Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/49

 Midsummer Customs in Moi^occo. 2)7

this ceremony were not performed, the bees would have no honey. Eating ceremonies at midsummer prevail among some, but not all, of the Arabic-speaking tribes on the plains, among the Rif Berbers — who call the dish eaten on that occasion imsiah — among the Beni Mgild and probably other tribes of the Braber group, and among the Shluh of the Great Atlas. On the other hand, I am not aware of their occurrence among the Shluh of the Sus country nor among the Jbala.

From what has just been said, it appears that these eating ceremonies, like other midsummer customs, are intended to serve a useful purpose. But they are not, like the fire and water ceremonies, purificatory in their nature, they are multiplicative. Some food — corn, or pulse, or honey — is eaten with a view to increasing the supply of the same kind of food. The idea underlying this practice is not, as might perhaps be supposed, that of imitative magic ; it is intended to serve as a conductor of blessings. In order to be efficacious, a blessing requires a wire, a material medium, through which it is transmitted from the person who blesses to the object blessed ; and the closer the contact between them, the more readily is the blessing transferred. Now, the eating of a thing implies the most intimate contact possible between the thing eaten and the person who eats it ; and, according to the rule of pars pr-o toto, so commonly applied in magic, to communicate blessings to a few representatives of a certain species is to bless the whole species. When the blessing is meant for the crops, it is desirable that the grains, peas, beans, and so forth, which are eaten, should so far as possible resemble those growing in the field. This seems to be the reason why they are kept in water over- night ; why they are boiled in their natural state ; why the husks are not taken off; why, of the Indian corn, the whole head is boiled. My informant expressly said that the Beni Mgild put corn and pulse in water overnight " so