[560]
Thus the heathen origin of the midsummer festival is too palpable to
escape the attention of good Mohammedans, who accordingly frown upon the
midsummer bonfires as pagan superstitions, precisely as similar
observances in Europe have often been denounced by orthodox
Christianity. Indeed, many religious people in Morocco entirely
disapprove of the whole of the midsummer ceremonies, maintaining that
they are all bad; and a conscientious schoolmaster will even refuse his
pupils a holiday at midsummer, though the boys sometimes offer him a
bribe if he will sacrifice his scruples to his avarice.[561] As the
midsummer customs appear to flourish among all the Berbers of Morocco
but to be unknown among the pure Arabs who have not been affected by
Berber influence, it seems reasonable to infer with Dr. Westermarck that
the midsummer festival has belonged from time immemorial to the Berber
race, and that so far as it is now observed by the Arabs of Morocco, it
has been learned by them from the Berbers, the old indigenous
inhabitants of the country. Dr. Westermarck may also be right in holding
that, in spite of the close similarity which obtains between the
midsummer festival of Europe and the midsummer festival of North Africa,
the latter is not a copy of the former, but that both have been handed
down independently from a time beyond the purview of history, when such
ceremonies were common to the Mediterranean race.
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