The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume XII Part 23

[FN#142] i.e. "Choice gift of the Fools," a skit upon the girl's name "Tohfat al-Kulub"=Choice gift of the Hearts. Her folly consisted in refusing to be sold at a high price, and this is often seen in real life. It is a Pundonor amongst good Moslems not to buy a girl and not to sleep with her, even when bought, against her will.

[FN#143] "Every one cannot go to Corinth." The question makes the a.s.sertion emphatic.

[FN#144] i.e. The Narrows of the (Dervishes') convent.

[FN#145] Arab. "Akwa min dahni 'l-lanz." These unguents have been used in the East from time immemorial whilst the last generation in England knew nothing of anointing with oil for incipient consumption. A late friend of mine, Dr. Stocks of the Bombay Establishment, and I proposed it as long back as 1845; but in those days it was a far cry from Sind to London.

[FN#146] The sequel will explain why she acted in this way.

[FN#147] i.e. Thou hast made my gold piece (10 s.h.i.+ll.) worth only a doit by thy superiority in the art and mystery of music.

[FN#148] Arab. "Uaddiki," Taadiyah (iid. of Ada, he a.s.sisted) means sending, forwarding. In Egypt and Syria we often find the form "Waddi" for Addi, imperative.

[FN#149] Again "he" for "she".

[FN#150] i.e. Honey and wine.

[FN#151] i.e. he died.

[FN#152] i.e. if my hand had lost its cunning.

[FN#153] Arab. "Thiyab 'Amudiyah": 'Amud=tent prop or column, and Khatt 'Amud=a perpendicular line.

[FN#154] i.e. a choice gift. The Caliph speaks half ironically.

"Where's this wonderful present etc?" So further on when he compares her with the morning.

[FN#155] Again the usual pun upon the name.

[FN#156] Throughout the East this is the action of a servant or a slave, practised by freemen only when in danger of life or extreme need an i therefore humiliating.

[FN#157] It had been thrown down from the Mamrak or small dome built over such pavilions for the purpose of light by day and ventilation by night. See vol. i. 257, where it is called by the Persian term "Badhanj."

[FN#158] The Nights have more than once applied this patronymic to Zubaydah. See vol. viii. 56, 158.

[FN#159] Arab. "Mutahaddisin"=novi homines, upstarts.

[FN#160] i.e.. thine auspicious visits.

[FN#161] He being seated on the carpet at the time.

[FN#162] A quotation from Al-Farazdat who had quarrelled with his wife Al-Howar (see the tale in Ibn Khallikan, i. 521), hence "the naked intercessor" became proverbial for one who cannot be withstood.

[FN#163] i.e. Choice Gift of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, that is of hearts, the continens for the contentum.

[FN#164] p.r.o.n. "Ab.u.t.tawaif," the Father of the (Jinn-)tribes. It is one of the Moslem Satan's manifold names, alluding to the number of his servants and wors.h.i.+ppers, so far agreeing with that amiable Christian doctrine, "Few shall be saved."

[FN#165] Mr. Payne supplies this last clause from the sequence.

[FN#166] i.e. "Let us go," with a euphemistic formula to defend her from evil influences. Iblis uses the same word to prevent her being frightened.

[FN#167] Arab. "Al-Mustarah," a favourite haunting place of the Jinn, like the Hammam and other offices for human impurity. For its six names Al-Khala, Al-Hushsh, Al-Mutawazza, Al-Kanif, Al-Mustarah, and Mirhaz, see Al-Mas'udi, chap. cxxvii., and s.h.i.+ris.h.i.+'s commentary to Hariri's 47, a.s.sembly.

[FN#168] Which, in the East, is high and prominent whilst the cantle forms a back to the seat and the rider sits as in a baby's chair. The object is a firm seat when fighting: "across country"

it is exceedingly dangerous.

[FN#169] In Swedenborg's "Arcane C?lestia" we read, "When man's inner sight is opened which is that of kits spirit; then there appear the things of another life which cannot be made visible to the bodily sight." Also "Evil spirits, when seen by eyes other than those of their infernal a.s.sociates, present themselves by correspondence in the beast (fera) which represents their particular l.u.s.t and life, in aspect direful and atrocious." These are the Jinns of Northern Europe.

[FN#170] This exchange of salams was a sign of her being in safety.

[FN#171] Arab. "Shawahid," meaning that heart testifies to heart.

[FN#172] i.e. A live coal, afterwards called Zalzalah, an earthquake; see post p. 76. "Wakhimah"=an unhealthy land, and "Shararah"=a spark.

[FN#173] I need hardly note the inscriptions upon the metal trays sold to Europeans. They are usually imitation words so that infidel eyes may not look upon the formulae of prayer; and the same is the case with table-cloths, etc., showing a fancy Tohgra or Sultanic sign-manual.

[FN#174] i.e.. I cannot look at them long.

[FN#175] Evidently a diabolical way of clapping his hands in applause. This description of the Foul Fiend has an element of grotesqueness which is rather Christian than Moslem.

[FN#176] Arab. "Rikki al-Saut," which may also mean either "lower thy voice," or "change the air to one less touching."

[FN#177] "Your" for "thy."

[FN#178] i.e. written on the "Guarded Tablet" from all eternity.

[FN#179] Arab. "Al-'Urs wa'al Tubur" which can only mean, 'the wedding (which does not drop out of the tale) and the circ.u.mcision."

[FN#180] I here propose to consider at some length this curious custom which has prevailed amongst so many widely separated races. Its object has been noted (vol. v. 209), viz. to diminish the sensibility of the glans, no longer lubricated with prostatic lymph; thus the part is hardened against injury and disease and its work in coition is prolonged. On the other hand, "praeputium in coitu voluptatem (of the woman) auget, unde femina praeputiatis concubitum malunt quam c.u.m Turcis ac Judaeis " says Dimerbroeck (Anatomic). I vehemently doubt the fact. Circ.u.mcision was doubtless practised from ages immemorial by the peoples of Central Africa, and Welcker found traces of it in a mummy of the xvith century B.C. The Jews borrowed it from the Egyptian priesthood and made it a manner of sacrament, "uncirc.u.mcised"

being="unbaptised," that is, barbarian, heretic; it was a seal of reconciliation, a sign of alliance between the Creator and the Chosen People, a token of nationality imposed upon the body politic. Thus it became a cruel and odious protestation against the brotherhood of man, and the cosmopolitan Romans derided the verpae ac verpi. The Jews also used the term figuratively as the "circ.u.mcision of fruits" (Lev. xix. 23), and of the heart (Deut.

x. 16), and the old law gives copious historical details of its origin and continuance. Abraham first amputated his h.o.r.n.y "calotte" at aet. 99, and did the same for his son and household (Gen. xvii. 24-27). The rite caused a separation between Moses and his wife (Exod. iv. 25). It was suspended during the Desert Wanderings and was resumed by Joshua (v. 3-7), who cut off two tons' weight of prepuces. The latter became, like the scalps of the Scythians and the North-American "Indians" trophies of victory; Saul promised his daughter Michol to David for a dowry of one hundred, and the son-in-law brought double tale.

Amongst the early Christians opinions concerning the rite differed. Although the Founder of Christianity was circ.u.mcised, St. Paul, who aimed at a cosmopolitan faith discouraged it in the physical phase. St. Augustine still sustained that the rite removed original sin despite the Fathers who preceded and followed him, Justus, Tertullian, Ambrose and others. But it gradually lapsed into desuetude and was preserved only in the outlying regions. Paulus Jovius and Munster found it practised in Abyssinia, but as a mark of n.o.bility confined to the descendants of "Nicaules, queen of Sheba." The Abyssinians still follow the Jews in performing the rite within eight days after the birth and baptise boys after forty and girls after eighty days. When a circ.u.mcised man became a Jew he was bled before three witnesses at the place where the prepuce had been cut off and this was called the "Blood of alliance." Apostate Jews effaced the sing of circ.u.mcision: so in 1 Matt. i. 16, fecerunt sibi praeputia et recesserunt a Testamento Sancto. Thus making prepuces was called by the Hebrews Meshookim=recut.i.tis, and there is an allusion to it in 1 Cor. vii. 18, 19, {Greek} (Farrar, Paul ii. 70). St.

Jerome and others deny the possibility; but Mirabeau (Akropodie) relates how Father Conning by liniments of oil, suspending weights, and wearing the virga in a box gained in 43 days 7 lines. The process is still practiced by Armenians and other Christians who, compelled to Islamise, wish to return to Christianity. I cannot however find a similar artifice applied to a circ.u.mcised c.l.i.toris. The simplest form of circ.u.mcision is mere amputation of the prepuce and I have noted (vol. v. 209) the difference between the Moslem and the Jewish rite, the latter according to some being supposed to heal in kindlier way. But the varieties of circ.u.mcision are immense. Probably none is more terrible than that practiced in the Province Al-Asir, the old Ophir, Iying south of Al-Hijaz, where it is called Salkh, lit.=scarification The patient, usually from ten to twelve years old, is placed upon raised ground holding m right hand a spear, whose heel rests upon his foot and whose point shows every tremour of the nerves. The tribe stands about him to pa.s.s judgment on his fort.i.tude and the barber performs the operation with the Jumbiyah-dagger, sharp as a razor. First he makes a shallow cut, severing only the skin across the belly immediately below the navel, and similar incisions down each groin; then he tears off the epidermis from the cuts downwards and flays the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and the p.e.n.i.s, ending with amputation of the foreskin.

Meanwhile the spear must not tremble and in some clans the lad holds a dagger over the back of the stooping barber, crying, "Cut and fear not!" When the ordeal is over, he exclaims, "Allaho Akbar!" and attempts to walk towards the tents soon falling for pain and nervous exhaustion, but the more steps he takes the more applause he gains. He is dieted with camel's milk, the wound is treated with salt and turmeric, and the chances in his favour are about ten to one. No body-pile or pecten ever grows upon the excoriated part which preserves through life a livid ashen hue.

Whilst Mohammed Ali Pasha occupied the province he forbade "scarification" under pain of impalement, but it was resumed the moment he left Al-Asir. In Africa not only is circ.u.mcision indigenous, the operation varies more or less in the different tribes. In Dahome it is termed Addagwibi, and is performed between the twelfth and twentieth year. The rough operation is made peculiar by a double cut above and below; the prepuce being treated in the Moslem, not the Jewish fas.h.i.+on (loc. cit.). Heated sand is applied as a styptic and the patient is dieted with ginger-soup and warm drinks of ginger-water, pork being especially forbidden. The Fantis of the Gold Coast circ.u.mcise in sacred places, e.g., at Accra on a Fetish rock rising from the sea The peoples of Sennaar, Taka, Masawwah and the adjacent regions follow the Abyssinian custom. The barbarous Bissagos and Fellups of North Western Guinea make cuts on the prepuce without amputating it; while the Baquens and Papels circ.u.mcise like Moslems. The blacks of Loango are all "verpae," otherwise they would be rejected by the women. The Bantu or Caffre tribes are circ.u.mcised between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, the "Fetish boys," as we call them, are chalked white and wear only gra.s.s belts; they live outside the villages in special houses under an old "medicine-man," who teaches them not only virile arts but also to rob and fight. The "man-making" may last five months and ends in fetes and dances: the patients are washed in the river, they burn down their quarters, take new names, and become adults, donning a kind of straw thimble over the prepuce. In Madagascar three several cuts are made causing much suffering to the children, and the nearest male relative swallows the prepuce. The Polynesians circ.u.mcise when childhood ends and thus consecrate the fecundating organ to the Deity. In Tahiti the operation is performed by the priest, and in Tonga only the priest is exempt.

The Maories on the other hand, fasten the prepuce over the glans, and the women of the Marquesas Islands have shown great cruelty to s.h.i.+pwrecked sailors who expose the glans. Almost all the known Australian tribes circ.u.mcise after some fas.h.i.+on: Bennett supposes the rite to have been borrowed from the Malays, while Gason enumerates the "Kurrawellie wonkauna among the five mutilations of p.u.b.erty. Leichhardt found circ.u.mcision about the Gulf of Carpentaria and in the river-valleys of the Robinson and Macarthur: others observed it on the Southern Coast a nd among the savages of Perth, where it is noticed by Salvado. James Dawson tells us "Circ.u.mciduntur pueri," etc., in Western Victoria. Brough Smyth, who supposes the object is to limit population (?), describes on the Western Coast and in Central Australia the "Corrobery"-dance and the operation performed with a quartz-flake. Teichelmann details the rite in Southern Australia where the a.s.sistants--all men, women, and children being driven away--form a "manner of human altar" upon which the youth is laid for circ.u.mcision. He then receives the normal two names, public and secret, and is initiated into the mysteries proper for men. The Australians also for Malthusian reasons produce an artificial hypospadias, while the Karens of New Guinea only split the prepuce longitudinally (Cosmos p. 369, Oct. 1876); the indigens of Port Lincoln on the West Coast split the virga:-- Fenditur usque ad urethram a pa.r.s.e infera p.e.n.i.s between the ages of twelve and fourteen, says E. J. Eyre in 1845. Missionary Schurmann declares that they open the urethra. Gason describes in the Dieyerie tribe the operation 'Kulpi" which is performed when the beard is long enough for tying. The member is placed upon a slab of tree-bark, the urethra is incised with a quartz-flake mounted in a gum handle and a splinter of bark is inserted to keep the cut open. These men may appear naked before women who expect others to clothe themselves. Miklucho Maclay calls it "Mike" in Central Australia: he was told by a squatter that of three hundred men only three or four had the member intact in order to get children, and that in one tribe the female births greatly outnumbered the male. Those mutilated also marry: when making water they sit like women slightly raising the p.e.n.i.s, this in coition becomes flat and broad and the s.e.m.e.n does not enter the matrix. The explorer believes that the deed of kind is more quickly done (?). Circ.u.mcision was also known to the New World.

Herrera relates that certain Mexicans cut off the ears and prepuce of the newly born child, causing many to die. The Jews did not adopt the female circ.u.mcision of Egypt described by Huet on Origen--"Circ.u.mcisio feminarum fit resectione (sive c.l.i.toridis) quae pars in Australium mulieribus ita crescit ut ferro est coercenda." Here we have the normal confusion between excision of the nymphae (usually for fibulation) and circ.u.mcision of the c.l.i.toris. Bruce notices this c.l.i.toridectomy among the Aybssinians. Werne describes the excision on the Upper White Nile and I have noted the complicated operation among the Somali tribes. Girls in Dahome are circ.u.mcised by ancient sages femmes, and a woman in the natural state would be derided by every one (See my Mission to Dahome, ii. 159) The Australians cut out the c.l.i.toris, and as I have noted elsewhere extirpate the ovary for Malthusian purposes (Journ Anthrop. Inst., vol. viii. of 1884).

[FN#181] Arab. "Kayrawan" which is still the common name for curlew, the peewit and plover being called (onomatopoetically) "Bibat" and in Marocco Yahudi, certain impious Jews having been turned into the Vanellus Cristatus which still wears the black skullcap of the

[FN#182] Arab. "Sawaki," the leats which irrigate the ground and are opened and closed with

[FN#183] The eighth (in alt.i.tude) of the many-storied Heavens.

[FN#184] Arab. "Ihramat li al-Salat,"i.e., she p.r.o.nounced the formula of Intention (Niyat) with out which prayer is not valid, ending with Allaho Akbar--Allah is All-great. Thus she had clothed herself, as it were, in prayer and had retired from the world pro temp.

[FN#185] i.e.. the prayers of the last day and night which she had neglected while in company with the Jinns. The Hammam is not a pure place to pray in; but the Farz or Koranic orisons should be recited there if the legal term be hard upon its end.