The Holy Land and Syria

by Frank G. Carpenter

I was interested in the mechanical work going on in these bazaars. I stopped in a carpenter’s shop, and photographed a workman of just about the age Joseph must have been when our Lord was a boy and passed as his son. I asked about carpenter’s wages, and was told they ranged from fifty cents to one dollar per day. In another business street I stopped awhile with the blacksmiths who were making knives, razors, plough points, and the long, thin, crescent-shaped sickles used here for harvesting. The sickles have teeth like a fine saw. I lingered to watch a blacksmith shoe a horse. He used a plate of iron the shape of the hoof about an eighth of an inch thick. With the exception of a hole as large as a finger ring in the centre, it was solid. There were three small holes on each side for the nails, which were driven into the hoof. When shod the horse’s foot was entirely covered by iron except for the small hole in the centre.

Since I have been here I have paid especial attention to the children. They are the best part of the Holy Land and are as full of fun and as delightful as our children at home. I have seen families which recall that of Joseph and Mary, and many boys with innocent faces which suggest that of Jesus. Here in Nazareth I see the little ones everywhere playing. There is a threshing-floor on one side of the town, a place where the earth has been stamped down and where the grain is flailed or trodden out after harvest. This is one of the great playgrounds, where the boys come with their marbles and where they play ball. In one of their games the boys try to throw the ball so as to hit a stone mark set up for the purpose. They also strike the ball with a club and send it beyond the threshing-floor to be caught by the boys outside. They play blind man’s buff, leap-frog, and hide-and-seek, and as I went through the streets the other day I saw two little ones rising and falling on a board resting on the edge of a sharp stone, making a seesaw.

One of the games played is like our “Button, button, who has the button?” The boys stand in a row with hands folded and the one who is “it” goes along and rubs his two hands, holding the pebble over each pair of folded hands and endeavouring to drop it into one without being caught. Then the others must guess who has the pebble. We play the same game with the button.

Another game is known as the “tied monkey.” In this the boy who is “it” catches hold with one hand of a rope fastened to a peg in the ground while the others beat him with handkerchiefs or ropes in which knots are tied. If he can catch one of them without letting go his hold on the rope the boy caught takes his place.

I observe that the boys here usually play by themselves. They rather look down on their sisters, and the average family considers the girl of but little account. When a girl is born no fuss is made, but when a boy comes the friends of the family run through the streets crying out: “Good tidings! Good tidings!” The father prepares a feast, and all the friends of the family give presents of money for the benefit of the boy. Immediately after the child is born it is rubbed over with salt and then wrapped in swaddling clothes so tight that it cannot move. After it has been bound up thus for about a week, it is unfastened, washed with fresh oil, salted, and bound up again. This wrapping, oiling, salting, and re-wrapping goes on for about forty days, at the end of which time the child is ready to wear the ordinary clothing of babyhood. This usually consists of one garment, but in the summer, if the child be poor, that is omitted, although a naked baby may wear a skull cap. The usual garment is a shirt reaching to the knees, and as the children grow older they may have jackets over their shirts.

One of the important ceremonies is naming the boy. To the child’s given name that of the father is always added. In olden times if the son of James was named John, his name would be John, son of James, but now the words “son of” are omitted and he is known as John James.

I am surprised at the beauty of the Nazarene girls, and especially of the little ones. They have rosy cheeks and bright eyes and are quite as good looking as our American babies. They dress in bright colours and some have rows of coins on their headdresses and rings on their fingers.

I see many little girls at the fountain of Mary, each with a jar in which to bring water home. This is the work of almost every woman in the land. The little ones are taught by beginning with a tiny jar which they steady on the head with the hand. As they grow older they use larger jars, until at last they are able to walk through the streets carrying four or five gallons of water on the head without touching the jar. This work gives them erect figures, and there are no stooped shoulders or curved spines among them.

When a girl reaches ten or eleven years of age she begins to think of marriage, and it is not an uncommon thing for her to be a mother at thirteen or fourteen. After marriage the wife becomes a member of her husband’s family, and, for a time at least, lives with her mother-in-law. For this reason people believe in early marriages, so that the girl may be trained by her husband’s mother into a suitable wife when she grows up.

I wonder if the boys of our Saviour’s time studied as do the Nazarene boys of to-day. As half the town is Mohammedan, many of them are taught by the sheiks. They sit on the floor, swaying back and forth as they scream out the verses and texts they are trying to learn. The teacher is sometimes blind, but he knows the voices so well that when one stops he can strike with his stick the place where that boy should be sitting to start him again. In our Lord’s time the Bible was probably taught in the same way to the Jewish children. Most of the slates used here are made of cast-off kerosene oil cans, the tin being cut into squares and pounded out flat. The Arabic characters are painted upon such tins with brushes and India ink.