Under the absolute Amir

The people are very superstitious, and firmly believe in ghosts, spirits, fairies, and devils, and most of their stories are about these good and evil spirits, as they term them, while their belief in them is such that even men are chary of going about alone at night. If a man is met at night walking alone one generally first hears him and then sees him, for he makes a good deal of noise as he walks, and also whistles or sings as he goes along.

When I was stopping at the Mihman khana, I came in late one night, having been for several hours with the Amir, and while walking up to the house from the gate, I noticed one of the syces (grooms) coming from the house towards me, and making a prodigious noise, whistling. He stopped whistling when he saw me, and I wondered why he was so noisy, such being unusual, but when I got to my rooms I found the reason to be a nervous shock he had had. It appeared that one of my Hindustani servants, while in a facetious mood, had blacked his face, or rather made it more black with burnt cork, and whitened his lips and made white circles round his eyes. Then, taking two sheepskin coats, he had reversed them so that the hair was outside, and putting his legs through the sleeves of one and his arms through the sleeves of the other, had fastened both round his waist, and then put on a sheepskin cap with long hair. He dressed up afterwards to show me, and his appearance was not prepossessing. A guard of seven men was stationed in the vestibule outside the door of my rooms, and to these he came on hands and knees until quite close, and then he started bounding towards them with huge roars. Thinking that a real deoo (demon) was on them, every man flung away rifle and sheepskin coat, which is a heavy one, and fled wildly to the guard-room at the outer gate; but one man, who was asleep when the rest fled, woke up with the noise and rose to a sitting position, staring round-eyed at the apparition and booing, until he regained enough consciousness to get up and fly. The demon then went to the small room adjoining the verandah, where the chaeedar’s quarters were (the man who makes the tea). The chaeedar was sitting alone in deep thought, on a small carpet with his back to the window, which was open, but when this apparition came through the door, he rose up and sprang backwards through the window, regardless of possible injury to himself or anything else, save that he left the room immediately. The next people visited were those of the Amir’s servants, who were appointed to look after my comforts, and were always in my sitting-room when on duty, and his appearance at one door was the signal for their wild flight through the other, chairs and tables being upset in the hurry to get out. He then visited the other servants in their quarters with great success, and it was soon after it was over, and all had gathered together again to relate their impressions and experience, that I came in and the tale was told to me. All those who had been frightened looked very sheepish, and each man was trying to prove that he ran because the other one did. However, the infection of fear spread even to the apparition, and for several nights after no one would go out, not even across the garden to their own quarters, unless some one was with them.

Fairies are generally supposed to inhabit the lonely mountains around, and although they are believed to be, on the whole, a good sort, the people are more inclined to give them a wide berth than risk too much by loitering about those places the fairies are supposed to haunt. They are described as twelve to eighteen inches high, very fantastically dressed, and going about in a follow-my-leader manner, dancing and skipping as they go. They are believed to be afraid of men, and to hide themselves from them, and so are only seen by those who are in hiding or sleeping in out-of-the-way places. Of children they are said to have no fear, but it is unwise to let a child stray near their haunts, as it may be put under a spell, or perhaps changed for one of their own children, who is made to take the face and form of the stolen child, and then the changeling will bring all sorts of bad luck upon its foster-parents.

The supernatural being the people dread most, and to whom they put down much that happens which cannot be satisfactorily explained, is the shaitan. Shaitans are demons who take many forms according to the fear or gift of exaggeration of the individual who thinks he has seen one. These beings they imagine may be behind any bush or boulder after sundown, and they also believe them capable of coming into the sleeping-room at night to frighten them into fits by their very ugliness, if nothing worse befalls, so the people sleep with head as well as body covered with blanket or rezai. They never sleep alone in a room, but several together, and many have been astonished when I told them that in my country each person has a separate room, if possible, and that children are put to sleep alone at night. They say it is not that they really fear a shaitan, for God is good, but they are not accustomed to sleeping alone, and, besides, it is unwise to be alone at night should a spirit happen to come in.

One of my servants solemnly assured me one morning that the night before his charpoy (bedstead) was lifted from the floor and swung round the room with him on it until he felt giddy, and at the same time he heard the most strange noises. He, however, admitted, on being questioned, that he kept his eyes firmly shut and saw nothing, and no doubt his head was wrapped close in the bedclothes. However, he wanted another room to sleep in, and refused to occupy that room again, and whether the other servants played him a trick or whether it was a bad attack of indigestion that troubled him I could not discover, but the room he slept in was afterwards used as a store-room by the other servants, and the name it acquired was sufficient to deter the servants who came after him from sleeping in it.

Another time the ceiling-cloth of one of my office-rooms came down during the night. It is a common occurrence, because the earth that falls through between the rafters from the mud roofs brings a gradually increasing weight to bear on the ceiling-cloth, and it sags until the cloth, sooner or later, rips at the edges and comes down. When I went to see the damage done the men with me said that it was assuredly the work of a shaitan, for who else could do it with the windows bolted and the door locked? To argue against logic like this was useless.

Another story told me by an Afghan about shaitans was that one evening after visiting some friends, he had some distance to walk before getting home, and the road lay through a burial-ground (burial-grounds have no walls round them as in England). It was late when he got among the graves, and the thought of walking alone there made his flesh creep, but he kept on until he was nearly through, and then he saw little flames rise from the ground in front of him and flicker about. This terrified him, and he put on an extra spurt to get clear of the graves, when the figure of a man appeared in front. The sight of another man calmed him until, on coming closer to the figure, he saw that a shawl was wrapped round the head (shawls are commonly worn so at night when the air is chill), and the eyes in the face shone like two stars, while the nearer he got to the figure the taller it grew, until it loomed high above him, and then he turned and ran back. But the house he had left was much further away from where he then was than his own home, so after running for a time he determined to face the graveyard again. But the same thing happened, only now, being in a frenzy to get out of it all, he made a dash to get past the figure, and, while doing so, he lost consciousness, and did not recover it until the early morning, when he found himself lying on the road, but just clear of the graves, and to that he attributed his salvation.

Another Afghan told me that he was sleeping one night in the serai at Gundamak, when he awoke without knowing the reason of his waking, and sat up. Then one wall of the room he was in disappeared, and there on the ground beyond he saw a regiment of Gorawallahs (English soldiers) march past, but without making any noise, and their faces were white in the moonlight, and wore an awful look. This man, too, lost consciousness until the morning, or rather, he said he did.

The people have a curious legend about sponges. They say the English people take very large earthen jars, and set them on the highest peaks of the mountains, and conceal the pots by piling stones round them, so that only the mouth shows. They then hide themselves in the crevices of the rocks, and wait until the clouds settle on the mountain-top, and come slowly down to the jars. Then, when a small cloud is seen to enter the jar, one of the men comes cautiously from his hiding-place, and quickly puts the lid on, and fastens it there. The jar is allowed to remain closed for about three days, by which time the cloud is dead, after which the vessel is broken and the dead cloud is cut into pieces, and taken out and sold as sponge. The Persian name for “sponge” is the same as for “cloud,” and perhaps this accounts for the legend.

Astrologers do a good business among the people, and their forecasts as to the lucky days on which to commence a journey or some new work are implicitly believed. The Amir and the members of the royal family have their own astrologers, who are consulted as to the auspicious day on which to commence any matter of importance, besides being asked to read what the future contains, but their verdicts, or such of them that I have heard, are ambiguous, and capable of being read in more than one way—a very necessary art for those who read the riddle of the future for the Amir. The astrologers have also to interpret dreams, for dreams are looked upon as signs given to warn or guide people, and it was due to a dream that the present Amir divorced all his wives but the four allowed by the Koran. It is not all people who consider themselves capable of predicting the future who are treated with honour and amass wealth, as witness the case of three men from a distant part of the country, who were brought before the Amir for predicting that a great calamity was to visit the country on a certain date, some few months ahead, and who expected much from their voicing of the prophecy. The Amir’s mood, which is always an uncertain quality, at the time the men were brought before him, was not inclined towards signs of evil portent, and he gave an order that the prophets be kept in prison until the date fixed by them for the happening of the calamity, and then, he said, they shall be rewarded if their words are shown to be true, but in the other event, death. The prophecy was not fulfilled, but the Amir’s sentence was.

The astrologers cast horoscopes, and tell fortunes with cards, and use other implements of the black art, for forecasting future events, and very rapidly make name and fortune, when once one of their prognostications is fulfilled, for then all their utterances are treated as truth itself, and should at any time any of their further prognostications prove contrary to actual happenings, the people do not blame the fortune-teller, but themselves instead, for the predictions being always more or less ambiguous, the people consider it their own misconstruction of his words which prevented them knowing what was about to happen. This sort of sophistry does not pertain to the credulous among Afghans alone.

The superstitious and religious beliefs mingle, as they do in other countries, and should any one praise a child for any attribute of mind or body at once, “nam i Khuda” (God’s name) must be said to avert the evil which open praise will beget. The evil eye is also supposed to be possessed by some persons, and God’s name must be spoken to avert its calamitous effect. Curiously enough, those credited with the evil eye are not blamed for its possession, but are said to be unlucky. In like manner, those who are skilful in curing and healing the sick and maimed, are said to have a lucky hand.

They have one custom which will commend itself to many, and that is, to collect the children on the roofs of the different houses, and there sing prayers in unison, for the averting of cholera, earthquakes, or other calamity, because the children, being more innocent than their elders, their prayers are supposed to be more readily listened to. The roofs of the houses are all close together, and it is pleasant to see the groups of children standing in lines on the different roofs, and listen to them singing the prayers with their clear young voices, and when the calamity to be averted is cholera, one rather hopes their prayers may be listened to, for cholera makes a several months’ stay when it visits Kabul, and is a trying time for all concerned.

The food of the majority of the people in Kabul is of a simple description, consisting, as it does, of dry bread, which is made into cakes, oval in shape, and about twelve inches long, by half an inch thick. Those who can afford it, take curds and cheese with the bread, and sometimes meat and vegetables made into a stew. The Chinese green tea is almost always taken with food and it is a very poor man who will not expend three pice (a halfpenny) on a pot of tea, even if cheese must be omitted from the bill of fare to afford it. In the summer-time fruit is plentiful and cheap; vegetables too, and lettuce is grown in large quantities. Two pice (little more than a farthing) will procure enough fruit to make a good meal for a man, and in the season most of the people met with on the streets are to be seen eating fruit, lettuce, or rhubarb, which latter grows wild in the mountains.

Very poor people live mostly on mulberries, which they also dry for winter consumption. Many of the Hazaras, who are a saving people, live on nothing else during the summer months, and cases of broken limbs through falling from the trees while gathering mulberries, are common. A diet of mulberries induces fever, particularly in those persons not accustomed to them, and the fever is of a serious nature, and many die of it.

The Koochee people, a sort of gipsy race who have no fixed home, but constantly travel about the country with their cattle and camels, and do a trade carrying goods and merchandise from place to place, and who are a most hardy race, live on corn bread, sheep and goat milk, cheese, and grass, eating the latter uncooked. Spinach, which grows wild, is also largely eaten by them, as well as by the other people of the country.

The food of the Afghans of the villages is principally soup and bread with curds, sour milk, butter-milk, and fruit. Butter-milk is a particular favourite with them, and an Afghan can drink a very fair quantity of it at a sitting.

If a camel, cow, or other esculent animal is sick, and it is certain that it is dying, the throat is cut, and the customary prayer said to make it halal (lawful eating), and the meat is then sold or eaten by the owners. I once saw a dying camel, that looked all skin and bone, being goaded along the bank of the river to the city that he might be killed close to the market for the better disposal of the meat, and it seemed as though the poor animal might topple over and die at any moment and cheat his master. There is little compassion in the bowels of an Afghan.

The better classes and well-to-do people eat of many savoury dishes, of which the principal are pilau and kabob; the latter being meat well peppered and salted, and roasted on a skewer over a fire (a roast leg of mutton is also a kabob). The pilau are of different sorts, and are composed of rice, spices, and meat; the rice and meat being stewed separately and mixed together on a dish. Preserves, pickles, sweetmeats, fruit, bread, are also eaten, and the ever present tea is taken to wind the meal up with, and with the tea the chillum is handed round, that tobacco may put the crowning touch on all. Large quantities of tea are consumed daily by the Kabulis, who drink it as often as they can afford it.

Women smoke the chillum as well as men. It is shaped like the hookah, but has a straight stem instead of a flexible one. The tobacco is of country growth, and is very rank smelling, more resembling a burning oil rag than anything else.

The Afghans call any large, fat man a strong one, and as fatness is considered a sign of both health and prosperity, all people who can afford to do so, eat until gorged, and in consequence many of them, both men and women, are grossly fat. The late Amir’s chief physician was so fat he could not walk, and had to be carried. Another man was so fat that he could do nothing for himself, and had to be washed and dressed by his slave girls, much as a baby is. Of this man I was told that he once noticed a very objectionable smell about his body, and in spite of all that was done to better it, the smell at last got so bad that he told the slave girls to carry him to the hamam and bath him, and while washing him, as ordered, the girls discovered the cause of the nuisance to be a dead frog hidden in one of the folds of fat. It had no doubt got in when the man was having his last tub, and been crushed to death.

Snuff-taking is also commonly indulged in by the better-class people. The poorer people, however, use the native tobacco, roughly crushed, and put it in their mouths, and there are some who can afford the snuff brought up from India who do the same in preference to sniffing it up the nose.

It is only in the large houses that there are fire-places, but there are few people who are wealthy enough to afford the cost of the large quantity of wood required during the winter months in order to keep the rooms warm enough to sit in, for the doors and windows of all houses are so badly fitted that the draughts of wind make the rooms unbearably cold even with a large fire going, and one has to sit in furs to be comfortable. So, to reduce the cost of fuel to a minimum and yet keep themselves warm day and night, the people have the “sandalee.” This is formed of a square wooden stool placed in the centre of the room and under the stool a small perforated iron box standing on legs, in which charcoal is burnt, and over all is spread a large rezai or quilt which covers the stool and fire-box, and extends on all sides over most of the floor of the room. The stool is used in order to keep the rezai away from the fire-box. Charcoal is lighted in the iron box, and when it is burning brightly the box is placed under the centre stool, whence the heat from the fire spreads under the whole of the rezai and keeps it very warm, and under such a cover the charcoal burns very slowly and the fire lasts for hours. Thin mattresses and pillows placed under the outer portion of the rezai are used to sleep on, or sit on in the daytime. Under this the whole of the family, father, mother, sons and their wives, daughters, children, aunts, and other relations, sleep at night, all being kept warm on the coldest night at the cost of a few pice for charcoal. The drawback is that at times with a newly lighted fire, the charcoal fumes are excessive, and produce nausea and headache, and sometimes suffocation, and also when a person is in the habit of using it during the day while having occasionally to go out into the frosty air, he often gets rheumatism, or other complaint. Another drawback is the moral effect on a whole family of men and women sleeping together in a small space under the rezai, and many call the sandalee “the devil’s playground.” In the guardrooms the soldiers use these sandalees too, the men sitting with their legs tucked under the rezai, while they have sheepskin coats covering the head and body, and in this way they can defy the bitterest wind. It is the one standing outside on guard who gets frozen to death at times.

In Kabul and the principal cities time is kept by means of a sundial, but though there are tables printed in Persian of the daily difference between solar and mean time, the time given by them is only approximate, for the dials have been constructed for other latitudes, and they are fixed in the direction of the magnetic north instead of the true one. One day, after ascertaining the true time, I informed the Amir that the midday gun was twenty minutes fast; but he said it was better so, for then they would not be late for midday prayers. Daily at midday a gun is fired to announce the time to the people, and those who have clocks and watches set them accordingly. Comparatively few, however, of the people are able to tell the time from a clock, and many have the most hazy idea of the length of time expressed by an hour or half an hour. This ignorance extends also to numbers, the people generally being able to count up to twenty, and any number above that is expressed as so many “taman” (score) together with the odd figure to make up the number. Some of the people do not even know the days of the week, and have to be told that a certain day is so many days after the present one.

Courtship and marriage in Afghanistan differ in many respects from those interesting episodes in European countries, but in no respect more than in the man not seeing the girl until they are married, and she is his wife. Men in Afghanistan are not prone to talk about their wives, or the women of their family, and to ask after a man’s wife is akin to an insult, as evincing some degree of familiarity with her. Under these circumstances a man’s feelings while he is waiting to see what sort of girl he has married are not ascertainable by direct question, but one would suppose that there must be an anxiety bordering on the intense to know what manner of woman it is that must hereafter be called “wife,” for the women vary in face and form as much as the men, and the “pig in the poke” may be as beautiful as a houri, or as ugly as sin, if not uglier in the opinion of some sinners.

Excepting in the case of boy and girl betrothals among people of high rank, which are arranged by the heads of the families, or when a young man’s relations arrange which woman he shall marry, it is usual for a man when he desires another wife to make known his wishes to his friends and his intention soon becomes public property. He then receives overtures from men with marriageable daughters, and the discussions with one and another are no light matter, for the prospective father-in-law expects money or kind in exchange for his daughter, and the beauty and qualities of the said daughter being an unknown quantity, the man is not inclined to be either liberal or rash. However, when the proceedings have at length assumed so much headway that the man is satisfied with the standing of the family the girl belongs to, and the family’s future prospects, and considers that the father of the girl has reduced his demands to the lowest fraction, he then sends his female relatives to inspect the cause of the trouble, and on their verdict, other things being satisfactory, concludes the bargain. When all the bargaining is over the ceremony of betrothal takes place, followed sooner or later by the marriage ceremony.

The marriage ceremony depends for splendour and feasting upon the wealth and standing of the families of the contracting parties. With members of the royal family and people of high rank, it means a three days’ tamasha, with the feasting of a great number of relatives and friends, and expenditure of further money in dancing-girls, bands, and other things. Although the expenditure varies according to the wealth of the persons concerned, in all cases the greatest splendour consistent with the rank of the contracting parties is aimed at, even if money must be borrowed to give a good show off, and in this they do not differ much from people nearer London. When the marriage ceremony is completed, the bride is carried in a sort of sedan chair to the bridegroom’s house, and the bridegroom, together with many of his relations and friends riding on horseback, accompany her, carrying guns, which they fire as they go along, while in front of them goes a drum and fife band with men dancing and pirouetting in front of it. The shooting of guns is a relic of older times when a man with the aid of his friends had to obtain his bride by force of arms or some stratagem, and then carry her away in front of his saddle while her relatives pursued them.

The weddings of the poor people have no display such as this, and the bride and bridegroom have perforce to walk before and after the ceremony, for they cannot afford a moullah, or priest, to come to the house, and so have to go to his place to be married. They may be seen in the street, the bridegroom walking first and the bride after him (no woman must walk in front of or even abreast a man); and after her is a girl friend or relative, carrying her clothes in a bundle on her head. In front of them walks a man with a tom-tom (native drum), and another with a tin whistle, both doing their best to enliven the proceedings by making the most noise possible with the instruments at their disposal, and so they wend their way to the bridegroom’s poor house.

I was told in Kabul that there is an old Afghan marriage custom among some of the tribes which differs from the above. With them, a man who wishes to marry a girl is allowed to live for some time in her father’s house, using the girl as his wife, and when after a reasonable time has elapsed, there is evidence that the girl is going to become a mother, he marries her. Should this not happen, the man is at liberty to marry her, or depart, and elsewhere seek a wife who is capable of continuing his family. The wish for a son is very strong among the Afghans, and whereas the birth of a boy is accompanied with great rejoicing, the birth of a girl passes unnoticed, the father showing his displeasure to the extent of, at times, refusing to see the mother until his anger has cooled with the passing of time.

The treatment of the body of a dead person before burial is much the same as among Europeans, except that the body is buried the day death occurs, and should a person die at night, the body is buried the next morning. When a man dies, the moullahs (priests) are sent for, and they wash the body (this is usually done at the side of the nearest stream), lay it out, and wrap it in the burial-sheet ready for interment. The burial-sheet is called “kafn,” which is a word similar to our “coffin.” No coffin is used. After preparing the body for burial, the moullahs say the prayers for the dead over it, in which they are joined by all the relatives and others present, the relations are sent for as soon as it is seen that a person is dying, and then the body is placed on a charpoy (wooden bedstead) and carried to the nearest musjid on the road to the graveyard, where the prayers for the dead are again said, after which the body is carried on to the burial-ground. Here the grave has been prepared beforehand, dug down some three feet, but recessed on one side at the bottom to receive the corpse, and as the earth must not fall on the body when filling the grave up, slabs of stone are placed against the recess. The body is laid on its side in the recess, with the face looking in the direction of Mecca, so that it may more easily see the beginning of the resurrection on the last day, and the grave is then filled up. According to Mussulmans, the resurrection on the last day begins at Mecca. A slab of stone about three feet by one foot, is placed at the head of the grave, but the stone is rough and uncut, and any stone which is lying about is used, provided the shape is suitable. In the case of very important personages, a properly cut stone, setting forth the name of the person buried there, is placed at the head of the grave, and this used to be commonly done to mark the resting-places of other people, but the stones were taken by the late Amir for buildings, as they were of a good quality, and nice white colour, and so the practice fell into disuse.

After the burial, the relatives and friends gather in the house of the deceased person, and here they are entertained by the family, tea and food being provided for all who call to offer condolences, and to say the “fateah” or prayers for the dead, which it is customary to say on coming into the house. The expenses for these entertainments, and also those connected with marriages were so great, and brought so many into poverty, on account of all trying to do as well as, or better than their neighbours, whether they could afford it or not, that the present Amir made it a law that all such entertainments should cease, and instead of being in a way public affairs, should be made private, and guests include relatives only.

It sometimes happens that a person dies so poor that there is not enough money even to buy the “kafn” (burial-sheet), which is only a shilling or so, and his relatives have to go through the bazars begging for one, or money to buy one. This happens now more often than it used to, for the people are yearly getting poorer.