In summer-time a little shady booth of boughs may be made in the court or on the roof. Many of the peasants sleep out-of-doors fully half the year.
Within the house the floor of the living-room will be covered in part with straw mats. Grain and food-bins made of clay stand along one side. Large jars stand back against the wall or in corners. One jar is to hold spring water brought for drinking; another will hold olives; and a third, olive-oil. There are also wooden bread-bowls, straw covers, the stone flour-mill, some baskets, a clay brazier, copper cooking vessels whitened, sieves, a wooden chest or two, gaudily painted, utensils for grinding, roasting and cooking coffee, a clay fire-pot set in a fire-nook, and on pegs in the wall a brass-bound flint-lock and a water-bottle made from a goat’s skin. A recess in the wall, across which a curtain is drawn, holds the bedding. At night the pallet bed is spread on the floor,[[83]] the chief covering being a quilt enclosed in a cotton case.
In a two-room house one room will be the kitchen and women’s apartment and the other the place of entertainment, where the men chat and eat together. This extra room may have divan couches and perhaps an Oriental rug on the floor. Glass nârjîlehs (often pronounced ârjîleh) stand ready for the guests who smoke. This glass smoking-bottle and pipes, an outfit which foreigners sometimes call the hubble-bubble, is used by men and some women of the well-to-do classes. The common name for it among the peasants is shîsheh.
HOUSEHOLD UTENSILS
1. Woman’s wardrobe and treasure box. 2. Rough straw basket. 3. Wheat basket. 4. Vegetable basket. 5. Chair. 6. Groups of baskets. 8 and 9. On this shelf are coffee utensils, wooden spoons, a wooden lock and a gourd bottle. 11. A cooking vessel on top of a wooden cutting-board. 12. Bellows. 13. Wooden mortar and pestle for pounding coffee berries. 14. Short-handled broom. (From the Hartford Theological Seminary Collection.)
Below is a list of the utensils and furnishings commonly found in houses of Palestinian peasants.
- Khâbyeh, a large store-bin made of clay.
- Ṣandûḳ, a small box used by the women as a chest for clothing and personal treasures.
- Ṭâḥûn, a stone mill for grinding wheat.
- Môḳadeh, an earthen fire-pot.
- Kânûn, a clay brazier on which charcoal is burned. Coffee is roasted and cooked over this brazier.
- Jurun, a mortar.
- Mahbâsh (mahbâj), the pestle.
- Maḥmaṣeh, a rotary coffee-roaster of tin, turned by a handle.
- Ibrîḳ, a small pitcher or pot.
- Ḥaṣîreh, a straw mat for the floor.
- Mikniseh, a short-handled broom.
- Ḳuda‛ (or ḳudah), a large basket, wide and shallow.
- Ḳuba‛, a tiny basket of the same shape.
- Ṣînîyeh, a plain straw mat used as a tray or as a cover for the bâṭeyeh.
- Ṭubuḳ,[[84]] a fancy straw mat used in the same way as the ṣînîyeh.
- Hanâbeh, a small clay eating-dish.
- Kirmîyeh, a trencher.
- Bâṭeyeh, a dough-bowl (of wood).
- Ṭôs, an earthen bowl.
- Zibdîyeh, a larger bowl.
- Ṭunjereh, a copper cooking vessel, whitened, sometimes used as a serving-dish.
- Dist, a very large ṭunjereh for serving food to guests; also used as a pan in which to wash clothes.
- Maftûlîyeh, a special dish for making maftûl, a paste that looks like buckshot. The dish has a perforated bottom like a colander.
- Jarreh, a general name for a jar.
- Ghuṭâh, a cover of a jar (a general name for a cover).
- Mughṭâs, a dipper.
- Ḍharf, a goat skin for fetching water.
- ‛Aslîyeh, a slender jar.
- Sifl, a jar for oil.
- Sherbeh, a drinking jar.
- Ghurbâl, a wheat sieve.
- Minkhul (corrupted into mûkhil), a flour sieve made of hair.
- Sirâj, a lamp.
- Misrajeh, a lamp shelf.
- Khûṣeh, a knife.
- Sikkîneh, a knife.
- Finjân, a cup.
- Mughrafeh, a ladle.
- Mua‛laḳah, a spoon.
- Watad, a peg driven into the wall.
- Ḳûseh, an alcove for stowaway.
- Khurraḳeh, a poke-hole in the wall.
- Firâsh, a bed.
- Ilḥâf, a quilt.
- Mukhaddeh (or wasâdeh), a pillow, often filled with tibn.
Wheat, the most important item of the well-to-do peasants’ food, has been spoken of elsewhere. It offers a scheme for classification in welfare. Those on the level of wheat bread and those below that level in life form very readily distinguishable classes. Bread made of barley or of millet is used by the poorest people. The flour used for most of the wheat bread is of graham quality. A lump of dough is saved from the mixture for the next batch. This leaven[[85]] goes by the name khamîreh. After the early morning grindings the dough is mixed in a wooden bowl, the woman generally sitting outside her door on the ground. When the dough has been mixed the bowl is covered with a straw mat called the ṣînîyeh. When ready for baking, the whole, surmounted by a tiny little basket, ḳuba‛, filled with dry flour for the hands when the loaves are formed, is carried on the woman’s head to the nearest oven. One oven is shared by several neighboring families. The oven is within a stone hut, or cabin, not much unlike the sḳîfeh, or loose stone house, mentioned elsewhere. The woman may have to wait her turn at the oven, as other women may be baking before her. She sits at one side and chats with the women and girls about her as she plies her needlework, sewing or embroidery. Being at work and unobserved, she generally has her head-shawl thrown one side. The oven is a domed pit. Inside the pit are little stones on which the cakes of bread are baked. The clay dome has a cover which may shut the baking bread within. The fire of grass[[86]], refuse from the olive presses, twigs or caked dung, is built outside the dome, and therefore does not come in contact with the interior when the oven is heated for baking. The cakes of bread are from a quarter to a half-inch thick and of the shape and size of a medium dessert plate. The hot stones give a hubbly surface to the loaves, and as the dough is not very stiff a delicious warm, spongy, graham bread results. The bread baked for sale in the shops is generally made of lighter flour and the loaves are smaller and sometimes thicker.
In buying wheat for burghul we sought the best grade of white wheat, paying three piasters a ruṭl for it, that is, about eleven cents for six and a quarter pounds. Burghul is prepared as a winter food. The wheat, after cleansing, is boiled until it is partly cooked. It is spread in the sun and dried and finally crushed in the hand-mill to the required fineness. The favorite size is about like broken rice. The chaff-like refuse is then blown off and, after another cleansing, the burghul is ready for a winter supply. Crushed wheat, called jerîsheh, may be prepared and used as a breakfast cereal would be with us. Smîd is the name given to the unground portions of wheat, called with us semolina, separated from the flour by the bolting-machine of a modern mill.