Who belonged to which group?

This lesson asks you to compare aspects of the daily lives of different groups within an early society and to explain how the differences relate to that society's organisation. The curriculum asks for a few societies, including a First Nation and an Inuit society; the museum offers one medieval Islamic example, of how dress marked differences in al-Andalus, so your class must bring the other societies and decide how far the comparison holds. ¹

The expectation asks how the daily lives of different groups differed and how those differences relate to the society's organisation. For each group you meet in the record, note what set it apart and what you cannot tell from the record.

Ibn Sa'id described the dress of the people of al-Andalus, and al-Maqqari passed the description on in Nafh al-tib ². In the west of al-Andalus, no judge or jurist was seen without a turban ². No one walked without a shawl (taylasan), and only the venerable elders placed it on their heads ². Only the scholar let the lock of hair hang down ². In the record of Andalusi dress, Ibn Sa'id also describes them as the most careful of all people about the cleanliness of their clothing ².

In this description a judge, a scholar and an elder can be told apart by what they wear. Does it help a town when people can tell each person's work from their clothes, and why?

• The dress of the people of al-Andalus: clothing, soldiers and weapons, and cleanliness as Ibn Sa'id describes them.
• Ibn Sa'id: the author of the description that al-Maqqari passed on.

Read the record on the dress of the people of al-Andalus. Make a chart with a column for each group and rows for what it wore and what it did; leave a blank where the record is silent.