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First Footsteps in East Africa by Sir Richard Francis Burton
page 107 of 414 (25%)
pilgrim. I have often been requested to officiate on these occasions, and
the End of Time has done it by irreverently reciting the Fatihah over the
happy pair. [18] The Somal, as usual amongst the heterogeneous mass
amalgamated by El Islam, have a diversity of superstitions attesting their
Pagan origin. Such for instance are their oaths by stones, their reverence
of cairns and holy trees, and their ordeals of fire and water, the Bolungo
of Western Africa. A man accused of murder or theft walks down a trench
full of live charcoal and about a spear's length, or he draws out of the
flames a smith's anvil heated to redness: some prefer picking four or five
cowries from a large pot full of boiling water. The member used is at once
rolled up in the intestines of a sheep and not inspected for a whole day.
They have traditionary seers called Tawuli, like the Greegree-men of
Western Africa, who, by inspecting the fat and bones of slaughtered
cattle, "do medicine," predict rains, battles, and diseases of animals.
This class is of both sexes: they never pray or bathe, and are therefore
considered always impure; thus, being feared, they are greatly respected
by the vulgar. Their predictions are delivered in a rude rhyme, often put
for importance into the mouth of some deceased seer. During the three
months called Rajalo [19] the Koran is not read over graves, and no
marriage ever takes place. The reason of this peculiarity is stated to be
imitation of their ancestor Ishak, who happened not to contract a
matrimonial alliance at such epoch: 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
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