Edward William Lane, An Unprejudiced Man
I'm
expecting an exciting contribution to the blog from Sandra, our "distance"
cataloguer, but meantime, here is a note for you on what's currently
cataloguing at RGSSA:
Lane, Edward
William, 1801-1876.
An account of the manners and customs
of the modern Egyptians: written in Egypt during the years 1833-1835.
The library holds 2 19th-century
editions.
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| "Fellaheen" |
We come
across all sorts of hidden gems as Sandra, David B. and I work our way (slowly
and painfully!) through the uncatalogued book collection, and it seems a pity
not to share some of them with you, So here goes.
 |
| "Interior of a Mosque" |
Edward
William Lane was one of Britain's greatest Arabic scholars of the 19th century.
One of his accomplishments was a translation of the Thousand and One Nights (the "Arabian Nights.") If he was
working today, we might consider him to be not just a linguist but a social
anthropologist. He was also an artist, having worked as a young man under his
older brother, Richard, a London lithographer.
His
first trip to Egypt in 1825-1828 resulted in a written work and a portfolio of
drawings about contemporary Egyptian society, which he failed to get published.
However, he went back to Egypt in 1833-1835 in order to flesh out the work. His
approach was to immerse himself in the local lifestyle, wearing the native
costumes and speaking Arabic.
 |
| "Washing Before or After a Meal" |
His
illustrated account is "a perfect picture of what Lane saw in Egypt in
1833-5. Even twenty-five years later, the people and their habits had in many
ways altered more than in several preceding centuries. We can never reconstruct
Egypt as Lane saw it, except by reading Lane's description." (Biographical
notice, 1890 ed.)
 |
| "A Tattooed Girl" |
All
aspects of the Egyptians' daily life, manners, habits, customs, and costume are
described in meticulous detail. Here is his description of the ancient (and
apparently already vanishing) custom of perfuming the departing guest:
In the houses of the rich, it used to
be a common custom to sprinkle the guest, before he rose to take his leave, with
rose-water or orange-flower-water; and to perfume him with the smoke of some
odoriferous substance; but of late years this practice has become unfrequent.
The scent-bottle, which is called "kumkum," is of plain or gilt
silver, or fine brass, or china, or glass; and has a cover pierced with a small
hole. The perfuming-vessel, or "mibkhar'ah," is generally of one or
the other of the metals above mentioned: the receptacle for the burning
charcoal is lined, or half filled, with gypsum-plaster; and its cover is
pierced with apertures for the emission of the smoke.
The mibkhar'ah is used last: it is
presented by a servant to the visitor or master, who wafts the smoke towards
his face, beard, etc., with his right hand. Sometimes it is opened, to emit the
smoke more freely. The substance most commonly used in the mibkhar'ah is
aloes-wood, or benzoin, or cascarilla-bark. The wood is moistened before it is
placed upon the burning coals. Ambergris is also used for the same purpose; but
very rarely, and only in the houses of persons of great wealth, as it is
extremely costly. As soon as the visitor has been perfumed, he takes his leave;
but he should not depart without previously asking permission to do so, and
then giving the selám, which is returned to him, and paying other set
compliments, to which there are appropriate replies. If he be a person of much
higher rank than the master of the house, the latter not only rises, but also
accompanies him to the top of the stairs, or to the door of the room, and then
commends him to the care of God.
An Ood? What is an Ood? Or is it an Oud?
You may
know this, if you're into "world music" (foul expression) or happen to
own a painting of an "Oud with Gourds." If you don't, William Lane
can certainly enlighten you. It's one of the musical instruments of the Arab
world that he describes in great detail and illustrates in the picture below.
We'd spell it "oud" today. Look up Google Images if you want 5
million photographs of ouds in glorious or in some cases smudgy digital colour.
The "ood" is a lute, which is
played with a plectrum. This has been for many centuries the instrument most
commonly used by the best Arab musicians, and is celebrated by numerous poets.
Its name (the original signification of which is "wood"), with the
article el prefixed to it, is the source whence are derived the terms liuto in
Italian, luth in French, lute in English, etc. The length of the ood, as
represented in the middle of the accompanying engraving, measuring from the
button, or angle of the neck, is twenty-five inches and a half. The body of it
is composed of fine deal, with edges, etc., of ebony: the neck of ebony, faced
with box and an ebony edge. On the face of the body of the instrument, in which
are one large and two small shemsehs of ebony, is glued a piece of fishes'
skin, under that part of the chords to which the plectrum is applied, to
prevent the wood from being worn away by the plectrum.
The instrument has seven double
strings; two to each note. They are of lamb's gut. The order of these double
chords is singular: the double chord of the lowest note is that which
corresponds to the chord of the highest note in our violins, etc.: next in the
scale above this is the fifth (that is, counting the former as the first): then
the seventh, second, fourth, sixth, and third. The plectrum is a slip of a
vulture's feather.
"A damsel with a
dulcimer, in a vision once I saw..."
I
always imagined the dulcimer in the poem to be rather like an oud (well, okay,
rather like a lute), but according to Lane it's very like a "kánoon"
and in his picture that looks like a zither, to me:
So what
does he say about it? I'll spare you the enormous detail, but yes, this sounds
like a zither: "The 'kánoon' is a kind of
dulcimer. ... The kánoon is sometimes made entirely of walnut-wood, with the
exception of some ornamental parts. ... In the central part of the face of
instrument is a circular piece of wood ... pierced with holes ... The
instrument is played with two plectra; one plectrum attached to the fore-finger
of each hand ... [and] placed on the knees of the performer." Yeah,
okay: zither-like. The ancient zither that we had at home when I was little,
passed on by some family friend who didn't want it, was nothing short of
cacophonous when twanged by us ignoramuses, but I'm glad to know that Lane felt
quite differently: "Under the hands of a
skilful player, the kánoon pleases me more than any other Egyptian instrument
without an accompaniment". Goodoh!
Many
points that Lane describes would have been considered odd or even grotesque by
his English contemporaries, but Lane, although sometimes pointing out these
features as unusual, is completely unprejudiced, as his biographer recognised,
writing that the book "bears the stamp of a character singularly open to
the realisation of the genius of a different race from his own".
(Biographical notice, 1890 ed.)
Here,
in his observations on the wearing of nose rings, we see the typical Lane: not
shutting his eyes to the fact that his European contemporaries may judge the
phenomenon as grotesque, but nonetheless describing it in a merely factual way:
The "khizám," or nose-ring,
commonly called "khuzám," is worn by a few of the women of the lower
orders in Cairo, and by many of those in the country towns and villages both of
Upper and Lower Egypt. It is most commonly made of brass; is from an inch to an
inch and a half in diameter; and has usually three or more coloured glass
beads, generally red and blue, attached to it. It is almost always passed
through the right ala of the nose; and hangs partly before the mouth; so that
the wearer is obliged to hold it up with one hand when she puts anything into
her mouth. It is sometimes of gold. This ornament is as ancient as the time of
the patriarch Abraham;[1] and is mentioned by Isaiah[2] and by Ezekiel.[3] To
those who are unaccustomed to the sight of it, the nose-ring is certainly the
reverse of an ornament.
1 See Genesis xxiv.
47, where in our common version, "ear-ring" is improperly put for "nose-ring."
2 Chap. iii. ver. 21.
3 Chap. xvi. ver. 12.
Here, again, a mistake is made in our common version, but corrected in the
margin.
Don't
panic, the text is not spattered with footnotes! He includes them rarely, when
he deems them necessary, but the work is itself a primary source. The
illustrations, based on his own drawings, are also invaluable witnesses to the
lifestyle of the people of Egypt (largely Muslim Arabs, but also Copts and
Jews) in the first third of the 19th century.
Studies
of ancient Egypt were already in favour and as the century progressed more and
more European travellers visited Egypt's great tourist attractions, but Lane
takes quite a different approach, seeing the people of modern Egypt in their
own right, not merely as periphery to a tour of the ancient sites.
--
This post was researched and created by Kathy Boyes
