Sunday, August 15, 2010

Belief, the Nomadic way

"It is a paradox of the monotheistic faiths that, although they arose within the ambit of the desert, the desert people themselves show an indifference towards the Almighty that is decidedly cavalier. "We will go up to God and salute him," said a bedu to Palgrave in the 1860s, "and if he proves hospitable, we will stay with him; if otherwise, we will mount our horses and ride off."

"...When Barth (Norwegian anthropologist Frederick Barth) came to account for the dearth of ritual among the Basseri (a tribe of Iranian nomads) - or of any rooted belief - he concluded that the Journey itself was the ritual, that the road to summer uplands was the Way, and that the pitching and dismantling of tents were prayers more meaningful than any in the mosque."

Page 199, 200. Chapter: From the Notebooks
from the book 'The Songlines', by Bruce Chatwin

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