And This They Did, He Says, To Prevent Their Being Troubled With
Rheum In After Life.
Indeed Andrea Corsali denies that the branding had aught to do with
baptism, "but only to observe Solomon's custom
Of marking his slaves, the
King of Ethiopia claiming to be descended from him." And it is remarkable
that Salt mentions that most of the people of Dixan had a cross marked
(i.e. branded) on the breast, right arm, or forehead. This he elsewhere
explains as a mark of their attachment to the ancient metropolitan church
of Axum, and he supposes that such a practice may have originated the
stories of fire-baptism. And we find it stated in Marino Sanudo that "some
of the Jacobites and Syrians who had crosses branded on them said this
was done for the destruction of the Pagans, and out of reverence to the
Holy Rood." Matthew Paris, commenting on the letter quoted above, says
that many of the Jacobites before baptism brand their children on the
forehead with a hot iron, whilst others brand a cross upon the cheeks or
temples. He had seen such marks also on the arms of both Jacobites and
Syrians who dwelt among the Saracens. It is clear, from Salt, that such
branding was practised by many Abyssinians, and that to a recent date,
though it may have been entirely detached from baptism. A similar practice
is followed at Dwarika and Koteswar (on the old Indus mouth, now called
Lakpat River), where the Hindu pilgrims to these sacred sites are branded
with the mark of the god.
(Orient und Occident, Goettingen, 1862, I. 453; Frescob. 114;
Clavijo, 163; Ramus. I. f. 290, v., f. 184; Marin. Sanud. 185, and
Bk. iii. pt. viii. ch. iv.; Clusius, Exotica, pt. ii. p. 142; Orland.
Fur. XXXIII. st. 102; Voyage en Perse, dans les Annees 1807-1809;
Assemani, II. c.; Ludolf, iii. 6, sec. 41; Salt, in Valentia's
Trav. II. p. 505, and his Second Journey, French Tr., II. 219; M.
Paris, p. 373; J.R.A.S. I. 42.)
NOTE 3. - It is pretty clear from what follows (as Marsden and others have
noted) that the narrative requires us to conceive of the Sultan of Aden as
dominant over the territory between Abyssinia and the sea, or what was in
former days called ADEL, between which and Aden confusion seems to have
been made. I have noticed in Note 1 the appearance of this confusion in R.
Benjamin; and I may add that also in the Map of Marino Sanudo Aden is
represented on the western shore of the Red Sea. But is it not possible
that in the origin of the Mahomedan States of Adel the Sultan of Aden had
some power over them? For we find in the account of the correspondence
between the King of Abyssinia and Sultan Bibars, quoted in the next Note
but one, that the Abyssinian letters and presents for Egypt were sent to
the Sultan of Yemen or Aden to be forwarded.
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