Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 9, 1898.djvu/39

Rh to be your heir." It is a deadly insult to name a horse or dog after a donor.

One outcome of this imparting personality is the customs with regard to casting curses or prayers with stones from the hand. All tourists to Jerusalem have seen Absolom's tomb, and the hole in the base of its pinnacle through which generations of Jews have conveyed thus their imprecations on an ungrateful and impious son. En route from Jerusalem to Jericho you pass a large square slab, covering the remains of a Moslem saint, which has multitudes of smaller stones upon it, each placed there with a prayer for the saint's intercession and blessing. In many places in Palestine are spots marking the graves of murdered men. Stones are placed on them by passing relatives, with prayers for the dead. Coming in sight of Sychar, on the slopes of which is another Moslem saint's tomb, there are scores upon scores of little heaps of stones, placed along the mountain- ridge to mark where prayers and thanksgivings have been offered by travellers. A frequent formula in concluding a prayer or a curse seems to be: "O stone, I witness with thee to-day; witness thou with me at the resurrection." At Biskinta, on the Lebanon, is the tomb of a Druze who, tradition says, was buried alive to obtain merit in the next stage of his existence; for the Druzes believe in the transmigration of souls. Greek Orthodox Christians in the village—and they only—cast stones on this grave with muttered curses as they pass. Near Brumana, where our own headquarters were, is the grave of a murdered oil-seller. Piles of stones are cast upon it; for he was said to have been a bad man. At Mar Sesin the Druzes have four stones that were formerly wood, and turned to stone as a saint lay on them. They kneel and kiss them, and lay their sick upon them. Rags are, as is well known, hung on trees, &c., with prayers for recovery from sickness. This was frequent in Palestine, but less so, I noticed, than among the idolaters of India, and more so than in the Lebanon. The evergreen