Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/209

 The Great Feast in Morocco. 179

are represented in the masquerade are almost invariably beasts of burden, camels or mules, presumably because such animals are considered most suitable to carry away the evils of the people ; ^^ whilst the prominence which among the wild beasts is given to the wild boar may perhaps be due to the idea that this animal, on account of its extreme uncleanness, is particularly apt to attract evil influences. A notion of the same kind may have led to the representation of unclean human individuals, Jews and Christians, in the masquerade, and may even have something to do with the gross obscenities which so com- monly characterise the whole play. A feature of it which distinctly suggests a purificatory origin is the universal custom of giving presents of food or money to the mas- queraders ; almsgiving, as we have seen, is throughout the feast practised as a means of purification. Again, the custom of Bujlud or Sehsioh throwing ashes on the people reminds us of the purificatory fires of 'Ansara and 'Asura. It is indeed a fact which speaks strongly in favour of the cathartic nature of the Moorish masquerade that, both at the Great Feast and 'As<jra, it occurs hand in hand with other ceremonies which are obviously of a purificatory character. As for the New Year's masquerade of the Ait Wardin, it is worth noticing that sticks play a prominent part in cathartic rites,^^ and that in Morocco the oleander is used for the purpose of expelling disease spirits. When I visited the famous Imi n-Takkandut in the mountains of Hdha, I found in one of the two caves of which it consists several twigs of the oleander with which patients troubled

Golden Bough, 1900, vol. ii, pp. 442 et seq.). For these and similar customs Mr. Thomas has for good reasons suggested a cathartic origin, {Folk-Lore, vol. xvii, pp. 269 et seq.).

^ At Janbu', in Arabia, when the plague is raging, a camel is taken about in all the quarters of the town in order to attract and take away the disease, after which it is killed, (Goldziher, Mukammedanische Studien, 1889, vol. i, p. 34).

'® See, e.g., Thomas, in Folk-Lore, vol. xvii, p. 262.