Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 21, 1910.djvu/324

 286 Marriage Customs of the Bedu and Fellahin.

however, customary for visitors who are not relatives to contribute something, — from a handful of coffee beans to a sugar loaf. All such offerings are collected by a friend selected for the office. The expenses of the marriage are defrayed by the bridegroom.

The favourite entertainment on all joyous occasions, such as return from war, or a long journey, or a pilgrimage to Mecca, and above all at weddings, is the dancing round a tree, the people carrying torches. If the occasion be in the summer, the family of the bridegroom makes a fire in an open space ; if in winter, in the guest-house of the village Here sit the older people, men and women apart, and the men according to age or rank. Mats are spread, or carpets called hujra {pi. hujdr) which are woven on the table-land above Hebron. The unmarried men, the friends of the bridegroom, and even the bridegroom himself, wait upon them, handing coffee and water-pipes. The services of a poet and story-teller are engaged, who accompanies himself upon the rabdbe, the one-stringed fiddle, often with really beautiful effect. His stories are mainly of the deeds of heroes, Bedu of course, Zir, Jassas, Zarrati, and others, of which the villagers are never tired. The young men, placing themselves in a row before their guests, vary the entertainment by songs of love and heroism, the hearers encouraging them by exclamations of "Allah! UUah 1 ! Ull-aw, — aw ! ! ! " in increasing appreciation. At times they dance, clasping each other's hands or each pair united by grasping the end of a handkerchief, some of the spectators clapping their hands in time to the movement, which is backwards and forwards and is called sahye. Simple as it looks, this dance has a strict etiquette, and must be learnt. Sometimes one will play upon the shalinoy, (a double pipe with stoppers), and another execute a sword-dance, or they sing an impromptu song, — one giving out a line or couplet, and others adding to or repeating it in chorus. These songs are generally topical, and sometimes very amusing. This