Читать книгу The Land of Fetish онлайн
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The Jolloffs have a curious burial custom. The body of the deceased is laid out in the inclosure, or yard, which surrounds every Jolloff house, where the ladies of the family prepare the kous-kous, and their lord and master prays at morning and evening; and, when it is about to be carried out for sepulture, the funeral party, instead of taking it through the gate, proceed to demolish the whole fence. They consider that it would be fatal to the deceased’s hopes of future bliss if his body passed through any gate before he crossed the bridge of Al Sirat and knocked at the door of paradise. Expectoration seems to be the commonest form in which grief is exhibited by Jolloffs. Of course the men never show even this sign of weakness; but the women at funeral customs, or when they are grieved about anything, fill up the pauses of their dirge, or complaint, with vigorous discharges of saliva. Any fly within a radius of ten feet has but small chance of escape.
The Jolloff country extends from the Gambia to the French possessions on the Senegal river, and is divided into three independent kingdoms, viz. Senaar or Senegal, Saulaem, and Ballah. A late king of Senaar, Jumail by name, was a source of considerable anxiety to the French, and kept up a standing army of ten or twelve thousand cavalry, with which he made frequent raids on the settlements. The religion of these people is purely Mohammedan.