The ceremony of marriage amongst the upper ranks at Timbuctoo is, for the bride to go in the day-time to the king's house, and to remain there until after sunset, when the man who is to be her husband goes to fetch her away. This is usually followed by a feast the same night, and a dance. Adams did not observe what ceremonies were used in the marriages of the lower classes.
As it is common to have several concubines besides a wife, the women are continually quarrelling and fighting; there is, however, a marked difference in the degree of respect with which they are treated by the husband, the wife always having a decided pre-eminence. The negroes, however, appeared to Adams to be jealous and severe with all their women, frequently beating them apparently for very little cause.
The women appear to suffer very little from child-birth, and they will be seen walking about as usual the day after such an event. It is their practice to grease a child all over soon after its birth, and to expose it for about an hour to the sun. The infants at first are of a reddish colour, but become black in three or four days.
Illicit intercourse appeared to be but little regarded amongst the lower orders, and chastity among the women in general seemed to be preserved only so far as their situations or circumstances rendered it necessary for their personal safety or convenience. In the higher ranks, if a woman prove with child, the man is punished with slavery, unless he will take the woman for his wife, and maintain her. Adams knew an instance of a young man, who, having refused to marry a woman by whom he had a child, was on that account condemned to slavery. He afterwards repented, but was not then permitted to retract his refusal, and was sent away to be sold.
It does not appear that they have any public religion, as they have not any house of worship; no priest, and, as far as Adams could discover, never meet together to pray. He had seen some of the negroes, who were circumcised; but he concluded that they had been in possession of the Moors, or had been resident at Sudenny. On this subject Mr. Dupuis says, "I cannot speak with any confidence of the religion of the negroes of Timbuctoo; I have, however, certainly heard, and entertain little doubt, that many of the inhabitants are Mahommedans; it is also generally believed in Barbary, that there are mosques at Timbuctoo; but, on the other hand, I am confident that the king is neither an Arab nor a Moor, especially as the traders, from whom I have collected these accounts, have been either the one or the other; and I might consequently presume, that, if they did give me erroneous information on any points, it would at least not be to the prejudice, both of their national self-conceit, and of the credit and honour of their religion."
The only ceremony which Adams saw, that appeared like the act of prayer, was on the occasion of the death of any of the inhabitants, when the relatives assembled and sat round the corpse. The burial is not attended with any ceremony whatever; the deceased are buried in the clothes in which they die, at a small distance to the south-west of the town.
Their only physicians are old women, who cure diseases and wounds by the application of simples. Adams had a wen on the back of his right hand, the size of a large egg, which one of the women cured in about a month, by rubbing it and applying a plaster of herbs. They cure the tooth-ache by the application of a liquid prepared from roots, which frequently causes not only the defective tooth to fall out, but one or two of the others.
On referring to the notes of Mr. Dupuis on the subject of the cures performed by the negro women, we read, "I may take this opportunity of observing that he (Adams) recounted, at Mogadore, several stories of the supernatural powers or charms possessed by some of the negroes, and which practised both, defensively to protect their own persons from harm, and offensively against their enemies. Of these details I do not remember more than the following circumstance, which, I think, he told me happened in his presence:—
"A negro slave, the property of a desert Arab, having been threatened by his master with severe punishment, for some offence, defied his power to hurt him, in consequence of a charm by which he was protected. Upon this the Arab seized a gun, which he loaded with a ball, and fired at only a few paces distant from the negro's breast; but the negro, instead of being injured by the shot, stooped to the ground and picked up the ball, which had fallen inoffensive at his feet."
It seems strange that Adams should have omitted their extraordinary stories in his narrative; for he frequently expressed to Mr. Dupuis a firm belief, that the negroes were capable of injuring their enemies by witchcraft; and he once pointed out to him a slave at Mogadore, of whom on that account he stood particularly in awe. He doubtless imbibed this belief, and learned the other absurd stories, which he related, from the Arabs, some of whom profess to be acquainted with the art themselves, and all of whom are, it is believed, firmly persuaded of its existence, and of the peculiar proficiency of the negroes in it.