Page:Africa by Élisée Reclus, Volume 1.djvu/304

 238 NORTH-EAST AFRICA. a cow or a camel. Women are mentioned who have thus obtained all the husband's possessions and then abandoned them after having effected their ruin. The Beja women, and especially those of the Beni-Amer, have generally a remark- able fellow-feeling ; directly one of them has a grievance they all share in her indignation. By virtue of the female customs, the wife should never show any apparent affection for the husband. She is bound to treat him with contempt and to rule him with threats and severity, and should he interfere with the household arrangements without having consulted his wife, the offence is considered unpar- donable. It is frequently necessary to appeal to the "man of honour," whose duties as an intermediary have rendered him the " brother " of the wife, and his advice is always respectfully listened to. At the same time, although they have to complain of the control and often even of the violence of their wives, the husbands are after all the superiors in virtue of their love of work, bravery, and trustworthiness. The henpecked man who seeks the assistance of a woman is sure of finding in her an indefatigable defender. The social status of the Beja woman evidently points to a former matriarchal government. The Arab authors who spoke of the Bejas of the tenth to the fourteenth century, relate that these people reckoned their genealogies from the side of the women, and that the inheritance passed from the son to the sister and from her to the daughter to the exclusion of the sons. The annals of the kingdom of Meroe, like those of Senaar, show what an important part woman has played in Upper Nubia, ever since the time of Queen Candace. Amongst the Hadendoas the women have never to undergo public accusation ; if a crime has been com- mitted by one of them everybody keeps silence, the men alone being answerable for the charge. Of all the " Arab " tribes that which is usually cited as univer- sally practising the strange custom of the " fourth day free," doubted by only one traveller, d'Escayrac de Lauture, are the Hassanieh Bejas of the Nilotic Mesopo- tamia and Kordofan. By this custom, the women are onlj' married for a certain number of days in the week, generally reserving every fourth day, on which she claims perfect freedom to do just as she pleases. Under the Arab rule the Bejas have readily acquired aristocratic manners. The noble families of native or foreign origin, who can trace back their genealogy to a long line of ancestors, enjoy considerable personal authority over the body of the people, who support them and offer up sacrifices on their tombs. Moreover, it is they who own the slaves — captives or sons of captives, who have not yet entered into the community of free men by embracing Islam. The nobles frequently take to wife girls of inferior status, but a common man can never marry into a noble family, imless the holiness of his life, a miracle, or some prediction justified by the event, have enabled him to be classed amongst the sheikhs, also called fakih, and thus become the equal of the upper classes. In certain regions of Upper Nubia there exist entire colonies of " saints," who, like the nobles, fatten at the expense of the tribe. In order to insure their power over the nomad populations, the Egyptian governors had taken care to rely upon the political and religious chiefs of the country, and it was by the intervention of these latter that the