Recently, I wrote here about the little-known group of horses from the Hadban strain tracing to the desert-bred mare *Hadba, imported by Homer Davenport from Arabia in 1906. The hujjah (Arabic authentication certificate) of that mare is available, and I did a new translation of it, which appeared in the reference book Al Khamsa Arabians III (2008). I am reproducing an updated, revised version of this translation here: We, who put our names and seals below, based on our honor, say that the bay mare whose has a stocking on her left hind leg and a star on her face, that her dam is a Hadbah to be mated and her sire is Shuwayman Sabbah, and the sire of her filly is Ma’naqi Sbayli; Abd al-Sakam Azraq took this mare from Hajj Ismail the Shaykh of Sfireh, and Hajj Ismail took her from ‘Ajil ibn Zaydan the Shaykh of Shammar, and for the sake of clarity, we have put our names and seals [below]. Written by: Abdessalam Azraq [seal] From the people of [the town of] Sfireh: Muhammad Nur [or Nadar or Thawr, unclear] [finger print] Ahmad al-Muhammad [seal] Mustapha al-Bdeiwi [seal] Hajj Ahmad al-Abdallah from the tribe of al-Fardun [seal] Ahmad Sarraj [seal] I swear by God…
Yesterday, Lisa from the UK asked about the meaning of the word “Kuhaylan” and its feminine “Kuhaylah”, as applied to Arabian horses; I won’t tell you anything that most of you don’t know already, I only want to give a sense of its etymology. If you want to understand the meaning of a concept in Arabic, you need to keep a couple things in mind: first, that the Arabic language was developed and enriched by poets — famously, at such venues as the Arabian market of Okaz, which by the way has recently been revived; indeed, the oldest evidence of Arabic language ever comes from an inscription found in 1979 at Ein Avdat in the Negev desert. The inscription dates from the 1st century of our era (0-100 AD) and consists of six lines, two of which are in Arabic, and they are in verse. So, in a nutshell, not only is poetry a central feature of Arab culture in general, and Bedouin culture in particular, but it is also central to its genesis, too. Second, Bedouins are born poets, and like most poets and people who enjoy poetry, they make heavy use of metaphors to express themselves. Here’s Wikipedia (sorry) on the meaning of the word ‘metaphor’: Metaphor…
Nine, ten, eleven, …many. Let’s throw counting to the winds, shall we? (Bonus Red Dwarf humor included, because that’s the way my mind works.) The mares say: This is mine:1 And this is mine:2 This is mine too:3 In fact, all this here is mine:4 Except that. But he can nurse anyway.5 Key Capucine and 2005 filly ADA Intuition, photo by JC Dill. Petit Point CF and 2004 colt ADA Point Reyes, Diaz photo. Fay and 1950 colt Tirf-Aynad by Hanad. Larry Kenney photo via Arabian Horse News via Datasource. Fay is not a straight Davenport, but is heavily Davenport-bred—a hasty calculation puts her at 71% Davenport, with close lines to Domow (*Astraled? x *Wadduda) through three separate offspring. I was struck by her resemblance to both *Wadduda and the modern En Pointe CF. Bint Meringue playing pied piper to four of the five 2009 foals at New Albion. Somewhere in the scrum are her Lirac HD (by Shiraz CF), ADA Selene (Ascendant x Petit Point CF), Poeticus HD (Latitude HD x Brandy Sioux Jeannate), and Celestia (Cantador x Laikah, non-asil). Yes, she let them all nurse. Photo by Kat Walden. From left to right, Amador HD (Shiraz CF x…