Works and Customs in Palestine Volume III E-Book

Gustaf Dalman

• Herausgeber: Al Nasher Technical Services
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Anthropology
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 665

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Volume III, continues where Volume II left off, with the harvest up to the milling and storing of the flour. It starts with the harvest weather, the human work force, the various harvest tools, continues with the work on the threshing floor, the threshing tools, the production of flour and groats together with the tools used, as well as the different kinds of storage equipment.

Leseprobe

G. Dalman . Work and Customs in Palestine

III

Gustaf Dalman

Work and Customs in Palestine

Volume III

From Harvest to Flour

Harvesting, Threshing, Winnowing, Sifting, Storing, Grinding

Translated from the German

by

Robert Schick

Revised and edited by

Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian

Al Nasher 2023

Originally published by C. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh, 1933

Re-published by Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, Zürich, New York, 1987

English translation based on the 1987 Georg Olms Verlag edition

Translation copyright © Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian 2023

This Dalman translation project is supported by the

Ghiath and Nadia Sukhtian Foundation

ISBN: 978-9950-385-98-6

Published by Dar Al Nasher

Tel.[phone]

[email protected]

www.enasher.com

Preface to the English Edition of Volume III

of

Works and Customs in Palestine

Volume I; Part 1, Autumn and Winter, and Part 2, Spring and Summer, dealt with agriculture in general, because the seasons of Palestine could not be described without describing the various farming tasks connected to them, and the religious customs associated with them.

Volumes II, III and IV, on the other hand, deal with agriculture in the narrow sense of the word, describing its purely technological and organizational aspects and everything that is connected with it.

Together these three volumes are agricultural handbooks of Palestine, past and present.

Volume II follows daily agricultural work step by step, from the preparation of the field to the green cut preceding the harvest, with descriptions of the geological evolution of the Palestinian agricultural land, its different kinds of soil, various methods of artificial irrigation, methods of land division, measurement and demarcation and much more. Volume II also includes a comprehensive list and description of all field and garden plants, of when and how they are planted, as well as their culinary and medicinal uses and cooking methods.

Volume III, presented here, continues where Volume II left off, with the harvest up to the milling and storing of the flour. It starts with the harvest weather, the human work force, the various harvest tools, continues with the work on the threshing floor, the threshing tools, the production of flour and groats together with the tools used, as well as the different kinds of storage equipment.

The following volume, Volume IV, which will soon be ready for publication, deals with the production of bread, oil, and wine, as well as with fruit cultivation, bringing to an end the series dealing with the cultivation of the soil of Palestine and its conditions.

The same team that worked on Volumes I and II, continued to work on this volume.

As with the preceding volumes, the photographs for Volume III were provided by the Gustaf Dalman Institute at the University of Greifswald, in the form of high-resolution scans of Dalman’s collection of over 10 000 photographs of Palestine, which can be viewed at http://wissenschaftliche-sammlungen.uni-greifswald.de/objektsuche selecting “Collection” and then “Gustaf-Dalman-Sammlung”.

Amman, July 2023

Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtian

Preface to the English Edition of Volume III

of

Works and Customs in Palestine

Notes on the Translation and Transliterations

by Robert Schick

The same team that worked on Volumes I and II continued to work on Volume III. I prepared the draft translation, which Nadia revised, Isabelle Ruben edited the translation for English style, helped with proofreading and did the layout. Ana Silkatcheva and I prepared the indices and the internal page references and helped with proofreading.

In early 2020, when preparation of the draft translation of Dalman 3 was well underway, I discovered the deepL translation program. The translation that deepL offered was consistently more accurate and in better style than what I had come up with on my own, so I discarded my draft translation and started over using deepL, with a superior end result than is the case for Dalman I and II. Using deepL also lessened the amount of revising that needed to be done.

The general format of Volume III closely follows that of Volumes I and II. While the indices of Hebrew and Aramaic words, Arabic words, and Bible passages reproduce the original ones, we chose to completely redo the Subject Index. The scientific Latin names for plant and animal species cited in the text have been included in the Subject Index. As in Volumes I and II, an index of place names, which the original German edition does not have, has also been added.

The technical vocabulary that Dalman used sometimes proves a tough nut to crack. I want to thank Annette Hansen at Groningen University for her helping me to understand numerous cases of Arabic and German technical words, most notably by disentangling the Arabic and German words for straw and chaff on pages 158‒161.

The English translations of Arabic sayings and verses of poetry follow Dalman’s German translations; translations more exactly matching the Arabic versions are occasionally noted in a translator’s footnote. A few other explanatory footnotes have been added as translator’s footnotes.

At the end of Volume III, Dalman included several pages of addenda (as well as one addendum at the end of Volume IV). These have been placed in the text in footnotes marked as addenda. Typographical errors listed in the addenda have been silently corrected in the text.

While working on Volume I, we had overlooked that Dalman included an addendum for Volume I at the end of Volume III. That addendum belongs on Volume I, part 1, page 56 line 1: “kaff el-‘adhra ‘hand’ (not sole of the foot) of the Virgin” is the Arabic name for the Jericho rose, cf. Cana‘an, JPOS VIII, p. 161, Crowfoot-Baldensperger, From Cedar to Hyssop, p. 119ff.

Dalman cites verses from the Old Testament according to the verse numbering of the Hebrew Masoretic text, which occasionally differs from the verse numbering of modern Christian versions, such as the Revised Standard Version (RSV).

Several conventions that Dalman adopted have been kept, such as distinguishing Hebrew and Aramaic names of the months from Arabic ones, by having the Hebrew and Aramaic month names capitalized and the Arabic names in lower case and in italics. Arabic place names are transliterated and in italics, other than a handful commonly known by their English versions, e.g. Jerusalem and Hebron.

Dalman’s transliterations of Hebrew and Aramaic words are also reproduced here, but with sh for Dalman’s š; q for Dalman’s ḳ; and y for Dalman’s j.

For Arabic words, the standard library of Congress English transliteration system is adopted here, which differs in some cases from the German system that Dalman used:

أ = ’ ظ = ẓ

ب = b ع = ‘

ج = j غ = gh

ح = ḥ ف = f

خ = kh ق = q

د = d ك = k

ذ = dh ل = l

ر = r م = m

ز = z ن = n

ص = ṣ ه = h

ض = ḍ و = w

ط = ṭ ي = y

Preface

The volume appearing here accompanies the grain from the harvest only up to the milling and storage of the flour. The next volume will deal with bread, and at the same time with oil, wine, and fruit cultivation and so bring to an end this series devoted to the cultivation of the soil of Palestine and its conditions.

For the sake of clarity, a special section “In Antiquity” always concludes each section in this volume as well. The reader will do well to compare this carefully with the description of today’s conditions that always precedes it, in order to gain a full understanding of what must have existed in the past. It was impossible to make explicit reference to what corresponds today in every detail.

For the illustrations, the person to whom I owe them is always named. The firms Vester and Co. and C. Raad in Jerusalem have again contributed photographs, as well as the firm Uvachrom (L. Preiß) in Munich, Julius Hoffmann in Stuttgart, Superintendent G. Reymann in Parchwitz, Pastor Dr. K. Jäger in Köppern, Dr. G. Ribbing†, formerly in Bethlehem, and Bishop D. Aurelius in Linköping. I would like here to thank all of them and the unknown authors of some of the pictures.

Reference should be made to the addenda and corrections to the previous volumes provided at the end. They are intended to correct mistakes especially with Arabic expressions. Anyone who knows Palestine knows well that there is no unified Arabic dialect there in word usage and application of vowels, but only in local linguistic usage in cities and groups of villages in the different regions of the country. I have not always indicated where I heard and noted the expression I was told. It would be useful if Palestinians were to determine overall the language use of each village in the different parts of the country.

That all the work of this book also applies to the Bible does not really need to be emphasized again. If the Bible is not to become a dead book, the folk life assumed in it, which God influences at all times, must also be grasped in its full reality.

Greifswald, Palestine Institute, 28 June 1933.

G. Dalman

List of Illustrations

1a. Wheat ready for harvest.

1b. Sickles.

2. Agricultural and harvesting equipment.

3. North Palestinian farmer with cutting sickle and reaper’s glove.

4. Sickle smith.

5. Harvest with tearing sickle.

6. Harvest of bitter vetch by uprooting.

7a. Women head gleaners.

7b. Women gatherers.

8a-d. Carrying frame, angled pieces of wood.

9. Donkey transport to the threshing floor

10. Transport by people and camels.

11a. Harvest comb.

11b. Results of winnowing (kinds of chopped straw, chaff, soil).

12. Threshing floor of Nazareth.

13. Threshing with cattle under the yoke.

14. Threshing with coupled cattle.

15. Threshing animal with wooden ring and muzzle.

16. Theshing board with stones, threshing shovel, winnowing fork, turning fork.

17. Threshing board with saws.

18. Threshing board with saws, winnowing fork, turning fork, lower side.

19. The same, upper side.

20a. Threshing board, pulled by horse and mule.

20b. Threshing board, pulled by cattle with yoke.

20c. d. Collar and small draft board for mules.

21. Threshing sledge and threshing board with stones.

22. Threshing sledge, threshing board with stones, axes, sticks, weapons.

23. Threshing sledge in side view, threshing roller in section.

24. Egyptian threshing sledge at work.

25. Knocking out grain.

26. Placing sesame seeds on the threshing floor.

27. Five-pronged and seven-pronged winnowing fork, wooden rings, dung catcher, threshing floor broom.

28. View and section of the five-pronged and seven-pronged winnowing fork.

29. Agricultural tools in the Museum of the Palestine Institute in Jerusalem.

30. Winnowing on the threshing floor.

31. Grain sieving.

32. Grain sieve and flour sieve.

33. Grain sieving and sorting.

34. Wheat measuring.

35. Grain and fruit baskets.

36. Grain chests.

37. Single chest and double chest in cross section.

38. Grain chests in combined form in the vaulted house.

39. The same in the arched house.

40. Decorated grain chest.

41. Heap of chopped straw.

42. Heap of dung cakes.

43. Ancient grinding stones.

44. Ancient pestles and grinding mortar.

45. Stone meat mortar.

46. Wooden coffee mortars.

47. Hand mill, bottom stone, top stone.

48. The same, reversed.

49. Hand mill, milled by two women.

50. Hand mill, milled by one woman.

51. Hand mill with flour bowl.

52. Roman mill, view.

53. Roman mill, cross section, ancient hand mill, grinding stone, grinding mortar.

54. Mule mill for grain.

55. Mule mill for sesame.

56. Bulgur mill.

57. Personnel of a mule mill with sieves and rocker.

58. Water mill with mill channel and shaft.

59. Water mill with water runoff.

60. Interior of a water mill.

61, 1-8. Grinding stones and mortars, ancient and contemporary.

62. 9-15. Contemporary and Roman mills.

63. 1-5. Contemporary mill works (mule mill, groats mill, horse-gin mill, treadmill).

64. 6-9. Water mill in cross section, mill wheels.

65. I-lII. Types of flour (flour, bran, semolina).

66. IV-VII. Wheat grains and kinds of groats (groats of raw kernels, of boiled kernels, of lentils).

Table of Contents

Preface by Nadia Abdulhadi-Sukhtianv

Preface by Robert Schickvii

Preface III

List of IllustrationsVI

I. The Harvest1

A. The Time of the Harvest1

1. Generalities1

2. Tables a) Overview of the Time of Blossoming and Ripening of the Most Important Grain and Vegetable Crops3

b) Overview of the Harvest Months4

c) Overview of All the Works of the Year7

3. The Harvest Weather 8

In Antiquity10

B. The Human Work Force17

In Antiquity21

C. The Harvest Tools23

1. The Tearing Sickle23

2. The Cutting Sickle25

3. The Toothed Branch Sickle28

4. The Untoothed Branch Sickle29

In Antiquity29

D. The Reaper33

In Antiquity36

E. The Organization of the Work37

In Antiquity 39

F. The Progress of the Harvest41

1. Uprooting41

In Antiquity42

2. Reaping44

In Antiquity50

3. Gathering 53

In Antiquity56

G. Transport to the Threshing Floor65

In Antiquity70

H. The Levy for the Poor and the Ear Gleaning72

In Antiquity75

II. The Threshing Work80

A. The Threshing Floor80

1. The Location of the Threshing Floor80

In Antiquity84

2. The Time of the Threshing Floor89

In Antiquity91

B. The Threshing94

1. Threshing Tools94

a) The Threshing Board95

In Antiquity 98

b) The Threshing Sledge102

In Antiquity106

c) The Threshing Roller109

d) The Threshing Stick110

In Antiquity 111

e) The Turning Fork112

In Antiquity113

f) The Threshing Broom115

In Antiquity116

g) The Muzzle117

In Antiquity118

h) The Dung Catcher119

In Antiquity 119

2. The Work Force120

a) The People120

In Antiquity123

b) The Working Animals124

In Antiquity128

3. Carrying Out the Threshing130

In Antiquity136

C. Winnowing139

1. The Winnowing Tools139

a) The Pitchfork139

α) The South Palestinian Pitchfork139

β) The North and East Palestinian Pitchfork141

In Antiquity142

b) The Winnowing Shovel145

In Antiquity147

c) The Winnowing Rocker149

d) The Winnowing Sleeve149

2. Carrying Out the Winnowing150

In Antiquity156

3. The Result of the Winnowing158

a) The Soil, b) The Coarse Chopped Straw, c) The Finer Coarse Chopped Straw, d) The Fine Chopped Straw, e) The Chaff, f) The Kernels, Kernel Mounds159

In Antiquity162

D. Sieving167

1. Sieving Equipment167

a) The Coarse Grain Sieve167

b) The Fine Grain Sieve169

In Antiquity171

2. Sieving172

In Antiquity176

E. Measuring179

In Antiquity182

F. The Yield184

In Antiquity192

G. The Taxes on the Yield198

In Antiquity203

Sabbatical Year and Jubilee Year219

State Taxes223

H. Storage of the Grain225

Pests235

In Antiquity236

III. The Production of Flour and Groats249

A. The Tools249

1. The Rubbing Stone249

In Antiquity250

2. The Mortar255

a) The Stone Mortar255

b) The Wooden Mortar256

In Antiquity258

3. The Hand Mill263

In Antiquity270

4. The Roman Mill276

5. The Mule Mill282

a) The Simplest Form282

In Antiquity284

b) The Horse Gin Mill287

c) The Treadmill290

6. The Water Mill291

In Antiquity297

7. The Groats Mill and the Starch Mill298

In Antiquity300

8. Wind Mills and Motor Mills300

9. Sharpening the Mill301

In Antiquity302

10. The Wood Tool for Collecting303

11. The Shovel303

12. The Rocker 304

13. The Sieve305

a) The Grain Sieve 305

In Antiquity305

b) The Flour Sieve306

In Antiquity308

B. Work on Grain Kernels and Their Result311

1. Milk Ripe Kernels Scorched311

In Antiquity312

2. Fully Ripe Kernels Raw and Boiled312

In Antiquity313

3. Fully Ripe Kernels Roasted315

In Antiquity317

4. Groats318

a) Groats of Milk Ripe Grain318

In Antiquity318

b) Groats of Fully Ripe Grain . 320

In Antiquity322

c) Groats from Boiled Grain325

In Antiquity328

d) Ball Groats . . . 328

5. Flour and Semolina. . . 329

a) The Cleaning of the Grain before Grinding329

In Antiquity333

b) The Grinding335

In Antiquity337

c) Sorting What Has Been Ground and the Kinds of Flour338

In Antiquity346

6. Starch357

In Antiquity358

7. Barley, Sorghum, Lentils, Lupines, Fenugreek, Chickpeas359

In Antiquity360

8. Sesame361

C. Safekeeping the Flour362

1. The Sack362

In Antiquity363

2. The Bag363

In Antiquity363

3. The Bin364

In Antiquity364

4. The Wooden Chest365

In Antiquity365

5. The Clay Jar366

In Antiquity366

6. The Flour Basket 367

In Antiquity367

7. The Pests of Flour367

Indexes

I. Index of Hebrew and Aramaic Words371

II. Index of Arabic Words376

III. Subject Index385

IV. Index of Bible Passages398

V. Index of Place Names404

Photographs and Illustrations408

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

a midday meal (ghadā) around 2 o’clock is the usual. If there is no shady tree in the vicinity, a small hut (‘arīshe) made of sticks and coats is set up, and the water jar and perhaps also a baby brought along are placed there. Then in the evening the cooked meal (‘ashā) follows in the house.1 The task of the female helpers during the heaping up of the harvested grain (ghammārāt,p. 54) is to bring water in a skin or jar and hand it to the reapers during the work. The hottest time of the day between 1 to 2 o’clock (Vol. I, p. 635) is often used for a short rest in the shade, although the temperature in the hill country is not as high as at Lake Tiberias, where, by bathing in the hot springs, the reapers prepare themselves for the harvest, during which they do not wash themselves again at all in order to keep their skin resistant,2 which my own experience confirmed as suitable.3 The midday mood of the reaper is revealed by a little song from Merj ‘Ayūn:4

ṭile‘ el-haua yā ḥaṣṣād

ḥāji qā‘id fil-faye

yā ḥaṣṣād melūkīye

mā beḥṣud welā fīye

illa mā tijīni ma‘jenet lebanīye

ḥatta ākul u’eshba‘

bitdibb el-mruwwe fīye.

The wind rose,5 oh reaper,

Enough of sitting in the shade,

You reaper of royalty!

I do not cut at all

Unless I receive a bowl of dough with sour milk porridge,6

So that I eat and become full,

The lifeblood flows within me.

What the reaper would otherwise have liked to have at midday is shown by the little song about the reaper, who left the field because of the thorns (cf. p. 33f.). At the end it goes:

yā ghulmān ruddūh

samn ubēḍ ghaddūh.

You people, bring him back,

Give him eggs in lard as lunch!

The usual would be, apart from the obvious bread, only onions and some tomatoes, then in the evening the reaper expects groats cooked with lard and sour milk.

When farmers living in the hill country own fields in the coastal plain, as is often the case, the work force must be divided, if in the interim periods of the work at home it is not possible to go down to the work in the coastal land, where one finds lodging in small houses, caves, or quickly erected arbors (‘arāish). From el-Qubēbe Father Müller reported to me the following arrangement for that. After the winter sowing was carried out in October in the plains and the livestock had pastured there in March, the summer sowing takes place in April, the harvest of the winter sowing in June, and the harvest of the summer sowing in August. In the interim periods all the work force is united in the hill country and carries out the necessary work there, as a rule after the work in the coastal land, where the harvest is possible earlier than in the hills.

For the number of work days for people and animals that are needed to cultivate wheat on 30 dunums, J. Elazari Volcani,7 after four years of observation of an experimental field worked by Arabs in the Jezreel plain, gives the following average figures.

Men

Women

Children

Horses

Cattle

Donkeys

Pre-plowing

7.6

—

1.4

—

13.9

8.2

Seed plowing

15.6

—

3.3

—

31.8

13.7

Weeding

2

4.5

2.1

—

—

—

Harvest

15.7

2.4

5

1

—

5.4

Transport

7.8

1.8

4

1

—

10.3

Threshing

25.1

1.9

10.2

10.6

12

10.4

Winnowing

6.2

—

0.6

—

—

2

Total

80.0

10.6

26.6

12.6

57.7

50.0

Overall the figures do not specify the number of the work force of people and animals needed for the work, but rather the work time they spend. If, for example, ten men were employed, then the eighty work days they are responsible for are done in eight days, provided that the other work forces are also allocated correspondingly.

The list presented by the same author8 for the work on a farm of 70‒100dunum(= 7‒10 hectares)9 for the available days serves as a supplement.

Rain

Illness and Leisure

Cultivation up to the Threshing Floor

Holidays

Total

½ Nov – Jan

24

10

19

25

78

Feb – March

24

15

19

1

59

April – ½ May

4

1

7

33

45

½ May – ½ Nov

—

13

101

69

183

Total

52

39

146

128

365

That means in the year, ninety-one days when work is hindered, 146 days of work on one’s own field, and 128 days in which work for others can be undertaken and thereby the amount of 12 Palestinian lira earned.

In Antiquity

The recruitment and payment of the work force for the harvest will have been organized just as with the preparation of the field. A large harvest requires many workers (Matth 9:37f.; Luke 10:2). If they were wage laborers, who were hired for days or years, their wages were secured, and daily wages must be paid daily (Lev 19:13; Deut 24:14f., cf. Vol. II, p. 179). In James 5:4 reapers are spoken of who cry out about the wages that are withheld from them, and when, in Luke 12:42, the householder is supposed to give the servants the amount of wheat (σιτομέτριον) specified for each one on time, one readily thinks of the harvest when the workers receive their wage from the yield. Also, in John 4:36, the reaper’s wage designated as fruit appears to be the yield of the field. Against a payment of two sela‘ (= 8 denarius10) a worker (pō‘ēl) can be hired forthe harvest.11 That the workers may not lay claim to the a poor levy, by letting grain fall into their own baskets,12 seems obvious.

According to Ruth 2:5f., there is a “boy” (ná‘ar) who is set as supervisor over the reapers (qōṣērīm)who, in v. 15, are also called “boys” (ne‘ārīm), and in addition, in 2:8, 23, “girls” (ne‘ārōt), who work at the harvest. One can assume that, as me‘ammerōt, they work behind the reapers with the hand bundles that are laid aside. The food offered “at the eating time” is for all the workers, consisting of bread to be dunked in vinegar, to which the landlord can add roasted grain (qālī) as a special gift (2:14). The vinegar is considered as a dip that is pleasant for the reapers because of the heat.13 That it is not present today is due to the restriction of viniculture occasioned by Islam. Sour milk or pomegranate juice and, if present, unripe grapes14 could be used as a substitute. The Targum thought of a dish cooked with vinegar, because there should not be a lack of cooked food. Having to carry grain piles (‘ōmer) while hungry (Job 24:10) is only conceivable in the field of a godless person (24:6). It is important that the water drawn by the boys for their thirst is available for all the workers independent of the meal, but not for the gleaners without special permission (Ruth 2:9). Egyptian illustrations15 show food and drink (water skin) near the reapers; it is even attested that beer was brought for them. According to Jewish law, if providing food to the field workers is a local custom, then it must be provided, even accompanied with sweets, where this is customary. Otherwise, the food is also agreed with the workers and perhaps only bread and legumes are promised.16 For the question of the tithing of the food given to the workers, the decisive factor17 is whether they all eat from a common trough18 or each one receives his own. In the first case the owner is responsible, in the second the individual worker. Gamaliel gave his workers food of doubtful tithing.19 The Prophet Habakuk, according to the “Dragon to Babylon” verse 33, brought cooked porridge with boiled bread in a bowl to the reapers in the field, and according to the LXX also a jug of mixed wine.

C. The Harvest Tools

The use or non-use of a tool for the harvest will be discussed during the treatment of the process of harvesting. The following tools are available. The scythe occurs only under European influence.

1. The Tearing Sickle

(qālūshe,plur. qawālīsh,in ‘Ajlūn also ḥāshūshe,in Lebanon probably ḥālūshe).20

It serves not only for the grain harvest, but also for clearing and clearing away thorny weeds and wild growth (ḥashīsh),hence the name ḥāshūshe. In its normal form the completely blunt iron bow of the sickle, which is up to 2 cmwide, has a diameter of 17 cm in the smaller version and up to 23.5 cm in the larger version, calculated from the beginning of the bow to the tip. This bow, with which the plants to be uprooted are grasped, hangs together with a somewhat narrower handle 13‒16cmlong made from the same piece, and this in turn is stuck with its end, not previously included in the calculation, in a wooden handle (neṣāb)10‒13 cmlong and about 3 cmthick. A longer shaft has the advantage that the plants can be held lower down and thus can be pulled out more securely. At Sebasṭie I saw as qālūshe also a short, little bowed blunt sickle with a wooden handle.

If the tearing sickle or the cutting sickle breaks, the gypsy (nūri) temporarily tenting as an itinerant blacksmith near the villages is able to restore it. To do that he has in his tent an iron anvil (seddān) pounded into the ground,a hearth (nukra) placed on the ground anda bellows (kūra),which consists of a thin sack of animal skin attached to a pipe at the bottom and a large opening at the top that can be closed by two pieces of wood attached to it. If a draft is to be created, the pieces of wood are squeezed together by hand and the skin is pressed down, so that the air must flow out through the pipe. This is how I saw the bellows in 1900 with gypsies in Mādaba. There the tools were hammer (shākūsh),tongs (malqaṭ), scissors (mqaṣṣ),hand chisel (mufras), and soldering iron (pipe) (leḥām). At Bēt Ṣafāfa in 1925, I observed with gypsies a bellows that consisted of two skins, which were pressed alternately. The air went through each pipe weighted down with stones to the fire. One can consider the bellows (mappūaḥ) ofJer 6:29 and in Jewish law as similar,21 although the ancient Egyptian method of stepping with the foot and pulling with the hand22 is also possible.

2. The Cutting Sickle(menjal,plur. menājil,in Merj ‘Ayūn menjal el-ḥaṣīde“harvest sickle” distinct from the firewood sicklemenjal el-ḥaṭab,see below, in south Arabia according to Graf Landberg23sherūn).24

Its bow is narrower than with the tearing sickle, only about 1.5 cmwide, but much longer, about 36‒47 cm in diameter, including its roughly 9-cm-long, almost straight tip. The thin shaft of the bow usually disappears immediately into a wooden handle about 10 cmlong and 3 cmthick, so that the reaper’s hand is placed immediately below the actual sickle. The bow is often decorated with a simple bow ornament, which is impressed into its side near the outer edge. The inner edge is sharpened and in some areas has small teeth scarcely 1 mmlong, facing down. The toothed sickle is distinguished as menjal merjūb from the untoothed menjal. Some areas use only the untoothed, but sharp-edged sickle, which around Gaza is called isḥēlīye, andin the plain of Jezreel saḥlīye.25 Of course, it must always be sharp (māḍi) and may not remain dull (mushmāḍi,talfān, ballād), if it has become so.

A toothless, sharpened, almost semicircular cutting sickle only 28 cmdiameter with a 4.5-cm-wide iron and a 14-cm-long wooden handle is sometimes used in Jerusalem for grain, otherwise for cutting green fodder. It is called menjal, ḥalīshe (Hava ḥālūsh) or ḥashshāshe,because it is used to cut or uproot (biḥöshsh) ḥashīsh. Asickle with a longer, narrower tip similar to the grain sickle, but smaller, also for cutting green fodder was used in Merj ‘Ayūn under the name of ḥāshūshe or zaubar. Camel drivers sometimes wore such a sickle in their belt. It has the form that Anderlind26 terms Damascene, which he distinguishes from the Beirut sickle, which is flatter bowed with a diameter of 55 cm.

I observed the production of a toothed cutting sickle in 1900 at a blacksmith (ḥaddād)27 in Nazareth. An angular bar of steel (būlād)formed the raw material. It was made red-hot on the built hearth (ujāq, risṭāni) with the help of the bellows (kūr,plur. ekwār). As in Aleppo, the bellows here probably consisted of two bellows leaning against a wooden frame, which are pulled up and pressed down and which empty themselves through a pipe towards the hearth. The smith turned (madd) and bent the glowing bar, which his assistant held with tongs (laqaṭ)on the anvil (siddān), by hitting it with the heavy forge hammer (mhadde). Then he folded (nahhar)the iron on the edge of the anvil with the sledge hammer (bālaṣ) with a smooth, square, striking surface and decorated (naqqash)it after reheating by hammering in the decoration with the decoration hammer (naqshe),which bears the decoration raised on its striking surface. He filed (barad)it with a file (mebrad)on one edge on a low wooden frame (barrāde),28cut (rajab) the teeth (isnān) with a shaftless hammer chisel (qalam) and the smaller hammer (maṭraqa),while the iron lay on a white stone (ḥajarrjābe), bent the teeth sideways (fassar) with a linear-formed iron (ḥadīdtafsīre) and finally inserted (naṣṣab) the straightened narrow end of the iron into the wooden handle (naṣb).Then, when the sickle is warmed up again and greased with soap, it can be considered ready for use. The smith also renovates sickles that have become dull. He sharpens (city jalakh,fellah sann) them and forges new teeth. Of course, he is also the one who makes and repairs the plow shares (Vol. II, p. 76f.).

The owner of a well-sharpened sickle can sing in praise at the harvest:29

hāti minjali hātīh

tiqta‘ el-‘arqūb

ḥaiyet minjali

minjali umin jalāh

rāḥ leṣ-ṣāigh jalāh

mā jalāh illa be-‘ölbe

ṣārat el-‘ölbe ‘ashāh.

menjāli yabu-l-kharākhish

menjali fil-qashsh ṭāfish

menjali yabu razze

yelli jalabtak min ghazze.

Give my sickle, give it,

It cuts the ankle joint,

The snake of my sickle.

My sickle, who sharpened it?

He went to the goldsmith,30 who sharpened it,

He sharpened it only for a quantity of grain,31

The grain became his supper.32

My sickle, you with the rattles,33

My sickle, which slides through the stalks,

My sickle, you with the cutting edge,

That I brought ‒ from Gaza.

3. The Toothed Branch Sickle (shurshāra).34

My example, which was crafted in Jerusalem and brought to me by Propst Lic. Hertzberg with other sickles, has a bow diameter of 23 cm. But the greatest height of the bow from the handle is 20.5 cm, because the sickle iron rises almost straight up and bends only 16.5 cmto the side. The iron is 2 cm wide without 3 mmlong, roughly notched large teeth, and the wooden handle is 2.5 cmthick and 9.5 cmlong. In Abū Dīs it is said that this sickle is used for mowing, but its actual purpose is for pruning grapevines.

Related is the vinter’s knife (shurshera, minshār)35 common in Hebron, with a slightly bent iron 14 cmlong and 2.5 cm wide, which can be folded down, so that the cutting edge with teeth only ½ mm long disappears into a fold of the wooden handle 16 cm long.

4. The Untoothed Branch Sickle (qaṭafe,in Merj ‘Ayūn menjal el-ḥaṭab).36

Used for pruning fruit trees and grapevines, but also for cutting thorn bushes as firewood (ḥaṭab