Paganism in Salalah

I am in a state of shock. Indeed I am, even though I know I shouldn't be. I'm a Salalah girl. I know what our culture is all about. I know we still practice some forms of paganism, witchcraft, black magic, etc. However, we do live in the year 2009. Women pray five times a day, wear black from head to toe, drive their BMWs around town, chat on their brand new cell phones, and watch Dr. Phil. We are a modern Islamic country, right? Wrong.

My colleagues at work told me an amazing story today. So, it all started hundreds of years ago when a certain mountain tribe (call them Short Tribe) owned the land around a water spring in the mountains. Their animals drank from that spring for hundreds of years. To this very day, there are guards from Short Tribe guarding the spring (and paid to do it by the government!). It was all nice and dandy up until Wednesday April 22nd, 2009, when the government announced an extra 15 guard positions to guard the spring. These positions were to be given to certain families in Short Tribe. The Shiekh of Short Tribe gathered his men to decide on the distribution of jobs. It was all going fine until someone from Tribe Tall (a new tribe) barged into the meeting claiming his tribe owns part of the land and therefore deserve half the positions. All hell broke loose, and they started arguing. The man left in a fury claiming he'd 'show them' the hard way not to mess with Tribe Tall. Everyone from Short Tribe knew this meant business, so they gathered the older women in the tribe (around 100) and took them to the water spring to perform an ancient pagan ritual to put a curse on Tribe Tall to ensure they never try to mess with Short Tribe again. The men isolated the area to ensure no strangers came through. Meanwhile ,the women proceeded to chant and scream. They slaughtered 10 cows under the water at the spring and then all beat the cows with their bare hands while chanting and screaming. They then proceeded to pull their hair until it stood on end and continued chanting. This went on all afternoon and evening. The curse would be complete by midnight when they would twirl a thick black rope in the air until it stood straight up like a stick. At 11:34 they succeeded and the curse was complete.

Meanwhile, Tribe Tall heard about this and out of fear sent their sheikhs to approach Short Tribe to surrender and announce that they had excommunicated the man who created all this trouble. Thus, the curse was transferred from the entire tribe to one man. Once the curse was complete, everyone went looking for the man to see if the curse had worked. Turns out he disappeared. Everyone is talking about it, and some say he vanished; others say he was eaten by Jinn. Most say he died mysteriously as a result of the curse.

This all happened last night by the way. A colleague at work (from Short Tribe) told me all about it today. In fact, he went to watch, but wasn't allowed near the spring because it seems the sight of the women doing their ritual was too disturbing and indecent.

I wish to remind you all that all this is against Islam and anything to do with magic and curses is considered paganism and therefore a terrible sin. I'd love to know how they're going to justify their actions to the rest of town. Sigh. Life in Salalah Never Lacks Excitement.