The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1880-06-25
MIDDLEBURY. VT. JUNE s5, 1880.
Arabian Folk LORE.

Inc following scrap, touching certain
points of the folk lore of the children Of
the. desert, is taken from the fifth Of q
series of letters by Professor Robertson
Smith, of Aberdeen: We had n very
pleasant bivouac in w Jdy Gi'rana, under
the bright moonlight. We drank in
Vulnerable cups of coffee and enjoyed a
long chat round the fire. AL Mas. as
usual, was full of superstitions, and
/ showed me Bcdouin methods of divlna-
| tion. One of these is used to decide
whether or not tribe shall ride out on
IA foray. A circle is drawn in the sand
with an arbitrary number ofrays, which
must not be counted, diverging from its
circumference. The first and second
rays are then Joined by cross stroke,
Sc are the third and fourth, and so on.
If there is an odd number of rays, one,
ofcourse, remains unconnected, and is
held to symbolic an open road for
war.
If all the rays are closed, the tribe re-
fuses 10 ride out. A more complicated
test of the probability of success in any,
hing a man has set his heart on is 10
measure out three spans lengths on the
land. The space between must then be
divided of into finger which L.
done by successive applications of the
Hack of the fingers down upon the sand
The row of scores thus obtained Is
roughly bisected by the eye, and each
half is counted off in threes from th,
middle point. The remainders give the
n'astre of ones luck, the best result
bong three Mt one end and two at the
other. l remember TO have heard from
n resident in Bagdad that a similar mode
~ divinatiOn is practiced there by
counting oil in tives an arbitrary chosen
number of beads in rosary. This is
called striking a choice (dharab
khecra.)
The Bedouins also take auguries from
irds A single raven in ones path is
very bad token, but two nre ex-
t,emely lucky. They say, Akhdtarfgn
fn-fa't. zetn-" Two green (that IL.
black ones "a fair omen. The
bedouins have many other superstitions
about animals. The superstition rs tn
Palmer noted in the Peninsula OF
Sinai is unknown here; but th,re isa
similar idea about the monkeys which
frequent Mount Kara. These, it is said.
were once men who came to visit the
prophet. He set before them milk and
water, directing them to drink the
former and perform their ablutions with
the latter. The perverse visitors drank
the water and washed with the milk.
and were transformed to monkeys for
their disobedIence. AS they were once
men, their flesh is not eaten.
This legend is closely akin to what
one reads in the fabulous history OF
early Arabia about the Nasnas ana the
Wabar, in the great sandy desert. Both
ihese words are monkey names, quite
current in the present day, though not
recognized by the lexicons. The latter
is an ape, the former a monkey with II
tail. Except in this monkey story, find
no trace of the superstitious rejection
of the flesh of any animal, But some
kinds of flesh have magical virtue at
tached to them. A man who suffers in
any member of his body seeks cure by
eating the corresponding part of hyena.
The hyena is also eaten in the neighbor-
hood OF Suez, for a friend of mine who
shot one near.the wells of Moses was re-
quested by the Bedouins TO give them a
leg. A similar virtue attaches to the
flesh of the gemsbok (Wudheyhy), a
rare species of antelope found far in the
interior. When eaten, it draws an OBJ
stinate bullet from wound.