CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTITIONS
“. . . Tell the laughing world
Of what these wonder-working charms are made. . . .
Fern root cut small, and tied with many a knot,
Old teeth extracted from a white man’s skull.
A lizard’s skeleton, a serpent’s head:
. . . O’er these the leach
Mutters strange jargons and wild circles forms.”
“Custom is King, nay tyrant, in primitive society.”
AFTER being some time at Siwa one cannot help noticing how very much
the life of the people is influenced by their belief in superstitions
and magic arts. To every ordinary accident or natural phenomenon
they seem to attach a supernatural explanation, and they constantly
carry out little rites, which have no apparent purpose, whose origin
and reason they do not know, but which they explain has been the
custom “min zamaan.” To believe, as they do, without knowing,
is the grossest form of superstition. They have a number of purely
local customs and practices which are entirely different to those
which are prevalent in Egypt, or among the Arabs of the Western
Desert. The Siwans are Mohammedans, and strictly religious in most of
their observances, but in some of their habits one can trace a faint
resemblance to rites that have survived from former times, long before
the people adopted their present religion. But most of the apparently
meaningless practices are founded on the inherent fear of evil spirits,
which are implicitly believed in by all the inhabitants.
These fabulous beings are of many kinds, and have various
characteristics; there are jinns, in whose veins runs fire instead
of blood, who once inhabited the earth, but sinned and were driven
away by the angels of God; Sheytans, who are children of Iblis, the
Devil; Afreets, Marids; and Ghouls, who are female demons and live
among deserts and graveyards, assuming various forms and luring men
to death. These creatures are usually found in caves, tombs, wells,
empty houses, latrines, and at cross roads. Sometimes they assume
the shapes of men and sometimes they appear in the forms of domestic
animals; in Siwa they are said to favour most the disguise of a cow.
Among the most ignorant natives one meets with a decided reluctance to
discuss things that are supernatural, but the more educated men are
willing to speak of them. As in all countries the lower classes are
the most credulous. For instance, in the case of certain old women
who are reputed to be witches, the poor people avowedly believe in
them, while the upper classes pretend not to; but when there is a
birth or a wedding in the family of a sheikh, or a notable, they
send presents to these old women saying that it is merely charity,
although at heart they consider it safer to propitiate them in order
to avert possible misfortune. It is rather like the lady in church
who always bowed at the name of the Devil, because she thought it
safer to be on the right side!
The difference between the customs and superstitions of the Siwans
and those of the Arabs on the desert which surrounds them is due to
the fact that the former are of Berber origin. Their whole system of
living is different, too. The Siwans are town dwellers whose dominant
principle has been a sort of communism, whereas the Arabs are nomads,
who adopted patriarchalism as their method of rule. The Siwans fought
on foot, the Arabs were essentially cavalry. There are sheikhs in Siwa,
but they are more like the members of a town council, while the real
Arab sheikh corresponds to the feudal lord of the Middle Ages. It is
strange to find the Siwans, with such a definite, different scheme
of living, existing in the midst of a desert whose Arab population
regards them almost as foreigners.
Two distinct kinds of magic are practised in Siwa, Divine magic, or
white magic, and Satanic, or black magic, black being considered the
Devil’s colour. Certain old men and Fikis (readers of the Koran
in the mosques) are supposed to have particular gifts in telling
fortunes, compounding medicines and composing charms against evil,
especially against the much dreaded Evil Eye. They work with the
aid of the Koran, and by reciting long prayers and the names of
Allah. This is legitimate magic. These men are conspicuously regular
in their attendance at the mosques, and their power is attributed
to their peculiar goodness. Women are considered by Mohammedans, and
particularly by Siwans, to be by nature more wicked than men. One Arab
writer speaks of woman as “The Devil’s Arrow,” and another says,
“—I stood at the gates of hell and lo, most of its inmates were
women.” Even in the _Thousand and One Nights_ one reads:
“Verily women are devils created for us, they are the source of all
the misfortunes that have occurred among mankind, in the affairs of
the world and religion—”
“Verily women are treacherous to everyone near and distant:
With their fingers dyed with henna: with their hair arranged
in plaits:
With their eyebrows painted with kohl; they make one drink
of sorrow;”
This is the reason that any skill that the Siwan women possess in
medicine, making amulets, or tracing lost property, is, as a matter of
course, ascribed to their evil practices and their use of black magic,
whereby they are able to invoke demons, ghools and afreets to carry
out their orders, either for good or for evil. For this reason they
keep their doings as secret as possible, and this secrecy increases
their notoriety and evil reputation. But as their methods are said
to be usually successful they are patronized as much, or even more,
than the men, especially by their own sex. So there is quite a lively
rivalry between Fikis, or wizards, and the wise women, or witches.
Siwan women, owing to their precarious position as wives, are
not fond of bearing children. Many of them use medicines, made
from certain plants and herbs that grow in the oasis, to prevent
childbirth. Browne mentions, as far back as 1792, that it was a
common practice at Siwa for women to take their newly born infants,
probably girls, up to the top of the walls and throw them over the
battlements. There was one case of child murder reported while I was
living there. Siwan women are not as hardy as Sudanese or Arab women,
and the Egyptian doctor is of course never allowed to attend them
for births. Women are looked after by the Siwan midwives, old women
who have considerable practical experience, but make up for medical
ignorance by a vast knowledge of amazingly futile superstitions. As a
result quite a number of children die at birth. It was suggested that
a Siwan woman should be sent to Cairo and be trained in a hospital;
after much difficulty a suitable woman was found who was brave enough
to be the first Siwan woman to leave the oasis, but unfortunately
the proposition was never carried through.
When the birth of a child occurs in the family of one of the sheikhs
or notables it is celebrated with great rejoicings, especially if the
baby is a boy, as there is an enormous superfluity of women in Siwa. On
the seventh day after the birth all the female friends and relations of
the mother come to the house to congratulate her, bringing their own
children with them. She receives them with the child and the midwife,
herself lying on the bare floor. It is the custom for all women,
even the wives of the richest sheikhs, who occasionally have an old
brass bedstead in their room, to sleep on the floor for ten days after
giving birth to a child. A meal is provided for the guests—sweets,
cakes, fruits, Arab tea, and a curious sort of edible clay which is
brought from near Jerabub. This clay is a yellowish colour, tasting
very like a mushroom, and is always eaten by Siwan, and sometimes
by Arab, women when they are expecting a child. But the essential
necessity at this meal is fish, which in a place that is 200 miles
from the sea, and where there are no fresh-water fish of eatable size,
is somewhat difficult to obtain. However, the merchants make a special
point of bringing a species of salted fish from Cairo, which by the
time it arrives at Siwa can be smelt from several streets away. This
delicacy is the _chef d’œuvre_ at birthday parties. It is curious
that the Arabs on the coast, who could catch fresh fish, have the
strongest abhorrence to eating fish of any kind. The practice at Siwa
was inaugurated by the mother of Sidi Suliman, the patron sheikh,
on the birth of her son.
If the child is a boy the father decides on his name, but in the
case of a girl the mother is sponsor. After the meal everybody looks
at the child and congratulates the mother. Then the midwife, who is
generally a toothless, dirty old hag, mixes some henna and paints
the cheeks of all the children with a red stripe, and they run out
into the streets and markets calling out the names of the child. The
women remain. A large, round, earthenware bowl, specially made for the
occasion, is then brought in and filled with water. Each woman throws
into it her bracelets and silver ornaments. They stand in a circle
holding the bowl while the midwife recites the name of the child,
and the others repeat phrases, such as, “May he be happy—may he
be favoured by Allah—may Allah avert all evil from him.” Then
they solemnly raise the bowl several times in the air and let it
drop to the ground; the bowl smashes into atoms, the water splashes
over the floor, the bracelets and bangles roll along the ground,
and the child screams loudly with fright. At this all afreets and
jinns take flight, and the newly born child is blessed with fortune
and riches. Afterwards the women collect their jewellery and return
to their homes. Young children are not washed or kept clean; they are
deliberately made to look as unattractive as possible, at an early age,
in order not to tempt Providence. The Siwans dislike people to admire
their belongings, especially their children, who are considered most
susceptible to the Evil Eye, as it is thought that nothing can be
more valuable than one’s offspring.
The status of a woman in Siwa is low. She is worth less, and is of
less importance, than a donkey. She is worth, in money, a little less
than a goat. There is a strange custom in Siwa which is absolutely
different to that among the Arabs or the Egyptians. There is a fixed
price for a woman; that is to say, the “marriage money” paid by
the man to his future wife’s parents is in all cases exactly the
same—120 piastres (£1 4s.). It makes no difference whether the girl
is young or old, maid or widow, rich or poor, exquisitely beautiful,
which is rare, or hideously ugly, which is common; the only thing
that varies is the trousseau of clothes which is given by the man to
his bride, and the quality of this depends on his means. The present
of a poor man would be one gown, one silk handkerchief, one shawl
and one pair of trousers, but a rich man would give his wife several
silk robes and silver ornaments. There were innumerable quarrels on
the subject, especially when wives were divorced and their husbands
tried to keep the clothes (which belonged rightly to the woman) and
give them to the next wife. Daughters, among the Arabs, if they are
sufficiently attractive, are a source of wealth to their parents,
owing to the large amount of “marriage money” which they can
demand, but in Siwa they bring in practically nothing. Marriage is
not a binding institution. According to the Mohammedan law a wife
can be divorced by her husband merely saying, “I divorce thee,”
before two witnesses; he can do this twice, and after each time, if
he changes his mind, he can order his wife to return to him, and she
is compelled to do so. But if he says it three times, or if he says,
“Thou art triply divorced,” it is irrevocable and he cannot get
her back until she has been married to another man and divorced by
him also. But such a contretemps rarely occurs.
[Illustration: A BRIDE—THE DAUGHTER OE BASHU HABUN BEFORE HER
WEDDING]
In Siwa a man marries, then divorces his wife as soon as he gets bored
by her, and marries another. One man probably repudiates several dozen
women in his lifetime, but each of them in her turn is his regular,
official and recognized wife. Polygamy is rare, in fact almost unknown,
because when a man fancies a new wife he divorces his present one;
owing to this there is very little promiscuous immorality, but the
line between marriage and prostitution is very slender. A divorced
woman does not lose caste, and in most cases she appears to have a
better chance of marrying again than an unmarried girl. Men marry at
sixteen, and girls from nine to twelve years old, so a girl of eleven
has often been married and divorced several times. This state of
things is simply the ordinary Mohammedan custom as regards marriage,
but carried on in an absolutely lax manner. It has always been the
same in Siwa, and so it is considered right and proper. It must be
so confusing for the people to remember who is So-and-So’s wife
for the time being. Naturally the prevailing conditions have a very
disastrous effect on the birth-rate.
A first-time marriage in the family of a sheikh or a rich notable is
celebrated by festivities which last sometimes for several days. On
the eve of the wedding, towards sunset time, the bride dresses in
her richest clothes and accompanied by twenty or thirty girls walks
through the gardens to a spring near the town called Tamousy. This
spring is one of the oldest and most beautiful in Siwa. It is
surrounded by stately palm trees and tropical vegetation; it is deep
and very clear and the ancient masonry round it is still in excellent
preservation. As the young bride and her attendants walk through the
palm groves they chant a curious tune, a plaintive melody that sounds
more like a dirge than a wedding song.
“As from an infinitely distant land
Come airs, and floating echoes, that convey
A melancholy into all our day.”
The scene at the spring is very picturesque; the girls and women
stand grouped round the water, their dark robes and silver ornaments
reflected in its blue depths. Very solemnly the bride removes the large
round, silver disc that hangs on a solid silver ring from her neck,
which denotes that she is a virgin; she then bathes, puts on different
clothes and has her hair plaited and scented by one of her friends. The
procession then returns homewards. On the way they are met by another
party of women, the relations of the bridegroom, who bring presents of
money for the bride, each according to her means. An old woman collects
the coins in a silk scarf, carefully noting the amount given by each
individual, and the two parties return together, singing, through
the palm-bordered paths to the town. These “virginity discs”
are sometimes of great age, having been handed down from mother to
daughter as heirlooms. Formerly they were always made of solid silver,
but now they are often made of lead with a silver coating.
One evening rather late I was bathing at Ein Tamousy, swimming
round the spring without making much noise. Suddenly I looked up
and saw a large crowd of girls—a wedding party—standing on the
path above. It was most awkward. I splashed loudly, but they were
singing and talking so noisily that they did not hear. Eventually one
of them saw me and screamed out that there was a jinn in the spring,
whereupon the whole crowd fled shrieking into the gardens, leaving the
bride’s wedding garment lying on the ground. I hastily slipped out,
clutched my clothes and dressed hurriedly behind some palm trees,
from whence I watched the party cautiously returning, one by one,
to see whether the monster had disappeared.
Meanwhile the bridegroom collects his friends and summons the Fiki;
carpets are spread in the courtyard of his house, which is illuminated
with candles and lanterns, and dishes of food are set before the
guests. As soon as the marriage contract is settled each guest seizes
as much food of any sort as he can possibly hold in his hand and
crams it into his mouth; the more he eats the more he is supposed
to show his friendship for the bridegroom. The usual tea generally
follows. At midnight the bridegroom’s friends and relations—men,
women and children—carrying lanterns and flaring torches, walk in
procession through the narrow streets to the house of the bride and
demand her from her father.
On the return of the bride from her bath she is taken by her mother and
hidden in an upper room of the house. When the bridegroom’s family
have arrived they collect outside the door and call out, “Bring
out the bride, the gallant groom awaits her.” The girl’s family
answer, “We have lost her, we have lost her.” Then “Find her,
the bridegroom is getting impatient,” and the answer is, “She
is asleep, still sleeping.” Then the bridegroom’s family say,
“Go, wake her, and bring her to her man.” Then the women of the
bride’s house weep and scream, and there is a mock fight between the
families. The men flourish their sticks and sometimes actually strike
each other, but eventually the girl is produced and handed over to the
bridegroom’s family by her father. The mock capture of the bride
and the pretended resistance is possibly a survival of marriage by
conquest, or possibly it is meant to denote excessive modesty on the
part of the bride. If one inquires the reason the Siwans reply that
it has been the custom “min zamaan,” and nobody is any the wiser.
The bride wears her bridal gown, which is a long-sleeved robe
of striped coloured silk and is weighed down with a quantity of
silver ornaments, borrowed, if she has not enough of her own, from
her friends; over this she wears a long woollen blanket entirely
covering her, and she has a sword hung from her right shoulder. In
this costume she rides on a led donkey to the house of the bridegroom,
followed by the people of both families, singing and beating drums
and cymbals. On arrival at the house she is received by an old woman,
usually a Sudanese slave woman, who lifts her off the donkey, and
with the assistance of others carries her across the threshold,
up the stairs, into the bridal room, and lays her on the couch,
taking care that the bride’s feet never touch the ground. The crowd
remain below and are entertained by Zigale dancers, who are hired for
the occasion. Later a sheep is killed at the entrance of the house,
and the blood is smeared across the doorway in the Arab fashion;
and if the family are wealthy several more sheep are roasted whole
and a feast is made for the guests. Thursday is considered the most
propitious day for a wedding, as the girl wakes up for the first time
in her new home on a Friday, which is the Mohammedan Sunday.
All this time the bridegroom remains in the background, taking no
part in the doings. The old woman who received the bride brings
her some dishes of food and a handful of wheat and salt, which she
places beneath the pillow, where it remains for a week to keep away
bad spirits and afreets who might otherwise be attracted to harm
the newly married couple. Then the bridegroom arrives outside the
door and knocks upon it, on which there follows a long conversation
between him and the old woman. She calls out to him saying what a
beautiful bride he has obtained, describing her as a young moon with
eyes like a gazelle, cheeks like peach blossom and the figure of a
swaying willow. After a high-flown eulogy the bridegroom inquires,
“What is the girl worth?” to which the old woman replies, “Her
weight in silver and gold—” which is queer when one remembers
that she is actually worth £1 4s. The old woman then opens the door,
and after receiving a present from the bridegroom retires and leaves
them together. The bridegroom takes the sword from the girl and puts it
under the mattress for use against jinns, takes off the blanket which
entirely covers her, and then removes her right shoe and strikes her
seven times on the foot with the palm of his hand. This is said to
bring luck to the marriage. He stays with her for some time, but the
marriage is not consummated until two days later. During this time
the bridegroom leaves his house and spends his time in the gardens
with one other man, who acts as a sort of best man.
On the third day the presents from the girl’s family arrive:
carved wooden chests, finely made baskets which have taken several
months to complete, earthenware cooking pots and supplies of sugar
and foodstuffs. The money which was given to the girl at the spring
of Tamousy is counted again, and each of the donors is presented with
some doves, rabbits or chickens, in proportion to the amount which
they gave. Among the Arabs, and especially among the Berbers of the
oases in southern Morocco, an excessive shyness and bashfulness exists
between the bridegroom and his mother-in-law and all the bride’s
near relations. This avoidance and aversion to the wife’s relatives
may be another survival of the idea of marriage by conquest, but in
Siwa one does not find it to such an extent as in other places. These
festivities are only celebrated by the wealthier natives, and only
when the girl is being married for the first time. Later marriages
are quieter affairs, with nothing more than a little dancing, a
free distribution of “lubki” and perhaps one sheep cooked for
the guests.
When a Siwan dies his widow is expected to be “ghrula,” that is
in mourning for a month and a half, but the custom has slackened now
and most women marry again as soon as they get the chance. During the
forty-five days the woman dresses in white and keeps to her house,
only going out in the evening after sunset. She lives plainly, eating
no meat and wearing no jewellery. On the last day of her seclusion
the town-crier, accompanied by a boy beating a drum, announces in the
town that the widow of So-and-So will proceed on the following morning
to a certain spring, having completed her period of mourning. On the
next morning a number of boys run through the streets calling out the
same announcement and warning the people by what road she will pass,
in order that they can keep to their houses and avoid seeing her. When
she leaves her house some of her relations go up to the roof and again
call out the warning. At noon the widow, with her hair hanging loose,
her face uncovered, wearing a white robe and no ornaments, walks down
to one of the springs and bathes there. Anybody who meets or sees
her on the way is supposed to incur very bad luck indeed. After this
Lady Godiva-like progress, she hurries back to her house, puts on her
ordinary clothes, oils and dresses her hair and invites a number of her
women friends to a feast. She then begins to hope for another husband.
The town-crier is a venerable, white-bearded individual whose family
have held the post for many generations. It is his duty to announce any
new regulations in the town, and to summon the populace to meetings or
to work. When an announcement has been proclaimed on three consecutive
days it is considered that everybody knows it, and if after this an
order is infringed the excuse of ignorance is not entertained. The
town-crier is a very necessary institution in a place where scarcely
anybody can read, and public notices are therefore useless; his voice
rivals the muezzin’s, and his drum corresponds to the bell of the
old style English bellman.
Funerals in Siwa are simple affairs. They generally take place in the
early afternoon and are attended by almost everybody in the town. When
a death occurs the women in the house raise the deathwail, which is
taken up in piercing accents by the women in the other houses near,
and then by the whole neighbourhood. It sounds appalling, especially
when it starts suddenly in the night. The body is carried on a rough
bier of olive wood, followed by a long procession, the relatives,
the sheikhs and notables, usually riding on donkeys with umbrellas to
shade them from the sun, and a nondescript crowd of women and men. As
the procession passes through the streets the men chant a solemn
dirge and the women swing their veils in the air, throwing dust on
their heads, and every now and then joining in with shrill cries
and wailings. On arrival at the cemetery the women sit down some
distance apart, and the men proceed to the grave, reciting verses
from the Koran. At twilight the women collect again before the door
of the deceased’s house and continue the wailing, and afterwards
the friends of the family are entertained at a funeral feast where
they eat and praise the virtues of the dead person.
[Illustration: THE TOWN CRIER’S DAUGHTER]
There are several cemeteries round the town, some of them belong to the
easterners and some to the westerners. Almost all the roads into the
town cross burying-grounds. Until a few years ago it was the custom to
cover the grave with two split palm logs and a thin layer of earth,
which usually subsided, leaving nothing but wood on the top. These
old graves are still a source of danger, as often when one rides
over them, without knowing, the wood gives way. Graves of sheikhs
are distinguished by a roughly shaped headstone, and generally a
little heap of earthenware braziers, left by the women who come to the
cemetery and burn incense. When a particularly religious or important
Siwan dies, his family keep a guard over the grave at night for about
a fortnight after his death, which they say is necessary to prevent
the ghoulish old witches from profaning it by digging up the corpse
and stealing the dead man’s hair and finger-nails for their charms.
The fear of the Evil Eye is almost more deeply rooted in Siwa than in
Egypt. It is thought that ill-disposed and jealous people can cast a
malignant influence over others, and also over animals and inanimate
objects. The Prophet Mohammed permitted the use of charms against
the Evil Eye, although he forbade them for any other purposes. For
this reason innumerable charms are worn and exhibited by the Siwans;
houses, gardens and olive presses are protected from the much-dreaded
curse by bundles of old bones, animals’ skulls, or black earthenware
pots stuck upside down and set along the roofs. In many houses and in
tombs an aloe plant is hung just inside the entrance, swinging from the
ceiling, which prevents any envious person from doing harm. Special
charms are made for animals by the witches and the Fikis. The charm
used to protect a donkey consists of some ashes, a spider’s web,
a little salt, and a scrap of paper inscribed with a verse from the
Koran, tied in a black bag and hung round the animal’s neck. Some
of the most valuable donkeys have quite a cluster of amulets hung
round them. The ingredients of the various charms manufactured by
the women are very similar to those used by the witches in Macbeth,
those that are the most difficult to obtain being the most efficacious.
But in spite of innumerable precautions people are constantly under the
impression that they have incurred the Evil Eye, and then complicated
rites have to be performed in order to raise the curse. This can be
done in various ways. If the evil wisher is known his victim follows
him without being seen and collects a little sand from his footprints
which he takes to the Fiki. The Fiki, for a small fee, recites certain
verses over it, which removes the curse. Another system is for the
victim to go on a Friday, without speaking to anybody on the way,
to a male date palm. He pulls off some of the stringy, brown fibre
and brings it back to the Fiki who twists it into a cord and binds
it round the man’s head. The patient keeps this on his head during
the day, and in the evening he again visits the Fiki who unties the
cord and reads some appropriate passages from the Koran, after which
the object is no longer in danger. There is another method which is
frequently practised in more serious cases. The Fiki takes a hen’s
egg—presumably a fresh one—and inscribes certain cabalistic signs
upon it. He then burns a great deal of incense and mutters charms;
when the patient has become thoroughly bewildered he takes the egg
and moves it seven times round the victim’s head. He then breaks
it in a basin, gazes fixedly at it, discovers whose is the Evil Eye,
and destroys its power by scattering it on the floor.
Any individual who was popularly supposed to possess an Evil Eye was
carefully avoided. There was one old woman who was particularly feared
on this account. She was quite old and rather mad, but she certainly
had an exceptionally evil expression, and she showed her face more
than most of them. Anybody who met her in the morning, starting out
to his garden or on some expedition, would attribute any mishap that
occurred during the day to her malevolent glance.
The witches of Siwa live among some ruined houses in the highest part
of the old town. Their leader is a little blind woman who is said to
be 100 years old. She looks exactly like one of the shrivelled mummies
that are found in some of the tombs near Siwa, but her scanty wisps
of hair are dyed red which gives a most sinister effect. She creeps
about leaning on a staff, like the regular witch in Grimm’s fairy
tales, and although she is quite blind she manages to slip about the
high battlements like a lizard, knowing by force of habit every stone
in the place. When a client wishes to consult her he comes after
nightfall to a certain place among the ruins high up in the town,
where a number of dark passages converge, and then he calls her. She
lives somewhere up above with two or three others. She mystifies her
visitors by appearing suddenly, quite close to them, noiselessly and
apparently from nowhere.
I once sent a message saying that I should like to make her
acquaintance. One night after dinner I walked over to the town,
taking a man with me who knew the place well. We scrambled up and
up, through pitch-dark passages to the highest part of the town and
eventually arrived at a little low door about 4 feet high, in one of
the narrowest and steepest tunnels. After knocking several times it
was opened. I lit a match and saw the little old woman herself. She
led me up several more dark flights of steps to the roof of the house,
and there, sitting in the moonlight, I drank tea with her. The tea
was served by her grandchild, a Sudanese boy. Unfortunately I could
hardly understand a word she said, but the tea was excellent, and
the view was very fine.
It was a hot summer night, but the high roof was cool with even a
faint breeze blowing across it. Looking down over the parapet one
saw white-wrapped, sleeping figures on the roofs below, and in the
distance there sounded the faint, mysterious melody of reed pipes and
a tom-tom. These Libyan nights are very wonderful; the sky is a deep,
dark blue, powdered with myriads of stars, and every few minutes
a long-tailed meteor flashes downwards. Shooting stars are said to
be hurled by the angels in heaven at the jinns on the earth below,
but the Siwans fear them as they say that each star kills a palm
tree. They prove this statement by arguing that when a tree dies in
a natural way it withers from the bottom, but when it withers from
the top, as many do, it is caused by a falling star.
When a Siwan girl thinks that it is about time that she was married,
and no suitors are forthcoming, she adopts the following custom. On a
Friday, when the muezzins on the mosques are calling the Faithful to
pray at noon, she leaves the house, carrying some sugar in her right
hand and a little salt tightly clutched in her left hand. She covers
her face with her long, grey shawl and hurries through the streets,
avoiding everybody, to a little hill outside the town—close to
the Camel Corps barracks—which is crowned by the tomb of a very
venerated Siwan sheikh. When she arrives she runs seven times round
the tomb, eating the sugar and the salt and calling on the sheikh to
help her. She does this on three Fridays in succession, and after that
somebody comes to her parents and asks for her hand. Later, if she has
a child, she distributes food to the poor at the tomb of the sheikh
as a thank-offering. The actual tomb of Sheikh Abu Arash is inside a
little whitewashed mud building. The tomb is covered with white linen,
which is renewed by devotees of the saint, and a number of ostrich
eggs, brought many years ago from the Sudan, are suspended from the
ceiling. Sometimes women bring flowers and palm boughs and lay them on
the tomb. Often on a Friday I have noticed a woman hurrying round it,
muttering earnestly to herself and hoping for a husband. I wondered at
one time whether the proximity of the Camel Corps barracks had anything
to do with this recipe for obtaining a husband—but the belief has
been held for many years, long before the Camel Corps were thought of.
Another way of obtaining a husband is as follows. The girl summons one
of the “wise women” to her house and provides her with a basket,
which is, by the way, a perquisite. The old woman takes the basket
and goes round to each mosque in the town collecting a handful of dust
from the ground immediately in front of each door. She then brings the
basket full of dust back to the girl and they mix it with olive oil,
making a kind of putty. The girl then brings in a round tin or a large
round dish and takes a bath, using the putty as soap. The old woman
carefully collects the water which has been used in an earthenware
pitcher. She goes out at night again to each mosque and sprinkles a
little of the water round the doors. The next day, when the men come
in and out of the mosques they tread on the place where the water was
poured, and probably some of the mud sticks to their feet. One of them
is sure to demand the girl in marriage. There are various other methods
of attaining the same ends; amulets and charms are manufactured by
the witches, which are supposed to attract a certain man, especially
if the ingredients of the charm include something that once belonged
to him. The whole idea is very much the same as the system of love
philtres and charms that were used in Europe in the Middle Ages.
The witches are supposed to be able to summon jinns whenever they
want to, but any ordinary person has to follow out a complicated
proceeding before being able to do so. The system used for invoking
jinns is only practised secretly, and by women, but it is implicitly
believed in by everybody. For forty-five days the woman eats no meat,
feeding entirely on bread, rice, lentils and fruits. Every evening she
bakes a loaf of wheaten bread, unsalted and flavoured with red pepper,
which is the favourite flavouring among jinns. She takes the loaf,
naked, with her hair hanging loose, to the rubbish heap outside her
house, where she leaves it. On the forty-fourth night a jinn appears
in the form of some familiar animal: a camel, donkey, or cow. If the
woman is afraid it kills her at once, but if she is brave, and speaks
to it, it does her bidding. The jinn tells her to prepare a dinner
on the following night for six of his brothers. Next day she makes
six loaves and flavours them with spiders’ webs besides pepper, and
takes them out to the dust heap as before. She leaves them and returns
an hour later. Then she finds the chief of the jinns, Iblis himself,
waiting for her, a monstrous creature with flaming eyes, horns and
great hooked teeth, breathing out fire from his mouth. This individual
asks her what she desires and promises to carry out her wishes on
the condition that from henceforth she never utters the name of Allah.
There is another even more fantastic story that sometimes at midnight
one of the witches swings a cord from her house on the battlements to
the top of the tall minaret of a mosque just below. She then steps off
the wall and walks along the rope, which is suspended in mid-air, like
a tight-rope dancer. People also assert that it is a practice of the
witches to creep out into the graveyards at night, to dig up a body,
tear off the head, and carry it back in their mouths like animals. This
gruesome habit was ascribed to werewolves in the olden days.
Often when there is a case of theft in the town one of the “wise
women” is summoned to help discover the thief and the whereabouts
of the stolen property. She occasionally finds the property, but
very rarely exposes the culprit. One day a rich merchant came to
my office in a great fuss and complained that a quantity of silver
ornaments belonging to his wife had disappeared from his house. I
held an official inquiry, but there were no clues, and nothing was
found out. Then the merchant invited the help of an old woman called
Marika, who according to popular opinion was assisted by a familiar
jinn. He offered her a substantial reward if she could trace the
jewellery. About a week later Marika came to the merchant and asked him
to collect every single person in his household outside the door of the
house at a certain time that night. The door was closed on the empty
house and the old woman hobbled up and down outside it for about ten
minutes, muttering incantations and watched with considerable awe by
the whole household. After this proceeding she flung open the door and
led the merchant to one of the lower rooms where the missing ornaments
were found lying on the floor near the window. She explained that a
jinn had brought them back; the merchant paid her a reward and she
then retired. Nobody thought of trying to discover who had replaced
the stuff, and my suggestion that the lady herself had some knowledge
of the culprit was indignantly dismissed. These old women have access
to all the harems and have a considerable influence over the women,
so they are able to collect an enormous amount of information which
helps them in affairs like these, though they are by no means always
so successful.
If a number of people are implicated in a theft another very curious
system is used for discovering the culprit. A smooth, round dish, or
a flat, round piece of wood about the size of a plate is produced and
inscribed with curious hieroglyphics and verses from the Koran. Two
men, one of them who has to be an expert, sit down on the ground
facing each other, holding the dish in the air about a foot from the
ground, balanced on the tips of their fingers. Each of the suspects
come in one by one and places a scrap of paper or rag on the middle
of the round piece of wood. If they are innocent nothing happens, but
when the guilty man has dropped his piece of paper on to it the wood
begins to revolve. I have seen this performance done three times; on
two occasions nothing happened, but the other time the wood certainly
did move round, although I could not see how it was manipulated.
Divination, which is considered to be a form of satanic magic among
good Mohammedans, is much practised at Siwa. Perhaps it is the idea
of oracular communication which has lingered in the oasis since the
days when Siwa was famous for its oracle. Its most frequent form is
the interpretation of dreams, but future events are also discovered
by examining certain bones in animals that are slaughtered for food,
in a similar manner to the Roman augeries. The lines on certain bones
of a sheep denote coming events. One old man, after examining the thigh
bone of a young kid, announced to me that ten men and six camels would
arrive on the morrow from Jerabub, and also that a large convoy was
moving from the coast to Jerabub. Part of the prediction turned out
to be true, but I expect that he found out about the camels before
he made the prophecy.
The interpretation of dreams is considered the most reliable guidance
of this kind. When a man has a difficult problem to decide he pays
fees to a Fiki and gives him some small article that belongs to
him. The Fiki takes the article, a cap for instance, and goes to
the tomb of Sidi Suliman or another sheikh; he prays and then lies
down and sleeps. Afterwards he interprets his dream as an answer to
his client’s questions. Sometimes he has to visit the tomb many
times before being able to give any advice, so in an urgent case
this system would not be a success. The art of divination at tombs
is hereditary, and there is a kind of code which attaches definite
meanings to certain things that the man dreams about. The ancient
Berbers who believed in an after life consulted at the graves of
their chiefs in a similar manner.
One of the Fikis, an old man who has performed the Pilgrimage four
times, is an expert fortune-teller. His methods are many, but his
favourite one seems to be a complicated system by which he draws
a species of chart in the sand or on paper, with a number of little
squares or “houses” which he fills in with figures depending on his
client’s birth date. He has other ways of working with sand alone, or
by opening a certain Arabic book on necromancy at random, and reading
from the page at which he happens to open it. The natives have great
faith in him, and say that his predictions are very accurate—but
this was not my opinion when I once consulted him as an experiment.
When there is an epidemic in Siwa, such as the “Spanish Influenza”
which carried off an enormous proportion of the population in 1918,
a ceremony takes place which must have originated when the Berbers
of Siwa made sacrifices to appease their gods. The wealthy men of the
town subscribe together and buy a young heifer. For several days it is
allowed to roam about feeding as it likes in anybody’s garden. On an
appointed day the people assemble in the square before the tomb of Sidi
Suliman, and the heifer is brought forward and decorated with wreaths
and flowers. It is then led seven times round the walls, followed
by a procession of the sheikhs and a band of men and boys playing
on cymbals, drums and pipes. It is led to the gate of the principal
mosque, Gama el Atik; a man steps forward and slits its right ear with
a knife, drawing blood, and then throws the knife away. Afterwards the
butchers slaughter it, cutting up the meat into innumerable minute
pieces and distributing it so that each household in Siwa has one
small piece. The people take the scraps of meat home and hang them up
in their house, and this, so they say, has the effect of removing any
plague or disease that affects the town. Herodotus describes almost
the same ceremony as being a custom among the ancient Libyans.
Every Mohammedan is supposed, once in his lifetime, to perform the
Pilgrimage to Mecca. But only very few Siwans have enough money to
do this. Generally, every summer, two or three men go from Siwa,
taking with them a sum of money, the proceeds of the sale of dates
from certain trees which have been dedicated by their owners as
offerings to the mosque at Mecca. Endowments of this description,
either for the support of a mosque or religious school, or for the
giving of alms to the poor on certain days in the year, are often made
by wealthy Mohammedans. A gift of this kind is called a “wakf,”
and there is a special branch of the Egyptian Government which deals
with them, but in Siwa the “wakfs” are administered by one of
the sheikhs, and this gives cause for a great deal of quarrelling
and libels. The pilgrims from Siwa carry the money with them, though
it often amounts to well over a hundred pounds, which among Arabs is
a very considerable sum, but the sanctity of their purpose protects
them from robbery. They generally accompany a caravan of Arabs going
direct to Alexandria, via the oasis of Gara.
On the day of their departure the whole town turns out to see them off,
escorting them to the most distant spring on the eastern edge of the
oasis. The wives of the pilgrims accompany them, and when they arrive
at the parting-point the following quaint ceremony takes place. The
crowd form up in the background, leaving the pilgrims and their wives
on an open space by the side of the spring. A near relative takes
from the wife of the pilgrim her round silver bangles and rolls them
along the ground, a distance of about a hundred yards, to where the
husband stands facing the east. The wife, who on this occasion is
dressed entirely in white, runs along behind him and gathers up a
little sand from each place where the bracelets stopped rolling and
fell to the ground. She puts the sand carefully into a little leather
bag. After this she stands under a certain very tall palm tree near
the spring while the relative climbs up and cuts off three long palm
fronds which he gives to her. After farewells have been said the
caravan goes on its way, the camels driven along in a bunch in front,
followed by the Arabs and the pilgrims; the wives and people return
to Siwa, the women wailing noisily, and the men beating tom-toms and
singing. The spring is about a mile beyond Aghourmi, and generally
on that day the sheikh of the village gives an entertainment and a
luncheon to some of the people.
On arrival at her house the wife of the pilgrim, with the women of the
family and one near male relation, goes up to the roof and ties the
three palm branches firmly to one corner; she puts the sand into a
little green linen bag and fastens it to the tips of the three palm
fronds, so that they bend towards the east—towards Mecca. This
ensures the pilgrim a safe journey and also serves to let everybody
know that the owner of the house is doing the Pilgrimage.
In two months’ time it is supposed that the pilgrims have reached
Mecca. Their friends and relations have a feast on the roof and hold
a reading of the Koran. Then the man who rolled the bracelets gets up
and pierces the little green bag of sand so that the contents pour
out; he then turns the palm branches round and fixes them in such a
way that they point towards the west, in which position they remain
till the pilgrim returns safely home again.
When it is known that the caravan has arrived at Ain Magahiz, or one of
the outlying springs, a crowd of men ride out to welcome the returned
pilgrims, but their women-folk stay at home, prepare a substantial
meal, and then go on to the roof, take down the palm branches and
watch the distant road for the cloud of dust that invariably announces
a caravan.
There is one festival in Siwa which almost corresponds to our Christmas
Day. It takes place in the winter, on the tenth day of the month of
January. For several days before Yom el Ashur—the tenth day—the
roofs of all the houses where there are children are decorated with
palm branches, 10 or 20 feet long, with a torch soaked in oil fastened
to each branch. After dark, on the eve of the day, all the children
go up on to the roofs and set light to the torches. There is a blaze
of illumination along the walls, and for a few minutes the whole town
is lit by the flaming torches. It is a strange and beautiful sight,
quite as effective as the most elaborate illuminations. The children
on each roof sing songs to each other, and the wail of their voices
sounds far on into the night in a monotonous sweet refrain.
On the following day the children visit each other and exchange
presents which are very like “Christmas-trees.” Each child makes a
square framework of palm branches a few feet long, the white wood is
stained and dyed with coloured patterns, and on it are hung fruits,
nuts and sweets. Some of the richer children give each other doves
and rabbits, but generally they keep to sweets, the most favourite
kind being pink and white sugared almonds which are imported by the
merchants from Cairo. The children of Siwa look forward to Yom el Ashur
with as much pleasure as their parents do to the annual mulids. It
is really a very attractive sight to see these little Siwans, very
clean and in fresh white clothes for the occasion, trooping solemnly
along the streets on their way to visit their friends, while their
papas sit outside their houses and chuckle at them, and the mammas
watch them proudly from an upstairs window.
[Illustration: A LITTLE SIWAN GIRL]