"When they were sick (which seldom happened) they cured themselves with the herbs which grew in the country; and when they had acute pains, they scarified the part affected with sharp stones, and burned it with fire, and then anointed it with goat's butter. Earthen vessels of this goat's butter were found interred in the ground, having been put there by the women, who were the makers, and took that method of preparing it for medicine."
The custom of the Shelluhs on such occasions is exactly similar; the butter which they use is old, and is buried under ground many years in (bukul) earthen pots, and is called budra: it is a general medicine, and is said to possess a remarkably penetrating quality.
"They grind their barley in a hand-mill, made of two stones, being similar to those used in some remote parts of Europe".
In Suse, among the Shelluhs, they grind their corn in the same way, and barley is the principal food.
"Their breeches are short, leaving the knees bare;" so are those worn by the Shelluhs.
"Their common food was barley meal roasted and mixed with goat's milk and butter, and this dish they call Asamotan."
This is the common food of the Shelluhs of Atlas, and they call it by a similar name, Azamitta.
The opinion of the author of the History and Conquest of the Canary Islands, is, that the inhabitants came originally from Mauritania, and this he founds on the resemblance of names of places in Africa and in the islands: "for," says he, "Telde [214], which is the name of the oldest habitation in Canaria, Orotaba, and Tegesta, are all names which we find given to places in Mauritania and in Mount Atlas. It is to be supposed that Canaria, Fuertaventura, and Lancerotta, were peopled by the Alarbes [215], who are the nation most esteemed in Barbary; for the natives of those islands named milk Aho, and barley Temecin, which are the names that are given to those things in the language of the Alarbes of Barbary." He adds, that--
"Among the books of a library that was in the cathedral of St. Anna in Canaria, there was found one so disfigured, that it wanted both the beginning and the end: it treated of the Romans, and gave an account, that when Africa was a Roman province, the natives of Mauritania rebelled and killed their presidents and governors, upon which the senate, resolving to punish and make a severe example of the rebels, sent a powerful army into Mauritania, which vanquished and reduced them again to obedience. Soon after the ringleaders of the rebellion were put to death, and the tongues of the common people, together with those of their wives and children, were cut out, and then they were all put aboard vessels with some grain and cattle, and transported to the Canary islands." [216]
Footnote 214:[ (return) ] Telde or Tildie is a place in the Atlas mountains, three miles east of Agadeer; the castle is in ruins.