Working Animals in Ottoman Egypt

Bikem Gülümser Bilgi University The advantages and limitations of geography effect the ‘development’ or ‘nondevelopment’ of a country, says Braudel.1 How about ecology? Can we replace the term ‘geography’ with ‘ecology’? The works of scholars all over the world on historical geography, historical anthropology and environmental history have produced a sustainable body of knowledge on the transformations of nature and society during the past 6 centuries.2 But we cannot see that kind of examination on environmental issues in the current literature on the history of Ottoman Empire and indeed in the history of Turkey. Until now, we examine the Ottoman Empire with a political, cultural, economic, and demographic point of view and this prevented us to see that natural environment had an essential role in history as a dynamic and a significant factor. Ottoman history writing is human-centered but on the other hand environment or ecology is not independent from the human production and human activity, quite the contrary the former two are always affected from the latter. We have six hundred years of history with ups and down and in order to understand this continuity we can practice upon environmental or ecological history. We should introduce a link between environment and history in order to eliminate the lack of the perspective of ecological history. If that’s so, how can we introduce an ecological history writing for Ottoman Empire? First we may visit original sources like chronicles, hagiographies, travelers’ accounts, court records and archival documents. Second we need more regional studies on environmental issues that can brick the granule for a comprehensive environmental history of the Ottoman Empire. We can determine the issues which environmental history is about, and use them in Ottoman history. I intend to develop this work by looking through relationship between human and the natural in Ottoman Egypt. By focusing on this rare topic I’ll also discuss economic role of domesticated animals in this region and their change of role after the 1 Fernand Braudel, A History Of Civilizations, Londra, 1993, s: 9 Selçuk Dursun, “New Perspectives on Turkey: A call for an environmental history of the Ottoman Empire and Turkey: Reflections on the fourth ESEH conference”, s: 214 2 emergence of human labor. I’ll especially look through domestics (working animals): I intend to investigate these working animals linked with the peasants, merchants, breeders, nomads, war and political violence. I’m interested in this area of not-socommon ecological perspective in Ottoman Egypt history in order to make it clearer and I tend be a guide for further researches. My paper explores the lives of working animals and their relations with human in Egypt. Who are the working animals? What do they experience physically and emotionally? How does the working animal identity in Egypt shaped by the ways in which their human owner value, use and care for them? How are their daily activities and interactions with humans in this particular place? I’ll try to use the concept of performativity3, specifically the posthumanistic feminism. Posthumanistic feminist theory has been instrumental in demonstrating the salience of gender and sexism in structuring human–animal relationships and in revealing the connections between the oppression of women and of nonhuman animals.4 So here performativity highlights the sociospatial process of becoming a particular body (domesticated working animals) in specific place (Egypt). I intend to focus deeply through the animal bodily subject. I centered the working animals in Egypt as subject to illuminate its everyday personification. I hope to enrich understanding of animal lives through posthumanist feminism. Since the mid-1990s, feminist geographers have focused not only on the discursive representation of bodies but also on ‘‘real’’ material bodies occupying ‘‘real’’ spaces and places. 5 This concept will be my reference point. Ottoman historical realities suggest it is useful to assume the empire as an ecosystem: This means that Egyptian history cannot be understood separate from Ottoman History, or vice versa. Thus an ecological approach to empire reveals how the empire’s variegated geographies, overlapping chronologies, and connected histories functioned across space and time, and how small changes in one part of the empire 3 Performativity is a term for the capacity of speech and communication not simply to communicate but rather to act or consummate an action, or to construct and perform an identity. 4 Deckha, Manisha, “Toward a Postcolonial, Posthumanist Feminist Theory: Centralizing Race and Culture in Feminist Work on Nonhuman Animals”, Hypatia, p.423 5 Geiger, Martha and Hovorka, Alice J, “Animal performativity: Exploring the lives of donkeys in Botswana”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, p:1100 affected places, ideas, and people across the imperium and beyond.6 Nature is not mute, immutable, a passive surface awaiting the mark of culture, or an end product of cultural performances.7 Barad offers a posthumanist account of materialization of all bodies and the material-discursive practices by which their differential constitutions are marked.8 Birke extended Barad’s theory in many other ways such as in natural sciences the animals characterized as instincts, while in social sciences their behaviors are socially constructed. Understanding animals consists also accepting communities of practice. Birke and Brandt also cited this term. Concept of animal performativity stands in need to recognize the creative being of animals in social life and their part in human narratives. Moving closer to animals as subjective beings and to let animal speak is my main focus. The discussion about the animals is a really important topic that could certainly helps us to understand the role of animals in the society. Their historical importance has so many impact to the way people move, the way they eat. We miss a huge part of history without understanding their community. The environmental transformation of the Ottoman Empire has started after the 16th century. In fact this period outlines the future of the Ottoman Empire where solid changes in public policy and governance techniques were made. These changes shaped the way the society and the environment interact. The law and the rules of the empire were reshaped and accepted and the empire's economy. And financial policies' were reformed. Historians of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire have focused on the period from 1770 to 1830 to understand and explain the many significant social, economic and political changes that characterized these decades. It was at the end of the 18th century that the massive accumulation of land by a small group of rural leaders began to transform Egypt and other parts of the Ottoman Empire.9 Following this transformation process the most centralized government constructed in Cairo and the population of Egypt’s in Cairo and Alexandra immediately increased between 1770 and 1830. This quick 6 Mikhail, Alan, “Introduction: Cephalopods in the Nile”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, Oxford University Press, 2014, p.9-10 7 Barad K, Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28(3): 801–831. 8 Geiger and Hovorka, “Animal performativity: Exploring the lives of donkeys in Botswana”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, p:1100 9 Mikhail, “Introduction: Cephalopods in the Nile”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.5 and essential transformation needs to be investigated in different terms, which are never been used. Here I want to examine Ottoman rule in Egypt between 1517 and 1882 and try to how that animals were integral to the functioning and transformation of the Ottoman world in the long run. Egypt is the perfect case study for such a history. I think the diverse relationships between humans and animals were central to Egypt’s transformation to a centralized state. My analysis of what animals did in Ottoman Egypt won’t be a study about what they represented or symbolized, what I wish is to make an understanding of animals’ subjective experiences of the past. The human-natural relationship in Egypt draws apart from symbols; creates a social, economic, political and thus ecological power I’ll tend to explain one of the most important historical transformations of the last five decades by focusing on the environment of Ottoman Egypt. Let’s take a look at the conventional history of Ottoman Egypt: Egypt holds a very crucial place for Ottoman Empire from the first half of the sixteenth century until it’s incorporation by British forces in 1882. Egypt was the most lucrative province of the empire and its largest single supplier of foodstuffs.10 Egypt was essential to Ottoman rule in the Mediterranean, Hijaz, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. After it’s conquest by Ottoman armies in 1517, Egypt immediately became the most important province of the empire. It generated more revenue for the state than any other province, and its capital was the second largest city in the Empire after İstanbul. It was gateway to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and to North and sub-Saharan Africa and it was a crucial hub for the management of the pilgrimage sites of Mecca and Medina. The basis for Egypt’s wealth, population and power was its land and water. But it’s necessary to say that Egypt’s environmental history is no only about the Nile and the floods. It contains actors, especially animals which has essential factors on environment of the lands. Becoming a working animal in Egypt meant being part of the community. Domesticated working animals and humans share roads, homesteads, fields, food and fields. 10 Mikhail, Nature and empire in Ottoman Egypt: an environmental history, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, p.82-123 Ozan Zeybek mentions two arguments about environment; firstly the environment is not a determinant only for human beings but also for animals and objects. Secondly, looking through the borders of an environment could be extremely important analyze environmental relations.11 I’ll try to see Egypt in this perspective: not only looking to the center but also peripheries. In rural Egypt during the absence of steam engines, trucks, or other mechanized forms of technology, animals served as heavy-lifters, stores of energy, and long distance transporters. They were the primary modes of labor in Egyptian countryside. They moved water from the canals and streams to fields; plowed the soil; and transported grains, foodstuffs, information, and people from villages to towns and markets.12 Structures were also designed according to size or weight of these working animals: roads, doorways, gates... Waterwheels were schemed and constructed to fit these large animals’ bodies. Thus volumes of food shipments were limited by the amount animals could carry on their backs.13 The economy of Egypt was overruled with stockbreeding and agriculture. Also it is essential to state that in the countryside the division of labor was fairly clear-cut.14 When oxen and buffaloes supplied the power needed for irrigation by turning the water wheels, camels were much more useful in transportation. As the jobs assigned to oxen and buffaloes on the one hand, and the camels on the other were so different, the two species also labored at different times of the year.15 In Ottoman Empire individuals didn’t own land as property; because of that peasants - who were very vast majority in rural Egypt - owned large amount of animals. These animals represented some of the most sizeable forms of agricultural capital.16 In these lands animals and 11 İki temel iddiam var: 1) Mekan, sadece insanlar için değil, daha pek çok nesne ve hayvan için de bir hayli belirleyicidir; 2) Bir mekanın kıyılarına, yani diğeriyle olan ilişkisine bakmak (örneğin İstanbul’daki bazı köpeklerin görece denetimsiz çeperlerde birikmesine bakmak), mekana has ilişkileri analiz edebilmek için son derece önemlidir. Zeybek, Sezai Ozan, “İstanbul’un Yuttukları ve Kustukları: Köpekler ve Nesneler Üzerinden İstanbul Tahlili”, Bartu Candan, Ayfer ve Özbay, Cenk, Yeni İstanbul Çalışmaları: Sınırlar, Mücadeleler, Açılımlar, Kasım 2014, p.265 12 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.20 13 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.20 14 Once the waters of the Nile had receded after the summer flood, peasants begun to plough: normally they employed a pair of oxen for this job, but in the Delta buffaloes often drew the ploughs, while in Upper Egypt with its lighter soils, donkeys were in use. After sowing the seed was buried in the soil with the help of a heavy slab of wood, sometimes pulled by oxen, and sometimes by five or six men. Tuchscherer, Michel, “Some Reflections on the Place of the Camel in the Economy and Society of Ottoman Egypt” Animals and People in the Ottoman Empire, edited by Faroqhi, Suraiya, Istanbul: Eren, 2010, p.174 15 Tuchscherer, ed., p.177 16 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.21 humans lived in close proximity and collectively and collaboratively engaged in productive labor. The owners of these domesticated working animals could buy shares in animals, also could sell and still hold the ownership rights. Thus the largest expense that the villagers made reported was renting buffalo cows to do the heavy labor. Tribesman also rented out camels to both individuals and collectivities. This rental process for camels is kind of interesting: the tribesman rents his camels to a merchant and demands a price according to his own convenience, without having to deal with his sheik or anyone else. These agreements allowed the authorities to exercise a strong influence over the nomads and keep them under control.17 In the economic hierarchy of animals in the Egyptian countryside, donkeys, cows, and camels came beneath she-camels (naqas) and buffalo cows.18 These buffalo cows were at the top of the economic hierarchy of domesticated work animals. The enormous buffalo cows were the most used and most valuable ones in Egyptian countryside. Cows hadn’t got a potential of pulling heavy weight but their value came from its milk. Cows were much more expensive than male camels and donkeys. As I said above camels main role was in transportation rather than pulling heavy water wheels; and it was occupying a special place not only in the desert and the countryside, but also in the cities.19 The main camel breeders were Arabs (nomads and semi-nomads living on the margins of the desert), peasants used them for agricultural work and merchants used them as they organized caravans. Camel also hadn’t got any competitor in the long distance caravan travels as often it can survive in the extreme conditions on the routes initially from Egypt to the Maghreb, subSaharan Africa, Arabia and Syria. Looking through different estate inventories gives us a huge insight about the cost of the animals. Both cows and buffalo cows are much valuable than household items.20 17 Tuchscherer, ed., p.184 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.24 19 In the pre-modern period, animals were omnipresent not only in the countryside but also in the towns; and as foreign travelers often had occasion to remark, this was particularly true of Cairo. Thus in 1581, Jean Palerne commented “that there are certainly thirty thousand camels in Cairo, and just as many donkeys. These serve the same purpose as the gondolas of Venice, the boats of Constantinople, or the coaches of Rome.”Jean Palerne quoted by Tuchscherer, ed., p.177 20 The combined value of a cow and a young calf owned by one was valued at only 90 nisf fidda, a red shawl cost 20 nisf fidda, and a za’abut (a common woolen peasant garment) was priced at 60 nisf fidda. Another estate from 1749 consisted of a 20-percent share in a donkey, which was priced much higher than either the deceased’s set of wooden spoons or his large number of eggs. al-Jabarti quoted by Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.27 18 To sum up we can say that animals were valuable because they supplied the energy humans needed to undertake their daily labor and production needs. They were categorized by their capacity and their varying sizes. An interesting point is that no sort of divide between the human and the nonhuman informed the legal treatment of the owned slaves. In other words, concubines, slaves, physical objects, and animals alike were all entered into the realm of the commodity to be evaluated, price, bought, and sold.21 Actually slaves are described with an animalized vocabulary. This shows us that in that period of time economic and social utility represents everything. Killing meat for animals was a rare thing in rural Egyptian countryside. Eating meat was a luxury that a few can afford. So it’d be right to say that these animals weren’t bred for their meat. Camel meat was thus the food of the poor who “anyway were accustomed to eat very little meat”.22 Human consumed meat only under certain circumstances as they avoid wasting protein; thus the few butchers had only poor costumers. Animals’ useful labor was the central reason that they were preferred by Egyptian farmers and the Ottoman administration in Egypt. Cattles employed for threshing grain, running mills, and turning waterwheels.23 Thus for the irrigation process, animals were used for digging and dredging canals and reinforcing canal embankments. The muscle power of domesticated working animals was the mains source of energy for the irrigation process. Ottoman Empire relied largely on the labor of millions of rural humans and animals. Animals were connected with the empire’s social, economic, cultural, and architectural structures through their high value as laborers, as sources of food and drink, and as supplies of energy for transport and even heat in homes during winter.24 But the utility wasn’t the only reason that they were count: their cries, smells and movements made themselves felt at every turn.25 21 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.27 Edmé François Jomard quoted by Tuchscherer, ed., p.173 23 The exceptionally rich Bedouin shaykh and amir Humam ibn Yusuf ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Humam ibn Şubayh ibn Sibih al-Hawwari of Upper Egypt had over twelve thousand head of cattle to work in the cultivation of sugarcane on his estate… His estate also included many water buffalo and dairy cows. al-Jabarti quoted by Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.30 24 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.27 25 Tuchscherer, ed., p.185 22 At the end of the eighteenth century Egypt has faced with a series of climatic and disease incidents that declined both human and animal populations. Increasing political efforts by local Egyptian elites to disconnect from the Ottoman bureaucracy of İstanbul had also impacts of transformation in Egypt. The death of so many animals forced a change of wealth in the countryside, the most important of which was land.26 In order to make their land fruitful, new landlords required effective labor to overcome the laboring decline that has been emerged. The solution of this deficit solved by the corvée of the Egyptian peasantry. One by one human force replaced the animal force and eventually the machinery power represents a fundamental regime in energy in Ottoman Egypt. The animals played in the economic and energetic transformations made possible the change from a mainly agrarian subsistence economy to a market-driven commercial economy at the beginning of the 19th century. The death, disease, drought was the opportunity that landowners waited, these natural incidents made possible an irrevocable phase transition in the humananimal relationship. In Mikhail’s terms, large landholders bypassed most forms of animal power for either human or, later, machine labor. The enormous reduction of animals led to changes in all parts of rural life. This transition from animal to human and lastly to machinery power could also be viewed as development, but here that’s not the idea that I defend. The modern state, Max Weber famously said, “The fate of our times is characterized by rationalization and intellectualization and, above all, by the disenchantment of the world.” He sees a problem in this modernity brought strict, rigid rules by bringing up also bureaucracy. We’ve been told that the modernity is the best way; but what about rationality? “Modernity” led environmental degradation, policing, sexism, mass violence and discriminatory practices. The modernity didn’t replace the exploitation of the mass but encouraged it. The modern society of Egypt and others by building infrastructure showed us its detrimental effects. Animals run the Egypt economy in rural times as ungulate proletariats but at the end they’ve replaced with humans, this is the modern system that goes on through the purpose of capitalism. The modernity in Egypt or elsewhere doesn’t care about actors. It gave a lack of importance towards the animals and we accepted this as disregarding that 26 Mikhail, “Early Modern Human and Animal”, The Animal in Ottoman Egypt, p.38 those animals were a major part of the history. But the same will happen soon to human and that way we will begin to understand what had happened to animals. As coming to result I should say that history is not limited with the human area. By writing an animal history we can sure refer to peasants, workers, slaves and minorities but a point of view emerged from humans eyes and conventional writing of animal history (food production etc.) is not what I want to reach out. Both history writing on human and animal involves the evaluation of source material and has similar exercises of imagination, so why the history writing on human is more diversified? Thus by developing technology based agricultural in order to replace the animal power caused a huge impact on pollution. This “development” caused an unnecessary amount of energy usage. The way people understand the term “technology” has always a positive connotation, while the technology destroys the silenced the patient nature.