Many Bedouin families, lineages, and tribes are named after mammals.

What is it about?

This study is much more comprehensive than previous research, which has focused on only a small number of the mammalian names (ex. Asad, “lion” and Thaʿlab, “fox”) given to Bedouin tribes and kinship groups. By covering the entire range of terms for mammals (ex. Zughbah, “dormouse”; Sabʿ, “predatory animal”) it shows that such mammalian names are more common than previously thought. By providing the scientific taxonomy for each species referenced (ex. a “dormouse” is classified as GLIRIDAE), it enables the reader to determine exactly what each name means.

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Photo by Rohit Varma on Unsplash

Photo by Rohit Varma on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The list is part of an effort to explain why humans name themselves after animals. In the nineteenth century the dominant explanation was "totemism," that is, the theory that "primitive" people thought that they were literally descended from animals and, consequently, took their names. There was never any empirical evidence of this for the Arab case. As for applying the theory to "primitive" people, this classification -- that is, the division of the human species into "primitive" and "advanced" -- is now understood as a mistake. Hence, the theory of "totemism" has generally been discarded. Yet the question it addressed is still important. Anthropologists and philosophers still seek to understand how human beings appropriate features of the natural world to create cultural and social categories and apply these categories to people.

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