CHAP. 185-187. THE INHABITANTS OF LIBYA. 2 161 186. Thus from Egypt as far as Lake Tritônis Libya is inhabited by wandering tribes,1 whose drink is milk and their food the flesh of animals. Cow's flesh however none of these tribes ever taste, but abstain from it for the same reason as the Egyptians, neither do they any of them breed swine. Even at Cyrêné, the women think it wrong to eat the flesh of the cow, honouring in this Isis, the Egyptian goddess, whom they worship both with fasts and festivals.3 The Barcæan women abstain, not from cow's flesh only, but also from the flesh of swine. 187. West of Lake Tritônis the Libyans are no longer wanderers, nor do they practise the same customs as the tion of the fertile Oases is very much Herodotus here indicates that he is about to resume the account of the sea-coast tribes, which was broken off at the end of ch. 180. The water in Northern Africa is for the most part so strongly impreg nated with salt that milk forms the only palatable beverage. It is however at the present day a rarity. (See Denham's Travels, vol. i. p. 42.) VOL. III. 3 The Greeks, on settling in Africa, appear to have adopted many customs from their "barbarian" neighbours. As their monarchs took the name of Battus, the native term for " 'king' (supra, ch. 155), so the citizens generally conformed to African manners. The Cyrenean Greeks took the costume of the country. Pacho observes upon the " striking analogy" between the dresses depicted in the tombs and the modern costume of Fezzan (p. 210). The four-horse chariot was used commonly at Cyrene while it was still rare in Greece (infra, ch. 189). The habit of burning the dead was abandoned, and rock tombs were excavated with vast toil (which are often of striking beauty) as receptacles wherein to lay up the bodies of the departed. (See Hamilton's Wanderings, p. 65.) There are no urns, nor places for them, but many miles of necropolis extending all round the city-the monuments and sarcophagi rising in terraces of ten and even twelve rows, one above the other. (Ibid. p. 86. Compare the view of the ruins, supra, p. 133.) It appears from the passage in the text that a portion, at any rate, of the Egyptian ritual was adopted both in Cyrene and Barca, the latter being even more African than the former. See above, ch. 164, note.) 4 West of Lake Tritonis the Libyans are no longer wanderers, as the NasaM 162 HEALTHINESS OF THE LIBYANS. BOOK IV. wandering people, or treat their children in the same way. For the wandering Libyans, many of them at any rate, if not all-concerning which I cannot speak with certainty—when their children come to the age of four years, burn the veins at the top of their heads with a flock from the fleece of a sheep: others burn the veins about the temples. This they do to prevent them from being plagued in their after lives by a flow of rheum from the head; and such they declare is the reason why they are so much more healthy than other men. Cer tainly the Libyans are the healthiest men that I know; but whether this is what makes them so, or not, I cannot positively say-the healthiest certainly they are. If when the children are being burnt convulsions come on, there is a remedy of which they have made discovery. It is to sprinkle goat's water upon the child, who thus treated, is sure to recover. In all this I only repeat what is said by the Libyans. 188. The rites which the wandering Libyans use in sacrificing are the following. They begin with the ear of the victim, which they cut off and throw over their house: this done, they kill the animal by twisting the neck. They sacrifice to the Sun and Moon, but not to any other God. This nes and others between it and Egypt were. These west of the Tri. tenis lived by agriculture (ch. 191). This is stil the case, except upon the Coast. G. WJ Burning with a red-hot iron is still practised in these countries for the cure of diseases. (Lyen, p. 343; Hamilton, p. 99) See also Denham's Travels, who calls this mode of cure "the sovereign Arab remedy for almost every disorder." (Vol. i. p. 173.) Mr. Layard notices its use among the Arabs of Mesopotamia (Nineveh and Babylon, p. 291); and Lieut. Burten among the Egyptians (Pilgrimage to El-Medineh, vol. i. p. 80). A similar notion prevailed in Scythia in ancient times. (Hippocrat. de Aëre, Aquà, et Locis, § 47.) * Vide supra, ii. 77. The Tuaricks have, of all existing tribes, the best right to be regarded as the descendants of Herodotus's Libyans. They are free from the intermixtures which have changed the character of the tribes upon the coast. They speak the Berber, or old African language, (Lyon, p. 111.) They are not a black race, nor have they the negro features. (Humboldt, i. p. 67; Prichard, Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 261.) Lyon says of them, "They are the finest race of men I ever saw: tall, straight and handsome, with a certain air of inde pendence and pride which is very im posing" (p. 109). By the amusing account which he gives (pp. 115, 116) of their application for medicines, it appears that there was but little illness among those with whom he be came acquainted. CHAP. 187-189. FRINGE-APRONS. 163 worship is common to all the Libyans. The inhabitants of the parts about Lake Tritônis worship in addition Triton, Neptune, and Minerva, the last especially. 7 189. The dress wherewith Minerva's statues are adorned, and her Ægis, were derived by the Greeks from the women of Libya. For, except that the garments of the Libyan women are of leather, and their fringes made of leathern thongs" instead of serpents, in all else the dress of both is exactly alike. The name too itself shows that the mode of dressing the Pallas-statues came from Libya. For the Libyan women wear over their dress goat-skins stript of the hair, fringed at their edges, and coloured with vermilion; and from these 7 Vide supra, ii. 50. The inhabitants of Northern Africa, and even the tribes of the desert, wear at the present day chiefly woollen and cotton garments. In the interior, however, that is in Sondan or Nigritia, "the general dress is leather." (Lyon, p. 127.) Among the desert tribes, the Tuaricks not unfrequently wear leathern shirts over the rest of their dress. Lyon gives a representation of this costume (p. 110). Leathern dresses of women, with fringes of thongs, have always been common in Africa; and these last being the origin of the snakes of the Ægis is very probable. The unmarried 1 girls of Ethiopia now only wear an apron of thongs, not unlike that on the nose of a charger. It is called Rahát, and is sometimes ornamented with cowries.-[G. W.] 1 Vermilion is abundant in North Africa. (Pacho, p. 59.) Red shoes are commonly worn at Tripoli. (Lyon, p. 7.) Red shawls and mantles are frequent in the interior. (Ibid. pp. 153-155.) The African nations, too, continue to excel in the dressing and dyeing of leather. The superiority of Morocco leather is universally acknowledged. Even the barbarous tribes of the interior possess the arts; and Lyon tells us that in Kashna "the people are excellent workers in wood and leather, which they prepare equally well as Europeans, dyeing it of very fine colours." (Travels, p. 139.) These colours are elsewhere stated to be chiefly yellow, red, and black (p. 155). Beaufoy (Afric. Assoc. 1790) says that the skins are those of the goat. Rennell (Geograph. of Herod. p. 669) conjectures that the tanning and dyeing of leather was first practised by the Libyans, passing from them into Egypt and the East, while it was likewise carried across the sea directly into Greece. He notices the "rams' skins dyed red," which covered the tabernacle in the wilderness (Exod. xxv. 5, &c.), as possibly the manufac ture of Libyan tribes. They must 164 ORIGIN OF THE ÆGIS. Book IV. goat-skins the Greeks get their word Egis (goat-harness). I think for my part that the loud cries uttered in our sacred rites 2 came also from thence; for the Libyan women are greatly given to such cries and utter them very sweetly. Likewise the Greeks learnt from the Libyans to yoke four horses to a chariot.s have been brought from Egypt, and Egypt has always imported leather from the interior. (Maillet, p. 199; Lyon, p. 158.) 2 These cries, according to the Scholiast on Eschylus (Sept. c. Th. 274), were solely in honour of Minerva (Athené). They were not howling cries, but rather triumphal shouts. Ολολύζειν (= ἀλαλάζειν) is to shout the interjection ax, or ox, an exclamation of joy and triumph. Ελελίζειν (= ululare) is to shout A (Lat. ul), or Aeλeû, a cry of lamentation. Homer speaks of the bλoλvyh as proper to the worship of Athené: Αἱ δ ̓ ὅτε νηὸν ἵκανον ̓Αθήνης ἐν πόλει ἄκρῃ, 3 It is difficult to understand what is intended by this assertion. Herodotus can scarcely mean that the Cyrenæans, having learnt the practice from the Libyans, communicated it to their countrymen; for not only was the four-horse chariot known in Greece half a century before the founding of Cyrene, when it was first introduced into the games at Olympia (Paus. v. 8, § 3), but it was even known to Homer, and according to him, used by CHAP, 189-191. SEPULTURE-THE MAXYANS. 165 190. All the wandering tribes bury their dead according to the fashion of the Greeks, except the Nasamonians. They bury them sitting, and are right careful when the sick man is at the point of giving up the ghost, to make him sit and not let him die lying down. The dwellings of these people are made of the stems of the asphodel, and of rushes wattled together. They can be carried from place to place. Such are the customs of the afore-mentioned tribes. 4 191. Westward of the river Triton and adjoining upon the Auseans, are other Libyans who till the ground, and live in houses: these people are named the Maxyans.7 They let the hair grow long on the right side of their heads, and shave it close on the left; they besmear their bodies with red paint; and they say that they are descended from the men of Troy.9 Their country and the remainder of Libya towards the west is the Greeks in war in the very earliest ages. (II. viii. 185; Od. xiii. 81.) Can Herodotus intend to assert a connection between Greece and Libya Proper in the ante-Homeric times? The fact probably is that the fourhorse chariot first came into use in Egypt (Minutoli, Abhandl. Vermischt. Inhalts. ii. 1, pp. 129-139), and passed thence both into Libya Proper and into Greece. The Cyrenæans, however, may not have begun to employ the four-horse chariots for common use till they settled in Africa, and may have adopted the custom from the Libyans. We may compare with this the enstom of the Guanches, the primitive inhabitants of the Canary Isles, a genuine African people, who buried their dead standing, some with a staff in their hands. (Prichard, Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 267.) [The Shulluks of the White River bury their dead upright. The ancient Britons often buried them in a sitting posture, the hands raised to the neck, and the elbows close to the knees.[G. W.] 5 Hellanicus (Fragm. Hist. Gr. i. p. 57, Fragm. 93), in relating this same feature, mentions that these "houses were merely "to keep off the sun (ὅσον σκιᾶς ἕνεκα), by which they would appear to have been little more than huge parasols. 6 Vide supra, ch. 180. Herodotus here proceeds in his enumeration of the tribes of the coast. 7 This people had been mentioned under the same name by Hecatæus (Fr. 304). It is doubtful whether they are distinct from the Machlyans of ch. 180. Some writers called them Mazyans. (Steph. Byz. ad voc.) The word, especially in this latter form, may be connected with the term Amazigh, which is the name given by the Shuluh, or Berbers of the Northern Atlas, to their dialect of the Berber language. Amazigh means "noble." (Prichard's Nat. Hist. of Man, p. 263.) 8 The Egyptians left a tuft of hair on the forehead of their children, and another sometimes on the back of their heads, as they still do; but the long lock left on the right side of the head was the real emblem of childhood. (Compare Macrob. Saturn. i. 26, and see n. on Book ii. ch. 65.)-[G. W.] 9 The tradition was, that Antenor, on his way to Italy, coasted along the African shore, and planted colonies. (Cf. Pind. Pyth. v. 78, ed. Diss.) |