The Nusairiyeh women smoke, swear, and use the most vile and unclean
language, and even go beyond the men in these respects. Swearing and
lying are universal not only among the Nusairiyeh, but among the most of
the Syrian people. You never receive a direct reply from a Nusairy. He
will answer your question by asking another, in order, if possible, to
ascertain your object in asking it and to conceal the true state of the
case. Their Moslem and nominal Christian neighbors are not much better.
They all lie, and swear, and deceive. Mr. Lyde illustrates the ignorance
of the Greek clergy in Latakiah by the following incident. A ploughman
who had learned something of the Bible, heard a Greek priest cursing the
father of a little child. He said, "My father, is it right to curse?"
"Oh," said he, "it was only from my lips." "But does not the psalmist
say, Keep the door of my lips?" "That," replied the priest, "is only in
the English Bible."
Walpole says of the Nusairiyeh women, "when young, they are handsome,
often fair, with light hair and jet-black eyes; or the rarer beauty of
fair eyes and coal-black hair or eyebrows."
When a fight takes place between the tribes, the women, like the women
of the Druzes, enter into the spirit of it with demoniacal fury. During
the battle they bring jars of water, shout, sing, and encourage the
men, and at the close carry off the booty, such as pots, pans, chickens,
quilts, wooden doors, trays, etc. In the Druze war of 1860, I saw the
Druze women running with the men through Aitath, on their way to the
scene of hostilities in the Metn. The Bedawin women likewise aid their
husbands in the commissariat of their nomad warfare.
The Rev. Mr. Lyde was the first to undertake direct missionary labors
among the Nusairiyeh, and his work has been carried on by the Reformed
Presbyterian Mission in Latakiah. The Rev. J. Beattie sends me the
following facts with regard to the work now going on among the women and
girls.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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