Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/507

Rh garding the great goddess of fertility as also, in one of her aspects, a Moon-goddess, there seems little room for doubt that we have a further trace of the worship of Tanit in the preparation of the following philtre. Among both the Shawiya and the Arabs of the oases at the foot of the Aures are to be found women known as "Sorceresses of the Moon" whose services are sought by wives wishing to keep or regain the affections of their husbands. I have not heard that unmarried people consult them with a view to obtaining their philtres. The sorceress goes to a cemetery by moonlight, kindles a fire and digs up some bones of a very old corpse. These, with some benjoin and another incense known as bekhor es Sudan, she places on the fire. Having called upon Allah, she then colours her left eyelid with antimony, her lower lip with walnut, and her right hand and left foot with henna. The moon now begins to descend from the heavens and to approach a large, fiat dish of water placed ready to receive it. As it comes the sorceress ties a cord of camel's hair around her waist and rolls upon the ground, imploring Allah to allow the moon to descend. He does so, and the moon enters the dish of water, "growling like a camel which is receiving its load" and producing upon the surface of the water a sort of thick froth or scum, the ground around meantime trembling with shocks of earthquake. The moon having been induced by incantations to return to its normal position and the earthquake having been stilled by the same means, the froth is skimmed from the surface of the water, and, when dried, is sold to applicants for admixture with their husband's food. Such is the preparation of the philtre by a Sorceress of the Moon exactly as described to me by persons who believe implicitly in its efficiency.

Dr. Mauchamp, a French medical officer, has given a somewhat similar but rather more detailed description of the rite as performed in Morocco. Among the more re-