Now the idea underlying these customs is certainly not restricted to Morocco. As will be shown in subsequent chapters, blood is very commonly used as a conductor of conditional curses; for instance, one object of the practice of sacrifice is to transfer an imprecation to the god by means of the blood of the victim. Bodily contact is another common means of communicating curses; and this accounts for many remarkable cases of compulsory hospitality and protection which have been noticed in different quarters of the world. In Fiji “the same native who within a few yards of his house would murder a coming or departing guest for sake of a knife or a hatchet, will defend him at the risk of his own life as soon as he has passed his threshold.”[94] In the Pelew Islands “an enemy may not be killed in a house, especially not in the presence of the host.”[95] If an Ossetian receives into his house a stranger whom he afterwards discovers to be a man to whom he owes blood-revenge, this makes no difference in his hospitality; but when the guest takes his leave, the host accompanies him to the boundary of the village, and on parting from him exclaims, “Henceforth beware!”[96] Among the Kandhs, if a man can make his way by any means into the house of his enemy he cannot be touched, even though his life has been forfeited to his involuntary host by the law of blood-revenge.[97] In none of these cases is an explanation given of the extraordinary privilege granted to the stranger; but it seems highly probable that it has the same origin as the exactly similar custom prevalent among the Moors. In other words, as soon as the stranger has come in touch with a person by entering his house, he is thought to be able to transmit to that person and his family and his property any evil wishes he pleases. So, also, in the East any stranger may place himself under the protection of an Arab by merely touching his tent or his tent-ropes,[98] and after this is done “it would be reckoned a disgraceful meanness, an indelible shame, to satisfy even a just vengeance at the expense of hospitality.”[99] “Amongst the Shammar,” says Layard, “if a man can seize the end of a string or thread, the other end of which is held by his enemy, he immediately becomes his Dakheel [or protégé]. If he touch the canvas of a tent, or can even throw his mace towards it, he is the Dakheel of its owner. If he can spit upon a man or touch any article belonging to him with his teeth, he is Dakhal, unless of course, in case of theft, it be the person who caught him…. The Shammar never plunder a caravan within sight of their encampment, for as long as a stranger can see their tents they consider him their Dakheel.”[100] But one of the Bedouin tribes described by Lady Anne and Mr. Blunt, whilst ready to rob the stranger who comes to their tents, “count their hospitality as beginning only from the moment of his eating with them.”[101] All Bedouins regard the eating of “salt” together as a bond of mutual friendship, and there are tribes who quite in accordance with the Moorish principle, “the food will repay you”—require to renew this bond every twenty-four hours, or after two nights and the day between them, since otherwise, as they say, “the salt is not in their stomachs,”[102] and can therefore no longer punish the person who breaks the contract. The “salt” which gives a claim to protection consists in eating even the smallest portion of food belonging to the protector.[103] The Sultan Saladin did not allow the Crusader Renaud de Chatillon, when brought before him as a prisoner, to quench his thirst in his tent, for, had he drunk water there, the enemy would have been justified in regarding his life as safe.[104] We find a similar custom among the Omaha Indians: “should an enemy appear in the lodge and receive a mouthful of food or water, or put the pipe in his mouth, he cannot be injured by any member of the tribe, as he is bound for the time being by the ties of hospitality, and they are compelled to protect him and send him home in safety.”[105] In these and similar cases, where there is no common meal, the guest may nevertheless transmit to his host a curse by the exceedingly close contact established between him and the food or drink or tobacco of the host, according to the principle of pars pro toto. This is an idea very familiar to the primitive mind. It lies, for instance, at the bottom of the common belief that a person may bewitch his enemy by getting hold of some of his spittle or some leavings of his food—a belief which has led to the custom of guests carrying away with them all they are unable to eat of the food which is placed before them, out of dread lest the residue of their meal should be eaten by somebody else.[106] The magic wire may conduct imprecations in either direction. In Morocco, if a person gives to another some food or drink, it is considered dangerous, not only for the recipient to receive it without saying, “In the name of God,” but also for the giver to give it without uttering the same formula, by way of precaution.[107]
[94] Wilkes, U.S. Exploring Expedition, iii. 77.
[95] Kubary, ‘Die Palau-Inseln in der Südsee,’ in Journal des Museum Godeffroy, iv. 25.
[96] von Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, p. 412.
[97] Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, p. 66.
[98] Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 48. Blunt, Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates, ii. 211.
[99] Chassebœuf de Volney, op. cit. i. 412.
[100] Layard, op. cit. p. 317 sq. Burckhardt says (Bedouins and Wahábys, p. 72) that one of the most common oaths in the domestic life of the Bedouins is “to take hold with one hand of the wasat, or middle tent-pole, and to swear ‘by the life of this tent and its owners.’”
[101] Blunt, op. cit. ii. 211.
[102] Burton, Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah, ii. 112. Doughty, op. cit. i. 228.