AN ARAB WEDDING
Within a mile or two of Kairouan were various small orchards and gardens,
and Ali Hassan told me importantly that he was the owner of one of these,
consisting of olive trees, fruit trees and vines, for which he had given
600 francs, and that with taxes and extra payments the whole had cost him
no less than a thousand. I was suitably impressed. But during a drive in
that direction some of his pride collapsed. He had shown me his property
with its mud hut in one corner which he referred to magnificently as “ma
maison.” He intended to have it moved down to the roadside end of the
field, “for a highway brings much money.” There he will have a little
shop and sell coffee and beans, grapes and fruit.
The garden itself looked like a child’s game in the road, just bare twigs
sticking up in small heaps of dust; but that was December and Hassan saw
it in his mind’s eye by March, pink with almond blossom and starred with
the bloom of apricots. Further along the road a gloom fell upon him, and
at last he turned from the box seat beside the driver.
“Do you see that truly magnificent garden on the other side, and the
beautiful house with three rooms? That was once mine.”
There was a dramatic pause. I enquired delicately how he had been forced
to part with it.
“Because the owner of it died, and it was sold for more francs than would
stretch from here to the city.”
It was indeed a beautiful property. Many olives and apricot trees were in
it and there was a good well, and at his house he had a little business
where he sold cakes and coffee and such like. And as many travellers and
Bedouins pass up and down the way to Kairouan, he had made money. “Mais
oui, it is the road that brings money,” and he sank into a brooding
silence.
However, he recovered his cheerfulness when he took me to see his town
house. He was anxious I should make a picture of his wife and family,
but when we arrived it was to find the former had gone to the baths,
taking the smaller children with her. I had seen her before, but now I
was introduced to the eldest daughter, a pretty girl of thirteen whom
we found at her loom weaving carpets. Her father explained she was busy
making money towards her wedding, which would probably take place in a
year or two. He would select the bridegroom, and she would not even have
seen him beforehand. The little bride-to-be smiled up shyly at me. Her
hair was curling and very black, and her complexion olive. Beautiful
dark eyes, fringed with long lashes and underlined with kohl gave
character to her face, with its straight nose inclined to the aquiline
and the full well-drawn mouth. She gave promise of unusual beauty, and
already looked three or four years older than she was, to my English
eyes. She made a charming picture dressed in a dark short sleeved bodice
over a pink cotton under-shift, full cotton pantaloons drawn in at the
ankle, and her slim brown feet tucked under her. A faded red handkerchief
was tied over her hair, and her bare slender arms moved backwards and
forwards as she bent forward deftly knotting in the pieces of wool on
the fabric. She worked with the swiftness of long practice, her pretty
henna-stained fingers picking out the colours required from a pile of
coloured wools in front of her. The little room she sat in was quite bare
except for the loom and the matting spread on the beaten earth floor.
On coming in from the door in a quiet street, we had bent down to
get through the opening into the room on the left. The walls were
whitewashed, roughly decorated with crude coloured drawings of the
lucky hand of Fatma. Through this living-room one stepped into a small
courtyard, with a collection of green plants in pots in one corner,
and a clothes line stretched across it on which flapped a few coloured
garments. Two more rooms and a tiny cooking-place opened off it. I was
shown the bedroom with great pride. There were rugs on the floor, and
two large beds built into recesses. Coloured illustrations from European
magazines adorned the walls, and a very well drawn portrait of Hassan’s
father done by some French artist to whom he had acted as guide. There
was a portrait of a very wooden and staring-eyed Bey and another of his
predecessor. Hassan stood in the room watching my face for an expression
of surprise and delight which I managed to produce. To my remarks he
waved his hand round his possessions. “It is nothing,” he said, “you
should have seen my country house.”
There was another woman in the living room, Hassan’s sister, who with her
husband occupied the other bedroom, a discontented-looking handsome girl,
about twenty-two, more gaudily dressed than the little carpet-weaver. She
squatted on the floor cracking almonds with her white teeth and putting
the kernels into a small earthenware bowl. A smouldering good-looking
piece, thoroughly bored with life and probably meditating a speedy change
of husbands.
I met some English missionaries who had been in the country for thirty
years, and they told me that divorce is very common amongst the
inhabitants. It is even rather the rule than the exception, and it is
almost as often resorted to on the part of the wife as on that of the
husband. It can be procured for the most trifling causes, and the
divorcée does not lose social caste. She returns to her father’s house
and usually remarries, though in that case the father cannot command as
good a payment for her as he received from her first husband. Should
there be children the question of their maintenance is settled by the
Kaïd. The missionaries naturally were brought more in contact with the
lower classes, amongst whom they thought divorce was commoner than in the
wealthier circles. The poorer women go out closely veiled, but those of
better birth live almost entirely in their houses and on the very rare
occasions when they do go out, it is in a closed carriage with all the
blinds down. However, they rarely resent their seclusion in the harem;
they look on it as an enhancement of their value, and these missionaries
had never heard any complaint of the system.
It is quite likely that whilst we are pitying the women of the harem
for their secluded, miserable lives, they are also wasting compassion
on us, as poor creatures whom their husbands value so little that they
let them wander anywhere unveiled! But I think compassion is hardly the
sentiment with which we inspire them. Horror and disgust are their more
probable feelings. At every turn we run counter to their idea of what
is seemly and in good taste; and this question alone, of the different
conception of women’s standing in the East and in the West, makes mutual
understanding difficult between the two races.
Though the Koran allows four wives, it is not often a man avails himself
of the permission. It is too expensive, and he prefers to take his supply
consecutively. He can get as much change as he likes, by the easy way of
divorce. I went to an Arab wedding of the poorer classes at Kairouan,
and found it deeply interesting. It was a cold clear night with a bright
moon, the open space outside the walls of the city silvered in its light.
It seemed strangely quiet and empty after the stir and bustle of the day;
the little booths were shut, and a slinking white dog nosed amongst the
shadows. From a distant café came the sound of a stringed instrument and
the singing of a reedy voice. Otherwise silence. But when we had passed
through the city gates, we heard a loud hum of voices. Muffled figures
were hurrying along and soon we found ourselves in a crowd waiting for
the marriage procession. Knots of musicians appeared and struck up their
queer wavering tunes on pipes and drums and barbaric looking stringed
instruments, whilst some hand held aloft a lamp which made a small radius
of ruddy flame, lighting up the group below it and making the hooded
figures look more mysterious than ever. From a side street came the
shrill call of women shouting to keep evil spirits from the dwelling of
the newly married pair, whilst nearer and nearer came the sound of the
approaching procession.
In a few moments it moved past, the bridegroom in the middle of it, his
head and shoulders shrouded in a thick covering. The noise woke a bundle
of inanimate rags against the wall at our feet; it stirred, groaned and
sat up. To the sound of shouting and drums and the intoning of a nasal
chant, the bridegroom disappeared down the echoing street on his way to
the mosque. Already the bride had been fetched to his home, the civil
service having taken place the day before. We made a short cut there,
between blank walls where the path seemed a trickle of light through
impenetrable shadows.
And so we came to the house itself. Mysterious veiled figures stood
motionless on the roof, like sentinels of Fate. In the gloom my hand
was seized by a native woman’s, small and dry, and I was led into the
house followed by my English companion. We were taken across one room,
and brought to the doorway of another from whence came a hum of voices
and laughter. Peering into this smaller room we saw it packed with
gaily-dressed women squatting on the ground, whilst in the corner sat the
bride like a waxen image. She was swathed in a robe of heavily tinselled
stuff and over her head was thrown a drapery that quite hid her face.
Not a soul spoke French, but we were hospitably beckoned in. It proved
a matter of some difficulty to avoid stepping on the human mosaic which
covered the floor but we managed it somehow and sat down in very cramped
positions in places of honour close to the bride. She sat with her
back against the bed, which in Arab fashion was in an alcove. So great
was the throng, that our advent had pressed a small child under the bed
itself, from whence first came a doleful snuffling, followed at last by
a determined wail. It was as much a work of art to rescue the victim as
to extract a winkle from its shell with a pin, but it was ultimately
restored to the bosom of its family.
All this time the bride sat rigid and unbending as befits a modest Arab
maiden. She made no sign of life, even when the woman next her raised
the heavy veil for us to see her. She was a rather heavy-featured girl,
her face artificially whitened, with a brilliant dab of rouge on either
cheek, her forehead painted with an ornamental design in black and her
eyebrows made to meet in a straight line. Her fingers had been dipped
in some dark scented ointment, whilst the backs were decorated in an
intricate pattern with henna and the palms dabbed here and there. Her
hair was in two heavy plaits on either shoulder and she wore a coloured
silk handkerchief bound over it and above that a tinselled head-dress
with a long tail to it that hung down her back.
The heat in the small room was stifling. The women were all unveiled
and many of them were heavily powdered and rouged, their fingers loaded
with rings and wearing necklaces and earrings. Some were dressed in
queer décolleté dresses reminding one of fashions of twenty years ago,
with tight pointed bodices, much be-sequined and trimmed and with a kind
of gilt epaulettes on the shoulders. Everyone chattered hard, small
babies cried, outside the shouting and noise of drums went on, and the
atmosphere grew thicker and thicker with the odour of packed humanity,
scent and powder, and the sweet musty smell of garments that had been
laid away in aromatic herbs. Most of the women were of a warm olive
colouring, with beautiful long dark eyes, and one or two were as fair as
English brunettes with a natural carnation in their cheeks.
Amongst them I made out the mother of the bride, dressed in shabby black.
She had a fine worn face, with features that showed more mind than the
rest of the crowd, and dark eyes tear-stained in their hollowed sockets.
The cheekbones were high, the nose short and straight, and the sad mouth
drooped at the corners. It was the face of a woman who could think and
suffer, and stood out amongst the comely crowd in the same way that her
black draperies ‘told’ against their gay clothes. She reminded me of the
Virgin in the Pietà of Francia in the National Gallery. At times she
wept softly with eyes that seemed already burnt out with sorrow, drying
her tears with a fold of her veil. I longed to know Arabic, that I might
speak to her. Amongst foreigners whose language one does not know and
having no mutual tongue for comprehension, one is as deaf and dumb, all
power of observation and understanding centred in sight. So, I suppose,
must a deaf mute pass through the world, striving to participate in the
brotherhood of humanity, watching for a gleam here, a glance there, to
unlock the perpetual riddle.
At last the bridegroom was approaching.
The women began to leave for the larger room where we thankfully
followed. But there we were not much better off, as in a moment a
feminine crowd closed in upon us in a frenzy of friendly curiosity. It
was like stepping into a cageful of monkeys. They seized our arms, ran
their hands over us, exclaiming and gesticulating, fingered our blouses,
our ornaments, and trying to pull off our hats. It was only the arrival
of the bridegroom that averted their attention. He was brought by another
way into the room, still veiled, and then the bride was brought to him
and amidst much laughter and shouting his head covering was removed.
After this they were conducted to the door of another bedroom, stepping
over the sill of which each tried to step on the other’s foot, the one
who succeeds being supposed to have the predominance in their future
married life. The door was shut on them, “et voilà tout” as a small Arab
boy remarked to me, glad to air his slender French.
I was told later that when the bridegroom finds himself alone with his
bride he lifts her veil and sees her face for the first time. He takes
off her slippers and outer coat and then leaves her, and rejoins his men
friends outside. If he has not been satisfied with his bride’s appearance
it is still open to him to repudiate her, in which case she will return
to her father’s house. Should he be pleased with her, however, the next
day is given up to a banquet to all their friends, and he returns to his
house where the married life of the young couple begins.
As soon as the bridal pair had disappeared the crowd turned its friendly
attention to us, and I thought we should never fight our way through
the mob of women. I caught a glimpse of the young Englishwoman in a
perfect maelstrom of females, her hat off, her blouse almost torn from
her shoulders. I waded to her with difficulty as one might through heavy
surf, and laughing and breathless we at last got clear and out into the
open air. The Englishmen and Hassan had had to stay outside, only women
being allowed in. “And was the bride very beautiful?” Hassan asked with
romantic interest. He told us the feast that would take place next day
would be a great one: half a sheep roasted, cakes and sweetmeats of every
kind.
“Indeed marriage is always a very expensive affair,” he sighed. “A man is
lucky if he is not 500 francs the poorer by the time it is all over. For
his bride he must give 300 to 400 francs, perhaps even more. Then he must
provide the furniture for the house, and the bed, and one set of silk
garments for the bride. And also there is the wedding banquet and for
that too he must pay.”
I asked what the bride’s contribution to the household was; she must
bring the mattress and the bedding, also the cooking pots, and her own
clothes.
“Yes, it is not many who can afford to have more than one wife,” he went
on. “And if a man be wishful to have two, never do they get on together,
and thereupon he must perhaps have two houses or be for ever deafened
with their quarrels.”
He fell into a reverie, whilst we made our way through the outskirts of
the town, past the deserted market-place that slept in the moonlight,
under the shadowy pepper trees that made a grateful shade in the heat of
the day for the vendors of oranges and sweetmeats, and so through the
city gate back to the quiet little square and the open door of the hotel.
The scene in the Kairouan Souks was one of great animation in the
afternoon, when auctions were held by the shopkeepers. The buildings
consisted of long narrow passage-ways whose arched roofs were pierced
here and there with openings to let in light. The shops were on a raised
level on either side as in all Eastern bazaars, and were just recesses
Where the seller squatted amongst his wares, whilst the customers and
spectators sat along the broad stone edge covered with matting that ran
along the front of the booths, their discarded red and yellow slippers
neatly ranged on the ground below.
[Illustration: I. M. D.]
Business is conducted slowly and with dignity in the East, there is much
talk and bargaining, coffee is brought and sipped during the process and
then finally, perhaps, a purchase is made. The shopman in his flowing
soft-coloured robes, probably wearing a flower over one ear, slowly
measures the desired carpet or rug by hand, from the elbow to the tips of
his fingers. There is more discussion, and at last the purchaser brings
out a worked leather purse and counts out the requisite payment.
But during an auction, the scene was much more animated. Shop assistants
rushed up and down carrying goods and bawling at the top of their voices
“What offers? what offers?” Customers bid against each other and the
noise and bustle were tremendous. Every other moment a panting native
rushed back to the owner of the shop to ask if the latest offer were to
be accepted. Up the side-passages opening into the central Souk, more
auctions might be going on simultaneously, and the crowd was so great
that sketching had to be of the snapshot variety.
[Illustration: I. M. D.]
Nearly all the men were in white or sand-coloured burnous, with the hood
partly pushed back, showing the small twisted turban and close red fez
worn underneath. The Tunisian countrymen are in general fine looking
men, tall and aquiline featured, with good foreheads and clearly marked
eyebrows. Nearly all have a moustache and a dark closely clipped beard,
but one sees a few of fairer type amongst them. They are friendly and
courteous. A gamin told one grave and dignified looking figure that I
was sketching him, whereupon my model glanced at me, smiled and shrugged
his shoulders. I showed him the sketch and he laughed, much amused. Very
often the shopkeepers near whom I was sitting with my sketch-book offered
me coffee and I always met with hospitality and goodwill. If one asks
their permission before settling down, it is always granted, and they
usually take one more or less under their protection, and try to prevent
a crowd from collecting.
I like the Arabs’ fine dignity. Probably their flowing style of dress
helps to give this effect, and the hooded cloak makes a becoming setting
to their dark faces. Even the tiny boys wear the burnous and go about
looking like small elves in their pointed hoods.
Outside the western walls of the city, the graveyards stretched right
away as far as the Mosque du Barbier, which lay about half a mile from
the town. The tombs were not marked by any inscriptions, and often were
only covered by a small rounded slab or just roughly enclosed by an
edging of bricks. On these poorer graves a cluster of bricks set sideways
in the earth told the sex of the dead: if set close together they mark
the resting place of a man, if scattered, that of a woman. There is
something inexpressibly forlorn about these Moslem cemeteries, the graves
so huddled together, no green, no flowers. The tiny spectacled owl
perches on the low headstones or makes his silent flight from one to the
other, and beyond the graveyard itself the whole sky flames to brilliant
red at the going down of the sun.
The sunsets in Kairouan were magnificent. The whole of the west seemed to
burst into fire and the desert glowed with a deep reflected rose. I call
it ‘desert’ but it was not really this. ‘Le vrai desert’ is far off. But
the wide stretches of sandy waste looked the name, and at sunset they
turned a wonderful red, with washes of dusty purple, whilst the far hills
were first violet and then almost black against the last splendour of the
sky.
Coming home through the cemetery one evening, Ali Hassan was anxious
to know if I had read the Koran, and begged me to carry one about with
me; “it would protect you greatly.” I asked him if the Fast of Ramadan
was kept very strictly in Kairouan. He said yes, “except that there are
always some who do not follow their religion seriously. They do not pray
regularly, neither do they fast carefully for a month at Ramadan. But
they will find the difference when they reach the other world. For every
Ramadan they have broken here, they will have to fast a year hereafter.
_Ils auront joliment faim_,” he ended with satisfaction. I gather he
himself is a scrupulous observer of his religion.
When I left Kairouan, Hassan came to see me off, wishing me happiness and
prosperity, and hoping I should return some day. He presented me with one
of his most treasured possessions, a picture postcard of himself and his
family at the Marseilles Exhibition. There they all were posing under a
tent, and labelled ‘Fabrication de Tapis de Kairouan (Tunisie) Maison Ali
Hassan.’ Even under these trying conditions I was glad to see Hassan had
still continued to look dignified. There was his wife to the left of the
picture wearing all the family jewels and watching a sleeping baby that
even in slumber seemed to remember it was ‘en exposition.’ The little
girls were working at their handloom, whilst Hassan himself sat with a
son on either side, and a row of family slippers in varying sizes ranged
along the edge of the mat in front of him. He was immensely proud of this
work of art.
As my train steamed slowly away from Kairouan, I saw him still on the
platform, his portly figure wrapped in the voluminous folds of a white
burnous, watching till the distance had swallowed me up.