The Flower Men
In the southwest corner of the remote Asir region of Arabia, near Saudi’s border with Yemen, the tribesmen and women of Rijal Almaa have farmed, prayed, traded and fought for generations. Geography has been kind to Rijal Almaa. The village lies in a deep valley next to one of Arabia’s highest mountains, al Souda, a 3000-metre jagged peak, twice the height of Ben Nevis. Up here the climate is cool and forgiving, especially in summer when the rest of the region is intolerable. Lying on the journey from the ports of Southern Yemen heading north towards Makkah and beyond, the town became an important trading post on the incense route.
Today much of the trade has moved to Abha, a modern city over the mountain. What remains are farms, villas, terraces and forts that from a distance could be Tuscany – green beneath the rain and sunshine. Here the warrior Flower Men of Asir practise ancient rituals of elaborate head decoration, adorning themselves with rare herbs and colourful flowers.
It’s the fittest who survive. Access to food, protein and water may depend on securing an advantageous spot in the mountains and valley passes. One battle can secure defensible access to high ground. A single innovation can open up an abundance of trapped meat. Running a market is the gift that keeps on giving (ask the founders of eBay or Amazon.) Reputation counts for a lot if you’re a mountain tribe vying for scarce resources. If you’re number one they don’t mess with you, you’re left alone. Prowess on the battlefield, courage, a willingness to face down the enemy. The Ottomans learned this in 1822 when the tribes overthrew the Ottoman Sherif and established Asiri independence.
To this day the Flower Men are revered and feared. Saudi’s been a closed country for a generation, with few visitors and no international tourists to speak of. In 2015 a report in an English newspaper claimed ‘so dangerous
are some of the tribes, the Saudi Arabian police refuse to enter some of the villages.’ The UK Foreign Office advised against any non-essential travel. Yemen lies only a few miles to the South and Iran-backed Houthi fighters had launched attacks on the airport, bombing the arrivals hall a fortnight before our trip. Our guides and hosts were phlegmatic: we’d be fine.
The term ‘folk tradition’ does no justice to the Flower Men. These are not Morris Men or sea shanty singers, quaint and folksy entertainment for a Sunday afternoon. They mean business: ‘We wear the silver dagger, the jambiya, because it looks good, to protect from our enemies, and from wild animals,’ Hassan Ayed, leader of the Flower Men, told me when we finally reached Rijal Almaa.
Hassan is seventy. He’s spent most of his life living as a Flower Man, dressing in the distinctive local robes and wearing garlanded headdress made from orange marigolds, and the local pungent herbs that thrive in the cold wet mountains: shthab, berk, and sheeh. The designs and selection of plant-life are determined by whatever happens to be in season. During the warm, wet August we noticed an abundance of deep reds, oranges and greens. As the seasons pass these give way to purples, blues and new fragrances just like any English country garden.
It’s not easy to pin down the roots of the flower wearing. ‘These customs are inherited from our great grandfathers, those that have gone before,’ said Hassan. ‘We wear the flowers on special occasions, they have a good smell, a special perfume.’ As we chatted a boy, maybe ten-years-old, garlanded like the elder men, listened in. A young apprentice learning the ways of the tribe – the dress, the culture, the tribe’s codes. The passing on of the ‘old ways’, keeping an identity alive can defy easy explanation and may not stand up to any sort of anthropologist’s rhyme or reason.
Change is sweeping modern Saudi Arabia, not least for women. In the past twelve months the ban on women driving has been lifted and the guardianship laws which required women to seek husbands’ permission
to travel have been repealed. Women’s status in Arabia remains complex, as we witnessed when I was upbraided by a serious and neatly shaven young man for standing too close to a woman on the packed airport transfer bus. ‘Yes women are also Flower Men. You could call them Flower Women. They belong to the same tribe, the Almaa tribe, and have the same customs,’ explained our guide who then pointed out that different garlands indicated whether a woman was ‘available’ for marriage or not. In the main square of the village Fatima Abdu Asiri was weaving garlands, several different styles and designs. ‘In the past this was special for the men, now women are making the garlands too. I started making them about 2 years ago, now I can make one in about 10 minutes.’ Fatima explained that the best foliage grows in the nice rainy cool weather.
Mohammed, a businessman from Riyadh, was visiting with his wife. They had recently returned from Shakespeare’s birthplace in Stratford upon Avon. ‘For this new generation things are changing. I want people who are interested in our culture to preserve it and show the new generation how people were living before.’ There’s now a push to put Rijal Almaa on the tourist trail. There are rumours that Saudi will soon open up to tourists in a big way, a dramatic turn for a country that hitherto has provided no meaningful opportunities for cultural tourism. Even so the village is said to receive over 15,000 domestic tourists each year. At the centre of the village one of the old houses has been turned into a museum. Our guide Ibrahim Fathy shows us the makeshift prison, and the selection of Ottoman weapons, seized and traded by the tribe.
The village is dramatic in the rain and sunshine – tall stone buildings face south and west, the best aspect for light and breeze. Balconies double up as outside loos and inside the colours and geometric shapes of the traditional Qut wall painting. Qut is a women-only tradition consisting of geometric patterns as wall painting in interiors of houses found in the Asir region.
It is Eid al Adha, the ‘Festival of the Sacrifice’, the second of two main Islamic holidays celebrated worldwide and considered the holier of the two. It honours the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son as an act of
obedience to God. Muslims get together to pray while enjoying feasts and wearing their smartest clothes. As an act of friendship and devotion they slaughter a sheep and distribute its meat in three parts: to family, friends, and the poor. Our friends take us to the ‘Green Mountain Restaurant’. First stop is the butcher, a large room with a sheep suspended from the ceiling. We choose cuts depending on our appetite and the man with the knife gets to work, passing shoulder and leg joints to the kitchen. It’s an hour and a half wait but soon a huge tray appears laden with rice, lamb, onions, and chilis, bowls of unctuous gravy on the side. We sit on the floor, scooping the feast with our fingers, juice dripping everywhere. Outside Tide washing powder is on hand to wash away the grease. Ordinary soap doesn’t cut it.
As we prepare to leave, a return journey that will take three flights and multiple cities, a mountain storm delays our transport and we are stranded in Rijal Almaa. With few options we are offered a lift by Mohammed, a larger than life, bearded Flower Man. His truck reeks of goat dung and blood and as he weaves through the tight steep turns crossing the mountain he sends text messages, sings and steers with his knees. He stops to pray while we guard the vehicle. Then we buy bags of apricots.
Change is a fact of life. Only by embracing change and adapting can we survive and progress, and Saudi’s trajectory is as rapid as it gets. Hundreds of years of established practices are being dragged into the light and reassessed. As the region transforms and aligns with the rest of the world the old ways are coming back into sharp relief. There will be traditions to keep alive, unbroken links with a past that has made every one of us what we are today.