Introduction
 

One of the primary difficulties in trying to reconstruct the intended meanings of the writers of biblical texts, and how these were understood by their ancient audiences, is our inability to observe directly their socially shared experiences, and how these were expressed in their beliefs. My aim in this paper is to suggest some possible scenarios for understanding the social location of marginal social groups in ancient Israel, with a particular emphasis on how "otherness" and "difference" are represented spatially. I will be drawing in particular on the ideas of geographer Edward Soja (1996) and French "metaphilosopher" Henri Lefebvre, whose ideas have heavily influenced Soja. I am particularly interested in what Soja has to say about marginality, boundaries, and "otherness" or "difference."⁽¹⁾

Soja's work is particularly interesting because he encourages us to look at space and constructs of spatiality in radically new ways. In doing this, he is not pressing us to give up our old and familiar ways of thinking about space and spatiality, but rather suggesting that we question them in new ways that are aimed at opening up and expanding the scope and critical sensibility of our already established spatial or geographical imaginations (1996: 1). As intrinsically spatial beings, and active participants in the construction of our own spatialities, Soja argues, we need to begin thinking about the spatiality of human life in much the same way that we approach life's historicality and sociality, and to become more aware of the social consequences of our constructions. In his work Soja emphasizes the interdependence and interwoven complexity of the social, the historical, and the spatial as all-embracing dimensions of human life (1996: 1, 2-3; 10). In the past, he argues, spatiality has tended to be relegated to the background by historians and social scientists who have treated it as a "reflection," a "container," a "stage," an "environment."(1996: 71). But sociality, he emphasizes, routinely produces spatiality, and vice versa, and historicality and spatiality intertwine in a similarly routine type of interrelatedness (1996: 72). There is, in fact, no unspatialized social reality. All social relations become real and concrete, a part of our lived social existence, only when they are spatially "inscribed"--that is, concretely represented in the social production of social space (1996: 46).

Soja's ideas are also appealing to me because of the openness and flexibility encouraged by the interpretive strategies he recommends. He urges us, for example, to remain open-minded in such debates as those between modernists and postmodernists, and to set aside demands that we always make either/or choices, leaving open the possibility of what he calls a "both/and also" type of logic, one that encourages a creative and flexible combination of postmodernist and modernist perspectives. He invites us to

enter a space of extraordinary openness, a place of critical exchange where the geographical imagination can be expanded to encompass a multiplicity of perspectives that have heretofore been considered by the epistemological referees to be incompatible, uncombinable. It is a space where issues of race, class, and gender can be addressed simultaneously without privileging one over the other; where one can be a Marxist and post-Marxist, materialist and idealist, structuralist and humanist, disciplined and transdisciplinary at the same time (1996: 5).

Soja has described his and others' explorations of space and spatiality as "journeys" to what he calls "the real-and-imagined" (1996: 11). I would like to begin, therefore, by telling you something of the journey that has brought me to Edward Soja and his explorations. The goal of my particular "journey" to the "real-and-imagined" has been to elucidate the roles and statuses of marginal social groups in ancient Israel, particularly the Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites. Representations of space have come up over and over along the way, and after reading some of Jim Flanagan's recent work on spatiality (e.g., 1999), I began to think more about the significance of these representations. So now I am taking a side trip in my journey, to look specifically at social marginality and its relationship to spatiality, the spatial representations of these particular groups in the biblical texts, and how these groups might have related to and constructed space in their lived worlds.

My interest in social marginality was originally aroused when I was working on a project on the symbolism associated with iron technology in the Hebrew Bible (McNutt, 1990). Along the way, I took a detour into the ethnographic literature on African and Middle Eastern societies, and became intrigued by the descriptions of the roles and statuses of smiths and artisans in these societies. This led me onto the path of trying to make sense of the social roles and statuses of the Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites (see McNutt, 1990; 1991; 1994; 1999b: see also, e.g., Herbert, 1993; Conrad and Frank, 1995), who, I believe, were associated in some way with artisans and/or metalsmiths (see, e.g., Albright, 1957: 257; 1963; Frick, 1971; Halpern, 1992). Artisans and metalsmiths in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies tend to form marginal groups that are regarded with ambivalence by the dominant social groups with which they are associated, as seems to be the case, I argue, in the biblical portrayals of the Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites. I will return to this journey later on, but first I want to summarize some of Soja's views on space.

Edward Soja and Henri Lefebvre

With a strategy that he calls "thirding-as Othering," Soja encourages us to open up our spatial "imaginaries" to ways of thinking that are not confined to only two alternatives (for example, modernism vs. postmodernism, historicality vs. sociality), by interjecting "an-Other" set of choices (for example, spatiality in the historicality vs. sociality opposition). In this "critical thirding," the binary choice is not dismissed, but the door is open to a creative process of restructuring that draws selectively from the two opposing categories to open new alternatives (1996: 5). This "thirding," he claims, disrupts, disorders, and begins to reconstitute the conventional binary opposition into "an-Other" that encompasses, but is more than just the sum of, the two parts (1996: 9, 31; see also pp. 60-70). Citing Lefebvre, Soja argues that each so-called "thirding" is an "approximation" that builds cumulatively on earlier approximations that are very intentionally incomplete, endlessly explorable, resistant to closure or easy categorical definition (1996: 36). Thus, for Soja, there are no "conclusions" that are not also "openings" to new ways of "imagining" the world (1996: 9). The aim of this strategy is to build further, to move on, to continuously expand our production of knowledge beyond what is presently known (1996: 61). Because spatiality infuses every discipline and discourse, this is a strategy that is also meant to prevent spatial knowledge and praxis from being fragmented and compartmentalized as a disciplinary specialty, or merely added on to other disciplines as a gap-filler or factual background (1996: 47). Soja calls this a "complex totality of potential knowledges." This strategy opens up endless worlds to explore and, at the same time, presents daunting challenges. Because it is disorderly, unruly, constantly evolving, unfixed, never presentable in permanent constructions (1996: 70), it challenges all conventional modes of thought and "taken-for-granted" epistemologies. But without spatial knowledge, Soja argues, we are bound to attribute to "mental" space the attributes and "properties" of what is actually social space (1996: 57).

Soja outlines this distinction between mental and social space in a very complex argument that I am over-simplifying here. He identifies three spatial categories that he calls Firstspace, Secondspace, and Thirdspace. "Thirdspace" is the category that Soja emphasizes, and he relates this to his strategy of "thirding-as-Othering." He describes Thirdspace as "a creative recombination and extension, one that builds on a Firstspace perspective that is focused on the 'real' material world and a Secondspace perspective that interprets this reality through 'imagined' representations of spatiality" (1996:6).

Soja is also concerned with the ways in which these categories of space are interpreted. He argues that they are conventionally interpreted at two different levels, what he refers to as indigenous and exogenous modes of spatial analysis. Thus, just as anthropologists distinguish between emic and etic perspectives, Soja makes a distinction between the ways in which indigenous peoples view their own space and the ways in which scholars view space in their analyses (1996: 75, 79). It is important to keep in mind, then, the distinction between our own exogenous spatial imaginations and the indigenous imaginations of the biblical writer as we try to excavate spatial meanings in biblical texts. Soja points out that for at least the past century, the mainstream "spatial imagination" of exogenous interpreters has revolved primarily around what he describes as Firstspace and Secondspace perspectives.

Soja's categories are similar in their essential characteristics to the three kinds of space defined by Lefebvre. These are: perceived (or "real") space, conceived (or "imagined") space, and lived space (1996: 10).

Perceived space, Soja's Firstspace, consists mainly of concrete spatial forms, things that can be empirically mapped, but are also socially produced, as mediums and outcomes of human activity, behavior, and experience. This materialized, "physical," socially produced, empirically measurable space is space that can be directly sensed and is open to relatively accurate measurement and description. Perceived space is thus apparent in the concrete and mappable geographies of our lifeworlds, ranging from the emotional and behavioral space "bubbles" which invisibly surround our bodies, to the complex spatial organization of the social practices that shape our "action spaces" in such contexts as households, neighborhoods, villages, cities, regions, and nations (1996: 10, 66, 74-75).

Conceived space (Soja's Secondspace) is that space that is constructed in mental or cognitive forms (or, as Lefebvre puts it, it is "imagined"). Conceived space is expressed in systems of "intellectually worked out" signs and symbols, that is, in the written and spoken word. For Lefebvre, this is the dominant space in any society. Located in these "dominating" mental spaces are the representations of power and ideology (1996: 10, 66-67).

Soja notes that the boundaries between First- and Secondspace knowledge are blurred, but that Second- or conceived space epistemologies can be distinguished by their implicit assumption that spatial knowledge is constructed primarily through the spatial workings of the mind. This does not mean that there is no material reality, no Firstspace, but rather that knowledge of this material reality is comprehended essentially through thought, and expressed in symbolic language and action. However its essence is defined, in conceived space the "imagined" geography tends to become the "real" geography, with the symbolic representation defining and ordering that "reality."

Lived space (Soja's Thirdspace) consists of actual social and spatial practices, the immediate material world of experience and realization. Lived space overlays physical space, making symbolic use of its objects, and tends to be expressed in systems of nonverbal symbols and signs. For Lefebvre lived space was both distinct from physical and mental space and an all-encompassing mode of spatial thinking, as Soja puts it, a "transcending composite of all spaces" (1996: 62). Lived space embodies the real and imagined lifeworld of experiences, emotions, events, and political choices. As Soja describes it, this space is "directly lived," the space of "inhabitants" and "users," containing all other real and imagined spaces simultaneously. Thus, Thirdspace is a mode of thinking about space that draws upon both the material and the mental spaces of perceived space and conceived space, but extends well beyond them in scope, substance, and meaning. It is simultaneously real and imagined and more (1996: 31).

Everything comes together in Thirdspace: subjectivity and objectivity, the abstract and concrete, the real and imagined, the knowable and the unimaginable, the repetitive and the differential, structure and agency, mind and body, consciousness and the unconscious, the disciplined and the transdisciplinary, everyday life and unending history. Anything which fragments Thirdspace into separate specialized knowledges or exclusive domains--even on the pretext to handling its infinite complexity--destroys its meaning and openness Soja, 1996: 56-57).

This is the dominated space that is created by the imagination of Second- or conceived space. But these lived, "dominated" spaces are also the domain for generating what Soja calls "counterspaces," spaces of resistance to the dominant order that arise from within subordinate, peripheral, or marginalized contexts (1996: 31-32, 62-63, 67-68). Using the writings of bell hooks, Cornel West, Gloria Anzaldua, Edward Said, and others as illustrations, Soja argues that in these "counterspaces," "difference" can be used as a basis for community, identity, and struggle against the existing power relations (1996: 89). For those who use their "differentness" in this way, who choose their marginality, the hierarchy of center and periphery is thwarted--the margin refuses its placement as "Other." Soja thus makes a definite distinction between the marginality that is imposed by oppressive structure and that marginality which is chosen as a site of resistance. This chosen marginality becomes a site one wishes to stay in, cling to, because it nourishes the capacity to resist (1996: 98).

Bell hooks says of her experience of what Soja describes as "Thirdspace on the margin":

Living as we did--on the edge--we developed a particular way of seeing reality. We looked both from the outside in and from the inside out. We focused our attention on the center as well as on the margin. We understood both. This mode of seeing reminded us of the existence of a whole universe, a main body made up of both margin and center. Our survival depended on an ongoing public awareness of the separation between margin and center and an ongoing private acknowledgement that we were a necessary, vital part of that whole. This sense of wholeness, impressed upon our consciousness by the structure of our daily lives, provided us an oppositional worldview--a mode of seeing unknown to most of our oppressors, that sustained us, aided us in our struggle to transcend poverty and despair, strengthened our sense of self and our solidarity (quoted in Soja, 1996: 100).

. . . the Borderlands are physically present wherever two or more cultures edge each other, where people of different races occupy the same territory, where under, lower, middle and upper classes touch, where the space between two individuals shrinks with intimacy. . . . It's not a comfortable territory to live in, this place of contradictions. Hatred, anger and exploitation are the prominent features of this landscape.

However, there have been compensations for this mestiza, and certain joys. Living on borders and in margins, keeping intact one's shifting and multiple identity and integrity, is like trying to swim in a new element, an "alien" element . . . [that] has become familiar--never comfortable . . . . No, not comfortable but home.

I have no country, my homeland castes me out; yet all countries are mine because I am every woman's sister or potential lover . . . . I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining that not only has produced both a creature of darkness and a creature of light, but also a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings (quoted in Soja, 1996: 127, 128-29).

Lefebvre conceptualized such "counterspaces" as those of bell hooks and Gloria Anzaldua as spaces of radical openness, where the possibilities for new discoveries and political strategies are endless, never confined by past journeys and accomplishments, always searching for differences (1996: 34). Although both Soja and Lefebvre think in terms of the "counterspaces" in modern capitalistic societies, I will return later to considering the possibility of their existence in traditional segmented societies such as ancient Israel.

To summarize, for both Lefebvre and Soja, each way of thinking about space, each field of human spatiality--the physical, the mental, the social--are seen as simultaneously real and imagined, concrete and abstract, material and metaphorical. No one mode of spatial thinking is inherently privileged or intrinsically "better" than the others as long as each remains open to the re-combinations and simultaneous character of the "real-and-imagined" (1996: 64-65).

My Journey

Here I will leave Soja and Lefebvre for a time to reflect back on the journey that has brought me to them. Reading Soja's work and reflecting on his ideas has opened many new "imaginaries" and perspectives for me in my search to reconstruct the "real-and-imagined" worlds and spaces of marginal artisan groups. Of these, I am going to focus on two in the remainder of the paper. One has to do with my realization that spatiality has been more central to my work than I had realized, and that what I have been primarily concerned with up to this point is Soja's Secondspace--that is, the conceived space of what Lefebvre called the "imagination." The second is the question of how the "counterspaces" of Third- or lived space relate to the power relationships between "dominant" and "marginalized" groups, and how marginalized groups respond to these.

Artisan Groups in Traditional African and Middle Eastern Societies

In my previous analyses, I have interpreted the marginality of artisan groups using the work of anthropologists, especially those who are concerned with symbolic analysis. Victor Turner (e.g., 1969; 1974), Edmund Leach (e.g., 1969; 1983a; 1983b), and Mary Douglas (e.g., 1966; 1976) have particularly influenced my thinking. As I have reflected on their work since reading Soja, I realize that they are all concerned in some way with understanding Second- or conceived space, especially in their interpretations of marginality, boundaries, and what Victor Turner calls "liminality," and how these are expressed symbolically in concepts and behaviors relating to power, holiness, and pollution. Keeping Soja's and Lefebvre's three modes of spatiality in mind, and how they interrelate and overlap, I would like to summarize some of my previous work, looking first at the ethnographic information on traditional African and Middle Eastern societies and then the Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites. Along the way, I will offer some reflections on spatiality. But before I do this, I will take one brief detour to make some comments about segmented social systems,⁽²⁾  and tap into Jim Flanagan's journey into spatiality (1999).

Soja makes much in his work of the interrelationship between center and periphery in modern capitalistic societies, and how this is related to power. Although it is not possible for me to explain the complex character of segmented societies here, I do want to say something in general about the relations of power in them. In segmented societies, there is no permanent "governmental" authority, no centralized power that is comparable to the modern societies with which Soja is concerned. Thus the exact ways in which he understands the relationship between center and periphery can't be directly applied to them. But power is nevertheless an important element in segmented societies, with some segments typically having more power than others, and "political" power being dependent on the ways in which segments relate to one another (McNutt, 1999a: 78-85). As Flanagan emphasizes, both social and political identity relate essentially to group membership, and this affects the ways in which the peoples of segmented societies perceive, conceive, and "live" spatiality (1999: 35-36).

Focusing on the mode of Third- or lived space, Flanagan looks particularly at understandings of territoriality among tribal peoples such as those of ancient Israel with segmented sociopolitical systems. Although it is significant, territory (in the Firstspace sense of the word), he argues, is not the primary measure of spatiality and spatial identity in tribal societies; that is, tribal peoples do not determine who is a member of their group and who is not by referring to physical, mappable territory. Rather, their identity, as well as how they understand and relate to "territory," rests more in membership in a group. Pointing to Bruce Malina's comment that in such societies, people move through people, not through space, Flanagan emphasizes that their lived space thus derives more from relationships that also affect their status within society.

Territories in segmented tribal societies are thus socially constructed forms of spatial relations, and the effects of these relationships depend on who is controlling whom and for what purposes (Flanagan, 1999: 35-36). Even when territorial terminology is used, as in the tribal allotments in the Hebrew Bible, this derives more from the organic link between people and space than from an abstract mapping of land or imposition of boundaries (in the Firstspace sense of the word). Members of tribes, of course, can identify their own territory and the territory of others. They know when they are among their people and when they are not. Their lived space is produced through living there. But it is constructed through "lived" practices such as hunting, gathering, pasturing, farming, and the like. And it is shared by being part of a social group who share rights of access to it, which are typically gained through kinship alliances, which in turn are expressed in genealogies.

The primary function of genealogies in segmented societies is to define social, political, and economic relations, and they operate as a kind of code in which relationships of power are defined (McNutt 1999a: 76-77). But they also convey substantial spatial information, and can be used to gain perspectives on how space was constructed in ancient societies, especially given the tendency in segmented societies to mix kinship and place names--that is, self-identification can be expressed either in kinship or territorial terms. Essentially, in this type of spatiality, they are one and the same. The terms used stand for sets of relationships among peoples that are expressed sometimes by naming the peoples themselves, and at other times they stand for the spaces in which they are known to reside or control (Flanagan, 1999: 36).

Returning now to the summary of my previous work--Smiths and other types of artisans such as leatherworkers, potters, sculptors, and bards in traditional African societies, with segmented systems similar to those of ancient Israel, tend to form segments in the system that are marginal, and are regarded with ambivalence by the dominant social groups with which they are associated.⁽³⁾ Because of their knowledge and their power to facilitate transformation, they are both feared and respected. Their social and spatial separation from the dominant groups in the system may be radical, especially in societies in which they are held in low esteem (see, e.g., Hollis, 1905; Huntingford, 1931; Shack, 1964), or it may take the form of endogamous families or guilds (see, e.g., Lloyd, 1953), as seems to be typical in societies in which they are honored. In either case, contact with them is avoided. Intermarriage with them is considered by the dominant groups to be dangerous and polluting and, at least ideally, is forbidden.

In these conceptions and behaviors the body, as a kind of microcosm of spatialities, functions as a metaphor for social space (Soja, 1996: 112, 114). The lived space of avoidance behavior is a reflection and product of the ways in which the physical body (Firstspace) is conceived as dangerous and polluting (Secondspace), and an expression of social relationships.

The roles and statuses attributed to smiths and other types of artisans, and the attitudes directed toward them, tend to vary according to social complexity. The general pattern is that in societies in which subsistence is based primarily on agriculture and social organization is somewhat hierarchical, smiths and artisans are both respected and feared (see, e.g., McNaughton,1977; 1988; Conrad and Frank, 1995). They are believed to possess profound knowledge and power, are highly honored, and tend to have important social roles (Thirdspace) as ritual specialists (especially in circumcision and excision rites), healers, and advisers, and primary roles in creation myths (McNaughton, 1977: 159). In some societies they are believed to be able to control and manipulate the power that animates the universe, and their knowledge is surrounded by secrecy (McNaughton, 1977: 69,104-157; cf. Paulme, 1973: 91). However, typically they do not participate in the farming activities of the dominant groups, and they often live in separate enclaves within villages or in separate communities. Here, again, we see the conceived space (Secondspace) that reflects and produces social marginality affecting the way in which physical space (Firstspace) is lived in (Thirdspace). Sometimes peoples in these groups perceive themselves as "a separate nation" (McNaughton, 1977: 23).

Among pastoral peoples with less hierarchically oriented social structures, on the other hand, smiths and artisans are viewed with more ambivalence and fear (see, e.g., Hollis; Huntingford; Shack). Intermarriage with them is considered dangerous and polluting, they are perceived as dangerous sorcerers or bearers of the "evil eye," and they are often spurned, but are nevertheless held in awe. The stigma of these groups is sometimes identified with the potency of their blood, which causes them to be ritually impure and induces fear in those who do not belong to these groups. Although the Secondspace conceptions are somewhat different in these pastoral societies (for example, the association with the "evil eye"), the lived space of avoidance behavior in relation to the physical body (Firstspace) is similar to that of the groups discussed above.

The social status of these groups in pastoral societies tends to be lower, and they do not occupy prominent social positions in the lived spaces of the dominant group. However, in some cases they do have ritual functions, especially in initiation rites involving circumcision or excision. Sometimes, as among the Masai of East Africa, such groups have languages of their own, and are believed to be of a different race (Huntingford 1931). Even when they live among the dominant population, they live in separate areas, and typically they do not participate in the primary economic activities of warfare and herding. They are also often considered to be neutral in warfare. Here again we see the "otherness" and "difference" of lived space that is produced by Secondspace conceptions of the physical geography of Firstspace.

Some studies of artisan groups in traditional African societies have pointed out that members of these groups actively reinforce the attitudes held about them by the larger population. In this way, I believe, they contribute to the creation of their own kinds of "counterspaces," not in the sense of the "counterspaces" of resistance that Soja emphasizes, but nevertheless spaces in which "difference" is a basis for community and identity, spaces in which they are empowered by their "chosen marginality."

Michael Coy says, for example, about the Kalenjin of East Africa:

The smiths engage in purposeful efforts to surround their craft with secrecy, mystery, and supernaturalism in order to maintain effective monopolies over the production of iron goods in their exclusive market area. Restrictions placed on the recruitment of new smiths limit the proliferation of craftsmen, further reinforcing economic monopoly and related social control . . . . This results in specific social status attributions on the part of the non-craftsmen as seen in . . . economic/ecological complexes . . . (1982: iv).

What is described by many studies as the "despised" status of the smith/artisan, then, is an ideology manipulated by craftspersons to their own ends (Coy, 1982: 14).

But the Falasha are distinctive in one way that is unique. In contrast to the dominant Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, they practice a syncretistic form of religion that is comprised predominantly of an ancient form of Judaism, combined with some elements of Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.⁽⁵⁾ They refer to themselves as "Beta Israel" and trace their origins back to ancient Israel.

Historically, the religious leaders of the Beta Israel attempted to maintain the purity of their people by self-imposed religious isolation. Today the marginality of these people is reinforced by both the Beta Israel themselves and by the dominant groups, who call them Falasha. There are very clear rules regulating social interaction between the two groups, and these are reinforced by sanctions imposed by each side (Quirin, 1977: 218). In their concern for maintaining their own purity, their "chosen marginality" and "counterspace," the Beta Israel consider contact with others to be polluting. Some Ethiopians call them "don't touch me" (another instance of spatiality associated with the body) (Leslau, 1979: xl). The dominant groups, on the other hand, fear the Beta Israel and avoid them except for the necessary exchange of goods in the market place. Much of the fear exhibited by non-Beta Israel groups is reinforced by the belief that the Beta Israel are possessed by the buda or "evil eye," which can cause illness or death (see Quirin, 1977; Reminick, 1974). Thus, like the Kalenjin smiths, the Beta Israel have created their own "counterspaces" of power.

Although information is much more sparse, I saw similar patterns of marginality among smiths and artisan groups in traditional Middle Eastern societies. Among the pastoral bedouin (see, e.g., Coon, 1931, 1951; Dickson, 1951; Doughty, n.d.; Musil, 1927; 1928; van Nieuwenhuijze, 1965, 1977; Patai, 1958, 1967), artisans and smiths are marginalized, feared (they are believed to possess the "evil eye"), and shunned, but function in some contexts as ritual specialists, circumcisers, entertainers, diviners, healers, or guides; and they are believed to have supernatural powers. They form groups apart that are typically fragmented and scattered, as is the case with the sunna and the Solubba who are counted among those groups that are considered by the dominant groups to be inferior or "non-Sharif."

The Solubba are nicknamed by the bedouin "Abu al Khala"--"Fathers of the empty spaces" (Glubb, 1943: 14). Again, I can see in this designation the interrelatedness of First-, Second-, and Thirdspace. The "empty spaces" themselves are the perceived physical space of the desert between encampments, a physical space that is conceived as being marginal space where marginal peoples "exist." And they do "exist" there in their lived space. The Solubba are nonpastoralists who are scattered in small groups over much of the Arabian Peninsula,⁽⁶⁾ and have formed a symbiotic relationship with bedouin tribes, to whom they pay khuwa (a form of protection tax), which entitles them to protection.

The Solubba are smiths and woodworkers, who also derive part of their livelihood from hunting and tracking and from practicing their skills as veterinarians. They are particularly famed for their tracking skills, and for their ability to find water in the deep desert (the "empty spaces"). Solubba men are said to be poets and magicians, and the women fortune-tellers, enchantresses, brewers of love potions, and bearers of the "evil eye." They are also renowned for their music and dancing.

The Solubba are also physically different from the bedouin. They often have fair hair and eyes, their dress is distinctive,⁽⁷⁾ and they have a pronounced accent (Musil, 1927: 215) and some words exclusive to their own dialect. Their descent is unknown, and they are not considered to be either Arab or bedouin. The bedouin say that "they are not of lineage," that is, not descended from Kahtan (a noble-blooded tribe; Doughty, n.d.: 326).⁽⁸⁾ Thus, their spatial association with the "empty spaces" is also expressed in relational kinship terms, as is typical in segmented societies. For a bedouin to marry a Solubba is considered to be a disgrace,⁽⁹⁾ and the bedouin consider them unclean (Doughty, n.d.: 324). The Rwala bedouin believe that they have the power to do both good and evil (Musil, 1928: 406).

Failure is often blamed on the Solubba, and their tents are avoided by warriors on raids. But in spite of their despised status, their hospitality is accepted when a warrior is ill or wounded, as they are known to tend the sick carefully. The tents of the Solubba are another example of the interrelatedness of First-, Second-, and Thirdspace. The perceived physical space is transformed by the way it is conceived (in relation to its occupants) into a lived "counterspace"--a space where one seeks refuge from someone who is typically avoided. The Solubba are also considered to be neutral, and because of this they are valued as scouts.⁽¹⁰⁾ In a sense, they have a certain kind of power over the "empty spaces," and in this "counterspace" they have the "outsider's" flexibility of being able to "travel" between "worlds."

The sunna (singular sani) are tinkers and blacksmiths,⁽¹¹⁾ but some are also minstrels, some practice the art of healing, and some perform circumcisions (Dickson, 1951: 437, 517). Some sunna live in villages, and some live as nomads among the bedouin (Doughty, n.d.: 327). In village settings, they live on the outskirts of communities (Doughty, n.d.: 581).

As is the case for the Solubba, the sunna are marginal and treated as neutral in conflict situations. They form kin groups of their own that are related to other sunna throughout Arabia, and are considered by others to be "strangers forever," because they have no recognized genealogy and nothing is known about their true descent (Musil, 1928: 282). This status as "strangers forever" is similar to the Solubba's status as lacking in lineage, and thus also has a spatial dimension. Unlike the bedouin, the sunna never take part in wars or raids. Among the Rwala bedouin, as is the case for the Solubba, marriage with a sani is forbidden. In spite of these attitudes, the Rwala claim that, along with the first bedouin, the first smith assisted Allah with creation (Musil, 1928: 281).

Some of the marginal characteristics of traditional African and Middle Eastern smiths and artisans, I argue, can also be seen in the biblical portrayals of the Kenites, Midianites, and Rechabites (McNutt, 1990; 1994; 1999b).

The Kenites are portrayed in the biblical texts as staunch supporters of both Israel and Yahwism,⁽¹²⁾ but never fully incorporated into Israelite society.⁽¹³⁾ Their status in relation to the Israelite tribes and other groups in ancient Palestine is unclear, but they do appear to have been socially marginal and militarily neutral. This is implied in Judges 4 and 5 where the "clan" of Heber the Kenite is described as having peaceful relations with Jabin, the king of Hazor (Jud 4:17), but as nevertheless allied with the Israelites, with whom Jabin was at war. Alliance with Israel is implied in Jud 5:24-27 (cf. 4:17-22) where Heber's wife Jael is praised for her bravery in disposing of Sisera, the commander of Jabin's army. This is reminiscent of the neutral status of marginal artisan groups in traditional African and Middle Eastern societies. The tent that Sisera comes to for refuge in the story is also reminiscent of those of the Solubba, which can be neutral "counterspaces" of refuge (lived spaces as a product of perceived and conceived space) for those who are ill or dying.

It is possible that the Kenite's marginal position in relation to the Israelites was associated in part with their geographical location, although whether they were ever associated with a particular geographical region is not clear.⁽¹⁴⁾ On the basis of biblical references, their geographical origin is normally identified as southeast of Judah on the border with Edom. Whether or not they were actually associated with a specific region, biblical scholars have tended to argue that they were associated with activities that required moving between different geographical locations (in the "empty spaces") either as caravaneers or as nomadic or seminomadic itinerant metalsmiths (see, e.g., Albright, 1957: 257; 1963; de Vaux, 1961: 478-79; Halpern, 1992), like the Middle Eastern Solubba and sunna. And, as Flanagan has argued, the relationships expressed in territoriality are really more important than the physical space of territoriality.

The Kenites are related in some of the biblical traditions to the Midianites (Jud 1:16; 4:11; 1 Sam 15:6). Midian, the eponymous ancestor of the Midianites, is identified in the Genesis 25 genealogy (v. 2) as the son of Abraham and Keturah, and as having been sent "eastward to the east country" (v.6; the biblical "empty spaces" or "wilderness"). Among the list of his brothers is Letushim (v. 3; compare Tubal-Cain, who is called a lotesh, i.e., "forger").⁽¹⁵⁾

The sociopolitical relationship between the Midianites and the tribes of Israel is no clearer in the biblical traditions than it is for the Kenites; nor is the character of the Midianites as a sociopolitical entity less opaque. They are believed to have been associated with regions in southern Transjordan and the northern Hejaz, so as a group it is likely that they were geographically marginal to Palestine. Archaeologists have also identified the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age material culture from these areas as "Midianite." This includes sites where there is evidence of both ritual and metallurgical activity (see, e.g., Rothenberg, 1972; Franken, 1969: 20-21; 1992: 127).

The Midianites also play an important mediatory role in the literary traditions about the exodus, facilitating the major transitions between stages in the narrative structure. There are very clear images of spatiality in the portrayal of this role. In the Joseph stories, Midianite traders are responsible for the eventual movement of Jacob's family (Israel) into Egypt (Gen 37:28, 36), functioning structurally as a bridge between the spaces of the ancestral and exodus traditions. The Midianites give Moses refuge when he flees from Egypt, in a kind of geographically marginal and neutral region between Egypt and the Promised Land--Midian. Again, this can be compared to the "empty spaces" of the Solubba and the lived "counterspaces" that function as places of refuge. Moses' Midianite father-in-law facilitates the transition from Egypt to the Promised Land and a new identity (associated with this land) by serving as a guide through the wilderness, as their eyes (Num 10:29-32), because he knows how to survive in this marginal realm. Again, we can draw a comparison with the Solubba guides who can negotiate the marginal "empty spaces." The belief that intermarriage with individuals from marginal artisan or smithing groups is dangerous and polluting may be represented in Numbers 25, where a plague occurs because of the indiscretion of a man who "brought a Midianite woman to his family" at the tent of meeting (v. 6).⁽¹⁶⁾

It has been postulated that the Rechabites also shared the Kenites' vocation as metalworkers (Frick, 1971; 1992), an interpretation that is based on a genealogical link between the two groups in 1 Chron 2:55. As is the case with the Kenites and the Midianites, their origins are unclear. Whatever their origins, their portrayal in the monarchic traditions as fierce supporters of Yahwism (2 Kgs 10:15-23) is similar to that of the Kenites and Midianites, as is their apparent socially marginal lifestyle. This is represented in restrictions against drinking wine, against building houses, and against participating in farming activities (which were essential to the economy in ancient Israel). They are also identified as living in tents (Jer 35:8-10). In my journey to the "real-and-imagined," I can imagine the tents of the Rechabites as lived "counterspaces" of neutrality and refuge like those of the Solubba, and their marginal lifestyle as a "counterspace" of chosen marginality, where they can "travel" between "worlds" and inhabit more than one of these worlds at the same time.

Social and spatial information relating to the status and roles of artisans and other culture providers in ancient Israel, as well as the kinds of beliefs and attitudes associated with and directed toward them, are also symbolized and encoded in the myth of Cain.⁽¹⁷⁾

Genesis 4 is a traditional story in which Cain, the "culture hero" and eponymous ancestor of tent dwellers, musicians, and metalworkers, is responsible for introducing to humankind some of the primary elements of civilization through the activities of his descendants.

Cain is one of the most ambivalent and clearly marginal figures in the Hebrew Bible. This ambivalence is apparent in a number of respects: he is a murdered who is nevertheless protected by God (Gen 4:15), an agriculturalist for whom the earth will bear no fruit (vv. 12-13), and a wanderer who "dwells" in the land of Nod ("wandering," v. 16), a biblical "empty space" where he becomes a "stranger forever."

Cain's "mark" is the most apparent symbol of his ambivalent and marginal character. Regardless of whether the author intended some "physical," Firstspace, identifier, the mark is a "stigma" (see Aycock, 1983; McNutt 1999b) that identifies Cain as both necessary and dangerous, and locates him in the margins of oppositions--purity/pollution, life/death, limitation/creativity, this world/the other world (cf. Leach, 1969: 60). He is, in a sense, removed from (or transcends) the moral community, "existing" in a "counterspace" that releases him from stereotypical social roles and norms, and from which he both disrupts and renews society. Like the artisans and smiths in the traditional stories of Africa and elsewhere (see, e.g., McNaughton, 1995: 50; Dieterlen, 1973; Margarido and Wasserman, 1972; Griaule and Dieterlen, 1954; Griaule, 1965), Cain "exists" in the "betwixt and between," the conceived "empty spaces," in what Edmund Leach has called a "middle" position that is "abnormal, nonnatural, holy," while at the same time he is "polluting" (see Leach, 1983a: 14-15; 1983b: 4-5; McNutt, 1999b: 54).

Social and spatial marginality are also represented in Cain's relationship as ancestor to both city dwellers (Enoch) and tent dwellers (Jabal) (vv. 17, 20), as well as a metalworker (Tubal Cain) and a musician (Jubal) (vv. 17-22). The latter represent those categories of persons in segmented societies who can "travel" between the "worlds" of city dwellers and tent dwellers (cf. Leach, 1969: 60). John Sawyer has suggested (1986: 160) that Cain's descendants in this narrative genealogy represent the varied roles carried out within a single group, such as those of other artisans and smiths described above, rather than the three separate groups we normally identify them with; that is, the attributes of the group as a whole are represented in both Cain and his descendants, who symbolize a social group skilled not only in metallurgy, but in music, city-building, and possibly trading.⁽¹⁸⁾

The most obvious references to space in the story are those pointing to Cain's destiny as a wanderer and his settlement in the land of Nod ("wandering"). Although there appears to be a contradiction here (how does one settle if he or she is destined to wander), as Leach argued (e.g., 1983a: 16), it is precisely in such ambiguities that the meanings underlying myths are conveyed. Cain represents a category of being that is neither fully nomadic nor fully sedentary--a mediating category that is on the threshold between two modes of spatial existence, "betwixt and between," in "the empty spaces," a "stranger forever."⁽¹⁹⁾ Like the "wilderness" in other biblical traditions, and like the "empty spaces" occupied by the Solubba, the "land of Nod" symbolizes a betwixt and between locality that is neither fully in This World nor fully in The Other (cf. Leach, 1983a: 16)--a "counterspace" that is occupied by Cain and his descendants.

There are a number of other ways in which spatiality is represented in this story. But I will end by briefly identifying just one. John Sawyer has suggested that the story in Genesis 4 was originally an Edomite myth about the origins of a metalworking group from the copper-mining region east of the Arabah (a region that is associated in the biblical texts with the Kenites and Midianites). Several of the names in the story, he points out--those of Cain himself, Lamech's wives (Gen 4:19-23), and Tubal Cain's sister--are associated elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible with sites in Edom that may, like Timna (Gen 36:12, 22, 40; cf. 1 Chr 1:51), have once been copper-mining sites in the Arabah (1986: 158-59). Adah is also the name given to Esau's first wife, according to the Edomite genealogy in Gen 36:2. The name Zilla is not attested elsewhere, but Sawyer suggests a possible connection with Hazzelelponi in 1 Chr 4:3, a genealogy that has Edomite as well as metallurgical connections (Irnahash and Geharashim; vv. 12, 14). Naamah (the sister of Tubal Cain) is also identified as the home of Zophar, one of Job's comforters (Job 2:11), which Sawyer suggests was also most likely located in Midian or Edom. And the name Cain appears in an Edomite context in Num 24:22. Thus, as in other segmented societies, the kinship terms in the traditions are very likely mixed with territoriality. If this is the case, the story-teller is emphasizing in the names the lived space of the group or groups with which Cain and his descendants are associated. Spatiality is thus an important element of the story that embodies notions about the social identity, roles, statuses, marginality, and "separateness" of such groups, and the kinds of beliefs and attitudes directed toward them.

I have offered here some "approximations" that have built on earlier "approximations." After having interacted with Soja and Lefebvre, I feel comfortable leaving them incomplete and open to further exploration. Thus I end this particular excursion in my journey to the "real-and-imagined" spaces of marginal artisan groups, not with definitive conclusions but, I hope, with "openings" to new ways of "imagining" the biblical worlds.
 
 

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Aycock, D. Alan.  1983.  "The Mark of Cain." Pp. 120-27 in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth. Eds. Edmund Leach and D. Alan Aycock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Dieterlen, Germaine.  1973.  "A Contribution to the Study of Blacksmiths in West Africa." Pp. 40-61 in French Perspectives in African Studies. Ed. Pierre Alexandre. London: Oxford University Press.

Dostal, Walter.  1956.  "Die Sulubba und ihre Bedeutung für die Kulturgeschichte Arabiens." Archiv für Völkerkunde 11: 15-42.

Doughty, Charles M.  n.d.   Travels in Arabia Deserta. New York: Random House.

Douglas, Mary T.  1966.  Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Praeger.

__________  1976.  Implicit Meanings: Essays in Anthropology. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Flanagan, James W.  1999.  "Ancient Perceptions of Space." Semeia 87: 15-43.

Franken, H. J.  1969.  Excavations at Deir Alla. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

__________  1992.  "Deir Alla, Tell." Pp. 126-29 in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 2. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday.

Frick, Frank S.  1971.  "The Rechabites Reconsidered." JBL 90:279-87.
 

__________  1992.  "Rechab." Pp. 630-32 in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 5. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday.

Glubb, J. B.  1943.  "The Sulubba and Other Ignoble Tribes of Southwestern Asia." Pp. 14-17 in The Yezidis, Sulubba, and Other Tribes of Iraq and Adjacent Regions. Eds. Henry Field and J. B. Glubb. General Series in Anthropology 10. Menasha, WI: George Banta.

Griaule, Marcel.  1965.  Conversations with Ogotemmêli: An Introduction to Dogon Religious Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Griaule, Marcel and Germaine Dieterlen.  1954.  "The Dogon." Pp. 83-110 in African Worlds: Studies in the Cosmological Ideas and Social Values of African Peoples. Ed. Daryll Forde. London: Oxford University Press.

Halpern, Baruch.  1992.  "Kenites." Pp. 17-22 in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, Vol. 4. Ed. David Noel Freedman. New York: Doubleday.

Herbert, Eugenia W.  1993.  Iron, Gender, and Power: Rituals of Transformation in African Societies. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Hollis, A. C.  1905.  The Masai. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Huntingford, G. W. B.  1931.  "Free Hunters, Serf-tribes and Submerged Classes in East Africa." Man 31:262-66.

Leach, Edmund.  1969.  Genesis as Myth and Other Essays. London: Jonathan Cape.

__________  1983a.  "Introduction." Pp. 1-6 in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth. Eds. Edmund Leach and D. Alan Aycock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

__________  1983b.  "Approaches to the Study of the Bible." Pp. 7-32 in Structuralist Interpretations of Biblical Myth. Eds. Edmund Leach and D. Alan Aycock. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Leslau, Wolf.  1979.  Falasha Anthology. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lewis, Herbert S.  1955.  A Galla Monarchy: Jimma Aba Jifar, Ethiopia 1830-1932. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

__________  1970.  "Wealth, Influence, and Prestige among the Shoa Galla." Pp. 163-86 in Social Stratification in Africa. Eds. Arthur Tuden and Leonard Plotnicov. New York: Free Press.

Lewis, I. M.  1955.  Peoples of the Horn of Africa: Somali, Afar, and Saho. London: International African Institute.

__________  1961.  A Pastoral Democracy: A Study of Pastoralism and Politics among the Northern Somali of the Horn of Africa. London: Oxford University Press.

Lloyd, Peter C.  1953.   "Craft Organization in Yoruba Towns." Africa 23:30-44.

Margarido, Alfred and Françoise Germaix Wasserman.  1972.   "On the Myth and Practice of the Blacksmith in Africa." Diogenes 78: 87-122.

McNaughton, Patrick R.  1977.   "The Bamana Blacksmiths: A Study of Sculptors and Their Art." Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University.

__________  1988.  The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

__________  1995.  "The Semantics of jugu: Blacksmiths, Lore, and 'Who's Bad' in Mande." Pp. 46-57 in Status and Identity in West Africa: Nyamakalaw of Mande. Eds. David C. Conrad and Barbara E. Frank. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

McNutt, Paula M.  1990.   The Forging of Israel: Iron Technology, Symbolism, and Tradition in Ancient Society. The Social World of Biblical Antiquity Series, 8. Sheffield: Almond Press.

_________ 1991.  "The African Ironsmith as Marginal Mediator: A Symbolic Analysis." Journal of Ritual Studies 5:75-98.

_________ 1994.  "The Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites as Marginal Mediators in Ancient Israelite Tradition." Semeia 67:109-32.

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_________  1999b.  " In the Shadow of Cain." Semeia 87: 45-64.

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^{1.  A shorter version of this paper was delivered at the meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association in August 2001.}

^{2.  On segmented systems, see, e.g., McNutt, 1999a: 75-81. Segmented systems often continue to exist even within a centralized system.}

^{3.  In presenting both the African and Middle Eastern information here, I use the "ethnographic present." In both regions contact with Western culture has effected significant changes in the roles and statuses of artisan groups.}

^{4.  There are also a number of other occupational groups in African Horn societies that have been studied--e.g., the Somali (see I. M. Lewis, 1955; 1961; H. S. Lewis, 1970; Huntingford, 1931), the Galla (see H. S. Lewis, 1965; 1970), the Gurage (see Shack 1964; 1966), and the Dime (see Todd, 1977).}

^{5.  On Falasha religion, see, e.g., Quirin (1977: 219-232) and Leslau (1979).}

^{6.  For a good summary of the information on the Solubba, see Betts, 1989; Dickson, 1951; Dostal, 1956; Doughty, n.d.; Glubb, 1943; Musil, 1927, 1928; Patai, 1958, 1967; Philby, 1922.}

^{7.  They dress in garments made from gazelle skins (Betts, 1989: 63).}

^{8.  There is a particularly pervasive legend that they are descended from some ancient Christian group (e.g., Philby, 1922: 268; Dickson, 1951: 516), possibly the Crusaders, having been captured in various conflicts and carried off into slavery by the bedouin. According to Dickson, the roots of this story lie in 1) the traditional emblem of the Solubba--a dress wrapped around a wooden cross and displayed on ceremonial ocassions as a form of "standard"; and 2) the etymological relationship between the word salib, the Christian cross, and sulaib--the plural of Solubba and the diminutive form of salib.}

^{9.  However, there are references to Solubba concubines and prostitutes. Dickson (1951: 516) notes that a bedouin who married a Solubba girl would be killed.}

^{10.  Van Nieuwenhuijze notes that this kind of people is basically "sacred" in the true, ambivalent sense of the word. Their "sacredness," he suggests, is not in conflict with, but is in fact expressed in, a socially despised position (1965: 36).}

^{11.  On the sunna see, e.g., Doughty, n.d.; Musil, 1928; Patai, 1958, 1967.}

^{12.  The one instance in which they seem as a group to be viewed unfavorably is in the context of Balaam's prophecy (Num 24:21-22), where it is foretold that they will perish.}

^{13.  Some interpreters have hypothesized that they were responsible for having introduced Yahwism to the Israelites. See, e.g., Rowley, 1946; 1950; Halpern, 1992.}

^{14.  They are listed in Gen 15:19 as one of the peoples whose land is promised to Abraham's descendants.}

^{15.  Apart from these traditions, however, the Midianites are not looked upon favorably and are typically portrayed as Israel's enemies (e.g., Numbers 31; Judges 7-9; Ps 83:9; Isa 10:26).}

^{16.  This contrasts with the apparent acceptance of Moses' marriage to a Midianite woman. Compare Ezra 2:61-63 and Neh 7:63-65, where the descendants of Barzillai (from barzel, "iron") are excluded by name from the centralized priesthood as unclean, in spite of their good relations with David (2 Sam 17:27-29; 19:31-39).}

^{17.   Possibly including the Kenites, the Midianites, and the Rechabites. Their marginal character as represented in the biblical texts supports the hypothesis that they may have been associated in some way with metalworking and/or some other kind of craftsmanship.}

^{18.  Sawyer suggests (160) that "tent dwelling traders" is a reasonable translation of yoseb ohel umiqneh (Gen 4:20; NRSV--"those who live in tents and have livestock").}

^{19.  This is very similar to how ritual space is conceptualized. See, e.g., Turner, 1969, 1974.}