Note 552 — Chapter IV
Reading edition
Footnote 552
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(return)
Edmond Doutté, Magie et Religion dans l'Afrique du Nord (Algiers, 1908), pp. 566 sq. For an older but briefer notice of the Midsummer fires in North Africa, see Giuseppe Ferraro, Superstizioni, Usi e Proverbi Monferrini (Palermo, 1886), pp. 34 sq.: "Also in Algeria, among the Mussalmans, and in Morocco, as Alvise da Cadamosto reports in his Relazione dei viaggi d'Africa, which may be read in Ramusio, people used to hold great festivities on St. John's Night; they kindled everywhere huge fires of straw (the Palilia of the Romans), in which they threw incense and perfumes the whole night long in order to invoke the divine blessing on the fruit-trees." See also Budgett Meakin, The Moors (London, 1902), p. 394: "The Berber festivals are mainly those of Islam, though a few traces of their predecessors are observable. Of these the most noteworthy is Midsummer or St. John's Day, still celebrated in a special manner, and styled El Ansarah. In the Rîf it is celebrated by the lighting of bonfires only, but in other parts there is a special dish prepared of wheat, raisins, etc., resembling the frumenty consumed at the New Year. It is worthy of remark that the Old Style Gregorian calendar is maintained among them, with corruptions of Latin names."