Sleb - Economy

In addition to hunting (mainly gazelles, but also ostriches and Arabian oryx), which in the nineteenth century was the mainstay of the economy of the itinerant parts of the community throughout the area, the following activities have been reported by various authors: collection of salt from salines in the southern Jezira, breeding asses and camels, smithery and tinkering, tracking water, guiding caravans, healing animals, carpentry, fortune-telling, tattooing, music, poetry, and prostitution. The pastoral peoples of the area rely upon these services, and every group of Sleb is attached to a local tribe. In recent years many families have sedentarized in Jordan as traders, but, even in the nineteenth century, many itinerant families marketed the salt they collected in towns such as Baghdad or Mosul.