CHAPTER VI

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]