Page:The Moslem World Vol XI.djvu/44



All Moorish women's lives are not alike any more than all British, French or American women's lives are alike, but the following true incidents in the lives of some Moorish women I have known give a very true picture of the ordinary, year in year out, life of a Moorish woman.

But before getting on the subject of the Moorish woman we must have a look at the life of the Moorish girl. So we will begin at her birth and follow her on, step by step, till she is grown up. All the particulars I give here refer to life in the one inland city which I know well—there may be little differences in other parts of the country in the life of girl or woman. A Moorish girl's birth is announced to the world by the women of the house in which she is born uttering two-ear-piercing shouts of joy (^'luluing" this screaming is called, tho' there is no resemblance to the soft sound of ^'lulu" in the harsh shout) with a short space between the two so as to render them very distinct to the neighbors; for a boy's birth is announced by three such shouts, a boy being of much more importance than a girl; though as a rule, the girl is made very welcome, too, and sometimes there is great joy that a baby is a girl, especially if the mother already has several boys living, or if she has had many boys, even though they are not all alive.

I know one mother with three boys living and three dead; one died of smallpox and the two others were weakly ill-nourished babies who lived only a short time; but she was firmly convinced that her children died because someone had cast the evil eye on her on account of her excessive good fortune in having given birth to so many boys, and she was very, very anxious lest her next baby should also be a boy and so the evil eye's effects continue. She often called upon God to requite any who had "eyed" her and insisted that nothing else killed her