Ten years' digging in Egypt, 1881-1891

by W. M. Flinders Petrie

115. Houses in Upper Egypt.

Some curious observances are connected with accidental deaths. Fires of straw are lighted one month after the death, around the ground where the body has lain; and where blood has been shed iron nails are driven into the ground, and a mixture of lentils, salt, &c., is poured out. These look like offerings to appease spirits, and the fires seem as if to drive away evil influences. Funeral offerings are still placed in the tombs for the sustenance of the dead, just as they were thousands of years ago.

The very hazy notions about all foreign places, and the blankness of ignorance concerning surrounding Nature, is a strong reminder of mediaeval times. To say that the earth is round is flat heresy in Egypt; and even the ulema of Cairo—learned in all the wisdom of Islam—walked out of the government examination room to which they had been invited when a pupil was examined in geography. To listen to a description of a round world was too atrocious an insult to them. The dim ideas of Europe—some far-off heathenish land of infidels—and the questions as to how many Muslims there are in our towns and villages, show the peasant, even when intelligent, to be much on a level with the audience of Sir John Mandeville. It is no wonder that in such ignorance there is a mighty fanaticism. Islam is all in all to the fellah: the unbelievers he looks on as a miserable minority; and it is only the unpleasant fact that they cannot be crushed at present that prevents his crushing them, and asserting the supremacy of Islam. A clever Arab once remarked to me concerning a department which was mismanaged by European direction, ‘How much better it would be to have an Arab over it!’ But on my asking where he could find a native whose corruption would not be far worse than the present rule, he could but reluctantly give in. This fanatical feeling of dislike to the Nusrani, or Nazarene, was the mainstay of Arabi’s revolt; and the very existence of such a feeling shows how dangerous it might become if fed on success. The children unintentionally reveal what is the tone and talk of the households in private; they constantly greet the European with howls of Ya Nusrani (‘O Nazarene’), the full force of which title is felt when your donkey-boy urges on his beast by calling it, ‘Son of a dog! son of a pig! son of a Nazarene!’ Any abuse will do to howl at the infidel, and I have been for months shouted at across every field as Ya khawaga mafeles! (‘O bankrupt foreigner’), because I preferred walking to the slow jolt of a donkey. The fact that dozens of the villagers were depending on me for good pay all the time did not seem to weigh in the youthful mind, compared with the pleasure of finding a handy insult. This temper, if not held down, might easily rise in the arrogance of its ignorance to such a height as to need a much sharper lesson than it has ever received. That a massacre of the Coptic Christians was fully anticipated by them when Arabi drove out the foreigners, is a well-known matter of history, which should not be lightly forgotten.

This fanaticism is linked with an unreasoning ferocity of punishment. I have seen a coachman suddenly seize on a street-boy, and, for some word or gesture, lash him on the bare legs with the whip again and again with all his might. Even a particularly good-natured and pleasant native remarked with gusto how good it would be to take a certain family who were of thievish habits, and pour petroleum over them—from the old woman to the baby—and so burn them all up alive: he gloated over the thoroughness of the undertaking, while all the time he was cheating his own employer. It is a pity for their sakes that they do not believe in witchcraft, the whole village would so much enjoy the festivity of doing a ducking, in the fashion of our ancestors.

Akin to this fanaticism is the ruling view of everything as kismet, the allotted fate. Perhaps no abstraction is so deleterious to a character as this; as a man always can thus shut his eyes to the consequences of his own actions, and refuse to learn by experience. I never yet found a fellah who confessed to doing wrong, or to being sorry for what he had done. He may sometimes stand and look aghast at the consequences of his own carelessness; but he will do no more, and no less, if the damage is the fault of someone else. He scarcely can, in fact, express what one of ourselves would feel, as there is no word for repentance in his vocabulary, except ‘good’; nor is there any word for sorrow, except ‘angry’ or ‘annoyed.’ The very sentiment of remorse is so unknown that there are no means of expressing it in any form. The constant way of appeasing an injured party is for the offender to assure him emphatically that it is of no consequence (ma’alesh); and the more often he thus asserts that he has not done the other a wrong, the more he considers he clears himself of it, until after sufficient of this lying he goes away with a sense of virtue. If in consequence of some very plain fault a man is punished by dismissal or otherwise, expressly pointing out to him the causes of his punishment, he will sullenly shrug his shoulders and say to his companions, Kismet; it is fated he is not to work. That any blame attaches to him for his trouble seems not to be dangable into him by any means. This lack of belief in consequences is also seen in the extreme carelessness often shown. After a harvest, a large quantity of grain had been stored in a room beside a village, covered with the most inflammable of roofing—durra straw: then, in order to toast some bread, a blazing fire was lighted in the low room, and allowed to flame up to the straw overhead. Of course it was soon all in flames, and the whole of a large proprietor’s harvest was destroyed. Even when it was blazing, within a hundred feet of the canal, the only attempt to fetch water was by two or three women slowly filling their great pitchers and carrying them up on their heads as usual; no notion of a chain-gang ever seemed to occur to them. The same lack of any co-operation is seen when robbers are about. I asked why, when a house was attacked by thieves, the other villagers did not all come out and seize the men, being ten or twenty to one. The reply was, ‘When any one hears another house being robbed, he keeps as quiet as possible, and does nothing, for fear of attracting the thieves to his own house.’

This belief in kismet, and lack of co-operation, tells favourably in one way—the fellah is not revengeful. No matter whether he deserves what ill befalls him, or is an innocent sufferer, he never goes about for simple vengeance, but yields, and is ready to act as if no grudge or ill-feeling rested in his mind. What might be the case in an affront to their religion or family I would not say; but in all minor matters the fellah may be dealt with regardless of an idea of revenge.

The cardinal principle to remember in dealing with Egyptians is that they have no forbearance, and know no middle course. The notion of means exactly meeting an end, is outside of the fellah’s sense. If he is careless about a danger, he is so careless in many cases as to be killed; if he thinks about it, he is so afraid that he will not face it at all. If he has to make anything secure, no amount of surplus security seems too great. If he knows that you have power, he cannot be too submissive, and insists on kissing your hand, or at the least so honouring the aroma of it where it has touched his own. But if he has power himself, he gets all he can out of it; and the grasping and overbearing nature of the village shekh is too generally well known to those under him. Nothing seems to have astonished and disgusted Stanley more than the scheming of the Egyptian soldiers, whom he expected to follow him, in retreating. Yet the whole affair was characteristically Egyptian: fleeing from the Mahdists; only too glad to find anyone so foolish in their eyes as to be troubled about them; and then clumsily plotting—without any regard to time—for making the best profit they could out of the affair, by seizing whatever seemed to have come into their power. It would have been nothing to them to make away with people who were so indiscreet as to put ammunition within their grasp. The scheme seems to be the natural course of things to anyone who has watched the ways of Egypt. Peremptory orders are understood; and the more peremptorily they are enforced the more cheerfully they are obeyed, though roughness or harshness is seldom necessary: but if you do not rule, you must submit to be ruled. And the fellah has a positive dislike to having a choice of action left to him. In matters indifferent to me, I often tell them to do what they please; and that generally ends in their helplessly doing nothing, especially if they need to co-operate. At last, seeing their trouble, I give a precise order, and every one at once obeys it with thankfulness.

From this it follows that the fellah is one of the most easily managed people in the world. When once he knows who is master, there is little or no trouble. And if you can pick and choose your men, and keep them well in hand, instantly dismissing any who may disobey, it would be impossible to find a more cheerful, pleasant, well-disposed, and kindly set of fellows. The only danger is that they may perceive too much of your confidence in them. All the best men I have had have gone lamentably to the bad when they found that they were at all trusted. The temptation of having any credit of character is too great for them; they hasten to commute it for instant advantage, as soon as they see that there is anything to be made of it. The goose that lays golden eggs has a short and perilous life in Egypt.

That there is scarcely any sense of honour as to truthfulness need hardly be remarked. The idea of truth for its own sake does not weigh appreciably against either present advantage or serving the interest of another. The most respectable fellahin I have known would lie readily and unlimitedly, if they thought it beneficial. One very good fellow came to tell me one day what he had heard, prefacing it by saying how he had not two minutes before obtained the information by solemnly promising never to tell me about it. That he avowed the most unblushing and deliberate lying never seemed to occur to his mind as anything noticeable, but rather a virtuous attention to my interests. Another superior fellow lost some letters, which were entrusted to him to post: when he came back he mentioned the loss, without any regret, and immediately went on to praise himself for the great virtue he had shown in acknowledging it, and the elevation of his moral standpoint above the sinners around him. It was, perhaps, a triumph of candour for an Egyptian.

From all that we have just noticed it will be plain that Egypt is a land of bribery. Every person who wants anything pays for it; time, attention, favour, facilities, screening, and escaping, all have their price. And it is the length of this price that is the deterrent from crime, and the dread of those who get into trouble over any affair. I reported a case of a villager throwing a dead buffalo into the canal. A policeman visited the shekh to enquire; a sovereign changed hands, and he returned stating that it was all a mistake, and that no dead buffalo ever existed there. But a few weeks later another policeman in search of prey rode round; and, finding a dead dog, pocketed a dollar for his acuteness. And the policeman is the fellah in trousers, armed, and in authority. A good false accusation will sometimes do, and is even occasionally worked on a wholesale scale for small bribes. Briefly, it may be stated that the working of petty jurisdiction is, that the law lays down what are offences, and attaches certain penalties to them; these penalties, then, roughly are the maximum limits to which the police can reward themselves by the discovery of such offences. The system works all right in the long run, as well as any system could in so corrupt a country: it is part payment by results to the police, with a minimum daily wage secured to them, and the pickings in proportion to their acuteness. Of course all this is profanity to the ears of High Officials, who never have a chance of hearing the quiet doings in the villages. The European dignitaries, and many of the natives also, duly and diligently administer justice when an affair comes to their ears; but the little minor assaults and thefts and squabbles are adjusted on a rougher and readier system, which had better be left alone if it cannot be improved away altogether.