Supplemental Nights to The Book of the Thousand and One Nights - Sir Richard Francis Burton (great books of all time .TXT) 📗

Gold Coast circumcise 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 circumcise like Moslems. The blacks of Loango are all “verp�,” otherwise they would be rejected by the women. The Bantu or Caffre tribes are circumcised between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, the “Fetish boys,” as we call them, are chalked white and wear only grass 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 f�tes 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 circumcise 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 shipwrecked sailors who expose the glans. Almost all the known Australian tribes circumcise after some fashion: Bennett supposes the rite to have been borrowed from the Malays, while Gason enumerates the “Kurrawellie wonkauna among the five mutilations of puberty. Leichhardt found circumcision 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 “Circumciduntur 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 assistants—all men, women, and children being driven away—form a “manner of human altar” upon which the youth is laid for circumcision. 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 parse infera penis 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 penis, this in coition becomes flat and broad and the semen does not enter the matrix. The explorer believes that the deed of kind is more quickly done (?). Circumcision 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 circumcision of Egypt described by Huet on Origen—“Circumcisio feminarum fit resectione (sive clitoridis) qu� pars in Australium mulieribus ita crescit ut ferro est co�rcenda.” Here we have the normal confusion between excision of the nymph� (usually for fibulation) and circumcision of the clitoris. Bruce notices this clitoridectomy 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 circumcised 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 clitoris, and as I have noted elsewhere extirpate the ovary for Malthusian purposes (Journ Anthrop. Inst., vol. viii. of 1884).

 

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

 

[FN#182] Arab. “Saw�ki,” the leats which irrigate the ground and are opened and closed with

 

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

 

[FN#184] Arab. “Ihramat li al-Sal�t,“i.e., she pronounced 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.

 

[FN#186] Slaves, male as well as female, are as fond of talking over their sale as European dames enjoy looking back upon the details of courtship and marriage.

 

[FN#187] Arab. “Du’�,”=supplication, prayer, as opposed to ‘Sal�t”=divine worship, “prayers” For the technical meaning of the latter see vol. iv. 65. I have objected to Mr. Redhouse’s distinction without a difference between Moslem’s worship and prayer: voluntary prayers: are not prohibited to them and their praises of the Lord are mingled, as amongst all worshippers, with petitions.

 

[FN#188] Al-Muzfir=the Twister; Zaf�ir al-Jinn=Adiantum capillus veneris L�l�ah=The Pearl, or Wild Heifer; see vol. ix. 218.

 

[FN#189] Arab. “Bi jildi ‘l-baker.” I hope that captious critics will not find fault with my rendering, as they did in the case of Fals ahmar=a red cent, vol. i. 321.

 

[FN#190] Arab. “Far�sah”=lit. knowing a horse. Arabia abounds in tales illustrating abnormal powers of observation. I have noted this in vol. viii. 326.

 

[FN#191] i.e. the owner of this palace.

 

[FN#192] She made the Ghusl not because she had slept with a man, but because the impurity of Satan’s presence called for the major ablution before prayer.

 

[FN#193] i.e. she conjoined the prayers of nightfall with those of dawn.

 

[FN#194] i.e.. Those of midday, midafternoon and sunset.

 

[FN#195] Arab. “Sahb�” red wine preferred for the morning draught.

 

[FN#196] The Apostle who delighted in women and perfumes. Persian poetry often alludes to the rose which, before white, was dyed red by his sweat.

 

[FN#197] For the etymology of Juln�r—Byron’s “Gulnare”—see vol.

vii. 268. Here the rhymer seems to refer to its origin; Gul (Arab. Jul) in Persian a rose; and An�r, a pomegranate, which in Arabic becomes N�r=fire.

 

[FN#198] i.e. “The brilliant,” the enlightened.

 

[FN#199] i.e.. the moral beauty.

 

[FN#200] A phenomenon well known to spiritualists and to “The House and the Haunter.” An old Dutch factory near Hungarian Fiume is famed for this mode of “obsession” the inmates hear the sound of footfalls, etc., behind them, especially upon the stairs; and see nothing.

 

[FN#201] The two short Koranic chapters, The Daybreak (cxiii.) and The Men (cxiv. and last) evidently so called from the words which occur in both (versets i., “I take refuge with”). These “Ma’�zat�ni,” as they are called, are recited as talismans or preventives against evil, and are worn as amulets inscribed on parchment; they are also often used in the five canonical prayers. I have translated them in vol. iii. 222.

 

[FN#202] The artistes or fugleman at prayer who leads off the orisons of the congregation; and applied to the Caliph as the head of the faith. See vol. ii. 203 and iv. 111.

 

[FN#203] Arab. ” ‘Umm�r” i.e. the Jinn, the “spiritual creatures”

which walk this earth, and other non-humans who occupy it.

 

[FN#204] A parallel to this bodiless Head is the Giant Face, which appears to travellers (who expect it) in the Lower Valley of the Indus. See Sind Re-visited, ii. 155.

 

[FN#205] Arab. “Ghal�l�”=my yearning.

 

[FN#206] Arab. “Ahb�bu-n�” plur. for singular=my beloved.

 

[FN#207] i.e. her return.

 

[FN#208] Arab. “Arja’” lit. return! but here meaning to stop. It is much used by donkey-boys from Cairo to Fez in the sense of “Get out of the way.” Hence the Spanish arre! which gave rise to arriero=a carrier, a muleteer.

 

[FN#209] Arab. “Afras” lit.=a better horseman.

 

[FN#210] A somewhat crippled quotation from Koran lvi. 87-88, “As for him who is of those brought near unto Allah, there shall be for him easance and basil and a Garden of Delights (Na’�m).”

 

[FN#211] i.e. Queen Sunbeam.

 

[FN#212] See vol. i. 310 for this compound perfume which contains musk, ambergris and other essences.

 

[FN#213] I can hardly see the sequence of this or what the carpets have to do here.

 

[FN#214] Here, as before, some insertion has been found necessary.

 

[FN#215] Arab. “Dukh�lak” lit.=thy entering, entrance, becoming familiar.

 

[FN#216] Or “And in this there shall be to thee great honour over all the Jinn.”

 

[FN#217] Mr. Payne thus amends the text, “How loathly is yonder Genie Meimoun! There is no eating (in his presence);” referring back to p. 61.

 

[FN#218] i.e. “I cannot bear to see him!”

 

[FN#219] This assertion of dignity, which is permissible in royalty, has been absurdly affected by certain “dames” in Anglo-Egypt who are quite the reverse of queenly; and who degrade “dignity” to the vulgarest affectation.

 

[FN#220] i.e. “May thy visits never fail me!”

 

[FN#221] i.e. Ash-coloured, verging upon white.

 

[FN#222] i.e. “She will double thy store of presents.”

 

[FN#223] The Arab boy who, unlike the Jew, is circumcised long after infancy and often in his teens, thus making the ceremony conform after a fashion with our “Confirmation,” is displayed before being operated upon, to family and friends; and the seat is a couch covered with the richest tapestry. So far it resembles the bride-throne.

 

[FN#224] Tohfah.

 

[FN#225] i.e. Hindu, Indian.

 

[FN#226] Japhet, son of Noah.

 

[FN#227] Mr. Payne translates “Take this and glorify thyself withal over the people of the world.” His reading certainly makes better sense, but I do not see how the text can carry the meaning. He also omits the bussing of the bosom, probably for artistic reasons.

 

[FN#228] A skit at Ish�k, making the Devil praise him. See vol.

vii. 113.

 

[FN#229] Arab. “Maw�zi” (plur. of Mauza’)=lit. places, shifts, passages.

 

[FN#230] The bed (farsh), is I presume, the straw-spread (?) store-room where the apples are preserved.

 

[FN#231] Arab. “Farkh warak”, which sounds like an atrocious vulgarism.

 

[FN#232] The Moss-rose; also the eglantine, or dog-rose, and the sweet-briar, whose leaf, unlike other roses, is so odorous.

 

[FN#233] The lily in Heb., derived by some from its six (shash) leaves, and by others from its vivid cheerful brightness. “His lips are lilies” (Cant. v. 13), not in colour, but in odoriferous sweetness.

 

[FN#234] The barber is now the usual operator; but all operations began in Europe with the “barber-surgeon.”

 

[FN#235] Sic in text xii. 20. It may be a misprint for Ab�

al-Tawaif,