Chapter VIII

Origin of Marriage — Apologue — Dowries — Ceremonies — Dances — Songs — Formalities — Festivals — Domestic Etiquette — Zikrs — Jealousy — Eunuchs — A Miracle — Impious Ab-Sheikh — The Sultan’s Wives — A faithful Woman wanted — Arab Fidelity — The Queen Mother — An Adventure — Beautiful Women — Qualities of Black Women.

But I must enter into further details on this subject of marriage. When Adam woke from the light sleep during which Eve was taken out of his side, and beheld this new creature, richly adorned with grace and beauty, his heart was moved, and he admired.

“Who art thou, dear creature?” said he.

“I am Eve. God has just created me for thee, according to the dictates of his supreme will.”

“Come, then, to me.”

“No! It is thou who shouldst come to me.”

Then Adam advanced towards her, and this was the origin of the custom, that the man should seek the woman. When he had sat down by her side, and touched her with his hands, emotion thrilled through his frame, and he became bewildered; but Eve said: “Stay, Adam: Eve is only legitimately given to thee as a wife, on condition of a dowry, and a common consent expressed.” Then God, in His Old Language, pronounced a formula of marriage, and said:—“There is nothing sublime but my grandeur; nothing imposing but my majesty; and all creatures revere and adore me. I take you to witness—you, my angels, and you, the inhabitants of my heaven—that I unite in marriage this marvel of my creation, Eve, to this first man, my image upon the earth; but on condition of a dowry—and this dowry shall be, that he pronounce these words: ‘God is great; there is no god but God.’” Thus were established and consecrated the form and conditions of marriage for the posterity of Adam.

Every nation, however, has since modified the original custom, and the Forians also have their special forms. Among them the children—boys and girls—are generally mixed together. From a very early age they are employed in watching the herds, and are thus in constant communication. Many of them begin their intimacy at that time, and become linked in an affection which time cannot break. Love follows, and then the cares of love and jealousy; and at last the lover, egotistical in his passions, wishes to keep all the men away from his mistress. So he demands her in marriage, and the contract of union is drawn up in presence of witnesses, and the price of the bride, or the dowry, as it is called, is discussed. For some time afterwards the ceremony is deferred; but at length the day is fixed, and preparations are made for the nuptial feast. Animals are slaughtered, drinks are prepared, and invitations are sent out.

Many music-women are hired to enliven the festival. Each of them carries under her left arm three tambourines, on which she plays, greeting every new troop of guests with a song in their praise. For example,—“You, who brandish the shafts of your spears, may death be slow to overtake you!—May the eye which looks enviously on you become blind!—you, who brandish the steel of your lances,” &c.

I was once at a marriage festival where the women greeted me with these verses,—“The Shereef comes from the mosque with a book in one hand, and a sabre in the other; he bears away the Birguids into slavery!”

Those who give the festival meet the guests as they arrive, and sit them down in groups. Food is immediately brought them according to their dignity. Some, for example, are given boiled meats and roast meats; others, cakes, and the red wine called Bulbul—The Mother of the Nightingale. When all have eaten, they remain sitting in the shade until the heat of the day has diminished, and the shadows are beginning to lengthen. Then the young girls, in their richest costume, leave the company of the women; and the youth also, dressed out in their best, run to meet them, and they prepare to dance. The girls range themselves in long lines, in front of which lines of equal length are formed by the youths; and the women, to the measured sound of the tambourines, fill the air with their songs. At this signal, all the lines of young girls begin to move and to advance with a slow, deliberate step, shrugging their shoulders in various ways, and crouching down with strange contortions and inflections of their bodies. Thus they reach by degrees the line of youths, which remains motionless opposite, until each comes face to face with her partner, when she begins to shake her head rapidly, and fan and brush his cheeks with her tresses, which have been carefully perfumed beforehand. Then the youths, excited by these blandishments, brandish their lances, and raise them horizontally over the heads of the girls, who begin to retire, still dancing, and are pursued by their partners until they reach the place whence they started. Here the young girls pass between the young men and go dancing back alone. If there happens to be among the spectators any young man whom a young girl wishes to lure into the dance, she singles him out, and goes gently dancing towards him, and waves her hair in his face. Upon this he shouts with joy, and brandishes his lance and follows her. This attention on her part imposes on him the necessity of giving her a banquet.

When the two lines have thus changed places, they begin to move at the same time, and meet in the middle, where the girls cast the whole of their hair upon the breast of their partners, who begin to _rakrak_, that is to say, to utter peculiar cries of joy. The whole company is now half-intoxicated, but the dance continues until night-time, when the various groups separate and go to supper.

Besides this dance, which is called Delloukah, the Forians have the Gyl, the Lengui, the Chekenderi, the Bendalah, and the Tonzy, which is the dance of the slaves; but the dance peculiarly of Forian origin, and which is special chiefly to the inhabitants of the Marrah mountains, is the Tendina. Some of these dances are peculiar to certain classes. The higher ranks dance the Delloukah; the middle classes, the Gyl; and the inferior classes, the Lengui. In the latter, the dancers utter peculiar cries, or rather grunts, which resemble those emitted by workmen when chopping wood. In the Chekenderi, a young man takes the waist of a young girl, who stands before him with her back turned, in his hands. A young girl behind him places her hands upon his hips; she is followed by a young man, and thus a circle is formed. The dancers, leaning slightly forward, move with very little steps; the girls gently shaking their anklets in measure. This tranquil dance is accompanied by the songs of women who are sitting by. The Bendalah is a dance, or rather a game, peculiar to the slaves, in which they tie a string of large nuts to their right foot, and kick at each other. The Tonzy resembles the Chekenderi; and the Tendina is an exaggerated form of the latter.

Each kind of dance is accompanied by special songs. For example, in the Gyl, the following is used:—“You banei, hei you banein! The night is passing, oh, my Moutgal; my head is turning; the night is going, oh, my Moutgal! yes, my head is turning!” The introductory words have no meaning, and form an arbitrary chorus. One of the singers sings the first and second lines, and then the others join in with, “Ana rasy indur,”—my head is turning. They go on to say: “The night is passing. Darfur (that is, the world, for the world to them is a great Darfur) is full of sorrows. Come and rest thy head upon my bosom.” The complete meaning of another song is as follows:—“Oh thou, whom I love, thou bendest over me like a flexible branch, and passion draws us away and makes us breathe forth sighs! Thou lovest me, thou preferrest me to the daughters of thy hamlet, and thereby thou shalt excite their jealousy against me, and draw their vengeance upon me, for they will believe that thou hast humbled them in my eyes! Oh thou, whose love recalls the perfume of the sandal-wood, thou hast arisen like the odoriferous branches of that tree, and thou leanest over our dwellings, to shade them for ever; and happiness will always remain beneath thy branches!”

After the evening repast, the bride is promenaded, to the sound of the Daloukah, all round the village, and then led to the nuptial hut. Three or four hours after night-fall, the young men collect together and take with them the bridegroom, and, with songs and rakrakhas, conduct him to the hut. They remain without, whilst the bride with her companions remains within. Then the bridegroom nominates one of his friends as Vizier of the wedding, of which he himself is the Sultan; whilst the bride within chooses a she-vizier, under the title of Meirem. The latter is then entreated by the young men to come out and speak to them, but she refuses for an hour or two, and then issues forth, when the Vizier approaches her and presents his compliments, and, in an amiable and polite manner, begs her to allow the bride to present herself.

“Who are you?” then says the Meirem, “Whence do you come, and of what bride do you speak?”

“We are strangers,” answers the Vizier; “we arrive from a distant country, and will be delighted if the Queen would honour us and cheer us with her presence.”

“The Queen is engaged,” then says the Meirem, “and cannot appear; she has begged me to entertain all strangers and travellers who may present themselves. What are your wishes?”

“We all know,” says the Vizier, “that thou art full of graciousness and bounty, that thou art a perfect woman; but we have a word or two to say to the Queen, and can say them to no other than her.”

“Very good,” responds the Meirem; “but what will you give to the Queen, and what will you give to me, if she presents herself? For it is her custom to show herself only to those who give her a present.”

“All that we possess, and even our life, we will give, if she desires.”

This dialogue continues for some time, whilst the bride, concealed behind a curtain, is listening, and the bridegroom also remains silent. At length the Meirem consents to exhibit the Queen, and raises the curtain, and she steps forth, upon which the Vizier exclaims,—The Queen is for the King, but for us what remains?” Then the Meirem calls forth the companions of the bride, and says,— “My friends, I beg that you will treat these guests of our Queen, this night, in a proper manner.” “Willingly,” they reply. Upon which the Meirem, who knows who is engaged to whom, leads them forth one by one and presents them to their lovers. Several couples, thus brought together, pass the night conversing in the nuptial hut, and the others go and sleep in the house of some friend.

Next day, the bride and her bridemaids take a bath and perfume themselves, and the whole wedding party prepares for a new festival; and sometimes the rejoicings last for seven days, in the evenings of which there are always dancing and other amusements. If provisions fail, the men of the party spread through the neighbourhood, and kill what they want in the first flocks and herds they find. For this reason all the farmers, as soon as they hear that a wedding is to take place, drive away their beasts to a distance.

It must be observed that the marriage is seldom considered as completely celebrated until the seventh day, and never until after the third. A husband always shuns the insulting epithet of the impatient man. Each day of temperance is dedicated to some particular person: the first to the father of the bride, the second to the mother, and so on.

It is a strange custom in Darfur, that the wife, under no pretence whatever, is allowed to eat in the presence of her husband, or of any other man. If her husband happen to enter whilst she is eating, she instantly runs away, under penalty of universal contempt. I once enumerated to some Forians the various liberties that a husband can take with his wife, and asked why she should not also eat before him. “What you mention,” said they, “are very rational and proper acts, but for a woman to eat in the presence of a husband, to open her mouth and introduce food therein—ah, nothing can be more shameful!”

As I have said, the wife remains in her father’s house until she has borne children; and if her husband propose to take her away, she may ground a demand of divorce thereon. In the early time of her marriage the wife never speaks of her husband by his name, but only as _he_; and if she be asked whom she means, she replies, _him_. When she has had a child she uses the expression,—The father of such a one. The husband has no family expenses until after a year of marriage, and at every repast all the best food is first offered to him. During the night also, as long as he sleeps in the house of his wife’s family, they bring him, in the course of the night, two or three supplemental meals; the first of which is called the undress meal; the second, the Tarna-jisi; and the third, the meal of dawn. These meals are served up to the husband by the bride herself.

At the festival of the circumcision there are also great rejoicings. The operation is performed by a barber, and if the patient support it courageously the father promises him a heifer, a bull, or a slave, and all those who are present make him some gift. It is on this occasion that the boys scour the country in search of fowls.

I shall now describe what is called a Zikr in Darfur, remarking, by the way, that, in common Forian life, the women are the life and soul of every thing that takes place, and that, therefore, they also take a direct part in this religious ceremony. The Darfur Zikr is of two kinds, one performed by the Arabs, and the other by the Forians. The former contains a variety of movements and change, and was instituted by a celebrated Sheikh. A woman places herself near the circle of the faithful, and sings a few verses, whilst the other women simply look on, and examine who is most distinguished by his enthusiasm.[18] When the Zikr is in full swing, the woman becomes silent, and one of the men takes up the song. On one occasion, I heard a contest between two circles of Zikrs, in which the performers sung satirical verses one against the other. At another time, a woman ran into the circle, and began to chant:—“I will pour out for you a jar of meriseh. I am without a husband, and I live at the other end of the village. Is there one of you who is ready for love?” The people of the Zikr were then chanting,—“Allah hai! Allah hai!”—God is living, God is living! but one of them substituted the words “Ana zany; ana zany!”—I am your man; and so the contract was made.

The people of Forian origin stand in two rows or in a circle, each one with a young girl behind him, and the women standing around chant in a monotonous tone these words:—“The green tree is created for the shadow of men of science and religion. Is it indeed true that we shall go to paradise? Yes, it is indeed true that we shall go to paradise:” and they also add these words:—“Oh Gabriel! oh Michael! every deed of goodness is a key of paradise.”

Women in all countries have excited the jealousy of men. There have been known those who have been jealous not only of their nearest relations, but of the night, of the day, of the eyes of the Narcissus, even of themselves. The poets have accumulated these exaggerations. One has said, “Oh, Narcissus, turn away thy flower; do not look at me, for I am ashamed to kiss her I love before thee! What! shall my cheeks grow pale in sleep, and thou still gaze?” Another has said:—“My eyes, myself, thyself, the place where thou livest, the hours that brush by thee, everything excites my jealousy. Grant me nothing, for, as I am jealous of thee against thyself, how should I not be jealous of myself?” And again, another:—“I am jealous of everything, even of my own thoughts, and one hand is jealous of the other.”

It is the passion thus described that has given rise to the custom of employing eunuchs. The Sultan of Darfur has more than a thousand of them, and all the great people possess several. All these eunuchs come from Dar-roha, although from time to time one is made in the country as a punishment.

The eunuchs are celebrated for their cruelty. One day an Ab-Sheikh led out his soldiers on a hot summer’s day, and forced them to remain in the sun whilst he was protected by a parasol, until they all suffered dreadfully, and some even died upon the spot. He did this for his amusement, and exclaimed from time to time:—“This is the day! this is the day!—the day of misfortune and desolation!” There were more than twenty thousand men present, but none dared to resist, until at length a pious Sheikh, named Hassan-el-Kau, suddenly exclaimed, three times,—“Silence, impious man!” Upon this Our-dikka, which was the name of the eunuch, was seized with affright and fled, and the pious Hassan, lifting up his hands to heaven, prayed, and said, “My God, have pity on thy servants!” Presently a vast mass of clouds collected over head, and the rain fell in torrents, and the army was refreshed and dispersed. This day is remembered as a memorable day.

That which had provoked the pious indignation of the Sheikh Hassan was, that the eunuch had assimilated himself to God, by judging the crowd in the words which will be used at the last day of fiery resurrection. Our-dikka was a very ignorant man, and had never attempted to learn to read until appointed to his high dignity. The Sultan ordered him to take lessons, and he studied the alphabet for a few days. At last he asked for a Koran, and after having looked over it for some time, managed to make out the letter _waw_ standing by itself.

“Is not that a _waw_?” said he.

“Certainly,” replied his master.

“Now I know the Koran,” exclaimed the eunuch, and he shut up the book and ordered oxen and sheep to be slaughtered, and caused the tambourines to beat, and gave a great festival on the occasion.

In spite of the number of eunuchs and their vigilance, the Sultan is often deceived by his slaves, who send out old women into the city to bring in beardless boys dressed in female garments. This stratagem is the more easy, because it is the custom for all the young negroes to wear their hair long like women. In this way access to the harem is easy; and if God protect the youth he escapes afterwards, if not, he is massacred without mercy. In general no accident happens; but sometimes another woman betrays the secret, or else the Sultan in a jealous mood makes a general search through his huts.

At other times the women themselves go out in disguise, and the eunuchs often allow them to pass, pretending not to recognise them, because they fear their vengeance. The fact is, the women of Soudan are incapable of restraining their passions; and, indeed, it is not to be wondered at, that the Sultan and the wealthy men, with their large harems, should be often deceived, especially as there are a great number of persons who, from want of means, are obliged to lead a life of celibacy. I have already explained, too, how the education of the Forian women prepares them for debauchery.

It is the belief among the Forians, that if the city takes fire, the only means of arresting the progress of the flames is to bring near them a woman, no longer young, who has never been guilty of intrigue. If she be pure, by merely waving a mantle, she puts a stop to the destruction. Success has sometimes rewarded a virtuous woman. When I was in Darfur, a violent conflagration burst forth. The Sultan and all his court came and endeavoured to stop it, but in vain. Then a crier was sent about the city. He passed through every street, exclaiming, “Is there any faithful woman here? Is there a single faithful woman to be found?” But no one came forward, and we must believe that none existed.

I must, however, mention, that conjugal virtues are far from being so uncommon amongst the women of the wandering Arabs in Darfur and its neighbourhood. These women, being more intelligent, are more religious and more faithful than the Forians. Among them there is far more propriety. An Arab woman, for example, who has a son in an honourable position, will abstain from any love intrigue out of respect for his name; but the Forian women not so. An intimate friend of mine, whose name I will not mention, has related to me that the mother of the Sultan Mohammed Fadhl, who was called Ambous,[19] once married her brother to a slave-girl of hers. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp, and an enormous crowd collected, of which my friend was one. “I was standing,” he said, “looking on, when the mother of the Sultan appeared, surrounded by a troop of girls, elegant as gazelles. She was then thirty-five years old, and her countenance was the most hideous possible to conceive. I wondered why God had chosen so frightful a woman to be the mother of a prince. Having led her brother to the nuptial hut, she came forth jingling her anklets and her strings of beads, and, in the dark, I felt a cloud of perfume surrounding me. She came towards me in the midst of her slaves, and, seizing my hand, led me away. I dared not resist, for fear of attracting attention. After proceeding a little way, she whispered that she was tired—she who, before she had been the mother of a Sultan, had been a hewer of wood and a drawer of water, complained of a walk of a hundred yards! I answered politely, and she led me into the hut and made me sit down, and, after some coquetry, seeing that I would not understand, said that she had a headache, and wanted me to repeat some verses of the Koran. I did so, placing my hand upon her forehead, and the odour of her perfumes troubled me; but suddenly I began to think of the danger, and trembled. So the queen, with whom I had been left alone, called out for one of her women, named Dera-el-Gader, who brought me a dish, which I tasted, and found so good, that I ate heartily; but suddenly we heard a great noise, and the servant came running, saying,—‘The Sultan! the Sultan!’ Upon this the women took me and shoved me out, and I was enabled to hide, although some one did cry out that a man was stealing away.” Such was the recital of my friend, which proved to me that eunuchs are not sufficient to prevent women from having lovers if they wish to do so.

I shall here add, that each tribe and nation of Soudan has women celebrated for some qualities of beauty. The most beautiful women, however, are those of Afnan; after them come the women of Bagirmeh, of Bornou, and of Sennaar; then come those of Wadaï; and after them those of Darfur. The ugliest, without exception, are those of Touban and Katakou. God has diversified his creatures in a marvellous manner; and to produce the effect of variety, little is required. Everything that is brown is not musk; everything that is red is not a ruby; and everything that shines is not a diamond; everything that is black is not charcoal; everything that is vermilion is not flesh; and everything that is white is not chalk. The coloured nations, whether they be black or bronzed, have beauties which the white people do not possess. It may be said that light and darkness immeasurably differ; but, verily, some admire the black colour, as this verse proves:—“Her dark complexion is full of charm and grace. Look at it well, and you will no longer admire the white and the rose-coloured. Yes! on account of my sweetheart, I love everything that is black. I love all Soudan on her account; I love even black dogs.” I also, for a time, was a passionate admirer of negresses, and I wrote some verses to justify my taste, and endeavoured to prove that the whole beauty of a countenance is derived from the black parts of it—as the eyes, the eye-brows, and the moles. But afterwards I changed my opinion, and wrote against the poet Safty, who had argued that a black spot on a white face increased its beauty, whilst a white spot on a black face was a deformity. I showed, among other things, that the truth is pure and white. To this Safty replied, that white was the colour of old men’s beards, and also of shrouds—two things which frighten love away. Perhaps there has been much exaggeration put forth on both sides.

When a Forian takes an Arab wife, or _vice versâ_, it is noticed that the offspring is generally weak and short-lived.[20] Each people has a particular temperament, and, I am inclined to think that, as a rule, mixture of races deteriorates them. In Darfur and Wadaï it has been found necessary to have recourse to various means for preserving the lives of children. It is customary to bleed them on the fortieth day after birth, by scarifying their bellies on both sides. This operation is repeated at the age of three months. If it be neglected, the children generally die of fever and other diseases.