Читать книгу The People of Palestine. An enlarged edition of "The Peasantry of Palestine, Life, Manners and Customs of the Village" онлайн

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The cement in the paved roofs cracks under the fierce heat of summer and the early showers help to discover the bad places which must be patched before the heavy winter rains. In the case of earth-covered roofs the first shower ought to be followed by a good rolling, the owners going over and over them with stone rollers rigged with wooden handles that creak out upon the clear air after the rain as they work in the sockets. From the peculiar noise thus made the Râm Allâh people have a local name of zukzâkeh for the wooden handles of these stone rollers. In the northern part of the country the name nâ‛uṣ is given to the roller handles for a similar reason. The roofs of rolled earth can be kept very tight. The covering of such roofs is made by mixing sandy soil with clay and with the finest grade of chaff, called mûṣ, from the threshing-floor. On old earth roofs patches of grass^[29] grow, and even grain has been seen springing up in such places.

The Syrian peasant divides trees into classes by pairs. There are those that are good to sit under and those that are not. Then there are those that yield food and those that do not. Finally there are those that are holy, and therefore cannot be cut for charcoal or fuel, and those that are not thus tabooed.