buried its head, and sent for permission to visit one of their number who had been imprisoned by the Hajj for the murder of his son Mas'ud. The place was at once thrown into confusion, the gates were locked, and the walls manned with Arab matchlock men: my three followers armed themselves, and I was summoned to the fray. Some declared that the Badawin were "doing[1]" the town; other that they were the van of a giant host coming to ravish, sack, and slay: it turned out that these Badawin had preceded their comrades, who were bringing in, as the price of blood,[2] an Abyssinian slave, seven camels, seven cows, a white mule, and a small black mare. The prisoner was visited by his brother, who volunteered to share his confinement, and the meeting was described as most pathetic: partly from mental organization and partly from the peculiarities of
- ↑ The Somali word "Fǎl" properly means "to do"; "to bewitch," is its secondary sense.
- ↑ The price of blood in the Somali country is the highest sanctioned by Al-Islam. It must be remembered that amongst the pagan Arabs, the Koraysh "diyat," was twenty she-camels. Abd al-Muttalib, grandfather of Mohammed, sacrificed 100 animals to ransom the life of his son, forfeited by a rash vow, and from that time the greater became the legal number. The Somal usually demand 100 she-camels, or 300 sheep and a few cows; here, as in Arabia, the sum is made up by all the near relations of the slayer; 30 of the animals may be aged, and 30 under age, but the rest must be sound and good. Many tribes take less—from strangers 100 sheep, a cow, and a camel; but after the equivalent is paid, the murderer or one of his clan, contrary to the spirit of Al-Islam, is generally killed by the kindred or tribe of the slain. When blood is shed in the same tribe, the full reparation, if accepted by the relatives, is always exacted; this serves the purpose of preventing fratricidal strife, for in such a nation of murderers, only the Diyat prevents the taking of life.
Blood money, however is seldom accepted unless the murdered man has been slain with a lawful weapon. Those who kill with the Dankalah, a poisonous juice rubbed upon meat, are always put to death by the members of their own tribe.
