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The Aufis of Wadi Bani Auf
Written and photographed by Pinaki Chakravarty

Wadi Bani Auf was quietly flooding. As the 44-degree day dissolved into 34-degree twilight, rain pitter-pattered over unending layers of slate mountains and soggy fortifications. It fell on the three Hatali families digging in the soft earth on their farm at Ruma, on the Aufi grandfathers and grandsons who kept bees in Gafar and the century-old Said Abdullah al Aufi of Farah, who could barely see or hear, but felt the water instead. It turned the air in Bir muggy, so that the circle of elders sitting on the plastic carpet over wadi rock were soaked as they ate melons, while dates dried inside rooms and wasps took shelter.

The Aufis never had it this good. Tracing their lineage back to the holiest of cities, dabbling on the fringes of royalty, settling down in faraway colonies, the history of this tribe is one of migration and success. You will find all of that colour between the rock that holds Wadi Bani Auf together, the wadi that was named after the tribe.

There are few places you can cross the Western Hajar mountains by car, and for many years the most glorious way was up from Al Hamra, all the way to Sharaf al Alamayn (wrongly signposted as Birkat Sharaf) and down past Haat and Balad Seet into Wadi Bani Auf. Most tourists know this as an adventure-sport journey, either for the crossing itself or, more commonly, for the pools of water you jump through in a one-way route down the narrowest of offshoot gorges. But after a bone-jarring ride over wadi stones turned over with every rain and kicked up with every pickup, and a day spent in the water, they will never know how the wadi comes alive through the stories of its people.
For this, you have to turn your back to the rock and water, and explore the wadi floor. It is here that you will find the tribes, the beekeepers and farmers. This is the real story: how the wadi lives now.

50 bottles in Wadi Gafar
Said Khalfan bin Salim al Aufi licks a bit of honey off his dishdasha. Outside, under the sun, between the tonnes of rock, through the wadi dust kicked up, there is not the wildest hint of anything that will prepare you for the shock of honey in the deepest recesses of an ancient tributary.

The most treasured attraction of Wadi Bani Auf is actually just outside it, when you take the turnoff towards Wadi Sahtan midway that will eventually lead you to Rustaq. Here, three brothers continue an ancient tradition handed down through more generations than you can count. Said, now close to 60, started working his bees when he was just 13, and now teaches it to his grandsons, the eldest now just about a teenager.

Hamed Khalfan Nasser al Aufi, 13, is at it outside, killing a species of bee, more reddish in colour, that attacks those that the Aufis nurture for their honey. Hamed is whacking at the reds with a slice of date palm frond, keeping busy during a break from school. Will he go away to pursue other careers once he finishes his education, an opportunity not available to those before him? “Whatever the circumstances,” says his grandfather, “even if the children become doctors – this place will remain. The tradition will not be lost, our children will come back to it.”

It might not be as limiting as it sounds. In the old days when only a donkey could get through, they would take the honey to markets in Rustaq and Al Awabi and auction it there. Now, buyers hammer their 4WDs through the wadis to them, and a bottle of Vimto filled with honey could cost you up to RO40. Each season might yield 50 bottles.
Outside the bee enclosures, a mostly empty can of tuna is bait for the red bees, and the rocks around are splashed over with glue that traps them. Nearby, a tap drips constantly over a wall now covered with moss, and the bees fly around lazily, quenching their thirst. The housing itself consists of hollow date palm trunks that shelter the bees – and their hives. The ends are plugged with a mixture of ash and stone, with a little opening for the bees. The insects are smoked out when the hives are collected for the honey they hold.

There are two seasons for the honey, and the time to harvest the hive is tied into the life cycle of the bee, in turn tied to the flowering of two species of tree, sammar and sidr. So when you ask for honey, you will ask for either asil sidr or asil sammar – but your choice will probably be made for you, for you will get the sammar variety in May and sidr in October. Sidr is considered sweetest, but both usually cost the same, at least from the Aufis.

“When we have a drought and there isn’t any water,” explains Said, “the trees don’t flower. This might make some people feed the bees artificially, but this will never yield the quality of honey that we produce here, naturally.”

Honey and Hatalis of Bir
Suleiman bin Saif bin Darwish bin Mohammed al Hatali might sound like a paragraph and look like a legend, but he is real. He stands perhaps six feet tall, broad shouldered, barrel chested, shaven headed and bearded, with a knife where a belt buckle could have been. Straight out of the 1,001 Nights, he looks like he could skin a goat – or a man – with a flick of his dagger. But he lowers it instead, dipping it into the bowl offered to us on the cold concrete floor, plunging it through the thick sweetness of honey and beeswax. Forget jars, USFDA ratings and spoons. You have to scoop a piece of beehive off the tip of the knife, and squish it in your mouth till you get as much honey and as little wax down your throat as possible. It’s always a bit of a compromise. When Suleiman first offered a piece to me I thought I had to chew it, so I downed everything – honey and wax honeycomb – only to see everyone else spit their pulpy remnants out.

Suleiman is the son of Saif bin Darwish bin Mohammed al Hatali, an old man who lowered himself to the edge of the mat spread out for us in Bir, in a nook of a little tributary wadi that unravels itself between Wadi Bani Auf and Wadi Bani Kharus, far away from the traffic that grinds over their rocky beds. We would eat melons over that carpet, between dates and coffee, surrounded by farmers of chilli, radish, watermelon, sweet melon and something they called gilgilan. Saif is brother to the sheikh, Said bin Darwish al Hatali, an old man with a grand beard and kind eyes.

Bir was soaked in the kind of humidity that comes when you think it’s about to rain but doesn’t – there’s just that much water in the air. Your glasses go foggy, and everything gets a shade darker. We all sat soaked on the carpet, and Suleiman dangled a bead of perspiration from a large, aquiline nose. Every tree that grew around the 24 houses and government-built well was a sidr, host to the bees that make the best honey. “They should be parched,” Suleiman said, “but they’ve turned green with the rains.” Indeed, Bir looked like an enchanted village from never-never land, all lush green vegetation and soaked rock under grey skies.

It wasn’t always so serene. All you have to do is look up at the ancient watchtowers, perched high on the cliffs along Wadi Bani Auf. They tell of tribal warfare, little, ever-present feuds rather than epic battles. This was for the sure survival of the tribe, for the little that mattered in the little sliver of flat ground that snakes between canyons: goats, agriculture and water. Such enmity was typically present between the Aufis and the Hatalis, but you wouldn’t guess it if you sat down today over sweet melons. “We are all brothers now,” insists a Mohammed of the al Aufis. “We have no quarrels. We eat together, even inter-marry. There is peace here now.”

Being the sheikh
Inheriting the title handed down from generation to generation, Bashir Hamid Salim Muhsin al Aufi has been sheikh of Wadi Bani Auf since 1968, responsible for all its residents. With it comes the obligation to keep his doors open to any among its people who need a voice for their cause, or a just hand to resolve a dispute. When a conflict arises, the sheikh will visit the area and people concerned and investigate into the matter. To help him he has a circle of advisors and assistants, and is chairman of a committee that aids him with matters that come up.

There was a lot to work for in the old days, and the sheikh can proudly look back at achievements such as getting electricity through the wadi. While GSM coverage, transport and educational facilities have transformed life through Bani Auf, the one glaring hollow left is the absence of a road. What you have is a freeway of rock and pebbles that gets worse after every rain, before being crushed into submission by the next wave of 4WDs. This issue is foremost on the agenda, says the sheikh, who hopes that “the road is finished as soon as possible.”

The 73-year-old sheikh tours the wadi every four days, and will eventually be succeeded by his son Ibrahim. Does he foresee as many problems for his son as he has seen since 1968? “There will be problems, of course, as there have always been between people, but he will follow the way. My son has been taught, and will follow my footsteps. I have told him that when you become corrupt, the whole system becomes so.” Asked what he foresees, next-in-line Ibrahim al Aufi says “the work will be the same.”

Farming with the Hatalis of Ruma
Far away from the large-scale enterprises and hired labour that characterises modern agriculture in Oman, three families of Hatalis are busy on their collective farm deep in the wadi, outside Ruma. Stray drops of rain hit the freshly dug soil, and we take cover between a bank of vines and the walls of their well. Just above, as the rock walls begin to climb behind the fields, are the remnants of ancient houses, pointing to the settlement’s history.

Plantations are common through the nooks and crannies of Wadi Bani Auf, fed by an extensive falaj network that channels water from the mountains above and wells below. Ages ago, this area is believed to have been home to a lot more water than is now present, so much so that it sported forests – and its residents cultivated grapes, eating the fruit and perhaps even fermenting them.

100 years in Al Farah
Musabba Said Abdullah al Aufi might look like any other Aufi, clambering down the steps of his house to spread a carpet on the pebbles of the wadi for us. What you would never guess is that he used to jump out of planes a few years ago, a paratrooper for the Omani military.

His taxi, which he drives around Rustaq and Awabi, stands parked kilometres away, where the wadi meets the main road. It’s a saloon car that cannot make it through the wadi, though Musabba is ready to guide anyone, or organise a 4WD for a tour of the innards of Bani Auf. He knows the wadi like the back of his hand, but his biggest handicap is his limited English. If you can get around this, or have someone translate between, he’s the best man for you.

Barely a few minutes after sitting down under his house, in the deserted curve of the wadi, we are surrounded by his family. There are more little children milling around that we can keep track of, but the best part is when his allegedly century-old father joins us. He can barely see through his thick glasses, and his hearing isn’t much better, so he sits in silence, half-seeing in the twilight, as the last drops of rain seep through the pebbles and away into the night.