It Is, However, A Manifest Remnant Of
The Pagan's Auspicious And Inauspicious Months.
Thus they sacrifice she-
camels in the month Sabuh, and keep holy with feasts and bonfires the
Dubshid or New Year's Day.
[20] At certain unlucky periods when the moon
is in ill-omened Asterisms those who die are placed in bundles of matting
upon a tree, the idea being that if buried a loss would result to the
tribe. [21]
Though superstitious, the Somal are not bigoted like the Arabs, with the
exception of those who, wishing to become learned, visit Yemen or El
Hejaz, and catch the complaint. Nominal Mohammedans, El Islam hangs so
lightly upon them, that apparently they care little for making it binding
upon others.
The Somali language is no longer unknown to Europe. It is strange that a
dialect which has no written character should so abound in poetry and
eloquence. There are thousands of songs, some local, others general, upon
all conceivable subjects, such as camel loading, drawing water, and
elephant hunting; every man of education knows a variety of them. The
rhyme is imperfect, being generally formed by the syllable "ay"
(pronounced as in our word "hay"), which gives the verse a monotonous
regularity; but, assisted by a tolerably regular alliteration and cadence,
it can never be mistaken for prose, even without the song which invariably
accompanies it. The country teems with "poets, poetasters, poetitos, and
poetaccios:" every man has his recognised position in literature as
accurately defined as though he had been reviewed in a century of
magazines,--the fine ear of this people [22] causing them to take the
greatest pleasure in harmonious sounds and poetical expressions, whereas a
false quantity or a prosaic phrase excite their violent indignation. Many
of these compositions are so idiomatic that Arabs settled for years
amongst the Somal cannot understand them, though perfectly acquainted with
the conversational style. Every chief in the country must have a panegyric
to be sung by his clan, and the great patronise light literature by
keeping a poet. The amatory is of course the favourite theme: sometimes it
appears in dialogue, the rudest form, we are told, of the Drama. The
subjects are frequently pastoral: the lover for instance invites his
mistress to walk with him towards the well in Lahelo, the Arcadia of the
land; he compares her legs to the tall straight Libi tree, and imprecates
the direst curses on her head if she refuse to drink with him the milk of
his favourite camel. There are a few celebrated ethical compositions, in
which the father lavishes upon his son all the treasures of Somali good
advice, long as the somniferous sermons of Mentor to the insipid son of
Ulysses. Sometimes a black Tyrtaeus breaks into a wild lament for the loss
of warriors or territory; he taunts the clan with cowardice, reminds them
of their slain kindred, better men than themselves, whose spirits cannot
rest unavenged in their gory graves, and urges a furious onslaught upon
the exulting victor.
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