The
Poorer Classes All Wear The Za’Al Or Hibas Of Al-Yaman; Two Yarns Of
Black Sheep’S Wool Tied Round The Leg, Under The Knee And Above The
Ankle.
When bitten, the sufferer tightens these cords above the injured
part, which he immediately scarifies; thus they act as tourniquets.
These ligatures also cure cramps—and there is no other remedy.
The Badawi
knowledge of medicine is unusually limited in this part of Arabia,
where even simples are not required by a people who rise with dawn, eat
little, always breathe Desert air, and “at night make the camels their
curfew.” The great tonic is clarified butter, and the Kay, or actual
cautery, is used even for rheumatism. This counter-irritant, together
with a curious and artful phlebotomy,
[p.109] blood being taken, as by the Italians, from the toes, the
fingers, and other parts of the body, are the Arab panaceas. They treat
scald-head with grease and sulphur. Ulcers, which here abound, without,
however, assuming the fearful type of the “Helcoma Yemenense,” are
cauterised and stimulated by verdigris. The evil of which Fracastorius
sang is combated by sudorifics, by unguents of oil and sulphur, and
especially by the sand-bath. The patient, buried up to the neck,
remains in the sun fasting all day; in the evening he is allowed a
little food. This rude course of “packing” lasts for about a month. It
suits some constitutions; but others, especially Europeans, have tried
the sand-bath and died of fever. Mules’ teeth, roasted and imperfectly
pounded, remove cataract. Teeth are extracted by the farrier’s pincers,
and the worm which throughout the East is supposed to produce
toothache, falls by fumigation. And, finally, after great fatigue, or
when suffering from cold, the body is copiously greased with clarified
butter and exposed to a blazing fire.
Mohammed and his followers conquered only the more civilised Badawin;
and there is even to this day little or no religion amongst the wild
people, except those on the coast or in the vicinity of cities. The
faith of the Badawi comes from Al-Islam, whose hold is weak. But his
customs and institutions, the growth of his climate, his nature, and
his wants, are still those of his ancestors, cherished ere Meccah had
sent forth a Prophet, and likely to survive the day when every vestige
of the Ka’abah shall have disappeared. Of this nature are the Hijazi’s
pagan oaths, his heathenish names (few being Moslem except “Mohammed”), his
ordeal of licking red-hot iron, his Salkh, or scarification,—proof of
manliness,—his blood revenge, and his eating carrion (i.e., the body of
an animal killed without the usual formula), and his lending his wives
to strangers. All these I hold to be remnants of some old
[p.110] creed; nor should I despair of finding among the Badawin
bordering upon the Great Desert some lingering system of idolatry.
The Badawin of Al-Hijaz call themselves Shafe’i but what is put into the
mouths of their brethren in the West applies equally well here.
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