Identifier: fireswordinsudan00slat (find matches)
Title: Fire and Sword in the sudan : a personal narrative of fighting and serving the dervishes, 1879-1895
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Slatin, Rudolf Carl, Freiherr von, 1857-1932
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Edward Arnold
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Internet Archive

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s.They generally wear skins of animals round their waistsand loins; but the higher class and their women dress inlong flowing robes made of white Darfur cotton cloth.Their food is very plain. Corn does not grow in theircountry, and is almost unknown to them. They take theseeds of the wild pumpkin, which grows there in abundance,and they soak them in wooden vessels made from the barkof trees. After taking the outer shells off, they leave theseeds to steep until they lose their bitterness, and then,straining them off and mixing them with dates, they grindthem into a sort of flour, which is cooked with meat, andforms the principal food of the country. They have also most strange customs as regards inheri-tance and succession. The cemeteries are generally situatedat some distance from the villages, and when a father diesthe body is taken by all the relatives to be buried. Theceremony over, on a given signal they all rush together atthe top of their speed to the deceaseds house, and he who
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Bedayat praying to the Sacred Tree. THE GOVERNMENT OF DARFUR 39; arrives first and fixes his spear or arrow in it is consideredthe rightful heir, and not only becomes possessor of all thecattle, but also of his fathers wives and other women, withthe exception of his own mother. He is at perfect libertyto marry them if he wishes, or he can set them free. Amans female household is entirely regulated by his financial:position. It is great or small according as the lord andmaster is rich or poor. We at length arrived at Kamo, where the great Zaghawa.Sheikh Saleh Donkusa informed me that the Bedeyat chiefswould arrive the next day. In concert with him I selectedthe heglik-tree as the place of meeting, which was to be-held one hour after sunrise, and in which he was to act asthe intermediary between myself and the Bedeyat. I then,ordered our tents to be moved to within less than half a mileof the tree, and early the next morning I had the troops-drawn up in line ready to receive the Bedeyat

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