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 172 Folklore of the Algerian Hills and Desert.

notes may serve to illustrate. Of these demons, whose name Jenun Professor Westermarck ^ has explained as imply- ing no more than " secret " or " mysterious," some appear constantly to seek opportunities of working mischief in the affairs of men, others remain quiescent until they are dis- turbed by mortals, while some seem to exercise a beneficial and even moral influence upon mankind.

An example of the last-named type of Jinn is to be found in the belief of the Arabs of the desert oases that every house contains a spirit which remains unseen as long as the inhabitants of the house behave themselves properly, but which appears to them usually in the form of a woman should they begin to take to evil courses, and warns them that if they persist in their bad ways it will kill or ruin them. A cruel stepmother of El Kantara is believed to have been done to death by such a Jinn. Doubtless these warning demons are Moslems, for, as we shall see, the denizens of the underworld are no strangers to religion : indeed the conversion of pagan Jenun to the faith of Mohammed is several times mentioned in the Koran, and an instance referred to there of such converts returning to their own kind in the capacity of " warners." ^

Some Jenun are said to possess and exercise the power of healing. Thus there is a jujube bush [Zizyphus lotus) near the oasis of El Kantara which is believed to be in- habited by a female Jinn, which appears only at night. Mothers of ailing children burn candles and incense [benjoin) beneath this bush, inviting the aid of its spirit to cure their little ones, and they continue these offerings in gratitude every Friday should their prayers be heard and their children restored to health with the assistance of the Jinn.

1 Westermarck, " The Nature of the Arab Ginn," Journal Anth. Inst.. xxix. 268. [For the Jinn see Herklots, Islam in India, Oxford, 192 1,, p. 218 et seqq. — Ed.]

2 Koran, Rodwell's trans. Sura 46, verse 28.