THE EGYPTIAN FELLAH WOMAN.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3790, 30 May 1885, Page 2

THE EGYPTIAN FELLAH WOMAN.

The husband of such a woman is not the owner of the soil, but .merely a i laborer under a master. Just as the same class of men were, three to four thousand I years ago under the mighty. Pharaohs, so are they now. The fellah formed part of (he estate, and if it were sold then the serf, not as a slave, went with it, for he was under the direct protec. tion of the law. His master had no power over his life, as formerly in American slavery. Each serf had the liberty of appeal to Pharaoh himself, whether the petitioners were workmen or tillers. Both were serfs, a tiller of the ground only bearing the name of “fellah.” A papyrus now in the British Museum thus describes tbe bitter life of tbe fellah ; “ Behold the humble farm laborer. His whole life is consumed amid tbe beasts of tbe field. His strength is spent in tending the vines and the hogs. He seeks his food in the fields. If he is well he is well among the cattle ; if he is sick he lies on the bare ground in the midst of the herds.” Before the days of Baineses the Great, supposed to be the Pharaoh of Joseph’s time, regarding the husbandman the following is (he treatment narrated by the scribe Amcnemapt to the scribe Pentaur—“Consider the condition of the husbandman. Ero it ia yet harvest time the worms, the hogs, the locusts, tbe birds devour bis growing corn, and, if he be not vigilant the little that remains is stolen by thieves The tax collector waits on the quay to claim the tithe of his harvest when reaped. The doorkeepers are there with their staves and the negroes also with their palm canes. Th«y cry ‘ Give up thy corn.’ If it is lacking he is flung down, bound, and dragged bead downward through the canal. His wife is manacled before bis eyes. His children are strangled • his neighbors, occupied in their own harvest, abandon him to bis fate," This tyrannical mode of government is said to have originated with Cheops, the founder of the first and largest pyramid. Three thousand years have passed away, and still the, same usage of the husbandman or small farmer remains. “ The tax collector still awaits the corn barge at the Inndiog place, the bastinado is still wielded by his negro assistants and the defaulter is beaten, cast into prison, and tortured to this day. Three thousand years ago the weaver’s fate was as bad as that of the husbandman. “ The weaver, imprisoned inside the house, is more helpless than a woman. He sits crouching, his knees higher than his heart. He tastes not the free air. If for a single day be fails to weave the prescribed length of stuff he is bound with cords like a bundle of the marsh lotus. It is only by bribing tbe doorkeeper with gifts of broad that he gets to look upon the light of day.” Tnero was one thing, however, that the oppressed workers of Egypt had in common with . their taskmasters of every rank. Their dead bodies were mummified, although in a cheap and careless manner: “ Sometimes enclosed in a coarse basketwork, sometimes wrapped in p»lm fronds laced with palm fibre, the only relics buried with them being a knotted cord, a pair of straw slipers, and a tool poach, and with the fellah a pick and hoe; and these mummies of the humblest class are found lying side by side, layer above layer, in enormous common Saves.” The singular tuft of hair on e head of the Egyptian men and women of the present day, professing to be fvilowets of Mohammed, is described by Josephus to have been the practice of the Phoenicians, who used to shave the head, leaving only a look of f the crown, but for what purpose is unknown.