing. But there are many villages in the world 

 that have as bases factors that are, to us, noneconomic or even anti- 

 economic, villages that have been founded in response to a desire 

 on the part of their founders to be cut off from the world rather than 

 in easy contact with it. 



One such village is Dahr, which clings tightly to the limestone 

 crags of the lower range of the mountains of Lebanon, 20 miles north- 

 east of Tripoli. The site of the hamlet was originally forested with 

 evergreen oak trees and used as a common grazing land for goats. 

 From here came the logs used to hold up the heavy beaten-earth and 

 straw roofs of the houses built in the valley, and from this woods 

 came also the firewood and charcoal used in cooking and baking. A 

 few hundred yards below was a never-failing spring. The actual 

 founding of the village is shrouded in the mist of history. The old- 

 est inhabitant said that it was hoary with age even in the time of 

 his grandfather. Those who originally settled in Dahr were cer- 



iThe field investigations on which this paper is based were made possible by a Rocke- 

 feller Foundation grant to the University of Florida. The generous assistance of Dr. Nell 

 Alter is gratefully acknowledged. 



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