Between 1991 and 1994, these video clips of people and their villages in the Hajar Mountains of Oman were recorded when my companions and I relied only on 1:100,000 Nakhal and Rustaq military maps. The portion of the Western Hajar covered by these maps is where we undertook all our early exploration. At that time there was only one road up Al Jabal Al Akhdar, to Sayq, and it was restricted to local and military traffic. However, civilians were free to walk the mountain tracks. From Sayq there were only two roads further into the mountains: one to the village of Al Manakhir and the other to the settlement at the head of Wadi Bani Habib.
The donkey caravan routes and man-tracks between the numerous villages on the mountain were bustling with people.
The first clip sequence shows scenes on the mountain plateau that you will traverse on Day 4 at the head of Wadi Al Hijri and Wadi Al Qashah, where there were summer villages used while herding goats. Most of them—for example Ar Rus, Al Hilaylut, and Aqbat Al Biyut—had twin winter villages nearby but deep in one of the two wadis near springs that irrigated crops grown on narrow terraces. There are low-gradient donkey tracks and steep man-tracks between these pairs of villages, climbing from the springs at 1400 m elevation to the browsing plateau at 1950 m elevation. Most families owned a house in both villages and moved between them throughout the year. They spent most of the winter in the wadi villages and most of the summer on the plateau, but regularly travelled up and down the mountain to maintain both their crops and their goat herds. They were both crop farmers and pastoralists. At the time these videos were taken, only the area around Sayq on the Western Hajar had modern houses. This lifestyle no longer exists. Today, the summer villages are now connected by roads and are modernised, while the winter villages are largely abandoned, and the winter-village terraces are maintained by contract labour from Bangladesh. However, the tracks remain, creating an opportunity for long-distance walking.
The first clip in the sequence shows children cooking in an outdoor kitchen with copper pots. The second clip shows a man walking at his normal speed. The woman on the right in the fourth clip is wearing an amuletic silver disc called a sunt, along with bracelets and a headdress that includes a nose ornament. In the sixth clip, note that only the right hand touches the communal food tray, following the traditional custom that food is eaten only with the right hand while the left hand is considered unclean. The elder of the two boys in the last clip, who happened to pass by as we were being given directions, is carrying a walking stick that he clearly does not need. In Oman, walking sticks are used as a symbol of wisdom, much as they were in 17th–18th century Europe.
At each village we visited, nearly everyone at home assembled to greet us. This clip sequence shows our reception at Ar Rus. At the request of the villagers, from whom I obtained permission to post this video, I have removed images of women who are still alive. The children are wearing kulutiyyah caps, and the women are wearing colourful clothes and silver jewellery that forms part of their dowry. Examples include the bracelets worn by the seated woman, the aqam chinstrap worn by the mother carrying her child, and the rings and bracelet worn by the standing woman. This jewellery is still worn, although today it is more likely to be gold. Male hikers are unlikely to see this; only female hikers are likely to observe it.
Once the road head reached as close as practicable to Wadi Bani Habib, this historic village was gradually abandoned and new houses were built beside the road. This video was taken about ten years after the road was completed, when only a few of the old houses remained occupied.
This villager from An Nakhur in Wadi An Nakhur entertained us with his whistling. We met him after attempting to climb from inside the wadi to the top of Jabal Shams.
Rain, hail, and thunder in Wadi An Nakhur during a storm that lasted less than an hour.
This is how villages in Wadi Bani Awf looked in 1992, shortly after the roads were built. Today Balad Sayt is modernised, with power poles and concrete buildings.
Coffee making in the Eastern Hajar Mountains begins with roasting the beans.
All the 1990's videos of Omani mountain life on a YouTube playlist. View playlist on YouTube
