Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/41

 Midsummer Customs in Morocco. 29

the various trees in each garden, and burned underneath the best of them. In the tribe Sahal the people also burn poplar twigs 2.r\Aflay)n(, or pennyroyal {Mentha Piilegiinn) between the animals.

On l-dnsdi'a day the 'Arab of the tribe Mnasara make fires outside their tents, near their animals, on their fields, and in their gardens. Large quantities of pennyroyal are burned in these fires, and over some of them the people leap three times to and fro. Sometimes small fires are also kindled inside the tents. The people say that the smoke confers blessings on everything with which it comes into contact. At Salli, on the Atlantic coast, persons who suffer from diseased eyes rub them with the ashes of l-dnsdra fire ; and in Casablanca and Azemmur the people keep their faces over the fire, because the smoke is supposed to be good for the eyes. Among the 'Arab tribe Ulad Bu Aziz, in the province of Dukkala, fires are burned, not for men and animals, but only for crops and fruit ; and I was told that nobody would like to cut the crops of the season before l-dnsdra is over, so as not to lose the benefit from benign virtue inherent in the smoke.

On Midsummer Eve the Beni Mgild, a Berber tribe of the Braber group, light fires of straw. They leap three times over the fire, to and fro. They let some of the smoke pass underneath their clothes, and married women keep their breasts over the fire in order that their children may be strong. They paint their eyes and lips with some black powder {l-k/iol), mixed with ashes of the fire. They also dip the right forelegs of their horses into the fire, and put ashes on the forehead and between the nostrils of the horse. The inhabitants of Mequinez, again, purify their gardens and houses with the smoke of lighted poplar twigs.

The Iniknafen, a Shluh tribe in Haha, burn dry cow- dung among the bees. When I asked for an explanation of this custom, one of the natives answered me that, just as men are purified by water, so bees are purified by the