First Footsteps in East AfricaBurton, Richard Francis, Sir
History
First Footsteps in East Africa
Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
Harar -- Description and travel; Harari language; Horn of Africa -- Description and travel
[6] Abu Kasim of Gaza, a well known commentator upon Abu Shujaa of
Isfahan, who wrote a text-book of the Shafei school.
[7] The Hajj had seven sons, three of whom died in infancy. Ali and
Mahmud, the latter a fine young man, fell victims to small pox: Mohammed
is now the eldest, and the youngest is a child called Ahmed, left for
education at Mocha. The Hajj has also two daughters, married to Bedouin
Somal.
[8] It is related that a Hazrami, flying from his fellow-countrymen,
reached a town upon the confines of China. He was about to take refuge in
a mosque, but entering, he stumbled over the threshold. "Ya Amud el Din"--
"0 Pillar of the Faith!" exclaimed a voice from the darkness, calling upon
the patron saint of Hazramaut to save a Moslem from falling. "May the
Pillar of the Faith break thy head," exclaimed the unpatriotic traveller,
at once rising to resume his vain peregrinations.
[9] Mercenaries from Mocha, Hazramaut, and Bir Hamid near Aden: they are
armed with matchlock, sword, and dagger; and each receives from the
governor a monthly stipend of two dollars and a half.
[10] The system of caste, which prevails in El Yemen, though not in the
northern parts of Arabia, is general throughout the Somali country. The
principal families of outcasts are the following.
The Yebir correspond with the Dushan of Southern Arabia: the males are
usually jesters to the chiefs, and both sexes take certain parts at
festivals, marriages, and circumcisions. The number is said to be small,
amounting to about 100 families in the northern Somali country.
The Tomal or Handad, the blacksmiths, originally of Aydur race, have
become vile by intermarriage with serviles. They must now wed maidens of
their own class, and live apart from the community: their magical
practices are feared by the people,--the connection of wits and witchcraft
is obvious,--and all private quarrels are traced to them. It has been
observed that the blacksmith has ever been looked upon with awe by
barbarians on the same principle that made Vulcan a deity. In Abyssinia
all artisans are Budah, sorcerers, especially the blacksmith, and he is a
social outcast as among the Somal; even in El Hejaz, a land, unlike Yemen,
opposed to distinctions amongst Moslems, the Khalawiyah, who work in
metal, are considered vile. Throughout the rest of El Islam the blacksmith
is respected as treading in the path of David, the father of the craft.
The word "Tomal," opposed to Somal, is indigenous. "Handad "is palpably a
corruption of the Arabic "Haddad," ironworker.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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