If the Tyari men are thus buried prematurely at times, there was an ancient custom among them (now extinct for generations), according to which they could dispense with burial altogether. Like many uncivilized peoples, in all climates, they had a habit of putting the aged out of the way of the young when they had no more joy in life; and in their own case got rid of them by throwing them down a special one of the numerous precipices in their country. The story goes that the habit came to be stopped through one particular man, who was carrying up his own father to dispose of him in the time-honoured way. As he scaled the mountain, he put down his burden to rest for a minute,[{309}] at one particular tree; and as he did so, he heard the old man chuckle.
“And what have you got to laugh at now?” said the son.
“Ah well, I was just remembering”; said the old fellow. “It came to my mind how when I was carrying my old father up here, I put him down to rest myself just at this same tree; and it seemed to me rather comic. Your son, little Yaqub, will do just the same with you when your time comes, no doubt.”
That set the son, who had hitherto been acting just as custom decreed, thinking about things in a new way. He had to admit that he did not like the idea of his little son carrying him up in this fashion to throw him down a precipice; and perhaps it might be that his own old father did not quite like it either! So the end of his cogitations was that he carried the old man down again, and faced the horror of refusing to do as his fathers had done. Thus the custom fell into disuse.
Good people in England will of course be startled at the idea of such a custom ever having prevailed among even “nominal Christians;” in blissful ignorance of the fact that our own ancestors acted in very similar fashion when they were at a similar stage of development. Human nature is much the same all the world over; and we believe that the practice of killing off the old people (useless mouths to fill) did not die out in Christian Sweden till the fifteenth century. The “family clubs” used for dispatching them were usually kept in the churches![140]
Note. One of the quaintest of the stories told at the expense of these “Men of Gotham” was related to the writer by Mar Shimun, who is a singularly good raconteur. It befell once in the time of summer that the sun was hidden by clouds. This is so unusual a phenomenon in that favoured land that the men of Tyari held a solemn meeting to discuss what could be done in the matter; and decided that the day-star had probably got entangled in a cave on the lip of their tremendous gorge, and that if it was not disentangled at once disastrous consequences would follow. A deputation went up accordingly to do their best; and the first man to reach the cave mouth at once stooped and looked into the darkness, where he saw two luminous orbs. “It’s all right,” he said to his friends;[{310}] “here is the sun and the moon, too. I will crawl in and let them loose.” In he crawled accordingly; but found that unluckily for him the lights were the eyes of a leopard, and it, skilful animal, took off his head with one snap. As he did not come out again, or answer to questions, his companions pulled him out by the heels—when, behold, he had no head on. “Dear, dear,” said the leader, “this is very odd. Tell me, some of you, had Yukhanan his head with him when we came up, or did he leave it in the house?” No man was quite sure on that point, so all went down to ask his wife. “O Sinji, wife of Yukhanan, say now. Did your man leave his head down here when we went up the hill this morning, for we cannot find it now?” Sinji searched in the house, but presently came out with the news: “It is not here, anyhow.” “Ah, well,” said the leader, “he must have dropped it on the way up. The boys will find it and bring it down when they drive home the goats at sunset.”
CHAPTER XV
INTRUDERS IN A PANDEMONIUM
(AMADIA AND BOHTAN)
TO the south of the Christian cantons of Tkhuma and Salabekan, and separated from them by a series of high rocky ridges, lies the long trough-like valley of Amadia, which is here known alternatively as the Sapna. At its eastern end, as already related, dwell the Sheikhs of Barzan and Neri; but the western portion is divided among a group of petty Kurdish Aghas, who are of course ashiret in status like their neighbours, and who occupy both the main Sapna valley itself, the Ghara ranges which form the counterscarp separating it from Mosul plain, and the Berwar valley which lies parallel with it to the northward.
These chiefs, of whom the Mira of Berwar and the Agha of Châl are the principal, are “small men.” None of them can claim a personal following of more than a few hundred at most; though one or other may figure prominently at times as the head of a confederacy. Their chronic condition is that of outlawry for proved acts of violence; and in the land of Ghara in particular there does not seem to be a single gentleman of name who is not in that enviable condition—or if there is, we never heard of him in the course of three years’ residence. This fact, however, does not in the least affect anyone’s comfort, or even the friendliness of his relations with the officials of the Government. It is rather a cachet of gentility than otherwise.