The midwife attends to the dressing of the baby. She rubs the little body with salt and oil and swaddles it tightly. This woman attendant comes every day for forty days to cleanse and wrap the child. Woe betide the mother or any other meddler who interferes with the wrapping and other peculiar functions of the midwife, who is very jealous of the dignity of her profession. She is mistress of her department and brooks no interference.
The Christian baby is ordinarily baptized after the fortieth day. The occasion is celebrated with a dinner. Babies are not weaned early. Some are nursed for two years, while the last baby may be weaned only after it is four or five years old. Dainties are brought to sweeten the little gums and cause the weaning child to forget its mother’s milk.[[76]]
One day we stepped into a near neighbor’s to see a newborn boy. He was fast asleep, wound and dressed in his tight little wraps, and lying on one of those circular straw mats of the kind used to cover the wooden bread bowl. The mat in this case was put on top of a round shallow straw basket such as the peasant woman uses to carry wheat. The whole was about six inches high. The mother lay on a pallet on the floor beside it. Considerable interest was felt in the health of this baby boy. There were three girl children in the family, no boys, two other boy babies having died. Their death illustrated the saying, “Killed with kindness.” Being boys they received more attention, that is to say, more pampering, than they would have received had they been girls. This consisted in heeding their every wish in the matter of food, which was especially harmful in times of sickness.
Children are the rulers of most houses in the country villages. They exceed in number and dirtiness. If they are well they run in and out in all kinds of weather, barefooted, bareheaded. If they are unwell, not overmuch attention is paid to them at first except to bring them extras to eat. If they become dangerously ill, all the medical help within reach is summoned in a frenzy of helplessness. If they recover, their convalescence is retarded by the same excessive generosity that seeks to stuff them with whatever edibles they may call for. An ordinary country parent is simply unable to resist the crying demands of a sick child, and scarcely of a well one. The more ignorant parents are fond of encouraging the precocity of their children, even teaching them to utter baby curses against the members of their families, and laughing and patting the little swearers in encouragement.
The poorer children are seldom bothered with more than one garment, unless it be a skull-cap. If the parents are more prosperous a little cloth cap embroidered, and with a few bangles or blue beads sewed on the front, is provided. As they grow older the children may gain a jacket over the little shirt. The little girls may have a row of coins on their head-dresses and a little shawl or sash about them. On festivals the little girl may be allowed to wear her mother’s holiday jacket or shawl. The shawl has to be folded several times for the girl’s use. The Bethlehem jacket, so commonly sought for festivals, is never meant to be an exact fit for any one. Its beauty is in its surface, embroidered with yellow, red and green silk.
The little girls begin very early to bring water in a jar on the head, first beginning with a tiny jar which they steady by the hands, and progressing until able to carry the heavy full-sized jar without the touch of a hand, yes, even to carry such a jar, weighing thirty pounds, tilted forward on the head. Of such a one, having a strong muscular neck, and swinging forward gracefully and easily, the others may say as they point, “See, she is strong, she can carry her jar tipped like the comb of a cock.”
When very little, boys and girls play together in the streets and around the ovens, sometimes even on the roofs. By the time they are six years old they are very apt to separate and play with their own kind and to differ a little in their choice of games. The older girls in the families have to care for the little children a great deal, and have to carry and amuse them. Boys and girls are soon able to help in the vineyards, or in picking up olives, or gathering grass and brush, or carrying things for older members of the family.
The receipt for making men and women in Palestine is the same as elsewhere: Take boys and girls and give them a few years of responsibility and you have men and women. The result of these few years of responsibility is to take away the freedom of play and innocency and to add the reserve of work and insight.
The following story is sometimes told to children to warn them against foolish pride and to inculcate obedience to fathers.
