Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/490

 1 82 Folklore of the Algeria^i Hills and Desert.

humble circumstances sometimes cut a morsel from the ear of a living animal and apply blood from it to the lintel of the door from motives of economy, a substitute for the real sacrifice which is considered to be adequate. The father of one of my Arab friends, however, once decided that the slaughter of a dove would suffice when he was building a new dwelling. The best ram in his flock died immediately as a result of his meanness, for the substitution of the blood of a bird for that of an animal in this rite is con- sidered to cause bad luck to attend the flocks of niggardly builders.

Jenun, of course, can be exorcised by other means than sacrifice. Certain scribes exist, at any rate among the Arabs of the plains, in the palms of whose hands a line known as Khatem (=ring or seal), which I believe to be the heart line of European palmists, is especially pro- nounced. Such a scribe can exorcise Jenun in the follow- ing manner. He takes some extremely dirty wool cut from the hindquarters of a sheep, such as is sometimes used in Algerian medicine and surgery, some black earth, and the outer skin of a gall-nut. From these he prepares an ink with which he makes a large blot in the palm of the patient's hand. This blot he divides into four sections by means of two intersecting lines drawn across it, and in each section he traces certain mystic words containing some of the titles of Allah. He then proceeds to read passages from the Koran, whereupon the Jinn, speaking by the mouth of the patient, announces how much the scribe is to be paid for his work before actually leaving his victim. As the Koran is read the scribe can perceive the Jinn or, in serious cases, large bodies of Jenun moving out of the blot of ink like " troops on the march." When they have departed, the ink is washed off in water, which water the patient drinks. This method of exorcism serves to show how great a hold superstition retains upon the Algerian Arabs, persons who could scarcely be cheated out of a sou