SAUDI ARABIA: Saudi Arabian tribe organises beauty pageant for Miss Camel

A Saudi tribe in the country's western desert has held a camel beauty contest, judging the animals by their health and the shape of their head, eyes, cheek-bones and legs. The legs are long, the eyes wide, the bodies curvaceous. Contestants in this Saudi-style beauty pageant have all the features you might expect anywhere else in the world, but with one crucial difference -- the competitors are camels. This week, the Qahtani tribe of western Saudi Arabia has been welcoming entrants to its "Mazayen al-Ibl" competition, a parade of the "most beautiful camels" in the desolate desert region of Guwei'iyya 120 km (75 miles) west of Riyadh. While tremendous oil wealth has brought rapid and often destabilising modernisation to the vast desert state of Saudi Arabia from both inside the Arab world and beyond, camels are celebrated as symbolic of the world of the Bedouin Arab. Throughout history they have served multiple purposes as food, friend, transport and war machine. They were key to the Arab conquests of the Middle East and North Africa nearly 1,400 years ago that brought the world Islam. Camels are also big business in a country where strict Islamic laws and tribal customs would make it impossible for women to take part in their own beauty contest. Delicate females or strapping males who attract the right attention during this week's show could sell for a million or more riyals. Sponsors have provided 10 million riyals (2.7 million US dollars), including 72 sports utility vehicles. "What is also important about this contest is that it consists of rare camels (which) need to be taken care of. These contests help protect these rare types," said Sheikh Omer, one of the tribe's leaders and organiser of the contest. "More than 200 (camel owners) are here. Each one has brought with him his camel for this contest. There are between 1,500-2,000 camels," he said inside a huge tent where the final awards ceremony takes place. Over at the camel pen, the contestants are getting restless as the desert winds howl and whip up swirls of sand in the hot afternoon sun. Amid a large crowd of Bedouin who have gathered to watch, the head of the judging committee emerges to venture into an enclosure with some two dozen angry braying camels. Camel-drivers sing songs of praise to their prized possessions as they try to calm the animals down. "Zein, zein (beautiful, beautiful)!" the judge mutters quietly to himself, inspecting the group. Finalists have been decorated with silver bands and bodycovers. "(The camel's body) needs to be strong, its lips strong, with fine bones, a big head, broad chest, and a beard and moustache. These are the features used to judge the camels," said Mohammed Bin Nase Al Ghahtani, head of the jury. The camels are split into four categories according to breed -- the black "majaheem", white "maghateer", dark brown "shi'l" and the "sufur", which are beige with black shoulders. The Arabic language famously has over 40 terms for different types of camel. Some females have had harnesses strapped around their genitalia to thwart any precocious males who have a go at mounting them, and one repeat offender called Marja' ("The Reference") was moved away from the contest area.

ITN Source | April 27, 2007

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