Upper Egyptian Fellah

[jari]

This thread will be dedicated to 1) Showing Images of Egyptian Fellah, Upper Egyptian people, and expose their cultural ties to the Ancient Pharonic population as well as their ties to their "Nubian" brothers and sisters in Northern Sudan and Aswan.

Mathilda claims that these selctive images represent what "Most" Upper Egyptians look like.

mathildasanthropologyblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/upper-egyptians.png

Again about half of those people look no different than Native Tropically adapted Nile Valley folks but it seems to me she is being selective in her approach. Its funny how she left out the easy to get(by googling images) of Egyptian Fellah, or Aswani people?? What about Northern Sudan?? Are these people and images exculded from her ideas of Upper Egyptian Images.

Here she claims

A strange title for a blog entry I know. But this is a result of a little nosing through the DNA studies available of modern Egypt, and some irritation at modern Egyptians being incessantly called ‘thieving Arabs’ by on-line Afrocentrists. IS she denying that Arab migrated to parts of Egypt and mixed with locals especially in Lower Egypt. Also who claims that Upper Egyptians, The NAtive Fellah are "Thieving Arabs" Most people especially so called Afrocentrics admite they are the closest to the Native Pharonic populations.

so how these people are supposed to have magically changed appearance in the past few thousand years with so little foreign input I’d like to know.

So I wonder why she left out this portion of Upper Egyptian History..

After the 7th-century Arab invasion of Egypt a social hierarchy was created whereby Egyptians who converted to Islam acquired the status of mawali or "clients" to the ruling Arab elite, while those who remained Christian, the Copts, became dhimmis. The privilege enjoyed by the Arab minority continued in a modified form into the modern period in the countryside, where remnants of Bedouin Arab tribes lived alongside Egyptian fellahin. One author describes the social demographics of rural Upper Egypt as follows:
Egyptian fellah.

Upper Egypt comprises the country's eight southernmost governorates. ... the region's history is one of isolated removal from the center of national life. The local relationships resulting from this centuries-old condition gave Upper Egypt an identity of its own within the modern Egyptian state. Alongside the even more ancient presence of Copts, tribal groupings dating from the Arab conquest combined to form a hierarchical order that placed two [minority] groups, the ashraf and the Arab, in dominating positions. These were followed by lesser tribes, with the [Egyptian] fellah at the bottom of the social scale(28) [...] Religion was central to the development of Upper Egyptian society. The ashraf claimed indirect descent from the Prophet, while the Arabs traced their lineage to a group of tribes from Arabia. On the other hand, the status of the fellahin rested on the belief that they descended from Egypt's pre-Islamic community and had converted to Islam, a history that placed them inescapably beneath both the Ashraf and Arabs. [...] In Muslim as well as Christian communities, and particularly at the lower socio-economic levels, religious practices are strongly imbued with non-orthodox folk elements, some of pharaonic origin.







Fellah Woman and Child and Hebesha caretaker



Nubian and a Fellah



Seems to me the Fellah and so called "Nubians" look similar...??

[truth]

They are distinct. It is fairly easy to see the difference. In any event, I think this photo is an excellent representation of an Egyptian -

[jari]

Apr 5, 2010 12:46:44 GMT -5 truth said:

They are distinct. Fairly easy to see the difference. In any event, I think this photo is an excellent representation of an Egyptian -

I agree this Fellah is a great example of an Egyptian, again aside from a Few Shades of color how are the Fellah so distinct from lets say a Northern Sudanese man..

Did you know that Winfried Blackman, who did a book on the Fellahin concluded they were Slaves from Africa which we know is a false Claim today..

Here is a customer Review for his book:

www.amazon.com/Fellahin-Upper-Egypt-Winifred-Blackman/dp/977424558X

I read this book and I was shocked how the author let his racial bias get in the way of academic work. I praise the book for providing some great information on Pharaonic survials in Ancient Egypt,but the racism really got to me around the first chapter.

The author however makes the mistake of assuimng that Dark skinned black Egyptians in Upper egypt,aslo refered to saeedi are desedants of slaves. This is entirely not true,because African slaves from the interior of Africa were never brought to Upper Egypt.

The dark skinned Egyptians in Upper Egypt are indigenous and been dark brown for since pre dyanstic times.

Besides this fatal flaw that the author makes,the book is packed with lots of informative information.

The author dedicates and entire chapter using Egyptian texts,archeology,anmd anthropology detail that clearly shows that Ancient Egypt is alive and well,anmd has never went away.

I would recommend this to anybody who is deeply interested in teh study of Ancient Egypt as I am myself.

Some Images from his book...

[jari]

Northern Sudanese







farm4.static.flickr.com/3562/3496612887_f4981af0f1.jpg



They are Darker but still look simular to some of the Fellah I posted...Like the Girl...

[jari]

Who are the Fellahin?
Biot Report #312: December 24, 2005 Printer Printer Friendly

Egypt (385,000 square miles) is roughly the size of France and Spain combined (207,000 + 195,000 square miles, respectively) but possesses an amount of arable land only the size of Holland (16,000 square miles). As depicted in the NASA photograph (below, left) most of the arable land is along the valley and delta of the Lower Nile River where the overwhelming impression is one of “serene palm trees, the brilliant green clover standing against the chocolate earth and a soft blue sky, the somnolent buffaloes cooling themselves in the canals” and an “ancient fertile land carefully and lovingly tended”. (1)

The farmer-peasants who work and live on this land are called fellahin (fellah, singular). The fellahin in 2005 comprise about 60 percent, or 46 million of 77 million Egyptians. Gamal Nasser’s grandfather was a fellah in the mud-hut town of Beni Mor, 200 miles south of Cairo in Asiut Province, Upper Egypt where Gamal was born. (2). Gamal’s father obtained a primary school education and left farming to become a government postal employee.

Egyptian agriculture is highly distinctive because of its high productivity, limited area, and total reliance on irrigation. Egypt has negligible rainfall. For these reasons agriculture “is expensive, highly profitable and overcrowded, and because [the land] is irrigated rather than rain-fed, the rights of individual ownership have always been limited by the powers of the pharaoh, khedive, government or whoever [controls] the source of irrigation,” which is the mighty Nile River. (Mansfield, p. 168) The high population growth rate of the fellahin and the fixed amount of arable land in Egypt has resulted in ever-decreasing sizes of individual plots (e.g., one acre), which makes use of modern methods of agriculture impractical. The same tools used during the time of the Pharaohs work just fine to till one acre.

The fellahin have long been derided in Egypt. They are typically viewed as a passive, infinitely patient mass that lives in poverty and accepts any regime imposed on it as the will of Allah. Yet, according to one writer who actually visited a fellahin village in 1974, the fellahin are far more informed than urban dwellers suppose.

Print journalist Trudy Rubin in 1974 received a fellowship from the Alicia Patterson Foundation (http://www.aliciapatterson.org/APF_Info/About_APF....) to write about the fellahin. Rubin had already learned from one Egyptian friend that “[n]ot even the government knows what the fellahin think.” Another Egyptian friend explained to her: “There are many different kinds of Egyptian peasant: those who live in the Delta of the Nile between Cairo and the Mediterranean, the more conservative peasants of upper Egypt, those who live on the river, those who live by the canals, those who grow cotton and those who tend citrus, those who farm land given them by the Revolution [July 23, 1952, see www.semp.us/biots/biot_311.html], and those who had land before, and those who still have no land at all. Don’t make the mistake of taking them all to be the same.” (3)

Rubin traveled to Egypt specifically to meet and interview Egyptian fellahin. After obtaining permission from the Egyptian Government to travel beyond usual tourist sites, she and an interpreter drove to the small village of Oshkar where 2,000 people live and approximately 60 percent of the farmers own their own small patches of land. She arrived after dark and there was no electricity. Her destination was the house of the Omdah, the traditional village head, which was aglow from a kerosene lantern hanging from the coils.

Mr. Mahmoud

The Omdah was away, so she spoke with his brother, Mr. Mahmoud, who was the head of the committee of the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) in the village. Mr. Mahmoud was dressed in the usual Arab galabyia (dress) and turban, and the Omdah’s wife was “plump and uncomfortable in a western-style print dress.” Mrs. Omdah expressed pride that her daughters were receiving an education and voiced veiled disgust as Mr. Mahmoud served Rubin’s male companions their colas before her. At one point, Mrs. Omdah noted to Mr. Mahmoud that foreigners needed to learn that among the fellahin, “things are not so bad as people think they are.”

The ASU was instituted by Gamal Nasser as the only civilian political organization in the country. Every village had an ASU committee. In Oshkar, Mr. Mahmoud was gradually replacing the Omdah who once was all-powerful but now mostly settled personal feuds. However, Rubin noted that in Oshkar, the Omdah had maintained power through his brother’s post in the ASU.

Mr. Mahmoud explained: “Life is more comfortable in the village since the Revolution. Now there is mechanization and the farmer can do his work in half a day. He has rights in the face of landlords. He has fertilizer and machinery and our village will have electricity next year (as part of a five year plan in cooperation with the Soviets to electrify all Egyptian villages with power from the Aswan high dam).”

He expressed worry about the continued population increase — “'new housing is eating away land from the fields.” Mrs. Omdah noted that women could come to her house and get birth control pills and that many said they were interested, but few actually came. As for matters of war and peace, Mr. Mahmoud felt that the Americans could do a lot for Egypt “if they want it. Let us see. We are a developing country. They can send us things to progress like you progressed. If they don’t want us in war we don't want anything in peace.”

Mr. Mahmoud also opined: “If Israel does not let go of our land, why not fight again? Many men have died from this village. Now, we do not say that Israel must die. They can live and we can live. There were Jews living here peacefully with Jewish neighbors — the son of one family is now a general in the Israeli army. If the Israelis have rights, the Palestinians also have rights.

“Zionist propaganda is the reason why Jews are fighting. It's possible for Jews to live here again — why not? They lost men and we lost men.

“As for the Russians, they helped us in a critical time. First, the Americans forced us to go to the Russians for Aswan. Second, the most friendly one is the one who can help us reach peace.” He concluded: “My idea is that the world gave Israel its existence in 1948 and the UN frontier is the only legitimate frontier.”

Inside the shed were about twenty fellahin who received from three to five feddans or acres under Nasser’s land reforms, which many of them promptly divided into smaller parcels for their sons. Some of their sons, who were sitting in peasant gowns beside their fathers, were students home on vacation, indistinguishable from their brothers beside them who continued to till the land.

The fellahin were not reluctant to offend their American guest. Each one shouted louder than the next, trying to get his opinion heard, with more men crowding in the door as word of Rubin’s arrival spread. Rubin learned that these men were more militant than middle class Egyptians she met in Cairo. “They admired Sadat immensely. But it was clear that Nasser was their greatest hero, despite criticism of him appearing at that time in the Cairo press. When I mentioned this, one wizened old man said with feeling, ‘Nasser gave us land. Before that we were ‘the penniless.’” Another grandfather added, ‘Before Nasser I worked on the land of a wealthy man. Last year his son came to ask if I or my sons would hire out to help with his crop. I told him we needed help on our land and he could hire out to us if he wished.’”

Rubin concluded: “How deep the resistance to Israel ran was hard to tell — the young students seemed more adamant than their parents. Anyway, the political realities of Egypt seem to provide the peasantry with scant political power. Their voice seems unheard, and in fact unexercised except in moments of exceptional emotional intensity such as the demonstrations after Nasser’s post Six-Day war resignation speech. It is hard to estimate what rural unhappiness with a peace settlement would mean or whether a plan could be sold to the fellahin if packaged properly.

“There seemed to be less hostility here to the Russians than in the city, perhaps because few people here had actually come in contact with Soviets, unlike many Cairnes, and such contact seems to increase dislike of the Soviets in Egypt. The fresh-faced agricultural student stood up and said almost defiantly: ‘We love the Russians. It is only because of them that we could fight. They are the major power.’ Another student chimed in: ‘We can’t deny what the Russians did.’ Another farmer said, ‘We don't have any reason to prefer one to the other but the Soviets helped us more.’ And a philosophy student from Zagazig University said, ‘We prefer the one who was the most peaceful towards us.’ No blanket endorsement of the United States here!”

In summary, Trudy Rubin’s 1974 essay depicts among the fellahin in Oshkar a highly developed awareness about their social, political and economic environment that contradicts their stereotype. It is surprising that so little information about this vast group of people is available today, and that we must rely on 30-year-old (and older) writings to begin to appreciate the fellahin of Egypt. (3-5)

Sources:

1. Peter Mansfield: “Nasser’s Egypt.” Penguin African Library 1965, p. 169.
2. Gamal Nasser: “Egypt’s Liberation: The Philosophy of the Revolution”, Public Affairs Press, Washington, DC, 1956, p. 115.
3. Trudy Rubin: “Talking to the Fellahin.” 1975. www.aliciapatterson.org/APF001974/Rubin/Rub....
4. See also: Winifred S. Blackman” The Fellahin of Upper Egypt”, first published in 1927, and republished in paperback in 2000 by the American University in Cairo Press.
5. See also: Raymond E. Crist: “Land for the fellahin: Land tenure and land use in the Near East”, 1961, out-of-print and available only as used book.

[khunanup]

Jari, Matilda,like most people are ignorant of the history and existence of the ''Fellahin''. In Egypt they are not really seem as a unique ethnic group because they make up most of the Egyptian population. However, depending upon their location they have varying amonts of Arab admixture. However, they remain,to this day, the closest people to the ancient Egyptians in custom and phenotype.

Also, the fellahin in Lower Egypt have more admixture than the ones in Upper Egypt. Many fellah in the northern most province in Upper Egypt(places like Asyut and Minya) tend to be lighter than the ones in Luxor to Aswan. Take note its not uncommon to find Egyptians from Minya and Asyut as dark as the ones in Luxor or Aswan.

This is Ausar from Egypt search. A fellow Sa3eedi Egyptian.

[anansi]

Apr 5, 2010 19:58:41 GMT -5 khunanup said:

Jari, Matilda,like most people are ignorant of the history and existence of the ''Fellahin''. In Egypt they are not really seem as a unique ethnic group because they make up most of the Egyptian population. However, depending upon their location they have varying amonts of Arab admixture. However, they remain,to this day, the closest people to the ancient Egyptians in custom and phenotype.

Also, the fellahin in Lower Egypt have more admixture than the ones in Upper Egypt. Many fellah in the northern most province in Upper Egypt(places like Asyut and Minya) tend to be lighter than the ones in Luxor to Aswan. Take note its not uncommon to find Egyptians from Minya and Asyut as dark as the ones in Luxor or Aswan.

This is Ausar from Egypt search. A fellow Sa3eedi Egyptian.

Hay welcome khunanup..aka Ausar..good to have you on board.

I have never been to your country but I am used to seeing all kinds of Egyptians and from what I can tell they are not unlike any other population with an African base but with significant non African biological influences such as my own birth country..btw folks I distinguish between Kemet and Egypt.

[jari]

Apr 5, 2010 19:58:41 GMT -5 khunanup said:

Jari, Matilda,like most people are ignorant of the history and existence of the ''Fellahin''. In Egypt they are not really seem as a unique ethnic group because they make up most of the Egyptian population. However, depending upon their location they have varying amonts of Arab admixture. However, they remain,to this day, the closest people to the ancient Egyptians in custom and phenotype.

Also, the fellahin in Lower Egypt have more admixture than the ones in Upper Egypt. Many fellah in the northern most province in Upper Egypt(places like Asyut and Minya) tend to be lighter than the ones in Luxor to Aswan. Take note its not uncommon to find Egyptians from Minya and Asyut as dark as the ones in Luxor or Aswan.

This is Ausar from Egypt search. A fellow Sa3eedi Egyptian.

Thank you for your input Ausar, I of course recalled a thread you made on Bedouin Arabs settling in Upper Egypt. I am glad to have the input of a Native Egyptian, and honestly I don't know why people try to seperate the Darker Egyptian population from Ancient Egypt, its really sad.

[zarahan]

Apr 5, 2010 13:05:23 GMT -5 jari said:

Northern Sudanese







farm4.static.flickr.com/3562/3496612887_f4981af0f1.jpg



They are Darker but still look simular to some of the Fellah I posted...Like the Girl...

Indeed. Great picture selection. Dark skin is part of the built-in
indigenous Egyptian variation, it is not "foreign" and it does not rely
on "incoming Caucasoids" to vary in shade. Egypt has had many
invaders over the millennia, from Hyskos to Arabs who impacted its
makeup, but it always had its range of built-in native variation
before these peoples arrived.



And of course, the people most related to the ancient Egyptians,
aside from other Egyptians have been the Nubians.

[zarahan]

Apr 5, 2010 19:58:41 GMT -5 khunanup said:

Jari, Matilda,like most people are ignorant of the history and existence of the ''Fellahin''. In Egypt they are not really seem as a unique ethnic group because they make up most of the Egyptian population. However, depending upon their location they have varying amonts of Arab admixture. However, they remain,to this day, the closest people to the ancient Egyptians in custom and phenotype.

Also, the fellahin in Lower Egypt have more admixture than the ones in Upper Egypt. Many fellah in the northern most province in Upper Egypt(places like Asyut and Minya) tend to be lighter than the ones in Luxor to Aswan. Take note its not uncommon to find Egyptians from Minya and Asyut as dark as the ones in Luxor or Aswan.

This is Ausar from Egypt search. A fellow Sa3eedi Egyptian.

Agreed. Have you read the book below or similar?
Is there a distinct "Upper Egyptian identity" - more conservative,
traditionalist, etc as asserted by some in the book, or is there much
more of a mix in modern Egypt?

Upper Egypt: identity and change
By Nicholas S. Hopkins, Reem Saad

books.google.com/books?id=FGRqO9pg36UC&pg=PA94&dq=The+Fellahin+of+Upper+Egypt&cd=8#v=onepage&q=african&f=false

[jari]

Good lin Zarahan I might ave to add that book to my library

[khunanup]

Yes, there is a unique Upper Egyptian identity. Upper Egyptians function as being a sub-group within the fabric of Egypt. Upper Egyptians are probably the most conservative and traditional population within Egypt. Upper Egyptians meld well into Egyptian society minus the ''negative'' sterotypes and poverty level.

I am familiar with the book by Nicholas Hopkins. He has done fieldwork in both Lower Egypt and Upper. His acessment of Upper Egypt is fairly accurate.

[jari]

So in all it just boils down to the fact that one must be fully aware of the subject matter before commenting and stanting an opinion as fact that will be read my millions online. Mathilda as Ausar points out is ignorant on the Culture and History of Egypt and the Fellahin population, and therefore has no right to comment on the matter.

[homeylu]

As usual Mathilda has no idea what she speaks about. "Fellahin" simply means rural folks, some would also say villagers; it doesn't matter if they live in Lower or Upper Egypt.

People in Upper Egypt are called "Saeedy" rather they live in rural areas or urban areas of Upper Egypt.

As in the U.S., people who live in the South are called Southerners, regardless if they live in the city or not. Those who reside in rural areas are referred to a 'Country'. But for reasons I cannot figure out, Northerners who live in rural areas are rarely if ever called 'Country', at least here in the states.