DAHR, LEBANON — CRIST 419 



Much of the agricultural activity in the Near East is carried on with- 

 out the aid of wheeled vehicles. Even the wheelbarrow is almost 

 unknown. Almost all loads — sheaves of Avheat, firewood and water 

 for the house, manure for fertilizer, rocks for the walls of terraces — 

 are carried on the backs of animals or of human beings. The donkey 

 and the mule are used over short distances or in the mountains for loads 

 up to about 200 pounds, and the camel is used for longer journeys for 

 loads of 400 to 450 pounds. As long as a society makes little or no use 

 of wheeled vehicles, roads are a luxury, for donkeys, mules, camels, 

 oxen, and human beings on foot can negotiate the steep, muddy, and 

 rocky trails to the tiny houses in the most remote villages. For Dahr 

 this has all changed. The paved road for automobiles reached the 

 village last year, and now Tripoli is only a pleasant hour's drive away. 



So the village is not static ; it is a going concern that lives on gener- 

 ation after generation. The meager base of raw materials and what 

 seems to western eyes to be its precarious economic position would not 

 seem conducive to the stability and continuity necessary for a going 

 concern. Perhaps it will continue to have its raison d'etre in non- 

 material rather than in material factors. Although life is not easy it 

 is savored as one goes along. All available satisfactions are drawn 

 from living here and now and day by day. The villagers do not 

 hustle and bustle through an 8-hour day ; they work a much longer day 

 during the summer, but not by the clock. There seems to be less wear 

 and tear on the individual whose workday is 14 hours long instead of 

 8 if he feels the human warmth of working in a cooperative society and 

 not in a social vacuum, and if he can take time out to gossip with 

 neighbors and take his afternoon siesta. Stomach ulcers and nervous 

 breakdowns are not yet known in Dahr. 



One of the first things of which a Dahr child becomes aware is 

 that he belongs to a family unit and to a kinship group which demands 

 his unswerving loyalty. Members of a family must help each other 

 at all times. "All for each and each for all" is the motto. Nepotism 

 is consequently an established feature of the mores of the community. 

 The family is the only social security organization that functions. 

 Family life is closely joined up with the church and its rites, and one 

 is expected to cling throughout life to the religious community into 

 which he is born.^ Family ties are, of course, the most important of 

 all, but the feeling of community solidarity is also very strong. 

 Villages tend to act as a unit in times of crisis, and bloody battles 

 between villages are not uncommon. Even today in modern Lebanon 

 the gendarmes must frequently be called in to settle disputes, and 

 the result of an intervillage feud may be several killed and 



» Tannous, Aflf I., The Arab village community of the Middle East, Ann. Rep. Smith- 

 sonian Inst, for 1943, pp. 539-541, 1944. 



