When conducted to her new home, the people of the quarter bar her path by means of a fire, and demand gifts in the shape of handkerchiefs. The groom, too, will not allow her to dismount from her horse until he is handsomely fee’d, and finally, when the bride enters her husband’s house, flour and cotton are set before her and given away to the poor. This ceremony is termed Ak-Yul-luk or “White Road,” and symbolizes a happy journey through life. During the lifetime of the older generation the bridegroom is called kiau oghli or “son-in-law” by the parents, and the bride kelin or “daughter-in-law,” but she is spoken of as a chaukan or married woman by her neighbours.
There is an immense difference between the villagers and the townspeople in Kashgar, both in the position of women and in their morality. The villagers as a rule marry only one wife and rarely practise divorce, and their wives take a high position inherited from pre-Islamic days. For example, it is customary to agree, before the reading of the nikah, that the wife shall be taken to the shrine of Hazrat Apak for tawwuf or “circling” of the tomb when the apricots are ripe, other stipulations being that the woman cannot be taken to another town without her consent, and sometimes that the husband shall not take another wife. The women may frequently be seen riding to market on good horses and attending to business almost on an equality with the men. In the city wives are constantly divorced, so much so that the majority of them remarry many times. Temporary marriages, resembling in effect sigheh marriages in Persia, are also very common, and some women systematically indulge in divorces in order to gain money. They cannot remarry until after the expiration of the iddat of three months and ten days, but upon receiving two letters of divorce—generally obtained in different towns—they can remarry at once by using the older letter. It is an indication of the low position held by women in the towns that a merchant, on starting off to business, will sometimes return home if he first meets one of the fair sex, this being looked upon as a bad omen.
Constant intermarriage, as in most Moslem countries, produces sad results in the form of idiocy, deafness and dumbness in the offspring, such visitations being especially noticeable among the rich, landed classes, who intermarry generation after generation, in order to keep the family property intact. So far is this policy pursued that in the richest family of Kashgar many of the girls have perforce remained single because there were not enough cousins to go round. It is interesting to note that in this matter the Chinese go to the opposite extreme, the whole nation being divided up into about one hundred divisions, and no man being permitted to marry a woman of his own division, although she be in no way related to him.
In Kashgar, marriage is not the chief event in a woman’s life, the ceremony of chachbagh or “braiding of the hair” being far more important, although held at no fixed time after marriage, and not depending on the birth of a child. It is celebrated by a great feast, with dancing, which sometimes lasts for three days. Gifts, far richer than those given at marriage, are bestowed on the wife, the parents in many cases handing over landed property. The culminating point is the appearance of the woman, who, attired in her richest clothes, takes the seat of honour in the room; and then, in the presence of all, her hair, hitherto worn in four or five plaits, is formally and for the first time braided in two plaits, and she becomes thereby a jawan. She is now entitled to wear five red semicircular strips of embroidery on the right side of the neck of her gown, one below the other, and increasing successively in length. In the case of the rich, Indian cloth of gold is generally used.
One day a woman was seen weeping at a shrine, and her prayer was as follows: “O Holy One! What shall I do? How shall I live? I have been left an orphan. I am become a stranger. What shall I do? Am I to suffer the hardships of an orphan? Am I to remain lonely? I have no father, no mother. Every one is oppressing me. O Allah, I am lost among friends and foes. Alas, my stranger’s fate! Alas, my orphan’s fate! O Holy One, put love into the heart of my husband and make his mind just towards me. O Allah, grant me the wish of my heart, give me a son, a son with a long life. I have become a stranger. Thou hast left me an orphan. O Allah, help me and make my enemies like dust.”
After this fervent prayer the suppliant, with her eyes shut, put her hand into a hole in the tomb and drew forth a morsel of earth, which she swallowed. Her faith was justified, and in due course of time she began to make arrangements for an easy delivery, to ensure which a visit was paid to a bakhshi or magician. He played upon a drum and chanted some incoherent gibberish, the woman meanwhile holding a rope that hung from the roof, and dancing round it until giddiness ensued. After this ceremony she paid a fee, gave alms to the poor, and returned home with her heart at ease. Later on she visited the tombs of her ancestors, taking with her an offering of food, and begged them to intercede for an easy delivery and, above all, for the birth of a son. She laid the offering near the grave, praised her ancestors, lamented her own failings, walked round the tomb seven times and finally distributed the food to the beggars. About a month before the event, she went on foot to a place where there were seven water mills, and after slowly crossing the seven ducts that fed them, returned home with happy confidence in the special efficacy of the ceremony.
A MAGICIAN AND HIS DISCIPLE.
Page 314.
When her hour was come, no one was allowed to leave the house unless upon business that was urgent, in which case no harm was anticipated, provided that some article of dress was left behind. The women of the neighbourhood assembled to help, and during the delivery cried out with the idea of keeping the birth a secret, a custom adopted from the Chinese. The newly born infant, too, was carefully concealed from visitors.