Even the style in which the hair is plaited and worn is sufficient not only to indicate what tribe the woman belongs to, but also whether she is married or unmarried. The Povindah women are very fond of blue tattoo marks over their foreheads, while all alike are proud of the row of silver coins which is worn hanging over the forehead. The Hindu women plaster the hair of the forehead and temples with a vermilion paste, not merely for cosmetic reasons, but because it is sacred to their god Vishnu. Then, the sturdy, sunburnt faces of the Wazir women tell tales of the hard, rough outdoor life they perforce lead, and contrast with the more delicate and gentler faces of the Hindus. Notwithstanding the careful way in which all except the hill women veil their faces from masculine gaze, they are very sensitive as to what is being thought of them, and sometimes an impudent man meets a woman who at once closely veils herself, and remarks to his companion: “Ah! her nose has been cut off!” This imputation, not only on her looks, but on her character, is usually too much for her, and she indignantly unveils her face, to cover it up again at once in shame when she finds it was only a ruse!
The hill women rarely, if ever, wash either their bodies or their clothes, and suffer much in the hot weather from skin troubles as a result. The Hindu women, on the other hand, who appear to aim at doing in everything the exact opposite to their Muhammadan sisters, bathe on the slightest pretext, summer and winter, and often women who carefully veil their faces when passing down the street bathe in the river and streams in a state of nudity, regardless of passers-by.
Most of the women have a great aversion to telling their own name, because it is considered a very indelicate thing for a married woman to mention her own name. It would be very difficult to make the necessary entries in the register were it not that there is usually some other woman with her, and etiquette does not prevent her friend telling what her name is. Otherwise she will usually mention the name of her eldest son, who may be a baby in arms, or may be a grown man—never, of course, of a daughter: she must only be mentioned in a whisper, and with an apology, if at all—saying: “I am the mother of Paira Lai,” or “I am the mother of Muhammad Ismaïl.”
Notwithstanding the state of servitude in which the women are kept and their crass ignorance and superstition, they have great power in their home circles, and mould the characters of the rising generations more even than the fathers.
This fact was brought home very forcibly to me one day in school. A subject had to be fixed on for the next meeting of the school debating society. Various subjects had been proposed and negatived. I suggested: “Who has most influence in moulding our characters—our fathers or our mothers?” “How could we have so one-sided a debate?” responded half a dozen boys at once. “Who could be found to argue for the fathers? Of course, our mothers have all the influence.” How important, then, for the future of the nation that something should be done to raise, and elevate, and purify the mothers of the nation!
Chapter XVI
The Story of a Convert
A trans-frontier merchant—Left an orphan—Takes service—First contact with Christians—Interest aroused in an unexpected way—Assaulted—Baptism—A dangerous journey—Taken for a spy—A mother’s love—Falls among thieves—Choosing a wife—An Afghan becomes a foreign missionary—A responsible post—Saved by a grateful patient.
In the highlands between Kabul and Jelalabad is a secluded valley, girt with pine-clad hills, and down which a tributary of the Kabul River flows, fertilizing the rice crops which rise terrace above terrace on the slopes of the hills, and meandering in sparkling rivulets through the villages which lie nestling among orchards of peaches and apples, interspersed with fine walnut and plane trees. This is the Valley of Laghman, and, like the Kabulis, the men are great merchants, and travel about between Central Asia and Hindustan. One of these merchants took his young son, Jahan Khan, down with him to India on one of his journeys, in order that he might serve his apprenticeship in the trade of his father and see something of the wealthy cities and beautiful buildings of India, the fame of which had so often roused the boyish imaginations of the youth of Laghman, and made it the desire of their lives to travel down once to India and see for themselves its glories and its wealth.