[1] This style of profile--highly oval, with the chin and brow receding--
is very conspicuous in Eastern Africa, where the face, slightly
prognathous, projects below the nose.
[2] Gall-nuts form the base of the tattooing dye. It is worked in with a
needle, when it becomes permanent: applied with a pen, it requires to be
renewed about once a fortnight.
[3] Mats are the staple manufacture in Eastern, as in many parts of
Western, Africa. The material is sometimes Daum or other palm: there are,
however, many plants in more common use; they are made of every variety in
shape and colour, and are dyed red, black, and yellow,--madder from
Tajurrah and alum being the matter principally used.
[4] When woman addresses woman she always uses her voice.
[5] The Tobe, or Abyssinian "Quarry," is the general garment of Africa
from Zayla to Bornou. In the Somali country it is a cotton sheet eight
cubits long, and two breadths sewn together. An article of various uses,
like the Highland plaid, it is worn in many ways; sometimes the right arm
is bared; in cold weather the whole person is muffled up, and in summer it
is allowed to full below the waist. Generally it is passed behind the
back, rests upon the left shoulder, is carried forward over the breast,
surrounds the body, and ends hanging on the left shoulder, where it
displays a gaudy silk fringe of red and yellow. This is the man's Tobe.
The woman's dress is of similar material, but differently worn: the edges
are knotted generally over the right, sometimes over the left shoulder; it
is girdled round the waist, below which hangs a lappet, which in cold
weather can be brought like a hood over the head. Though highly becoming,
and picturesque as the Roman toga, the Somali Tobe is by no means the most
decorous of dresses: women in the towns often prefer the Arab costume,--a
short-sleeved robe extending to the knee, and a Futah or loin-cloth
underneath.
As regards the word Tobe, it signifies, in Arabic, a garment generally:
the Somal call it "Maro," and the half Tobe a "Shukkah."
[6] Abu Kasim of Gaza, a well known commentator upon Abu Shujaa of
Isfahan, who wrote a text-book of the Shafei school.
[7] The Hajj had seven sons, three of whom died in infancy. Ali and
Mahmud, the latter a fine young man, fell victims to small pox: Mohammed
is now the eldest, and the youngest is a child called Ahmed, left for
education at Mocha. The Hajj has also two daughters, married to Bedouin
Somal.
[8] It is related that a Hazrami, flying from his fellow-countrymen,
reached a town upon the confines of China. He was about to take refuge in
a mosque, but entering, he stumbled over the threshold. "Ya Amud el Din"--
"0 Pillar of the Faith!" exclaimed a voice from the darkness, calling upon
the patron saint of Hazramaut to save a Moslem from falling. "May the
Pillar of the Faith break thy head," exclaimed the unpatriotic traveller,
at once rising to resume his vain peregrinations.
[9] Mercenaries from Mocha, Hazramaut, and Bir Hamid near Aden: they are
armed with matchlock, sword, and dagger; and each receives from the
governor a monthly stipend of two dollars and a half.
[10] The system of caste, which prevails in El Yemen, though not in the
northern parts of Arabia, is general throughout the Somali country. The
principal families of outcasts are the following.
The Yebir correspond with the Dushan of Southern Arabia: the males are
usually jesters to the chiefs, and both sexes take certain parts at
festivals, marriages, and circumcisions. The number is said to be small,
amounting to about 100 families in the northern Somali country.
The Tomal or Handad, the blacksmiths, originally of Aydur race, have
become vile by intermarriage with serviles. They must now wed maidens of
their own class, and live apart from the community: their magical
practices are feared by the people,--the connection of wits and witchcraft
is obvious,--and all private quarrels are traced to them. It has been
observed that the blacksmith has ever been looked upon with awe by
barbarians on the same principle that made Vulcan a deity. In Abyssinia
all artisans are Budah, sorcerers, especially the blacksmith, and he is a
social outcast as among the Somal; even in El Hejaz, a land, unlike Yemen,
opposed to distinctions amongst Moslems, the Khalawiyah, who work in
metal, are considered vile. Throughout the rest of El Islam the blacksmith
is respected as treading in the path of David, the father of the craft.
The word "Tomal," opposed to Somal, is indigenous. "Handad "is palpably a
corruption of the Arabic "Haddad," ironworker.
The Midgan, "one-hand," corresponds with the Khadim of Yemen: he is called
Kami or "archer" by the Arabs. There are three distinct tribes of this
people, who are numerous in the Somali country: the best genealogists
cannot trace their origin, though some are silly enough to derive them,
like the Akhdam, from Shimr. All, however, agree in expelling the Midgan
from the gentle blood of Somali land, and his position has been compared
to that of Freedman amongst the Romans. These people take service under
the different chiefs, who sometimes entertain great numbers to aid in
forays and frays; they do not, however, confine themselves to one craft.
Many Midgans employ themselves in hunting and agriculture. Instead of
spear and shield, they carry bows and a quiver full of diminutive arrows,
barbed and poisoned with the Waba,--a weapon used from Faizoghli to the
Cape of Good Hope. Like the Veddah of Ceylon, the Midgan is a poor shot,
and scarcely strong enough to draw his stiff bow. He is accused of
maliciousness; and the twanging of his string will put to flight a whole
village. The poison is greatly feared: it causes, say the people, the hair
and nails to drop off, and kills a man in half an hour. The only treatment
known is instant excision of the part; and this is done the more
frequently, because here, as in other parts of Africa, such _stigmates_
are deemed ornamental.
In appearance the Midgan is dark and somewhat stunted; he is known to the
people by peculiarities of countenance and accent.
[11] The reason why Europeans fail to explain their thoughts to Orientals
generally is that they transfer the Laconism of Western to Eastern
tongues. We for instance say, "Fetch the book I gave you last night." This
in Hindostani, to choose a well-known tongue, must be smothered with words
thus: "What book was by me given to you yesterday by night, that book
bringing to me, come!"
[12] I have alluded to these subjects in a previous work upon the subject
of Meccah and El Medinah.
[13] This is one of the stock complaints against the Moslem scheme. Yet is
it not practically the case with ourselves? In European society, the best
are generally those who prefer the companionship of their own sex; the
"ladies' man" and the woman who avoids women are rarely choice specimens.
[14] The Shantarah board is thus made, with twenty-five points technically
called houses. [Illustration] The players have twelve counters a piece,
and each places two at a time upon any of the unoccupied angles, till all
except the centre are filled up. The player who did not begin the game
must now move a man; his object is to inclose one of his adversary's
between two of his own, in which case he removes it, and is entitled to
continue moving till he can no longer take. It is a game of some skill,
and perpetual practice enables the Somal to play it as the Persians do
backgammon, with great art and little reflection. The game is called
Kurkabod when, as in our draughts, the piece passing over one of the
adversary's takes it.
Shahh is another favourite game. The board is made thus, [Illustration]
and the pieces as at Shantarah are twelve in number. The object is to
place three men in line,--as the German Muhle and the Afghan "Kitar,"--
when any one of the adversary's pieces may be removed.
Children usually prefer the game called indifferently Togantog and
Saddikiya. A double line of five or six holes is made in the ground, four
counters are placed in each, and when in the course of play four men meet
in the same hole, one of the adversary's is removed. It resembles the
Bornou game, played with beans and holes in the sand. Citizens and the
more civilised are fond of "Bakkis," which, as its name denotes, is a
corruption of the well-known Indian Pachisi. None but the travelled know
chess, and the Damal (draughts) and Tavola (backgammon) of the Turks.
[15] The same objection against "villanous saltpetre" was made by
ourselves in times of old: the French knights called gunpowder the Grave
of Honor. This is natural enough, the bravest weapon being generally the
shortest--that which places a man hand to hand with his opponent. Some of
the Kafir tribes have discontinued throwing the Assegai, and enter battle
wielding it as a pike. Usually, also, the shorter the weapon is, the more
fatal are the conflicts in which it is employed. The old French "Briquet,"
the Afghan "Charay," and the Goorka "Kukkri," exemplify this fact in the
history of arms.
[16] In the latter point it differs from the Assegai, which is worked by
the Kafirs to the finest temper.
[17] It is called by the Arabs Kubabah, by the Somal Goasa. Johnston
(Travels in Southern Abyssinia, chap. 8.) has described the game; he errs,
however, in supposing it peculiar to the Dankali tribes.
[18] This is in fact the pilgrim dress of El Islam; its wide diffusion to
the eastward, as well as west of the Red Sea, proves its antiquity as a
popular dress.
[19] I often regretted having neglected the precaution of a bottle of
walnut juice,--a white colour is decidedly too conspicuous in this part of
the East.
[20] The strict rule of the Moslem faith is this: if a man neglect to
pray, he is solemnly warned to repent. Should he simply refuse, without,
however, disbelieving in prayer, he is to be put to death, and receive
Moslem burial; in the other contingency, he is not bathed, prayed for, or
interred in holy ground. This severe order, however, lies in general
abeyance.
[21] "Tuarick grandiloquence," says Richardson (vol. i. p. 207.), "savours
of blasphemy, e.g. the lands, rocks, and mountains of Ghat do not belong
to God but to the Azghar." Equally irreverent are the Kafirs of the Cape.
They have proved themselves good men in wit as well as war; yet, like the
old Greenlanders and some of the Burmese tribes, they are apparently
unable to believe in the existence of the Supreme. A favourite question to
the missionaries was this, "Is your God white or black?" If the European,
startled by the question, hesitated for a moment, they would leave him
with open signs of disgust at having been made the victims of a hoax.
The assertion generally passes current that the idea of an Omnipotent
Being is familiar to all people, even the most barbarous. My limited
experience argues the contrary. Savages begin with fetisism and demon-
worship, they proceed to physiolatry (the religion of the Vedas) and
Sabaeism: the deity is the last and highest pinnacle of the spiritual
temple, not placed there except by a comparatively civilised race of high
development, which leads them to study and speculate upon cosmical and
psychical themes. This progression is admirably wrought out in Professor
Max Muller's "Rig Veda Sanhita."
[22] The Moslem corpse is partly sentient in the tomb, reminding the
reader of Tennyson:
"I thought the dead had peace, but it is not so;
To have no peace in the grave, is that not sad?"
[23] The prayers for the dead have no Rukaat or bow as in other orisons.
[24] The general Moslem name for the African coast from the Somali
seaboard southwards to the Mozambique, inhabited by negrotic races.
[25] The Moslem rosary consists of ninety-nine beads divided into sets of
thirty-three each by some peculiar sign, as a bit of red coral.
[Illustration] The consulter, beginning at a chance place, counts up to
the mark: if the number of beads be odd, he sets down a single dot, if
even, two. This is done four times, when a figure is produced as in the
margin. Of these there are sixteen, each having its peculiar name and
properties. The art is merely Geomancy in its rudest shape; a mode of
vaticination which, from its wide diffusion, must be of high antiquity.
The Arabs call it El Baml, and ascribe its present form to the Imam Jaafar
el Sadik; amongst them it is a ponderous study, connected as usual with
astrology. Napoleon's "Book of Fate" is a specimen of the old Eastern
superstition presented to Europe in a modern and simple form.
[26] In this country, as in Western and Southern Africa, the leopard, not
the wolf, is the shepherd's scourge.
[27] Popular superstition in Abyssinia attributes the same power to the
Felashas or Jews.
[28] Our Elixir, a corruption of the Arabic El Iksir.
[29] In the Somali tongue its name is Barki: they make a stool of similar
shape, and call it Barjimo.
[30] Specimens of these discourses have been given by Mr. Lane, Mod.
Egypt, chap. 3. It is useless to offer others, as all bear the closest
resemblance.