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ragged little cotton shirt under the swaddling bands, and from this the mother carefully tears a rag. Then, rising, she scans anxiously the dry, leaf-stripped branches around her. She holds the polluted discolored thing - the holy thing the little rag in her hand. All the fever and the pain and the weakness of her child is concentrated and bound up in that rag. For her was the duty of bringing that concentrated evil that heavy-laden rag- into contact with the holy, life-giving tree. The rag must be bound to it, cast off upon its branches. Choosing the place the woman fastens the rag to a branch with steady deliberate fingers, and then sits down again by her baby and contemplates it dangling from a twig. Who shall say what hope, what agony of suspense, fills her troubled mind?" 2

Stone as well as tree-worship persists in Islam and Mohammed himself sanctioned it when in destroying all the idols of the Ka'aba he spared the Black-stone and left it in its place of honor, an object of adoration. The Meccans before Islam used to carry with them on their journeys pieces of stone from the Ka'aba, and paid reverence to them because they came from the Haram or Holy Temple. Herodotus mentions the use of seven stones by the Arabs when taking solemn oaths. The honor, almost amounting to worship, paid the meteoric Hajurul Aswad or Black Stone, is one of the many Islamic customs which have been derived from those of the Arabs who lived long before Mohammed's time. The kiss which the pious Mohammedan pilgrim bestows on it is a survival of the old practice, and was a form of worship in Arabia as in many other lands. The various gods of the ancient Arabs were represented by images or stones. It is interesting to know that some of these are still preserved as witness to Mohammed's triumph over idolatry. Doughty says: "On the morrow I went to visit the three idol-stones that are shown 2 "The Soul of a Turk," Victoria de Bunsen, p. 242.

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at Tayif-El-'Uzza, which I had seen in the small (butchers') market place. It is some twenty feet long; near the end upon the upper side is a hollowness which they call makam erras, the head place; and this, say they, was the mouth of the oracle. Another and smaller stone, which lay upon a rising-ground, before the door of the chief gunner, they call el-Hubbal: this also is a wild granite block, five or six feet long and cleft in the midst by a sword-stroke of our lord Aly."" "A little without the gate we came to the third reputed bethel-stone. This they name el-Lata (which is Venus of the Arabs, says Herodotus): it is an unshapely crag; in length nearly as the 'Uzza, but less in height, and of the same gray granite." (Vol. II: 515). Even to-day among the Shiahs in Bahrein, Arabia, there are ancient stones which are objects of worship because they are supposed to have jinn in them that have the power to come to life. Offerings of food are made to them on Tuesday night and sometimes on Thursdays. The person making the offering always salaams the jinn and after hoping that he may eat in health" the food is placed on the stone. In the morning the dish is found empty. Women often take a piece of silk for a garment in payment of a vow and leave it on the stone. Each stone seems to have its "seyyida" who is responsible for the removal of the silk, as the women say.

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In Tabriz, Persia, there is a large marble tomb-stone before which candles are burnt. When children have whooping cough both Moslem and Christian mothers scrape off some of the marble dust and give it to the children as a cure.

Another form of stone-worship very common throughout * Our chief authority for the ancient Arabian idolatry is the celebrated Kitab al-Asnam by Ibn al Kalbi. The book itself is lost, but is widely quoted by Jaqut. The best summary on the subject is found in Wellhausen's "Reste Arabischen Heidentums," and it is fully treated in W. Robertson Smith's "The Religion of the Semites," New York, 1889.

the Moslem world is that of raising up stone heaps on sacred places: "In Syria it is a common practice with pious Moslems when they first come in sight of a very sacred place, such as Hebron or the tomb of Moses, to make a little heap of stones or to add a stone to a heap which has been already made. Hence every here and there the traveler passes a whole series of such heaps by the side of the track. In Northern Africa the usage is similar. Cairns are commonly erected on spots from which the devout pilgrim first discerns the shrine of a saint afar off; hence they are generally to be seen on the top of passes. For example, in Morocco, at the point of the road from Casablanca to Azemmour, where you first come in sight of the white city of the saint gleaming in the distance, there rises an enormous cairn of stones shaped like a pyramid several hundreds of feet high, and beyond it on both sides of the road there is a sort of avalanche of stones, either standing singly or arranged in little pyramids. Every pious Mohammedan whose eyes are gladdened by the blessed sight of the sacred towns adds his stone to one of the piles or builds a little pile for himself."4 The custom of passers-by putting stone on a heap is a form of fetish worship. This is clear from what we read concerning the practice in West Africa.

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"All day we kept passing trees or rocks," writes Nassau, on which were placed little heaps of stones or bits of wood; in passing these, each of my men added a new stone or bit of wood, or even a tuft of grass. This is a tribute to the spirits, the general precaution to insure a safe return. These people have a vague sort of Supreme Being called Lesa who has good and evil passions; but here (Plateau of Lake Tanganyika), as everywhere else, the Musimo, or spirits of the ancestors, are a leading feature in the beliefs. They are pro4 Frazer's "The Scapegoat," pp. 21, 22.

pitiated, as elsewhere, by placing little heaps of stones about their favorite haunts." 5 The stoning of "The Three Devils" at Mecca may be some form of ancestor worship if it is not in memory of the old idols.

We turn finally to Serpent-worship in Islam. Here also we are surprised to find how much animism remains in Moslem lands and lives and literature; all covered of course with the charitable mantle of their creed. The Arabic dictionary gives two hundred names for snakes. As-Suhaili says that when God caused the serpent to come down to the earth, He caused it to alight in Sijistan which is the part of God's earth abounding most in serpents, and that if it were not for the 'Irbadd(the male viper) eating and destroying many of them, Sijistan would (now) have been empty of its people owing to the large number of them (in it).

Ka'b-al-Ahber states that " God caused the serpent to alight in Ispahan, Iblis in Jeddah, Eve on Mount 'Arafah, and Adam on the mountain Sarandib (Ceylon) which is the land of China in the Indian Ocean." The curious may find much on serpent lore in Damiri (Vol. I, p. 631). The most common belief is that serpents are often human beings in the form of snakes. The serpent has a place also in the story of Creation which is given as follows: "Al-Kurtubi relates in the commentary on the XL chapter of the Kuran on the authority of Thawr b. Yazid, who had it from Khalid b. Ma'dan regarding Ka'b al-Ahbar as having said, 'When God created the Throne, it said, 'God has not created anything greater than myself,' and exulted with joy out of pride. God therefore caused it to be surrounded by a serpent having 70,000 wings; each wing having 70,000 feathers in it, each feather having in it 70,000 faces, each face having in it 70,000 mouths, and each mouth having in it 70,000 tongues, with its mouths ejaculating every day praises of God, the 5 Nassau's "African Fetichism," p. 91.

number of drops of rain, the number of the leaves of trees, the number of stones and earth, the number of days of this world, and the number of angels,- all these numbers of times. The serpent then twisted itself round the Throne which was taken up by only half the serpent while it remained twisted round it. The Throne thereupon became humble." 6

The following story is told on the authority of one of the Companions of Mohammed: "We went out on the pilgrimage, and when we reached al-'Ari, we saw a snake quivering, which not long afterwards died. One of the men out of us took out for it a piece of cloth in which he wrapped it up, and then digging a hole buried it in the ground. We then proceeded to Makkah and went to the sacred mosque, where a man came to us and said, 'Which of you is the person that was kind to 'Amer b. Jabir?' Upon which we replied, 'We do not know him.' He then asked, 'Which of you is the person that was kind to the Jann?' and they replied, 'This one here,' upon which he said (to him), 'May God repay you good on our account! As to him (the serpent that was buried) he was the last of the nine genii who had heard the Koran from the lips of the Prophet?" "

In Java the Moslems speak of the holy serpent found in the rice fields which must not be killed. They relate legends in this respect that are undoubtedly of pre-Moslem origin. When the peasant finds such a sacred snake in his fields he takes it home and cares for it in order that the rice fields may have the blessing.

The Shiahs in Bahrein believe serpents are jinn in human forms and they should not be killed. Small ones, however, are killed, placed in the sun with a little salt, and when the flesh is thoroughly dry it is cut up, put in bags and worn as an amulet against the evil eye. Rich people have their am• P. 638, Damiri (English translation by Jayakar).

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