Chapter I: Preface: To Second Edition

We thought that Palestine had passed into ancient history, but it has been a centre of modern events. No country in the world has a more continuously interesting and profitable story. Its present population is made of sturdy and able people. Three great religions call it Holy Land. It presents to view three distinct types of human society, the desert nomad who dwells in the tented encampment, the peasant villager who reminds us in so many ways of the people of the Bible, and the more foreign looking and mingled folk of the large cities.

We have picked the village life as most suggestive of the quaint customs of the past. It has been gratifying to have those who know this life best, including villagers themselves, praise the accuracy and sympathy of the descriptions.

The volume has not been compiled from books, but drawn from life. An additional chapter seeks to sum present conditions.

Life has changed even in the East but much remained in Palestine, especially under the Turkish régime, that is suggestive of Bible Times. We trust that we have provided here a cross-section of a most interesting period. We hope for even more, that the reader with dramatic imagination may be able to fill the places and figures of the biblical past with life.

E. G.

HAVERFORD, PA., FEBRUARY 24, 1921.

A few words that are pretty well fixed in popular usage, as Beirut, Jaffa, Jerusalem, etc., are not changed in spelling, but for most Arabic words the following alphabet has been used in transliteration:

— r gh y
b z f a
t s ḳ u
th sh k i
j ṣ l â
ḥ ḍ m û
kh ṭ n î
d ḍh or ẓ h
dh w

The use of y final and of ô as aids to pronunciation will be of obvious import. When a foreign word occurs in the book for the first time it is put in italics.

CONTENTS

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CHAPTER I

Introductory. Remarks on the country of Western Palestine: Page 11.
historical, topographical and geological; distances,
levels, rock composition, hills, valleys, caves, soil,
etc. The waters: rivers, lakes, the watershed, the
Shephelah, ponds, springs, cisterns, reservoirs and
pools. The seasons: wet and dry, the rainfall, sun,
drought, the weather according to the months, effect on
health and on food supply, harvest. The winds. Flora:
trees and flowers. Fauna: wild animals, birds. Scenery:
appearance of cities and villages in Palestine. Sites,
buildings, gardens, roads, paths, wilderness,
agricultural matters, ripening fruit, vineyards, care of
the soil, walls, watch-towers, terraces, orchards,
olives, figs, pomegranates, etc.

CHAPTER II

General characteristics of the population of Palestine. Page 43.
The Bedawîn or nomads. The village and its people.
Moslems and Christians: their distribution, their mutual
relations. Description of the peasant man and the
peasant woman.

CHAPTER III

Village Life. Introductory. The tribe: how constituted, Page 51.
its fellowship and significance. The family within the
tribe. Importance of a strong family. Marriage in family
and tribe: marriage settlement, qualities of a good
wife, customs and ceremonies preliminary to marriage,
wedding festivities and the celebration. The status of
the new wife. An anomalous state of affairs. A
disappointed lover. Children: boyhood and girlhood,
importance of sons, birth, announcing the newly-born,
naming the child. The midwife, care of babies, attention
to children in health and in sickness, clothing, growing
up, play, amusements and work, training. Family and
personal names.

CHAPTER IV

Village Life. The houses of the peasants: structure, Page 75.
arrangement, conveniences, utensils and furnishings.
Foods: their preparation and storing, eating customs.
Costumes; male attire, female attire. Household
industry: division of labor between members, women’s
work, house, oven, field and wilderness. Health data:
poverty and superstition as foes to health, treatment of
the sick, common ailments, diseases, hospitals and
medical assistance. The dumb and the blind. Treatment of
the insane, the leprous. Death, mourning, burial,
graves. The cholera and its ravages in Palestine in
1902, attendant evils, famine and quarantines.

CHAPTER V

Village Life. Religion. The religious basis of the peasant Page 110.
life. Country shrines venerated by the peasantry,
saints, tombs, lamps, ruined churches, mosks, reverence
for patriarchs and prophets, sacred trees. Superstitions
concerning localities, minor superstitions, hair,
doorways, food, evil eye. Prayer of women. Fatalism.
Moslem prayer. Neby Mûsâ procession. Ramaḍân, Bairam.
Eastern and Western Churches, organization, priesthood.
Fasts, feasts, proselyting. The Samaritans and their
Passover.