VILLAGE LIFE IN THE HOLY LAND 



291 



entire family, moves out of the village 

 into the vineyard. 



The grape season is looked forward to 

 as the best part of the year, and at this 

 time the natives live for the most part on 

 fruits and bread. Jokingly, the fellaheen 

 say that they get so fat from eating 

 grapes that their fezzes burst. 



BEATING THE OLIVE TREES 



A saying among the peasants likens the 

 vine to a city woman, for it cannot stand 

 being neglected for a single year ; the fig 

 tree to a Bedouin woman, for it can with- 

 stand about five years of neglect, and the 

 olive tree to a fellaha woman, for it is 

 still found alive after 60 years of neglect. 



This simile is given to illustrate how 

 hardy the olive tree is as compared with 

 the fig and the vine. To an Occidental, 

 familiar with the almost indestructible 

 qualities of the olive, it also serves as an 

 example of the hardiness of the women 

 of this sturdy mountain race. 



The olives are harvested in the fall, but 

 by a method so injurious to the trees that 

 they yield a full crop but once in two 

 years. Instead of picking them by hand, 

 for time is not money with these easy- 

 going people, they beat the trees with 

 sticks to knock off the fruit, which at the 

 same time results in destroying the ten- 

 der shoots which should bear the next 

 year's fruit. 



When questioned, they admit the folly 

 of this beating, but add that their fathers 

 did so and why should they change. Evi- 

 dently they are copying not only their 

 fathers, but the Israelites before them, 

 for we read in the Mosaic writings, 

 "When thou beatest thine olive tree, thou 

 shalt not go over the boughs again : it 

 shall be for the stranger, for the father- 

 less, and for the widow." * 



The olives when salted or pickled in 

 brine are valued food, for a peasant can 

 make a meal of only bread and olives, 

 with perhaps the addition of a raw onion. 

 The oil is a food staple, taking the place 

 of meat. It is also, to a limited extent, 

 burned in small clay lamps, identical in 

 shape with those found in Canaanitish 

 tombs, many of which were buried here 

 before the Israelites possessed this land. 



* Deut. 24 : 20. 



CARE OE THE POOR 



A characteristic of these poor peasants 

 is their hospitality and their kindness to 

 the destitute. 



One can any day see a party of women 

 coming to town with their baskets for 

 the market, and as they pass the beggars 

 sitting by the roadside, they drop them a 

 bit of bread or a little of the produce 

 brought in for sale, and frequently the 

 donor will be seemingly as poor as the 

 receiver. 



One of the prettiest, perhaps, of all 

 Arabic words is the one for bread, 

 namely, dish, meaning life, for with them 

 it is veritably the "staff of life." Bread 

 is looked upon as almost sacred, and they 

 will never allow a crumb to fall where it 

 will be trodden upon, and if a fragment 

 is found dropped, perhaps by some child, 

 on the ground it is lifted and kissed and 

 laid up on a wall or put into a crack 

 where some animal or fowl may find it. 



The village home has near it a small 

 hut containing the oven, called the taboon. 

 It is a dome some 3 to 4 feet in diameter, 

 made by the women, of clay, with an 

 opening in the top and is provided with a 

 cover of the same material. It stands 

 on the ground, slightly raised by stones 

 beneath its rim. In the bottom is a thick 

 layer of loose pebbles. It is heated by 

 banking up around the outside a quan- 

 tity of hot ashes. 



After the day's baking the woman adds 

 as fuel some dried manure or stubble (see 

 page 277), which ignites from the hot 

 ashes and keeps smouldering, and so heats 

 the oven for the next day's baking. Bread 

 is made from soft and elastic dough. The 

 woman brings a bowl of it to the taboon, 

 makes a rather thin loaf by throwing a 

 piece of the dough from hand to hand, 

 and then flops it on to the pebbles at the 

 bottom of the oven. 



About six of these loaves fill the oven, 

 and when baked they are full of the 

 indentations made by the small stones. 

 When well made and eaten warm, this 

 bread is very good. 



"the mother oe ate turteEs" 



A story is told of a woman who re- 

 fused to allow her neighbor to bake some 

 dough in her taboon. The neighbor then 



