Part 16

“Muhammadani, de foeminis suis interrogati, aegre invitique respondent. Attamen post longam diuturnamque cum iis consuetudinem, data occasione, contigit mihi hac de re cum quibusdam eorum disseruisse, ex quo intellexi Arabes humaniores linteaminibus sordidatis parum fidei praestare.... Viri interdum deliquium cruoris, velut testimonium debilitatis propriae, vulgo innotescere abnuunt.

“Muhammadanis in Iemen atque in India persuasum est aiuntque lintea infecta visui offerre viro perquam dedecere. Nec profecto, nisi curiositas muliebris atque agnati, res huiusmodi insectantur. A mente sana neminem tam alienum existimandum arbitrantur quam quibus haec praeservanda videantur. Proinde linteum hoc apud eos eluitur traditurque ut usui consueto inter linteamina domestica restituatur. Percontanti mihi Iudaeus quidam de Iudaeis et Muhammadanis Muscatensibus, Christianus vero aliquis de Christianis et Muhammadanis Halebitis idem significaverat. Busrae tamen audisse mihi licuit dari mulieres ordinis plebeii, quae tesseram hanc pristinae suae castitatis velut vindicias praeservare solitae sint, nequis ganeo protervus de eius post pubertatem moribus quasi ambiguis sermocinari sibi praesumpserit.”[659]

Footnote 651:

Gray’s _China_, I, 207.

Footnote 652:

Skertchley’s _Dahomey As It Is_, p. 499.

Footnote 653:

Lane’s _Modern Egyptians_, I, 221, nota.

Footnote 654:

_Ibid._

Footnote 655:

Burckhardt’s _Arabic Proverbs_, p. 140.

Footnote 656:

Facta haec a testibus fide dignis teneo.

Footnote 657:

Haec testimonio sacerdotis Æthiopici in Liberia nituntur.

Footnote 658:

Bancroft’s _Native Races_ (“Civilized Nations”), II, 256–261.

Footnote 659:

Niebuhr’s _Beschreibung von Arabien_, pp. 35–39.

Footnote 660:

Vide, exempli causa, Burtonii _Alf Laila va Laila_, II, 50; III, 289.

SUBSTITUTE BLOOD FOR DECEPTION.

Quum in Arabia sponsa quaedam virginitatis orba sponso a parentibus imponitur, mater sponsae turturillam clam iugulat, eiusque sanguine camisiam sponsae, antequam illa amicis visui exhibeatur, tingit atque commaculat. Ad mores hos in fabulis “Noctium Mille et Unius” haud tam infrequenter referimur.[660] Burton haec interpretans ait: “Vetus ac venerabilis consuetudo linteum nuptiale visendi in plurimis Orientis regionibus pietate quadam religiosa adhuc praeservata viget; in familiis enim Muhammedanis, moribus priscis addictis, linteum hoc in gynaeceo, ut cernatur, expositum prostat, ut ... filiam marito illibatam se obtulisse ostendat testeturque.... Opinio popularis praevalet nullam sanguinem posse peritos, _h. e_. matronas iuratrices, fallere, praeterquam sanguis turturillae, utpote qui sanguini hymenaeo existimetur esse simillimus, nisi indages adminiculo microscopii instituatur. Fides haec apud Europae Australis populos bene universa est, tum etiam de re eadem in Anglia quoque me audisse memini.”[661] Burton porro subiungit: “Arabes atque Indi in diebus nostris linteum nuptiale indagare, quemadmodum apud Iudaeos Persasque usuvenit, raro sinunt. Sponsa mucinium candidum secum in lectum sumit, ut habeat quo cruorem manantem sopiat, postridie autem mane maculae in gynaeceo propalantur. In Darfuria vero, regione Africae, hoc ipsum a sponso perficitur.”[662]

Apud Morduinos, gentem Fennicam, accolas Rha, mores prisci vigent.[663] Consuetudinem testimonium virginitatis exhibendi, vel in eius locum sanguinem pulli gallinacei substituendi, velut in partibus Asiae atque Africae, in his Europae Septemtrione-Orientalis plagis ad usque modo reperiri licet. “In comitatu Crasnaslobodsceno, Provinciae Pensae, mulier neo-nupta e thalamo arcessitur, atque in camisia sua cruore commaculata (si opus sit, etiam sanguine pulli gallinacei) a duabus amicis labrum vacuum secum baiulantibus, vetulaque panem secum portante, ad fluvium proximum deducitur. In iis autem regionibus, ubi Morduini Russorum moribus sunt magis imbuti, hospites nuptiales, quamprimum virginitas sit comprobata, quidquid ipsis sub manus cadat, ut suum gaudium reverentiamque rite significent, confringunt atque comminuunt.”[664]

Footnote 661:

Vide, exempli causa, Burtonii _Alf Laila va Laila_, II, 50, nota.

Footnote 662:

_Ibid._, III, 289, nota.

Footnote 663:

Vide p. 32-dam supra.

Footnote 664:

P. von Stenin: “Die Ehe bei den Mordwinen,” in _Globus_, Vol. LXV, No. 11 (1894), p. 183.

PUBLIC PERFORMANCE OF THE RITE.

Navarchus Cook, in Chronico sui primi circum orbem itineris de Fœdere Liminari, ceu modo cultus publici in Otaheita, seu Tahiti, sequentia refert:

“Die 14-mo (Maii), qui erat Solis, in castris cultum divinum celebrandum iussi; maximopere desiderabamus ut principes Indorum huic interessent, at hi, quum hora appropinquasset, domum discesserunt. Verumtamen Dñus Banks, traiecto flumine, Tuburai Tamaide suamque uxorem Tomio, secum reduxit, fore enim sperabat, ut cultus noster ab iis percontationes quasdam eliceret, non secus ac nobis instrui liceret: quum eos discumbere iussisset, ipse in medio eorum discubuit, qui durantibus ceremoniis suum agendi modum summa animadversione sunt prosecuti actionesque imitati; stantes, considentes, genua flectentes, prout eum facere videbant: haud erant nimirum ignari apud nos quiddam solemnis agi atque serii, ut hoc vel inde concludi potuerit, quod hi suos populares praeter castra tripudiantes clamando ad silentiam servandum cohortati fuissent; attamen cultu absoluto, neuter percontabatur quid rei gestum esset, nec ullis volebant tentaminibus res gestas explicandi aures praebere.

“Talia erant nostra officia matutina; Indi vero nostri vesperas toto coelo diversas iudicarunt esse offerendas. Vir quidam iuvenis, procerus, fere sex pedes, ritus Veneris cum pupula vix undenorum vel duodenorum annorum, pluribus nostrum magnoque popularium numero coram intuentibus, perfecit, quin actum dedecere, vel bonis adversari moribus senserit; verum, ut concludere licuit, moribus illius regionis omnino congruenter. Erant autem in turba inspectante non paucae mulieres ordinum superiorum, in specie autem Oberea (mulier principalis illius Insulae, quae primum regina esse reputabatur), quae ad ceremonias ministrasse iure dici potest; nam mulieres hae puellam monendo instituebant quemadmodum vidl. sibi sua parte muneris obeundum esset.”[665]

Quum apud Samoanos nuptiae cuiusdam optimatum in diebus primaevis celebrabantur, partes agnatique sponsae in _maroe_, seu foro publico congregabantur, ubi sponsus, cunctis intuentibus, primam virginitatis sponsae obryssam instituit. Si documentum virginitatis ab eo exhiberi potuerat, coetus omnis exsurrexit complosisque manibus sponsae gratulabundus acclamavit; at, si quo casu proba haec defuerit, eam probris scommatibusque lacessiverant. Apud plebem humilem ritus his in aedibus privatis, nec tanta pompa celebrabatur.[666]

Footnote 665:

_Voyages of Capt. James Cook_, I, 56.

Footnote 666:

Turner’s _Samoa a Hundred Years Ago_, pp. 93–95.

BIBLE TESTIMONY.

A distinct reference to the proofs of chastity, in the blood-stamped cloth, is found in the Bible record of the ancient law of Israel. “If any man take a wife, and go in unto her, and hate her, and lay shameful things to her charge, and bring up an evil name upon her, and say, I took this woman, and when I came nigh to her, I found not in her the tokens of virginity: then shall the father of the damsel, and her mother, take and bring forth the tokens of the damsel’s virginity unto the elders of the city in the gate: and the damsel’s father shall say unto the elders, I gave my daughter unto this man to wife, and he hateth her; and, lo, he hath laid shameful things to her charge, saying, I found not in thy daughter the tokens of virginity; and yet these are the tokens of my daughter’s virginity. And they shall spread the garment [or cloth, Hebrew _simlah_] before the elders of the city.

“And the elders of that city shall take the man and chastise him; and they shall amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of the damsel, because he hath brought up an evil name upon a virgin of Israel: and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days. But if this thing be true, that the tokens of virginity were not found in the damsel: then they shall bring out the damsel to the doors of her father’s house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that she die: because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the harlot in her father’s house.”[667]

Footnote 667:

Deut. 22 : 13–21.

WOMAN AS A DOOR.

In different languages and among various peoples there is, as already suggested,[668] an apparent connection between the terms, and the corresponding ideas, of “woman” and “door,” that would seem to be a confirmation of the fact that the earliest altar was at the threshold of the woman, and of the door.

Thus, in the Song of Songs 8 : 8, 9:–

“We have a little sister, And she hath no breasts: What shall we do for our sister In the day when she shall be spoken for? If she be a wall, We will build upon her a turret of silver: And if she be a door, We will inclose her with boards of cedar.”

Job, cursing the day of his birth, says (Job 3 : 1–10):

“Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said, There is a man child conceived.... Neither let it behold the eyelids of the morning: Because it shut not up the doors of my mother’s womb, Nor hid trouble from mine eyes.”

Referring to this passage, the Babylonian Talmud (Treatise Bechoroth, 45 a) quotes Rabbi Eliezer as saying, “Just as a house has doors, so also a woman has doors.” Others say: “Just as a house has keys [_miphteakh_, literally ‘opener’], so the woman has a key; for it is said (Gen. 30 : 22) ‘God hearkened to her, and opened [a play upon _patakh_, ‘to open,’ and _miphteakh_, ‘key’] her womb.’” The famous Rabbi Akibah says: “Just as a house has hinges, so there are hinges to a wife; for it is written (1 Sam. 4 : 19), ‘She kneeled and gave birth, for her hinges had turned’ [translating _ṣîrîm_ (or _tseereem_) as ‘hinges’ instead of ‘pains’; the word has the former meaning in Proverbs 26 : 14, ‘As the door turneth upon its hinges, so doth the sluggard upon his bed.’]”

The Talmudic treatise Middâ (Mishna § 2, 5) explains the different parts of the womb under the metaphors _khĕdĕr_, “interior chamber;” _pʾrosdôr_, “vestibule;” _ʿalîyyâ_, “upper story.”[669] Professor Dr. Morris Jastrow, Jr., in citing these metaphors, suggests that they coincide with the Arabic and Egyptian custom of using a key in the marriage rite, as described at page 244.

Critics have long puzzled over the seemingly contradictory uses of the Hebrew word _pôth_ in two places in the Old Testament; and the connection of “woman” and “door” with the parts thereof, above suggested, may aid in resolving the difficulty. At 1 Kings 7 : 50, in a list of the holy vessels of the house of the Lord, there are mentioned “the hinges (Heb., _pôthôth_), both for the doors of the inner house, the most holy place, and for the doors of the house, to wit, of the temple, of gold.” At Isaiah 3 : 17 the same word _poth_ is translated “their secret parts,” in a reference to the humiliation of “the daughters of Zion.” It has been suggested by some that there was a corruption of the text in Isaiah. (See Delitzsch and Dillmann, in their commentaries at this place.) Yet in view of the rabbinical uses of language, the text would seem to be trustworthy. _Pôth_ is an “opening,” of a _woman_ or of a _door_. Additional light is thrown on the use of the term _pôth_ as “opening” and as “hinge,” or “socket,” when we bear in mind that the hinge of an Oriental door was a hole, or cavity, or door socket, on which the door turned, in order to give an opening or entrance. Often these door sockets were made of metal,–bronze, silver, or gold.[670] Sometimes the entire thresholds, in which were these sockets or “basons,” were of metal. If, however, the threshold was of stone or wood, the socket, or a plate with a depression in it, was of metal. The _pôth_, therefore, when referring to a door, was the metal plate or socket in the threshold on which the door turned as on a hinge.

It is, indeed, possible that the opening or cavity in the ancient stone or metal threshold was sometimes the bason, or vessel, into which the covenanting blood was poured.[671] In that case, the correspondence of the opening of the woman, and the socket of the threshold, would be more obvious. Important inscriptions are usually found at or around these so-called “door sockets,” in Babylonian relics; and there is still doubt in many minds whether these cavities were always hinge sockets.

The word “hinges,” or “hangers,” is at the best an inaccurate and misleading term, as applied to the pivots or knuckles on which an ancient door swung in its socket. Ancient doors were not hung on hinges, but they swung on pivots. Instead of a hinge, there was a knuckle or pintle, with a corresponding socket, or cavity, or opening, in the threshold or door-sill. Both Gesenius[672] and Stade[673] give “socket” as one of the meanings of _pôth_. The plural, _pôthoth_, of course, refers to the sockets of two leaves of a double door on one threshold.

When Samson was shut in at Gaza by the Philistines, the double leaves of the city gate were held together by a bar, without the lifting of which the doors could not be opened. “And Samson lay till midnight, and arose at midnight, and laid hold of the doors of the gate of the city, and the two posts [the upright stiles, at the bottom of which were the knuckles that turned in the threshold sockets], and plucked them up, bar [cross-bar or latch] and all, and put them upon his shoulders, and carried them up to the top of the mountain that is before Hebron.”[674]

I have in my possession a bronze door-socket and knuckle of an ancient gate or door, unearthed from a mound in the vicinity of Ghuzzeh, the site of ἡ τύχηancient Gaza, that meets this description.

In primitive symbolism, as shown in Babylonia, Egypt, and India, the circle or ring, like this socket, represents woman.

It would be interesting, in this connection, to follow out the meanings and uses of the Greek words πυθμήν (_puthmēn_), root φυ (_phu_); and φλιή (_phliē_), doorpost, root φλι (_phli_); compare φλέω (_phleō_), φίλος (_philos_). It is evident that the twofold idea of the threshold of life, and the threshold, or sockets, of the door, is in the uses of these terms and their derivatives in earlier and later Greek. But only this suggestion can be made here.

The correspondence of “woman” and “door,” or of “wife” and “threshold,” in the Arabic, has already been pointed out.[675] A similar suggestion is in Sanskrit terms.[676]

In Germany, even at the present time, a common term for “woman” is “woman chamber” (_frauenzimmer_), as in Arabic _hareema_ is a woman, while _hareem_ is the women’s apartment. A remark attributed to a prominent American clergyman, as showing the naturalness of the figure of woman as a door, is: “He who marries a wife opens a door, through which unborn generations shall troop.”

A Chinese character is the representation of “threshold,” of “door,” and also of “woman.”[677] It is suggested by the lexicographer that the origin of this character was a small door in a large gate, as the inner door to the hareem or women’s apartments; but it seems probable, from the correspondence of this twofold idea with the primitive thought of woman as the door of humanity, that the Chinese character must have had an origin prior to that degree of civilization which recognized such a classification in household apartments. The combination of “door” and “border” is another Chinese character[678] that stands for “threshold” or “door-sill.”[679] Confucius said that this

threshold “should not be trodden on when walking through” the door.

Footnote 668:

See, for example, 197 f., _supra_.

Footnote 669:

See also citations from Buxtorf at p. 200, _supra_.

Footnote 670:

See pp. 127, 132 f., 207 f., _supra_.

Footnote 671:

See p. 207 f., _supra_.

Footnote 672:

_Handwörterbuch_, Mülhan and Volck, 11th ed., s. v.

Footnote 673:

_Woerterbuch u. Alt. Test._, s. v.

Footnote 674:

Judges 16 : 3.

Footnote 675:

See p. 200, _supra_.

Footnote 676:

See p. 197 f., _supra_.

Footnote 677:

_’kw’ un_

Footnote 678:

_yü_

Footnote 679:

See S. Wells Williams’s _Syllabic Dictionary of the Chinese Language_, pp. 496, 1141.

SYMBOLISM OF THE TWO SEXES.

As showing the antiquity, as well as the universality, of the symbolism of the two sexes as the source of life, in connection with reverent worship, an illustration of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead is noteworthy. In a vignette on Chapter CXXV, in the Papyrus Ani, a worshiper, is represented before the throne of Osiris, in the Hall of Righteousness, with uplifted hands, in token of covenant worship, while his offering is a lotus flower, the symbol of fecundity, laid on the conventional phallus, the symbol of virility.[680] This vignette is reproduced on the cover of this volume. The lotus flower has the same signification in Assyria and India as in Egypt.[681]

The pine cone, which, as the symbol of virility and vitalizing force, was prominent in the ancient Assyrian sculptures, as also in the Phenician and Grecian cults,[682] was likewise to be found in ancient Rome. An enormous bronze pine cone, eleven feet high, probably older than the Christian era, still ornaments a fountain in the gardens of the Vatican. Lanciani says: “Pope Symmachus, who did so much toward the embellishment of sacred edifices in Rome (between 498 and 514), removed the pine cone from its ancient place, most probably from Agrippa’s artificial lake in the Campus Martius, and used it for adorning the magnificent fountain which he had built in the center of the so-called ‘Paradise’ of S. Peter’s, viz., in the center of the square portico in front of the basilica.”[683]

Among the Pompeian relics in the Royal Museum at Naples is a representation of a woman making an offering to Priapus in order to be cured of sterility. She brings a pine cone, while her husband is near her.[684]

Evidences of the fact that boundary posts, landmarks, and milestones were intended to represent the phallus at the threshold in the Roman empire, as in the far East, abound among the same relics in the Neapolitan Museum.[685]

Footnote 680:

Le Page Renouf’s Book of the Dead in _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archaeology_, for November, 1895. Plate xxxi.

Footnote 681:

See pp. 199, 234, _supra_.

Footnote 682:

See Barker’s _Lares and Penates; Or, Cilicia and its Governors_, p. 217 f.; also see p. 231 f., _supra_.

Footnote 683:

Lanciani’s _Ancient Rome_, p. 286 f.

Footnote 684:

Ainé’s _Herculaneum et Pompéi_, Tome VIII, Planche 56, facing p. 221.

Footnote 685:

_Ibid._, Pl. 24, 25, 27, 30, 39, 41, 44, 48, 54, 55, 56, 59.

SYMBOLISM OF TREE AND SERPENT.

A striking confirmation of the view taken in this work of the symbolism of the serpent, as the nexus between the two sexes, the female being represented by the fig-tree, and the male by the upright stone, or pole,[686] is found in an ancient religious custom in Mysore, India. Captain J.S.F. Mackenzie contributed an interesting paper on this subject to the “Indian Antiquary.”[687] “Round about Bangalore, more especially towards the Lal Bagh and _Petta_,–as the native town is called,–three or more stones are to be found together, having representations of serpents carved upon them. These stones are erected always under the sacred fig-tree by some pious person, whose means and piety determine the care and finish with which they are executed. Judging from the number of the stones, the worship of the serpent appears to be more prevalent in the Bangalore district than in other parts of the province. No priest is ever in charge of them. There is no objection to men doing so, but from custom, or for some reason,–perhaps because the serpent is supposed to confer fertility on barren women,–the worshiping of the stones, which takes place during the Gauri feast, is confined to women of all Hindu classes and creeds. The stones, when properly erected, ought to be on a built-up stone platform facing the rising sun, and under the shade of two _peepul_ (_Ficus religiosa_) trees,–a male and female growing together, and wedded by ceremonies, in every respect the same as in the case of human beings,–close by, and growing in the same platform a nimb (_margosa_) and _bipatra_ (a kind of wood-apple), which are supposed to be living witnesses of the marriage. The expense of performing the marriage ceremony is too heavy for ordinary persons, and so we generally find only one _peepul_ and a _nimb_ on the platform. By the common people these two are supposed to represent man and wife.”

Footnote 686:

See pp. 230–240, _supra_.

Footnote 687:

Cited in _Notes and Queries_, fifth series, Vol. IV, p. 463.

COVENANT OF THRESHOLD-CROSSING.

An American gentleman traveling among the Scandinavian immigrants in Wisconsin and Minnesota, was surprised to see their house doors quite generally standing open, as if they had no need of locks and bolts. He argued from this that they were an exceptionally honest people, and that they had no fear of thieves and robbers. A Scandinavian clergyman, being asked about this, said that they had thieves in that region, but that thieves would not cross a threshold, or enter a door, with evil intent, being held back by a superstitious fear of the consequences of such a violation of the covenant obligation incurred in passing over the threshold.

I asked a native Syrian woman, “If a thief wanted to get into your house to steal from you, would he come in at the door, if he saw that open?” “Oh, no!” she answered, “he would come in at the window, or would dig in from behind.” “Why wouldn’t he come in at the door?” I asked. “Because his _reverence_ would keep him from that,” she said, in evident reference to the superstitious dread of crossing a threshold with evil intent,–a dread growing out of an inborn survival of reverence for the primitive altar, with the sacredness of a covenant entered into by its crossing.

The very term commonly employed in the New Testament for thieving indicates the “digging through” a building, instead of entering by the door. “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth consume, and where thieves break through [literally, dig through; Greek, _diorussō_ and steal.”[688] “If the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not have left his house to be digged through.”[689]

Canon Tristram tells of an Adwan shaykh who was proud of being a “robber,” a “highwayman,” but who resented the idea that he was a “thief,”–a “sneak thief.” “I am not a thief,” he said; “I do not dig into the houses of fellaheen in the night. I would scorn it. I only take by force in the day time. And, if God gives me strength, shall I not use it?” Canon Tristram adds: “A ‘thief,’ as distinguished from a ‘robber,’ would never think of attempting to force the door, but would noiselessly dig through a wall in the rear,–a work of no great labor, as the walls are generally of earth, or sun-dried bricks, or, at best, of stone imbedded in turf instead of in mortar.”[690]