Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/175

 The Great Feast in Morocco. 147

meat is salted and cured in the sun in strips, and out of this a portion is generally given to the poor. The Ulad Bu-'Aziz consider that some of it should be left till the eve of the following 'aisor (loth of Moharram), when it is roasted and eaten.^* It is indeed a very wide-spread custom in Morocco to leave something of the sacrificed animal to be eaten on that occasion. In Aglu this is done not only with strips of the meat but also with the tail and pieces of the lungs, kidneys, stomach, and gut ; and at Demnat I was told that seven different parts of the animal are thus preserved and eaten on the 'Asura eve. In Fez the rump or the tail is then boiled and eaten with seksu. In Andjra, again, the dried tail is on the loth of Moharram given to the schoolboys, together with other food, to be eaten by them in the mosque ; it is believed that, if the tail is thus presented to them, the house will be blessed with a multitude of provisions, whereas in the contrary case the schoolboys will complain and the niggardly family will suffer want. Among the Arabs of the Mnasara a fire is made on the 'Asura eve in the sheep-pen, and the tail of the sheep which was sacrificed at the feast is roasted on the fire. The person who roasts it says, — 'Aj 'aj, ma trilled gnemfia ger n-naj ! {"'Aj 'aj, may our ewes only give birth to females!"). When it is roasted, other persons present try to take it away from him ; he who secures the tail eats it, and this is considered to bring good luck. Among the Beni Ahsen the shepherd on the 'Asura eve rides on the sire of the flock, holding in his hand the tail, which has been roasted in a fire made near the sheep. While doing this, he three times asks God to bless his master's flocks with ewes only, each time eating a bit of the tail and also giving to others who are on the spot a portion of it to eat. Among the Braber of the Ait Nder, again, some meat of the sacrificed

^* If they have no such meat they then throw into the fire some dried blood of the sacrificed animal.