DESPITE the forces and influences of this modern world, there are still some people in Saudi Arabia who are proud of their traditional crafts and are working to preserve their folk art forms.
“I inherited this craft from my father and grandfather,” said 35-year-old Ali ibn Saeed, a potter. “My family has been doing this stuff since the 17th century.”
This urge to promote the folk art and handicrafts of the Peninsular Arabs — most of who reside within the boundaries of modern-day Saudi Arabia — is the motive behind the annual Janadriya Heritage and Cultural Festival that takes place 45 km north of Riyadh. And as the participants of the annual showcase (who hail from the Kingdom’s several distinct regions) can tell you: Visitors rarely walk away from the festival without taking a piece of Arabian culture with them, even if the item has accommodated modern needs — such as hand-woven camel-wool mobile phone carriers, or the glazed porcelain pottery that has replaced more traditional fired clay while still retaining distinct cultural motifs.
Ali, who is one of the participating Janadriya vendors, said that his family produces various objects out of clay, including kitchen utensils, jars and less-utilitarian works of art. And he’s quick to point out that traditional crafts don’t reside in an immutable cultural vacuum, but rather the motifs and objects themselves are adapting and incorporating modern designs, a mixture of the old and new that sometimes produces what could be called a modern traditionalism. But while the items and designs might change and adapt, certain aspects remain, especially basic motifs that distinguishes, say, a traditional woven fabric from the southwestern Hejazi city of Taif from a similar woven item emerging from the nomadic Bedouin of the central Nadj region.
Ali also says that the tools used to make these crafts tend to remain traditional, in his case the potter’s wheel and traditional kiln used to make his clay works. He says the traditional designs depend not only on their function, but also by whom they are made.
“Men tend to make large, heavy designs on water jars,” he said. “Women are making light, colorful designs such on incense censers and plates.”
Janadriya is laid out amid reproductions of towns that exhibit the architecture, crafts and cuisines of different Saudi regions.
The Baha House, as it is called, named after the southwestern city that characterizes that region of the Kingdom, has become a major attraction due to its camaraderie among the different crafts that it celebrates, including regional dance, food, dresses, sword-making, carpentry, and the production of its renown honeys.
Ahmad Salih Al-Syar, general manager of public relation and media in Baha told Arab News that his region is contributing heavily to Janadriya.
“We were the first to participate in Janadriya,” says Al-Syar, “the elderly have provided their knowledge of all different kinds of crafts. We also have a section for dances and songs.”
The Baha House is also filled with shockingly bright and colorful embroidered dresses. (Anyone who had been to Mexico or Central America will notice the similarity in design, motif and cut of these traditional dresses.) Saeed Al-Ghamdi, a merchant participating in the Janadriya festival, said that more and more men are learning to make these dresses, which had traditionally been made by women only.
“Men started participating and competing with women,” he said. “This craft depends on the talent, the skills and the creativity of the designer.”
Who says the drive for gender parity in the Arab world only works in one direction?
The Art of Traditional Food
The Middle East cuisine is distinct for many reasons, such as the use of mint as a cooking spice and lemons like pickles. Indeed, food is as important — or arguably more important — than handicrafts when it comes to culture. Food, in fact, could be considered a handicraft in itself — at least that’s the case with 40-year-old Hussain Mohammad Abu Rasain, a long-time sesame-oil maker from the southern Saudi border city of Jizan, who is a vendor at this year’s Janadriya festival.
Hussain produces fresh sesame oil and through the decades has developed a loyal base of local customers, particularly older Saudis who might remember a time when sesame oil wasn’t pulled from a shelf at Danube Supermarket, but rather bought — or even traded — from local families who operated camel-powered stone seed presses. Like many traditional craftsmen, Hussain is proud of his product. He says sesame oil is cherished for its aroma. He also insists it’s good for the libido. And, of course, he says his is the best, and rattled off his sales pitch: “People use sesame oil for many purposes, like massaging,” he said. “It helps relieve joint and muscular pain. It cures constipation. It’s used in caulk. It’s great for dates and frying fish. Put some in your hair to give it shine and beauty!”
As he says this, groups of people gather around Hussain’s booth at Janadriya and gawk at the bottle in his hand, as if he were displaying the new Apple iPhone, or some other newfangled gadget of this modern world.
But, in fact, Hussain’s product has been made in southwestern Saudi Arabia probably as long as mankind figure out that if you squeeze a lot of sesame seeds hard enough, they produce a tasty oil that can be used for lots of things.
And the tools used to extract this oil are very primitive and brought from the environment itself. Making the press involves using two large tree-trunk sections as well as cross beams that are tied to a pack animal, who then walks in circles compressing the seeds in turnkey fashion between the beams and the sides of the tree trunks. Eventually, enough oil can be extracted and filtered for bottling.
“We are great friends,” Hussain says of his devoted camel. “It will walk in circles as long as I order it to do so.”
Fresh-pressed sesame oil is certainly a dying art-form, and as man like Hussain go the way of the Dodo Bird and are replaced by factory mills and stainless steel containers churning out the exact same kind of sesame oil day-after-day, connoisseurs and food snobs must go to places like upscale gourmet food purveyors, the Janadriya festival, or to places like Hussain’s home in Jizan, to find hand-crafted and distinct traditional food products.
Architecture Is Art
One of the most distinguishing features of any region that one encounters at upon first arrival is the architecture. It’s also one of the most immovable cultural aspects of a place. For this reason, Janadriya has established reproductions of regional architecture at the site of the festival, such as the aforementioned Baha House.
“Our region offers different scenes to its visitors, we have islands, mountains, flat areas, and wells,” said Ali Al-Areesh a resident of the southern Najran region, who goes on to explain the architecture of his region.
Houses at this region are of two kinds, the first is called “Al-Areesh”, a kind of large rectangular, multistory flat-roofed home owned by wealthier families, designed to receive delegations from other towns and villages in the region and offer up that distinct and generous Arab sense of hospitality. The plebeians from southern Saudi Arabia traditionally live in what’s called “Isha” homes, which are conical in shape — like larger, stone versions of Native American teepees. Domestic house design take precedence at Janadriya over community structures, such as more elaborate mosque or market structures. This focus on the utilitarian rather than simply the decorative aspects of regional architecture gives the Janadriya festival a genuine anthological sensibility, as if the desire isn’t to impress as much as to educate fairgoers.
And definitely anyone who tours the different re-produced villages at the Janadriya festival will grasp a true sense of the Kingdom — and they will no longer view Saudis as the caricatures so often used to paint them with one narrow brush.
