DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49270#0042
22
M. M. *Abd Allah
who have seen these ginns say that they appear either at night or Friday noon74 at the
time of prayers when all is quite still. The ginns take different forms. One who inhabits
Ain Tamousy appears as a large and tall palm tree in the midst of the spring. When
this tree disappears in the spring the water boils.
If a woman cannot find a husband she goes to a spring called Ain Ahmed, just at the
time of praying on Friday noon. She runs to the Ain and dives into it with her clothes on.
When she comes out she runs to the grave of a sheikh called Sidi Should and passes over
the grave seven times saying:
“Oh Shouky! I came to visit you: you ought
then to marry me to a nice man!”
Not more than seven days pass before she is married.
Hills and Rocks. Hills and rocks are also inhabited by ginns, but these are mischie-
vous,75 whereas those of the springs are not generally so. These ginns take the negroes
prisoners. The negro who is taken prisoner is generally a tall strong man, who drinks
and does harm to his fellows. Before taking him prisoner the ginns make him mad.
One day he goes into the hills and suddenly disappears under the ground.76
and make music there. The kindred 'afant often live in wells, whence they emerge as animals whose bulk grows to
titanic size. All this tallies pretty well with the manner in which the ginn are viewed at Tlemcen, where it is held
that these spirits are not necessarily evil, but that they are dangerously uncertain in their tempers; A. Bel, op. cit.,
p. 222. In Morocco the bad ginn are much more in evidence than the good ones; E. Westermarck, Nature of the
Arab ginn, p. 255. The haunts of the ginn, according to Moroccan ideas, are rivers, woods, the sea, ruins, houses,
springs, drains, caves, and other underground places; Ibid. p. 253. The modern Egyptian believes that the ginn haunt
waste places, ruins, wells, baths, ovens, and latrines; cf. E. W. Lane, op. cit., p. 222 sq. Similarly the Moors of Tlem-
cen suppose the ginn to frequent especially all dark and damp places —- caves, baths, springs, wells, latrines, rubbish
heaps, etc.; A. Bel, loc. cit.
74 African noon, with its oppressive heat, its distorting sun glare, and its strange silence, is naturally an hour
when the ginn may be supposed to be astir, while men are drowsing. In Morocco the ginn seldom appear before the
dark; E. Westermarck, op. cit., p. 253; 260.
75 This does not appear to be the opinion current in the Nile Valley, where we find hills which are regarded as
being charged with a benificent baraka. Such a hill exists near the site of the ancient Antinoopolis. It is now
called Sheykh 'Abada, and “childless women come from long distances in order to roll down the southern face of the
lull. The act is repeated seven times, and each time a certain stone must be reached, failures not counting in the
series”; J. de M. Johnson, ‘Antinoe and its Papyri’ (Egypt Exploration Fund’s Arch. Rep. for 1913-1914, London,
p. 169, n. 2). What looks like an Islamized reminiscence of a practice of this sort is described in an Arabic history
of the Fayum, containing the following passage: “Now Bahnasa was visited by some holy men of 'Irak, and by
Abb ‘Aly en-Nawawi. And we may mention how the latter, after reaching the place, used to put off his clothes
and roll in the earth, exclaiming ‘O earth, whose dust rose so long for the cause of God!’” Mohammad Ibn
Mohammad el Mo'izz, Futhh al-Bahnasfi, trans. E. Galtier, Memoires. . . .de 1’Institut fraiiQais d’archeologie orien-
tate du Caire, Cairo, 1909, vol. 22, p. 3. The sanctity of the soil of Behnasa is of course here held to be due to
the victories of the early Moslem invaders who there lie buried.
76 In Morocco there is a well-known ginniah named ‘Aisha I^andisha. She lives in rivers, in wells, or in the sea.
Not only does she kill men but she is said sometimes to eat them also. At Tetuan the people say that she lives in a
river outside the town at a place where there is a ruined bridge. She seizes and kills people who bathe there, and
every year three or four men are said to fall as victims to her in this way; E. Westermarck, op. cit., p. 259.
M. M. *Abd Allah
who have seen these ginns say that they appear either at night or Friday noon74 at the
time of prayers when all is quite still. The ginns take different forms. One who inhabits
Ain Tamousy appears as a large and tall palm tree in the midst of the spring. When
this tree disappears in the spring the water boils.
If a woman cannot find a husband she goes to a spring called Ain Ahmed, just at the
time of praying on Friday noon. She runs to the Ain and dives into it with her clothes on.
When she comes out she runs to the grave of a sheikh called Sidi Should and passes over
the grave seven times saying:
“Oh Shouky! I came to visit you: you ought
then to marry me to a nice man!”
Not more than seven days pass before she is married.
Hills and Rocks. Hills and rocks are also inhabited by ginns, but these are mischie-
vous,75 whereas those of the springs are not generally so. These ginns take the negroes
prisoners. The negro who is taken prisoner is generally a tall strong man, who drinks
and does harm to his fellows. Before taking him prisoner the ginns make him mad.
One day he goes into the hills and suddenly disappears under the ground.76
and make music there. The kindred 'afant often live in wells, whence they emerge as animals whose bulk grows to
titanic size. All this tallies pretty well with the manner in which the ginn are viewed at Tlemcen, where it is held
that these spirits are not necessarily evil, but that they are dangerously uncertain in their tempers; A. Bel, op. cit.,
p. 222. In Morocco the bad ginn are much more in evidence than the good ones; E. Westermarck, Nature of the
Arab ginn, p. 255. The haunts of the ginn, according to Moroccan ideas, are rivers, woods, the sea, ruins, houses,
springs, drains, caves, and other underground places; Ibid. p. 253. The modern Egyptian believes that the ginn haunt
waste places, ruins, wells, baths, ovens, and latrines; cf. E. W. Lane, op. cit., p. 222 sq. Similarly the Moors of Tlem-
cen suppose the ginn to frequent especially all dark and damp places —- caves, baths, springs, wells, latrines, rubbish
heaps, etc.; A. Bel, loc. cit.
74 African noon, with its oppressive heat, its distorting sun glare, and its strange silence, is naturally an hour
when the ginn may be supposed to be astir, while men are drowsing. In Morocco the ginn seldom appear before the
dark; E. Westermarck, op. cit., p. 253; 260.
75 This does not appear to be the opinion current in the Nile Valley, where we find hills which are regarded as
being charged with a benificent baraka. Such a hill exists near the site of the ancient Antinoopolis. It is now
called Sheykh 'Abada, and “childless women come from long distances in order to roll down the southern face of the
lull. The act is repeated seven times, and each time a certain stone must be reached, failures not counting in the
series”; J. de M. Johnson, ‘Antinoe and its Papyri’ (Egypt Exploration Fund’s Arch. Rep. for 1913-1914, London,
p. 169, n. 2). What looks like an Islamized reminiscence of a practice of this sort is described in an Arabic history
of the Fayum, containing the following passage: “Now Bahnasa was visited by some holy men of 'Irak, and by
Abb ‘Aly en-Nawawi. And we may mention how the latter, after reaching the place, used to put off his clothes
and roll in the earth, exclaiming ‘O earth, whose dust rose so long for the cause of God!’” Mohammad Ibn
Mohammad el Mo'izz, Futhh al-Bahnasfi, trans. E. Galtier, Memoires. . . .de 1’Institut fraiiQais d’archeologie orien-
tate du Caire, Cairo, 1909, vol. 22, p. 3. The sanctity of the soil of Behnasa is of course here held to be due to
the victories of the early Moslem invaders who there lie buried.
76 In Morocco there is a well-known ginniah named ‘Aisha I^andisha. She lives in rivers, in wells, or in the sea.
Not only does she kill men but she is said sometimes to eat them also. At Tetuan the people say that she lives in a
river outside the town at a place where there is a ruined bridge. She seizes and kills people who bathe there, and
every year three or four men are said to fall as victims to her in this way; E. Westermarck, op. cit., p. 259.