Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure

by C. R. Conder

The adults appear to have no amusements; they say themselves, with terrible truth, that they have “no leisure in their hearts for mirth,” being hopeless and spiritless under their hard bondage of oppression, usury, and violence.

The ordinary amusements of the townsmen are the public readings of romances, the dances of the Egyptian ’Almehs, and games of chess and draughts. Gambling, though considered disgraceful, still is common in towns where low cafés and restaurants exist, but none of these amusements are known in the villages. Once in the Jordan Valley we came across a party of Egyptian dancing girls, journeying from Damascus to their native land, and once in the Lebanon we witnessed the weird performance of some male dancers in female dress, castanets on their fingers, and skirts round their waists, as shown in the illustration taken from a sketch made on the spot; but these performances are very rare, and confined to the wealthier towns, as are also the tricks of conjurers and clowns.

The only sport which may be witnessed among the peasants is the mock tournament of the Jerîd, a combat between two bodies of horsemen, who throw darts or sticks at one another. But the riding is, as a rule, so bad that it has but little interest to an Englishman, accustomed to see better horsemanship. There are often men who ride in front of these cavalcades as clowns; they are called Sutâr, and are dressed in caps to which fox-tails are suspended; the clown, indeed, seems to be the only ideal of comedy which Syrian minds can conceive, their general views of festivity being rather inclined to pomp than to real gaiety.

The last ceremonials to be noticed are those connected with death. Among the Fellahîn they are very simple. The body is buried almost as soon as the breath has left it. Thus, I have seen a boy killed by falling from an olive, and buried within a quarter of an hour. The graves are so shallow that the hyenas often dig up the corpses, and they are only marked by a few stones. The bier, covered with a green cloth, and with the turban placed on it, is followed by the women with shrill shrieks (Zaghârît), and in one instance, near Ascalon, each woman held a handkerchief in her hand, and waved it at the bier as she followed.

Turning next to the ordinary occupations of the Fellahîn, we find them to be an agricultural and pastoral people.

The land tenure in Palestine is of three kinds: Miri, or taxed crown-land; Wakûf, or glebe-land, belonging to mosques and other institutions of a religious character; and lastly, Mulk, or freehold. The taxes of the first two kinds are farmed to the highest bidder. The Mulk-land is of four kinds: first, land inherited since the time of the Moslem conquest; secondly, land legally bestowed from the crown-lands; thirdly, land so bestowed in return for tribute; lastly, tithed lands of which not more than half the produce is due to Government. The Mulk-land is held by private individuals in and round the towns, and pays a now fixed tax to the State.

The lands belonging to the villages which they surround are reckoned by the Feddân, a very indefinite measure, being the amount which a yoke of oxen can plough (or rather two yoke used alternately) working with a single plough for twelve hours per diem during twenty-eight days in the summer and fourteen in the winter. In the hills the Feddân ranges from thirty-six to forty acres, and in the plains from twenty-eight to thirty-six, the soil being richer and heavier. The corn-seed per Feddân is from twenty-five to sixty kilos (Constantinople measure), and the yield per Feddân is about two hundred bushels of wheat, or fifty of barley. The village lands belong in reality to the Crown, and are held in fee-simple, paying tithes and also a fixed tax. They are equally inherited by the sons of a proprietor, but if uncultivated revert to the Crown.

The limits of the lands are marked by valleys, ridges, or large stones, by which also the sub-divisions of the land among the villagers are shown. It is most interesting to note that the word Tahum, used in Hebrew to signify the “limits” of the Levitical cities (Numb, xxxv.), is still employed in the same sense by the peasantry, and in one case a great stone, marking the present boundary of the lands of Es Semû’a (Eshtemoa), which was a Levitical city, is just about the proper distance of 3000 cubits from the village, and is called Hajr et Takhâin, also probably a corruption of Tahum. The village land is annually divided among members of the community according to their power of cultivation.

There is a custom regarding the land which seems of antiquity—namely, the Shkârah, or land which is cultivated by the villagers for any one of their number who is unable to till it himself; thus there is the Shkâret el Imâm, or “glebe of the religious minister,” and Shkâret en Nejjâr, or “carpenter’s portion,” which is cultivated for the village carpenter in return for his services.

The possessions of a village vary from ten to a hundred Feddâns; thus at Abu Shûsheh, for instance, 5000 acres of arable land are held by a place containing some 400 inhabitants.