Date Stick Cradle, from Zwemer’s book.

Christmas Eve is the time for reflecting on a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, three kings bringing spices and shepherds blinded by angel light. Christians around the world celebrate this scene, but what do they think of all those other babies who were not destined to become religious icons? Back in 1902 the Christian missionary Samuel Zwemer and his wife Amy teamed up to write a children’s book about Topsy-Turvy Land. For more information on this apologetic diatribe against Islam and Arabs, click here. As the authors claim, “In Topsy-turvy Land all the habits and customs are exactly opposite to those in America or England.” And where is this mythical garden of play for good Christian children? Arabia, specifically an Arabia in which the Ottoman Empire still had steam. For a good-old-boy, old-fashioned religion view of the “Arab” child as a topsy-turvy other, this is as prime a piece of apologetic and Orientalist dismissal as you can find. So take a look in the other manger, as the evangelistic Zwemers did a mere century ago…

ARAB BABIES AND THEIR MOTHERS

An Arab baby is such a funny little creature! In Christian lands babies, as soon as possible, are given a warm bath and dressed with comfortable clothing. But in Arabia the babies are not washed for many days, only rubbed over with a brown powder and their tiny eyelids painted round with collyrium. They are wound up in a piece of calico and tied up with a string, just like a package of sugar. Their arms are fastened by the bandage so that they cannot possibly move them. The Arab mothers say that if the arms and legs of babies were left hanging loose the poor things would never sleep. A small, tight bonnet for the head completes the baby’s wardrobe. A few blue beads or buttons are sewn on the front of this cap to keep off the evil-eye, for Moslem women all believe that if a stranger looks at a baby it may turn sick and die.

On the day when the baby is named a sacrifice is slain and eaten and silver offerings are given to the poor, equal to the weight of hair on the infant’s head. The poor baby’s hair is all shaved off to be weighed in the balance. Poor people who cannot afford this offering omit the custom. Charms are placed on the arms or around the neck of the child. A few verses from the Koran are written out and put in a leather or silver case and also tied around the arm or neck of the baby. If the child shows signs of illness the mother makes it swallow some of the Koran. That is, a portion is written out and the ink is washed off with water and this dirty water is taken by the patient. A prescription was sent to me once when I was ill by a Moslem mullah, or teacher, of this character and he was quite certain I would recover if I drank it. I am glad to say I got better without the ink medicine.

When the baby is forty days old and has received its name a new date-stick cradle is triumphantly brought home from the market and the new baby placed in it. And then Master or Miss Arab will get such a violent rocking that no Christian baby could stand. The ground is uneven, for there are no wooden floors in Arabia, and the rockers are nearly straight so that you can imagine it is not the pleasantest thing in the world to be rocked in an Arab cradle. In the picture you can see just what a date-stick cradle is like.

Arab babies cry a great deal; what with sand storms and flies and other insects they generally have sore eyes and apparently need strong treatment to make them quiet and give their mothers and sisters time to grind the wheat and churn the butter. Everything is made fresh each day in an Arab household. The rice must be cooked for the daily meal, the wheat ground for bread, and the milk put into the leather churn. These people have no ice chest, not even cupboards, many of them, so the coffee is freshly roasted and pounded in a mortar for breakfast. The flour is taken to the hand-mill and butter comes out of the churn every day fresh. Then the mother will have to draw the daily supply of water and wash the few clothes at the well. The better classes have their slaves to do the hard work but the Bedouin women and the poor have to do all the toil and never get a rest. Rich and poor are alike in not having any intellectual pleasures. Few can read and even those who can read, are able to read only the Koran and the Moslem traditions. The children have no primers or picture-books, and no Arab mother ever has a newspaper or a magazine. She has never heard of such things. Arab women do not know anything of the many interests and pleasures that occupy the time of women in Christian lands.

Would you like to know how they make bread in Arabia? First the wheat is sifted and cleaned and then it is put into one of the hand-mills. It consists of an upper and nether millstone with a hole in the upper one and a wooden handle. Two women usually sit and grind because the stone is heavy and they love to talk while they work. One swings it half way and the other pulls it around. Then the coarse flour is taken out and put into a bowl with water and salt and mixed to the right consistency. A piece of this dough is then taken between the hands and gradually beaten until it is about the thickness of a book cover and twelve inches in diameter—a round, flat cake of dough. The oven is usually under ground and is shaped like a large jar with the mouth above the ground a little. A fire is built inside the oven and when the sides of the oven are quite hot the fire is allowed to die out. Then the large pan cakes of bread are deftly clapped on to the side of the oven until the space is covered and one by one the cakes are taken out when done. In some houses they have a shallow oval pan which is placed over an open fire and on this the cakes are baked. The pan is put on the fire upside down, so even here we are again in Topsy-turvy Land. Twenty or thirty of these flat loaves are baked at one time, for a hungry Arab can eat five or six at one meal.

Now the men come in to eat the food that the housewife has prepared. With a short prayer called bismillah they begin and then shove the rice and meat or the bread and gravy into their mouths as fast as they can. Whatever is left when the men get through is for the women. You can see a group of Arab women in the picture eating their meal from one common dish in front of their tent. They use their hands instead of spoons or forks but get along very well and always wash before and after their simple meal.

Now the women always have to wait on their husbands and eat by themselves. When things get right side up in this dark land we hope to see the whole family sitting down together and taking their meal with joy and thanksgiving.

[Excerpt from Topsy-Turvy Land: Arabia Pictured for Children by Samuel M. Zwemer and Amy E. Zwemer. New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1902.]

Copyright, 1902 by
Fleming H. Revell Company