Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/79

Rh which the deceased lay clothed in the long, thin kfen and wrapped in the conventional shroud, or seddayia. There are certain ancient ritualistic ceremonies now in use among tire Arabs, which have nothing, however, in common with Islam. To such belong the feast after the funeral and the hired mourners, who sob and howl, scratch their faces and pull out their hair. In the cemetery stones are erected or laid flat upon the grave, after which incantations and talismans are used to propitiate or drive away the innumerable djinns, those evil spirits of illness and misfortune.

The hotel servant who stood and watched the procession with us told us that the deceased, whom he knew personally, had but himself to blame for his death, for, having met a tergou, he had neglected to recite the necessary incantation, whereupon the tergou visited upon him the djinns of sickness.

"What is a tergou?" asked Zofiette.

The boy turned his eyes to the ground and was silent, from which I realized that he was afraid of djinns, the more so as it was already late. After a moment's pause Mahomet spoke for him, explaining:

"A tergou is a woman's shadow which has power over a number of different djinns. One is most likely to come upon this shadow at a cross-roads or under a solitary tree; and, when one sees it, it strives to elude one by ascending upward into the sky or by diminishing to the size of a mouse. Then, in order to avoid its baleful influence, one must repeat the magic words:  'El-Khams, El-Mitter, El-Ansodb'  and  'El-Aglane.'"

Meanwhile, as we talked, the hired mourners ceased