Peasant life in the Holy Land . f the country differ very consider-ably, though the greater facilities for travel of lateyears will tend to approximate the different dialectsto each other more and more. Education, too,which, as will be seen further on, is making rapidadvances, is having the same effect. Local distinctions, words, customs, etc., areoften strongly marked. It is not easy to say howthey have arisen, but one possible explanation is,that the inhabitants of the various groups of villageswhere such customs, etc., obtain are descendantsfrom different ancient tribes. The variations in f
Peasant life in the Holy Land . f the country differ very consider-ably, though the greater facilities for travel of lateyears will tend to approximate the different dialectsto each other more and more. Education, too,which, as will be seen further on, is making rapidadvances, is having the same effect. Local distinctions, words, customs, etc., areoften strongly marked. It is not easy to say howthey have arisen, but one possible explanation is,that the inhabitants of the various groups of villageswhere such customs, etc., obtain are descendantsfrom different ancient tribes. The variations in feature which can be noticedin different districts, and which are often sufficientlymarked to enable a person conversant with thecountry to tell fairly accurately from whence astranger hails, would seem to point in the samedirection. The small area in which peculiar customs occur,and the comparative isolation of these areas whichstill prevails, make it often extremely difficult toascertain local customs and usages. Many of these. LOCAL CHARACTERISTICS 7 can only be discovered accidentally or by longresidence in the particular locality. The people ofneighbouring Adllages may be quite unaware of theexistence of a certain custom, wlnle only a fewmiles away it may be very familiar. 1 have known intelligent, educated natives to beentirely ignorant of certain customs, and even todeny their existence, because they were not invogue in their own particular district, whereasfurther inquiry or fuller acquaintance wath otherparts revealed the fact that they were perfectlyfamiliar to others. That being so, the fact that such-and-such acustom, or rule, or community, is unknown in thecountry generally is no proof whatever that itdoes not exist at all, as it may be confined to asmall out-of-the-way group of villages, or to onlyone or two places. For instance, probably not oneEuropean resident in Palestine out of a hundred hasever even heard of the Baraghafeh (Chapter IIL).It was many years befo
Size: 1307px × 1911px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidpeasantlifei, bookyear1906
