The customs of immediate burial often result in complications. There is a bazaar story told in Jeddah to the effect that a Scot, who was stationed there early in the war, passed away as a result of some mysterious malady. He was carried a short distance outside the city and buried in the sand near the shore, wrapped in nothing but a Union Jack. A few hours before the funeral a boat left Jeddah Harbor, and it carried an official memorandum to the Government in London telling of the death of the officer. After the ceremony the mourners were returning to the city when suddenly they heard shouts and, turning, were panic-stricken to see the corpse running toward them, swathed in the Union Jack. It seems that the Scot had merely been in a trance, and, a few moments after he was buried in the loose sand, land-crabs attacked him and brought him back to life. But, not satisfied at letting the yarn go at this, they tell how the Scot was afterward arrested in London for impersonating himself when he called at his bank to cash a check.
Between the nomad woman of the tents and the townswoman there is even more difference than between a wiry desert patriarch and his corpulent city cousin. Townswomen are fat and white, while the Bedouin women are thin and tanned. Many Bedouin sheiks have four wives at a time. Some of the richest chieftains have as many as fifty wives during a lifetime, but never more than four at once. One reason why they so frequently indulge themselves the luxury of three or four is because it means easier housework. The Bedouin women all live in the same tent, too; and, strangely enough, jealousy is uncommon. They do not regard a husband as exclusive property as we do.
Bedouin women are much more ignorant and prejudiced than their men-folk, and they spend no small part of their time urging the men to fight. It is they who keep the century-old blood-feuds alive.
The desert nomads have no way of marking time; no Sundays, no Mondays, no 1924’s and no 1925’s. They are born: “It is the will of Allah.” Then they grow up and after a while they die: “It is the will of Allah.” That is all there is to it: “It is the will of Allah.” So it isn’t bad form to ask a Bedouin woman her age, for she doesn’t know whether she is sweet sixteen or a Mrs. Methuselah.
They are all frightfully talkative, and whenever we were seated on the men’s side of the thin partition which divides the goat’s-hair home of a Bedouin sheik, talking about Western customs, such as women walking along city streets unveiled, or attending the theater in company with their gentlemen friends, or playing golf, his wives would pop their heads up over the partition and remark: “How disgusting! How vulgar! How beastly!”
Despite the example set by the Arabs themselves, Colonel Lawrence scrupulously avoided free talk about women. It is as difficult a subject as religion.
On one occasion, when seated in Sheik Auda Abu Tayi’s tent, Lawrence was in an unusually talkative frame of mind and was giving his host a racy description of cabaret life in London. Every few minutes Auda would slap his knee and roar: “By Jove! I wish I were there!” Then his wives would break in and upbraid him bitterly.
The Bedouin women usually retain their beauty until their thirties, but after that! They are all short and thin. They take all their pleasures in their tents. The Bedouin women of the desert are not veiled, but they tattoo their faces and paint their lips blue. On all occasions they wear a garment of dark blue cotton and keep their hair covered. Mohammed objected to women exposing their hair in public.
All Arabs are fond of buying pearls or trinkets of hammered gold for their women. Some of their wives wear gold ornaments worth £1000 or more. According to the unwritten law of Arabia, all ornaments are the personal property of a woman, and if divorced she keeps them. If an Arab wants to divorce his wife, he simply says three times before witnesses: “I divorce thee! I divorce thee! I divorce thee!” Consequently, all the women are foresighted enough to insist on having their possessions in portable form.
The training of the Bedouin women is entirely in the tents. They spend much of their time milking their camels and goats and making butter. To do the latter they get the milk in curds, which they squeeze in their hands and put on the tent-roofs until all the moisture drops out. When it dries it becomes as hard as a rock. In fact, their butter is so hard that it will even turn the edge of a knife! Lawrence would pulverize it between stones and mix it with water until it resembled malted milk.