Page:The Periplus of the Erythræan Sea.djvu/155

 the tree, whether a proprietor according to the caste system of the Incense-Land, or a farmer or gatherer, slave or free, might undergo pollution through the presence of women or of the dead. The spirit of the tree was a woman, and the protecting serpents were the souls of the dead. If gathered without pollution, the incense constituted the most effective form of prayer, and had also certain sovereign uses in purification after conjugal intercourse, availed of by both Arabians and Babylonians, as described by Herodotus (I, 198) and Strabo (XVI, i, 20).

Pliny's account of the Ascitae, swimming to the mainland on inflated skins, has been noted. Stephanus Byzantius, writing in the 4th century A. D., says "beyond the Sabaei and the Chatramotitae dwell the Abaseni, whose land yields myrrh, aloes, frankincense, cinnamon and the red plant which resembles the color of Tyrian purple (dragon's blood)." Pausanias in the 2d century (de situ Graeciae, VI, 269) mentions a "deep bay of the Erythraean Sea having islands, Abasa and Sacaea," which were the home of these same Ascitae. Bent (Southern Arabia, p.230) describes the "Jenefa" tribe on these Kuria Muria islands, pursuing sharks on inflated skins, and Wellsted (op. cit., Chap. V) found the "Beni Geneba" spread all along the coasts of South Arabia and Oman, "shark-fishers swimming on inflated skins, and pastoral folk, living in skin tents, but under the S. W. monsoon retreating to caves," as noted in §32. Lieut. Cruttenden (Trans. Bombay Geog. Soc., VII, 121; 1846) and General Miles (J. Geog. Soc., 1872) observe that the coast of South Arabia "is visited every season by parties of Somalis, who pay the Arabs for the privilege of collecting the frankincense."

Here is obviously the foundation for Marco Polo's tale. The wandering Beni Genâb, whose locality included the Kuria Muria islands and the coast north and east thereof, would act as fishermen and herdsmen during certain seasons, while during the remainder of the year they would engage in the more profitable occupation of incense gathering; in which they were subjected to the rigid rules maintained by the Sayyid or saintly caste of landed proprietors, themselves too dignified to do the work (Van den Berg, op. cit., 40–44). When the first rush of sap occurred in the spring they left their wives perforce, to gather the best of the white gum, remaining on the incense-terraces for later gatherings until the trees became dormant again, when their work for that year was over and they returned home. And their sons would naturally remain with their mothers only during childhood; past which they would be under the same tabu as the grown men, and would begin work as gatherers.