HOME LIFE IN THE TENTS
Most persons, no matter what their race or country, spend a large
proportion of their time at home. The home is the center of many
interests and activities, and it reflects quite accurately the state
of civilization of a people. In this chapter let us take a look into
the homes of the shepherd Hebrews. We shall visit one of their
encampments; perhaps we shall be reminded of a camp of the gypsies.
A CLUSTER OF BLACK TENTS
Here on a gentle hillside sloping up from a tiny brook, is a cluster
of ten or a dozen black tents. Further down the valley sheep are
grazing. Two or three mongrel dogs rush out to bark at us as we
approach, until a harsh voice calls them back. A dark man with bare
brown arms comes out to meet us, wearing a coarse woolen cloak with
short sleeves. Half-naked children peer out from the tent flaps.
=The inside of the tents.=--Our friend is eager to show us hospitality
and invites us to enter his tent. It is a low, squatting affair, and
we have to stoop low to enter the opening in the front. We note that
the tent-cloth is a woolen fabric not like our canvas of to-day. It is
stretched across a center-pole, with supports on the front and back,
while the edges are pinned to the ground much as our tents are. There
are curtains within the tent partitioning off one part for the men,
and another for the women and children. There are mats on the ground
to sit on and to sleep on at night.
PREPARING FOOD
Like the housewives of all ages, the Hebrew women have food to
prepare, and meals to get. Their one great food is milk, not cows'
milk, but the milk of goats. A modern traveler tells of meeting an
Arab who in a time of scarcity had lived on milk alone for more than a
year.
=A meager diet.=--Besides fresh milk there were then as now a number
of things which were made from milk. The Hebrews on the desert took
some milk and cream and poured it into a bag made of skin, and hung it
by a stout cord from a pole. One of the women, or a boy, pounded this
bag until the butter came out. This was their way of churning. Cheese
also was a favorite article of diet. The milk was curdled by means of
the sour or bitter juices of certain plants, and the curds were then
salted and dried in the sun. Curdled milk even more than sweet milk
was also used as a drink. It probably tasted like the _kumyss_, or
_zoolak_, which we can buy in our drug stores or soda fountains.
We would get very tired of milk and milk products if we had nothing
else to eat all the year round; and so did these shepherds. They were
eager to get hold of wheat and barley, whenever they could buy them.
The women took the wheat and pounded it with a wooden mallet or a
stone in a hollow in some larger stone. The coarse meal which they
made in this way they mixed with salt and water and baked on hot
stones before the campfire. Once in a great while it was possible, in
this shepherd life, to have a feast with mutton or kid or lamb. But
milk and wool were so valuable that the shepherds were very
cautious about killing their flocks. It was, you see, a very simple
and healthful diet on which these tent-people lived. But one meal was
pretty much like another. Dinner was like breakfast, and tomorrow's
meals would be just like to-day's. It is not strange that they often
longed for a change, and looked with envy at the crops of the farmers
in the settled lands beyond the desert.
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| [Illustration: BRONZE NEEDLES AND PINS FROM RUINS OF ANCIENT |
| CANAANITE CITY] |
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| [Illustration: CANAANITE NURSERY BOTTLES (CLAY)] |
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| [Illustration: CANAANITE SILVER LADLE] |
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| [Illustration: CANAANITE FORKS] |
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| Cuts on this page used by permission of the Palestine Exploration |
| Fund. |
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CLOTHING
Another occupation at which the women worked all day long was the
making of clothing for their families. Most of their garments were
made of the wool from their own flocks. First the wool had to be spun
into yarn. They did not even have spinning wheels in those days, so a
spinner took a handful of wool on the end of a stick called a distaff,
which she held in her left hand. With her right hand she hooked into
the wool a spindle. This was a round, pointed piece of wood about ten
inches long with a hook at the pointed end, and with a small piece of
stone fastened to the other to give momentum in the spinning. With
deft fingers the spinner kept this spindle whirling and at the same
time kept working the wool down into the thread of yarn which she was
making. As the thread lengthened she wound it around the spindle,
until the wool on the distaff was all gone and she had a great ball of
yarn.
=Weaving=.--The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians were experts in the
art of weaving. They had large looms similar to ours, and wove on them
beautiful fabrics of linen and wool. The shepherds on the plains no
doubt bought these fabrics when they could afford them. But they could
not carry these heavy looms around with them from one camp to another,
and much of the time their own women had to weave whatever cloth they
had. The primitive loom they used was made by driving two sticks into
the ground, and stretching a row of threads between them, and then
tediously weaving the cross threads in and out, a thread at a time,
until a yard or so of cloth was finished. Slow work this was, and many
a long day passed before enough cloth could be woven to make a coat
for a man or even a boy.
They managed, however, to get along without nearly so much clothing as
we think necessary. The little children, through warm days of summer,
played around the tents almost naked. And the grown people dressed
very simply. There were only two garments for either men or women.
They wore a long shirt reaching to the knees. This was made by
doubling over a strip of cloth, sewing the sides, and cutting out
holes for arms and neck. The outer garment was a sort of coat, open in
front, and gathered about the waist with leather belt. This outer
garment was often thrown aside when the wearer was working. It was
worn in cold weather, however, and was often the poor man's only
blanket at night. Women's garments were probably a little longer than
those of men, but in other respects the same. As for the feet, they
mostly went barefoot. But on long journeys over rough ground they wore
sandals of wood or roughly shaped shoes of sheepskin. On the head for
a protection against sun and wind they, like the modern Arab, probably
wore a sort of large scarf gathered around the neck.
=Making the garments.=--All these garments were cut and sewed by the
women. They had no sewing machines to work with, not even fine steel
needles like ours. They used large, coarse needles made of bronze or,
very often, of splinters of bone sharpened at one end, with a hole
drilled through the other. With such rough tools, and all this work to
be done, we can be sure that the wives and daughters of Hebrew
shepherds did not lack for something to do.
FAMILY LIFE
Among ancient Hebrews family life, from the very beginning, was often
sweet, kindly, and beautiful. This is shown by the many stories in the
early books of the Old Testament which reflect disapproval of
unbrotherly conduct, or, which hold up kindness and loyalty in family
life as a beautiful and praiseworthy thing. Take the story of Joseph.
It begins indeed with an unpleasant picture of an unhappy and unloving
family of shepherd brothers. We read of a father's partiality toward
the petted favorite, of a spoiled and conceited boy, of the bitter
jealousy of the other brothers, and finally of a crime in which they
showed no mercy when they sold their hated rival to a caravan of
traders to be taken away, it might be, forever. But the story goes on
to tell how that same lad, years later, grown to manhood and risen to
a position of extraordinary power and influence in the great kingdom
of Egypt, not only saved from death by starvation his family,
including those same brothers who had wronged him, but even effected a
complete reconciliation with them and nobly forgave them.
Now, the most notable facts in connection with this story are those
"between the lines." It is not merely that such and such events are
said to have happened, but that for generations, perhaps centuries,
Hebrew fathers and mothers kept the story of these events alive,
telling it over and over again to their children. On numberless days,
no doubt, in this shepherd life there were bickering and angry words
among the children by the spring or at meal time, or in their games.
The older brothers were tyrannical toward the younger, or one or
another cherished black and unforgiving looks toward a brother or
sister who he thought had done him a wrong. And many a time after such
a day the old father would gather all the family together in the
evening around the camp fire in front of the tent and would begin to
tell the story of Joseph. And as the tale went on, with its thrilling
episodes, and its touches of pathos leading up at last to the
whole-souled generosity and the sweet human tenderness of Joseph, many
a little heart softened, and in the darkness many a little brown hand
sought a brother's hand in loving reconciliation.
=The tribe as a larger family.=--To some extent the desert shepherds
of all ages have carried this family spirit into the relations between
members of the tribe as a whole. Since they had to stand together for
protection, quarrels between tribesmen were discouraged. Moreover,
they were not separated into classes by difference of wealth. There
were some who had larger flocks than others, but for the most part all
members of the tribe were equal. Even from among the slaves who were
captured now and then in war there were some who rose to positions of
honor. There were no kings nor princes; the chief of the tribe held
his position by virtue of his long experience and practical wisdom.
The distinction between close blood relationship and the brotherhood
of membership in the same tribe was not sharply drawn; all were
brothers. This is true to-day of all these desert tribes.
Only a tribe, however, with an unusual capacity for brotherly
affection and for making social life sweet and harmonious could have
produced a Joseph or the story of Joseph, or would have preserved that
story in oral form through the centuries until it could be written
down. It is worth while looking into the later history of such a
tribe, and seeing what happened to them and how they thought and
acted, and what they contributed to the life of the world.
STUDY TOPICS
1. Get some cotton at a drug store, and see if you can spin some
cotton thread, with a homemade spindle, such as is described in this
chapter.
2. Who had the harder work among the Hebrew shepherds, the women or
the men?
3. Find other stories in Genesis besides the story of Joseph which
show how the Hebrews felt in regard to the relations between brothers.
4. Compare the home life in America with the home life of the Hebrews.
Are American brothers and sisters growing more quarrelsome or more
kindly and loving toward one another?
5. In what way do the oral traditions of a people throw light on the
ideals and relationships they most valued?
6. Compare the dietary available to Americans with that of the ancient
Hebrews.