Meanwhile the bridegroom collects his friends and summons the Fiki; carpets are spread in the courtyard of his house, which is illuminated with candles and lanterns, and dishes of food are set before the guests. As soon as the marriage contract is settled each guest seizes as much food of any sort as he can possibly hold in his hand and crams it into his mouth; the more he eats the more he is supposed to show his friendship for the bridegroom. The usual tea generally follows. At midnight the bridegroom’s friends and relations—men, women and children—carrying lanterns and flaring torches, walk in procession through the narrow streets to the house of the bride and demand her from her father.
On the return of the bride from her bath she is taken by her mother and hidden in an upper room of the house. When the bridegroom’s family have arrived they collect outside the door and call out, “Bring out the bride, the gallant groom awaits her.” The girl’s family answer, “We have lost her, we have lost her.” Then “Find her, the bridegroom is getting impatient,” and the answer is, “She is asleep, still sleeping.” Then the bridegroom’s family say, “Go, wake her, and bring her to her man.” Then the women of the bride’s house weep and scream, and there is a mock fight between the families. The men flourish their sticks and sometimes actually strike each other, but eventually the girl is produced and handed over to the bridegroom’s family by her father. The mock capture of the bride and the pretended resistance is possibly a survival of marriage by conquest, or possibly it is meant to denote excessive modesty on the part of the bride. If one inquires the reason the Siwans reply that it has been the custom “min zamaan,” and nobody is any the wiser.
The bride wears her bridal gown, which is a long-sleeved robe of striped coloured silk and is weighed down with a quantity of silver ornaments, borrowed, if she has not enough of her own, from her friends; over this she wears a long woollen blanket entirely covering her, and she has a sword hung from her right shoulder. In this costume she rides on a led donkey to the house of the bridegroom, followed by the people of both families, singing and beating drums and cymbals. On arrival at the house she is received by an old woman, usually a Sudanese slave woman, who lifts her off the donkey, and with the assistance of others carries her across the threshold, up the stairs, into the bridal room, and lays her on the couch, taking care that the bride’s feet never touch the ground. The crowd remain below and are entertained by Zigale dancers, who are hired for the occasion. Later a sheep is killed at the entrance of the house, and the blood is smeared across the doorway in the Arab fashion; and if the family are wealthy several more sheep are roasted whole and a feast is made for the guests. Thursday is considered the most propitious day for a wedding, as the girl wakes up for the first time in her new home on a Friday, which is the Mohammedan Sunday.
All this time the bridegroom remains in the background, taking no part in the doings. The old woman who received the bride brings her some dishes of food and a handful of wheat and salt, which she places beneath the pillow, where it remains for a week to keep away bad spirits and afreets who might otherwise be attracted to harm the newly married couple. Then the bridegroom arrives outside the door and knocks upon it, on which there follows a long conversation between him and the old woman. She calls out to him saying what a beautiful bride he has obtained, describing her as a young moon with eyes like a gazelle, cheeks like peach blossom and the figure of a swaying willow. After a high-flown eulogy the bridegroom inquires, “What is the girl worth?” to which the old woman replies, “Her weight in silver and gold—” which is queer when one remembers that she is actually worth £1 4s. The old woman then opens the door, and after receiving a present from the bridegroom retires and leaves them together. The bridegroom takes the sword from the girl and puts it under the mattress for use against jinns, takes off the blanket which entirely covers her, and then removes her right shoe and strikes her seven times on the foot with the palm of his hand. This is said to bring luck to the marriage. He stays with her for some time, but the marriage is not consummated until two days later. During this time the bridegroom leaves his house and spends his time in the gardens with one other man, who acts as a sort of best man.
On the third day the presents from the girl’s family arrive: carved wooden chests, finely made baskets which have taken several months to complete, earthenware cooking pots and supplies of sugar and foodstuffs. The money which was given to the girl at the spring of Tamousy is counted again, and each of the donors is presented with some doves, rabbits or chickens, in proportion to the amount which they gave. Among the Arabs, and especially among the Berbers of the oases in southern Morocco, an excessive shyness and bashfulness exists between the bridegroom and his mother-in-law and all the bride’s near relations. This avoidance and aversion to the wife’s relatives may be another survival of the idea of marriage by conquest, but in Siwa one does not find it to such an extent as in other places. These festivities are only celebrated by the wealthier natives, and only when the girl is being married for the first time. Later marriages are quieter affairs, with nothing more than a little dancing, a free distribution of “lubki” and perhaps one sheep cooked for the guests.
When a Siwan dies his widow is expected to be “ghrula,” that is in mourning for a month and a half, but the custom has slackened now and most women marry again as soon as they get the chance. During the forty-five days the woman dresses in white and keeps to her house, only going out in the evening after sunset. She lives plainly, eating no meat and wearing no jewellery. On the last day of her seclusion the town-crier, accompanied by a boy beating a drum, announces in the town that the widow of So-and-So will proceed on the following morning to a certain spring, having completed her period of mourning. On the next morning a number of boys run through the streets calling out the same announcement and warning the people by what road she will pass, in order that they can keep to their houses and avoid seeing her. When she leaves her house some of her relations go up to the roof and again call out the warning. At noon the widow, with her hair hanging loose, her face uncovered, wearing a white robe and no ornaments, walks down to one of the springs and bathes there. Anybody who meets or sees her on the way is supposed to incur very bad luck indeed. After this Lady Godiva-like progress, she hurries back to her house, puts on her ordinary clothes, oils and dresses her hair and invites a number of her women friends to a feast. She then begins to hope for another husband.
The town-crier is a venerable, white-bearded individual whose family have held the post for many generations. It is his duty to announce any new regulations in the town, and to summon the populace to meetings or to work. When an announcement has been proclaimed on three consecutive days it is considered that everybody knows it, and if after this an order is infringed the excuse of ignorance is not entertained. The town-crier is a very necessary institution in a place where scarcely anybody can read, and public notices are therefore useless; his voice rivals the muezzin’s, and his drum corresponds to the bell of the old style English bellman.
Funerals in Siwa are simple affairs. They generally take place in the early afternoon and are attended by almost everybody in the town. When a death occurs the women in the house raise the deathwail, which is taken up in piercing accents by the women in the other houses near, and then by the whole neighbourhood. It sounds appalling, especially when it starts suddenly in the night. The body is carried on a rough bier of olive wood, followed by a long procession, the relatives, the sheikhs and notables, usually riding on donkeys with umbrellas to shade them from the sun, and a nondescript crowd of women and men. As the procession passes through the streets the men chant a solemn dirge and the women swing their veils in the air, throwing dust on their heads, and every now and then joining in with shrill cries and wailings. On arrival at the cemetery the women sit down some distance apart, and the men proceed to the grave, reciting verses from the Koran. At twilight the women collect again before the door of the deceased’s house and continue the wailing, and afterwards the friends of the family are entertained at a funeral feast where they eat and praise the virtues of the dead person.
THE TOWN CRIER’S DAUGHTER