Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 16, 1905.djvu/56

 44 Midstmnner Cicstoms in Morocco.

friends very angry with 'Ansara. They finally caught the malevolent lady and burned her. Hence Sidna Abrahim's descendants still make fires every year at midsummer, and call the ceremony l-dnsdra. This is a good instance of myth-making serving the purpose of explaining ritual. The midsummer, or l-dnsdra, bonfire is explained by the burning of a Christian woman 'Ansara because of the phonetic resemblance between the word 'dnsdra and the word ndsdra, which is the name given by the Moors to the Christians.

Whilst, so far as I know, no midsummer customs have been found among pure Arabs, uninfluenced by contact with Berbers, such customs, as is well known, are or have been universally practised in Europe. And the European midsummer ceremonies are to a large extent similar to those prevalent in Morocco. In Europe, also, magical plants are culled on Midsummer Eve, fires are kindled at midsummer, and in some places live animals are burned in the fires ; even water-ceremonies exactly similar to those in Morocco have been noticed in certain districts of Ger- many, Italy, and elsewhere.^ It also seems that all these practices are performed in Europe for the same purposes as in Morocco. Various plants are gathered on account of the benign virtue with which they are supposed to be endowed on Midsummer Eve. As for the fire-ceremonies, I cannot subscribe to Dr. Frazer's opinion that the best explanation of these seems to be the one given by Mann- hardt, namely, that they are sun-charms or magical cere- monies intended to ensure a proper supply of sunshine for men, animals, and plants.^ As a matter of fact, in Europe, as well as in Morocco, a purificatory purpose is expressly ascribed to them by the very persons who practise them ; and, far from supposing like Dr. Frazer that the purgative aspect of fire may in these cases be secondary, or only

^ Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ii. 588. ^ Frazer, The Golden Bough, iii. 300.