Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/485

 Folklore of the Algerian Hills and Desert. 177

heinous crime, and a very ancient grave is selected in order to avoid disturbing the remains of a relative of a living member of the community, since such an act would, if discovered, probably lead to murder and the commence- ment of a blood-feud. From the tomb is removed the end nearest to the shoulder of the corpse's collar bone. This is then taken to a scribe, who writes upon it words which were detailed to me as follows : " Praise to God ! O God ! The only God ! protect me and remove [i.e. the malady), for the sake of Mohammed the Prophet of God ! " My in- formant, however, is illiterate, and so may well have been mistaken in the exact wording, whi( h is scarcely likely to have been disclosed to him by a scribe who works for a fee. This done, a fragment is broken from the bone and burnt, the patient fumigating his person in the smoke to cure the fever of influenza, and drinking in a draught of water the ashes of the bone so burned in order to cure the soreness of the throat. The rest of the bone, wrapped up so as to be concealed from view, is worn suspended around the neck in order to complete the cure. These charms, of course, are extremely difficult for a foreigner to obtain. Indeed it was only after I had been known to my informant for a number of years that I learnea of its existence at all, and with difficulty that I persuaded him to try to secure a specimen for me. When he did succeed in bringing me one, the fragment of very old bone was later discovered to be probably that of a horse, so that I imagine the scribe who did the writing had his suspicions as to its ultimate destination, which was in fact the Pitt-Rivers Museum. As a remedy for fever which recurs every three days a human bone from a tomb similarly rifled is inscribed (by a professional writer of course) with the words " In the name of God ! The Merciful the Compassionate ! " and is worn around the neck. No particular bone however was suggested as being superior to others for the purpose, which is the prevention as well as the cure of the fever.