Wilfred Thesiger · 1964 · river
Wilfred Thesiger's 1964 book, written after seven years living among the Madan of southern Iraq. He travelled the marshes by canoe from village to village, treating the sick, hunting boar and recording a way of life on reed islands that had persisted for millennia - and that Saddam Hussein would drain out of existence within thirty years.
- 1Basra
Thesiger comes up from Basra into the marshes for what he expects to be a short visit, and stays for seven years - travelling by tarada with a crew of young Madan and no schedule beyond the water and the season.
- 2The Hammar
On the Hammar lake, the great open water of the southern marshes, the villages are built on floating islands of reed and rebuilt each year - and reached only by canoe through channels cut in beds twenty feet high.
- 3The Central Marshes
Deeper in, among the Central Marshes, he doctors, circumcises and treats hundreds of people a year with a basic medicine chest - which is the price and the passport for being allowed to stay.
- 4Amara
North toward Amara the marshes give onto the Tigris and the settled country, and the world of officials and roads resumes - and Thesiger writes the book knowing that what he saw was already ending.