414 ANNUAL REPORT SlVnTHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1953 



an industry a certain amount of capital and skill must be available, 

 but the capital necessary to acquire a loom is very small. The skill, 

 however, must be acquired. Two Dahr families do engage in silk- 

 worm culture, which is farmed out to them on halves by relatives in 

 the neighboring village of Jibrail, whence come the worms and the 

 mulberry leaves. The work of feeding and tending them is done in 

 Dahr, and each family produces about 100 kilos of cocoons, which are 

 sold for about 60 cents a kilo. Thus from this source each family nets 

 $30 a year. The droppings of the worms are dried in the sun to be 

 used later as cowfeed. It contains highly nutritious elements and is 

 greatly relished by the cattle. 



The big cash industry in the vicinity of Dahr is the burning of lime. 

 Fifteen kilns, on the average, are burned each year. The industry is 

 based on purely local material. The limestone exists in unlimited 

 quantities, and the fuel consists of the thorny scrub bush that gi-ows 

 wild in the areas that have no soil. Each burning requires the brush 

 from 25 to 30 acres of this wasteland. The privilege of gathering the 

 brush costs the entrepreneur from 25 cents to a dollar an acre, depend- 

 ing on the thickness of the growth. The kiln site rents for $2.50 a 

 burning. The chief lime burner is an old man whose father and grand- 

 father before him were lime burners. His son is learning the business 

 from him and will carry on after his death. He and his son do prac- 

 tically all the work themselves. They quarry the limestone, arrange 

 it in the kiln, cut the fuel, fire the kiln, and market the product. Each 

 burning means approximately $175 to $250 net, which, multiplied by 

 15, makes an income that is most welcome in this capital-starved 

 community. In addition, they farm 5 acres of unirrigated land on 

 which they grow wheat, barley, and lentils. They buy goat manure 

 from their neighbors for fertilizer. 



LIFE OF THE VILLAGERS 



The village reaches out with long bony fingers, as it were, to exploit 

 the area which is too rocky and infertile to be cultivated. Several 

 families keep goats, which are grazed on the steep mountainsides in 

 the spaces between the narrow strips under cultivation and even on 

 the rocky knolls. The several flocks, which number about 200 in all, 

 are each in the care of a goatherd, either a local Dahr boy or one 

 from a neighboring village. These boys often break the monotony 

 of their calling by playing on their bamboo pipes of Pan, which in the 

 distance sound somewhat like Scottish bagpipes. They also occa- 

 sionally have a little picnic by roasting a few heads of wheat, not yet 

 quite ripe, over a small fire of thorny brush, and the grains thus 

 roasted are very tasty. At night the goats are kept in pens in the 

 village, and their manure finds a ready sale. They are clipped in 

 June, and their hair is sold to city weavers who make the black goat- 



