Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/496

 1 88 Folklore of the Algerian Hills and Desert.

in such detail by Professor Westermarck from Morocco.^ There are, however, certain differences in detail between them, but my own notes on the wedding ceremonies of the Shawiya, though now fairly copious, are not yet sufficiently complete to warrant their publication in full. When the bride is to be brought to the bridegroom's house it is necessary that she should be clad in new garments, the gift of the bridegroom. As to the silver ornaments she wears on this occasion, it is sufficient that they should be new to her ; those taken from a divorced wife being some- times offered to her successor.

When dressing for her journey, her gandura or shirt, which should be white, must be put on her by a young boy ; in order, I was definitely informed, that she may bear her husband sons or that she may be " kept long by her husband," two ways of expressing the same idea. When seated, heavily veiled, upon the mule which is to convey her to her husband's home, a small boy is made to ride upon the saddle in front of her for, I was told, the same purpose. During her journey firearms are repeatedly discharged in order to scare away Jenun, who are supposed to be awaiting an opportunity to " possess " her. On arrival at her husband's door she is lifted from the mule and carried into the house by a man. As she reaches the door she is presented by a female member of the bride- groom's family with an egg, which she breaks upon the lintel of the door as she passes beneath it. In the Jebel Shershar, however, brides sometimes smear butter upon the door lintel instead of throwing an egg against it.

Professor Westermarck, in the conclusions drawn from his enquiries into Moroccan marriage ceremonies,^ states that he has obtained from natives no confirmation of the apparently reasonable conjecture that eggs are used in these ceremonies as being emblematic of fertility. The Shawiya

^ Westermarck, Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco.

2 Westermarck, Marriage Ceremonies in Morocco, p. 333.