sometimes the father fires a shot or two from a rifle. Often each boy of a group that is circumcised together gives a small feast for the others, and it is said that some sort of bond or blood brothership grows amongst them.
After the circumcision the boys remain recumbent for an hour, as a safeguard against bleeding, and then they walk home. From then on, during the few days until they are healed, they wear two or three onions on a string round their necks, for the people are convinced that the wound will become septic if the boy should smell cooking, or baking, or any form of perfume. The boy who is in the vicinity of such smells will plug his nostrils with the small ends of the onions until the danger is past. Curiously, they believe the peril to emanate from these pleasant scents, never from stenches; furthermore native custom had previously required the operation to be performed in the height of summer, as the operators had heldthat cool weather would cause the wound to become inflamed.
The gale blew unabated all afternoon, and by now it was clear that we must spend a second night at Ramla. As a rule Thesiger was at pains not to spend two nights under the same roof, for in the eyes of most marsh Arabs the demands of hospitality include the killing of chickens, and become a serious drain upon the householder’s resources.
I should have liked to wander over the small stretches of dry ground surrounding the village, but because of the dogs it was impossible; this too was a repetitive pattern throughout the long journey. Practically every house in the marshes is guarded by at least one, and sometimes as many as four or five large and almost invariably savage dogs. They are savage both because they are trained to be so and because, being an unclean animal, they are afforded little of the casual affection that household watchdogs may receive outside the Muslim world. Their attitude to all human beings other than those of the household they guard is dour, morose, and explosive. They bark so incessantly both by day and by night that many of them have strained their vocal cords; some produce no more than a husky whisper, others the cracked and disconcertingly alternating bellow and squeak of the human adolescent. As a result of constant and venomous bickering among themselves the older dogs are so tattered and frayed as to give the impression of being damaged beyond all reasonable hope of repair; their ears, if they still possess them, serrated like the fronds of a fern, their tails lopped to haphazard half-lengths, even the black buttons of their noses sometimes twisted to preposterous angles with their faces, or hanging by a thread of gristle; their flanks and shoulders criss-crossed with the scars of teeth. The basic type, before this distortion has been superimposed, is something between an Alsatianand a Husky, with a dense, usually light-coloured, coat, and a tail that curls more or less tightly upward. The commonest pattern is sand-coloured or rufous, and suggests descent from the wild red dogs of India, but they may be blotched or brindled, and occasionally white. Whatever their origin they must by now have reached the maximum development of which the species is capable; there are no small dogs and no unaggressive dogs, quite simply because if there were they would be killed by the large and aggressive.
The religious—or in this case customary, for the marshmen cannot be said to possess more than the mores of their nominal religion—uncleanness of dogs does not prevent them being on terms of some familiarity with the household they serve, and more especially its younger members. The adults discourage a display of affection, but despite these sanctions I have seen children sleeping with puppies cuddled in their arms, and occasionally older children will play with a dog as do Europeans. Even in their unsentimental society the protection between dog and man is to a large extent mutual, and the killing of a dog can
After the circumcision the boys remain recumbent for an hour, as a safeguard against bleeding, and then they walk home. From then on, during the few days until they are healed, they wear two or three onions on a string round their necks, for the people are convinced that the wound will become septic if the boy should smell cooking, or baking, or any form of perfume. The boy who is in the vicinity of such smells will plug his nostrils with the small ends of the onions until the danger is past. Curiously, they believe the peril to emanate from these pleasant scents, never from stenches; furthermore native custom had previously required the operation to be performed in the height of summer, as the operators had heldthat cool weather would cause the wound to become inflamed.
The gale blew unabated all afternoon, and by now it was clear that we must spend a second night at Ramla. As a rule Thesiger was at pains not to spend two nights under the same roof, for in the eyes of most marsh Arabs the demands of hospitality include the killing of chickens, and become a serious drain upon the householder’s resources.
I should have liked to wander over the small stretches of dry ground surrounding the village, but because of the dogs it was impossible; this too was a repetitive pattern throughout the long journey. Practically every house in the marshes is guarded by at least one, and sometimes as many as four or five large and almost invariably savage dogs. They are savage both because they are trained to be so and because, being an unclean animal, they are afforded little of the casual affection that household watchdogs may receive outside the Muslim world. Their attitude to all human beings other than those of the household they guard is dour, morose, and explosive. They bark so incessantly both by day and by night that many of them have strained their vocal cords; some produce no more than a husky whisper, others the cracked and disconcertingly alternating bellow and squeak of the human adolescent. As a result of constant and venomous bickering among themselves the older dogs are so tattered and frayed as to give the impression of being damaged beyond all reasonable hope of repair; their ears, if they still possess them, serrated like the fronds of a fern, their tails lopped to haphazard half-lengths, even the black buttons of their noses sometimes twisted to preposterous angles with their faces, or hanging by a thread of gristle; their flanks and shoulders criss-crossed with the scars of teeth. The basic type, before this distortion has been superimposed, is something between an Alsatianand a Husky, with a dense, usually light-coloured, coat, and a tail that curls more or less tightly upward. The commonest pattern is sand-coloured or rufous, and suggests descent from the wild red dogs of India, but they may be blotched or brindled, and occasionally white. Whatever their origin they must by now have reached the maximum development of which the species is capable; there are no small dogs and no unaggressive dogs, quite simply because if there were they would be killed by the large and aggressive.
The religious—or in this case customary, for the marshmen cannot be said to possess more than the mores of their nominal religion—uncleanness of dogs does not prevent them being on terms of some familiarity with the household they serve, and more especially its younger members. The adults discourage a display of affection, but despite these sanctions I have seen children sleeping with puppies cuddled in their arms, and occasionally older children will play with a dog as do Europeans. Even in their unsentimental society the protection between dog and man is to a large extent mutual, and the killing of a dog can
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