While natural pearls are found all over the world, those from the Arabian Gulf are acknowledged to be among the finest, and no other location has produced pearls of such quality and quantity so consistently. The center of the Gulf pearling industry was Bahrain. Kunz and Stevenson, in The Book of the Pearl, published in 1908, stated that the "Gulf fisheries employ about 3,500 boats, large and small, of which 1,200 of the best are owned at Bahrain, 700 on the coast of Al Hassa from Al Qatar to Kuwait, and the remaining from various parts of the Gulf, especially from the Pirate Coast east of Al Qatar."
Today Bahrain remains the main pearl-trading center. It is also a cultural repository for the pearling way of life, thanks to people like Ahmed Alfardan, who founded the Pearl Divers' Society in Bahrain, providing premises - the
dar -where pearlers can meet several evenings each week and relive the old days. While many of the divers have retired and no longer work, some are still active as pilots in Mina Salman) Bahrain's main port. Almost all are in their 70's, and they gather to sing the old pearling songs that are so much of their past. There are two or three young men present in the
dar, grandsons of the older generations, but they do not dive; they only come to sing and preserve the songs for posterity. Indeed, the Bahraini divers today travel all over Europe, singing their plaintive melodies at cultural festivals.
During the pearling season, in the old days, men and their boy tabbabah, or apprentices, worked, ate and slept on the open deck under the iron rule of the nokhatha, or captain, who was frequently also the boat owner. The nokhatha earned his position by his expertise at finding the best pearling banks, called hayrat, an navigated only by the sun, the stars and hi knowledge of the Gulf waters.
Traditional methods of pearl diving changed little in thousands of years. It required only the strength and endurance of a two-man partnership: the ghais or ghawwas - the diver - and his rope-tender, or saib. The saib literally held the diver's life in his hand, for if he did not pull him up fast enough, the diver would drown. The ghawwas dived from sunrise to sunset, and was expected to go down at least eight times in 15 minutes, depending on the depth - typically around nine to 12 meters (30 to 40 feet) - before he was allowed a rest. With dayyeen, a net basket, strung from his neck, a rope weighted with a stone tied to his waist, a nose clip, or fetatn, on his nose and leather fingerstalls called khabat to protect against sharp coral, the diver sank to the sea floor in search of mother oysters. Some wore cotton overalls to protect them from jellyfish stings or to ward off shark attacks.
Other important members of the crew were al-mejaddimi, the second-in-command; al-musally, the prayer leader, who also relieved the saibs when they were praying; and the nahham, who kept everyone's spirits up by leading group singing. While many of the songs were plaintive and sad, all had the strong beat of the drum as a base, still predominant in today's Gulf music. The first song of the morning, however, usually went like this:
Oh, blessed morning!
May we be fortunate today.Oh, pardoner of our sins, May we ask you to forgive us.
Your mercy is unlimited. We therefore appeal to you To bless and forgive us. Oh, God, I repent
And turn from my sins
To your love.
It is you who grants us pardon....
After evening prayers, the nahham would always finish the day with the evening hymn:
Oh, God, make our lives easy.
May riches come to us from God.
So that we may announce the goodtidings
To our families and neighbors.
And anger the envious.
Life on board the pearling boats was spartan, and the pearlers suffered great hardship. They were frequently undernourished, with their staple diet of coffee and dates for breakfast and lunch, and fish and rice for the evening meal. Whatever flesh was on their bodies at the beginning of the season quickly disappeared, and only skeletal shadows of men returned to their villages at the end. They suffered from lung disease, fungal infections of the skin, scurvy, rheumatism and arthritis; they faced shark attacks and, more seriously, they must frequently have suffered slow degeneration of the brain caused by a lack of oxygen during the long cycles of diving.
The hard-won oysters were placed in a pile on deck and were left for two or three days to dry out, making the task of opening them much easier. Finding pearls was a matter of pure luck. Sometimes a day or a whole week would pass without a single pearl being found in thousands of oysters. At other times, a few hours' diving would bring a rich haul of pearls. The captain took charge of all those found and kept them in red cloth pouches, still used by pearl merchants of the Gulf today.
As soon as the captain sold some pearls, he paid each member of the crew in cash. There was a payment hierarchy that was rigidly defined and meticulously adhered to. The largest share was set aside for the captain, another for the boat, and the remainder was shared in proportion to the position each individual held in the hierarchy. Divers frequently borrowed against their share before the season started in order to provide for their families during the six months they would be at sea, so if the season were good, they might just have enough to see them through to the next season without having to borrow again. If not, they faced ever-increasing hardship, hunger and debt from which even death could hardly free them, for when a man died, his son had to assume all his debts. Many divers were thus heavily burdened even before their first dive.