As it is for some reason considered to be unlucky to open a pair of scissors before a child’s face—perhaps for fear of accidents—its nails are always first cut with its hand behind its back; more usually, however, they are bitten off short by its parents. The ends of the fingers are then dipped into newly ground flour to “prevent them from growing again.”
If a child is regarded as being unusually handsome or well conditioned, so that the mother fears it may incur the evil eye of other matrons less favoured in their progeny, a black cross as a protection is smeared on its forehead, if it is its face that is likely to be envied; or on the back of its hand if it should be its plumpness that it is feared will cause heart burnings. This custom is most probably derived from the Copts.
The fear of the evil eye is widely distributed, especially in the East, and in the oases many precautions are taken to guard against it. To ensure a good crop on a palm, for instance, an animal’s bone—frequently a skull—or a piece of manure, wrapped up in a cloth, is hung in its branches, and sometimes small doll-like figures are used in the same way. Charms, in the form of texts, or cabalistic signs, written either by a religious sheykh, or by certain men who are supposed to have a special gift in this direction, are sometimes done up in a little packet, made generally of leather, and hung round the neck of a child or valuable beast as a protection from the evil eye; but they are not very much in request.
They have also a charm that they recite before lying down to sleep, or sitting down in a place they suspect to be infested with scorpions or other poisonous creatures. Having recited it they spit to the north, south, east and west, and then consider themselves to be safe from attack. I attempted to get a copy of the spell that was given to me translated, but was unable to find anyone who could do so. It appears to be merely gibberish.
Boys in the oases are usually circumcised between the ages of three to five years—the parents, if poor, wait till they have saved enough to make the necessary feast; they also, if possible, endeavour to make the circumcision coincide with a marriage in their village, in order that expense may be saved to both parties by combining the marriage and circumcision processions. The richer families for the circumcision feast will kill a sheep, or even a cow, but with the poorer classes a very much simpler meal suffices.
Girls are married at an extremely early age—sometimes when only eight years old. But in these cases the wife probably merely acts at first as an attendant upon her husband. When between twelve or fourteen years old, however, they begin to have children, ceasing to do so between forty and forty-five.
Divorce is extremely common. I was shown a young girl in Dakhla, whose age I was told was only twelve—she did not look to be more—who had already been divorced three times. The state of morality in these oases is very low indeed, and this, combined with the very early marriages, probably has a good deal to say to the feeble character of the inhabitants.
Marriages are celebrated with great pomp—especially in the case of the richer inhabitants—and their ceremonies differ in some noticeable points from those in the Nile Valley.
Mahr, or dowry, is paid by the man to the bride’s family in all but the case of the very poor. This preliminary having been settled, the ceremony of the katb el kitab, or “writing of the writ,” is gone through, though, as in the case of the Nile Valley, it is seldom that any written contract of marriage is drawn up. The bridegroom, accompanied by a friend or two, goes to the house of his intended bride, where he meets her representative, to whom he pays over the portion of the dowry agreed upon. Everyone recites the fatha, or first chapter of the Koran—from which proceeding the ceremony is often alluded to as the “saying of the fatha”—and then the bridegroom and the representative of the bride squat facing each other on the ground, and, prompted usually by a religious sheykh, take hold of each other’s hand and swear the marriage contract.
About a week later, the Zeffet el Arusa, the procession of the bride to the bridegroom’s house, takes place shortly after noon. A procession of this kind that I saw in Dakhla Oasis, was headed by a sutary, or jester, who had tied the end of the long leaf of a palm to his waist in front and then passed the other end through his legs and up his back, so that it had very much the appearance of a bushy tail. He carried a staff in each hand, and hopped about on these in a most grotesque manner.