Elizabeth Cooper

“ I thought many times in my long residence in the East that I had really entered into the life and understood the thoughts, hopes, and ambitions of the Eastern woman, when at some thoughtless word or action on my part a wall of fog would come between us, with a thick, impenetrable, blanket-like mist, made up of custom, tradition, and the results of environment, and when it would lift we would find our little boats far from each other on a sea of mutual misunderstanding. ”

“ The wailing of the women tells the story of a death, as they abandon themselves completely to their sorrow, tearing their hair, striking their foreheads, and uttering shrill cries to show their desolation. As soon as the breath leaves the body preparations are made at once for its disposal, as a corpse is never kept longer than twenty-four hours in this hot climate. The eldest son, if there is one of suitable age, or the father or eldest brother in order of nearest relationship, or the husband if the deceased is a woman, must conduct the funeral ceremonies. ”

“ HYDERABAD AND THE MOHAMMEDAN WOMAN The city of Hyderabad seems to have been dropped to the earth from an Oriental dream. It is the most Eastern city in this most Eastern land, and you are filled with a sense that it is not at all real, but especially staged and set for your amusement, and when you leave, it will all disappear. The gaily painted shops will be pulled down and put in the property-room, the goldsmiths who make the bracelets, nose-rings, and necklaces for the pretty, dark-eyed women within the zenanas is only waiting for his cue to leave the stage. ”

“ The real woman of India is bound to grow in knowledge brought by education and experience, but deep down in her heart she will be essentially the same for years to come. She will not try to exchange her personality for another’s, even in outward appearance.
The dawn of consciousness that has been preceded by long twilight is now awakening in the soul of the Eastern woman, and she will see by its light that she has a strength and individuality of her own and that she need not mortgage her birthright to borrow alien charms from the women of other lands. ”

“ When the train stopped for any length of time at a station, the people came in crowds and knelt, touching their heads to the ground, and one old lady kept bowing and holding up her hands, with the tears streaming down her face at the joy of beholding so great a divinity. He looked at them without seeing them at all, never showing by any motion or sign that there was anything to be seen except the distant hills. I do not see how it was possible for any human being to look so thoroughly impersonal at a crowd of bowing, worshipping people, when he knew he was the object of all the adoration. ”

“ It is the desert which he loves, where he was born, under the brown tents of his tribe where he hopes to pass his life, and in the sands where he wishes to be buried. He loves each one of its many phases, from the sand burnt to powder by the white fire of the noonday sun, to the cool breeze of the dying day, that causes the smoke from the many fires to rise in blue-grey wreaths to the evening sky, which changes from violet to greyer blue, and then to the intense dark blue of the precious sapphire. ”

“ All ranks are seen—the lady borne swiftly along in her sedan chair with the spirit money hanging from the poles; the middle-class woman riding on the passenger wheelbarrows with four or five of her friends, with her incense and candles in her lap; and the poor woman trudging along the stone-covered road, carrying her offerings in a basket of rice-straw which she has woven at home. When they arrive at the temple they are all of one great sisterhood. The spirit money of rich and poor alike is placed in the great incense-burner in the outer courtyard, where it goes up in flames to the gods. ”

“ BURMESE RELIGION AND SUPERSTITION Judging from appearances, the Burmese woman is deeply religious. We see her offering her flowers before the many shrines scattered throughout the country, and hear the deep-toned bell hanging before the lord of light as she strikes it three times to call the attention of the spirits of the air to her piety. On days of festival the pagoda is thronged with gaily dressed women, and at the greatest of all pagoda feasts, that of the Shwe Dagon in Rangoon, women pilgrims from every part of Burmah come to lay their tribute before the greatest shrine in Buddha-land. ”

“ The young girl fresh from her school in Cairo or Calcutta, where she has caught glimpses of a new world, and where her brain has been slightly awakened, marries and goes into the traditional home, where her faith in herself is gradually diminished by living constantly in the atmosphere of ignorance and superstition which still rules so largely in her woman’s world. Finally, she gives up trying, resigning herself to the standard of the man-made world in which she finds herself, and her husband becomes her keeper in every sense of the word. ”

“ The women excel in the artistic use of jewellery that on other people would seem tawdry and barbaric, but on these dainty little women is most becoming to their rich, dark beauty. Jewellery is not only worn by the lady, but women of every class are covered with it. The village woman will have perhaps but one cotton sari, and her home would be merely a mud hovel, but she will clink as she walks, and you know she wears silver anklets, and as she moves her sari to peep at you, you see the glisten of a bracelet. ”

“ If he crawls out of his covers at night, he will rise in the world, but if he snuggles down in the bed and is inclined to crawl towards the foot, it augurs that a downward course is his fate in life. If many of the children of a family have died in infancy, the nervous mother will make for this last gift of the gods a dress composed of thirty-three pieces of cloth collected from thirty-three different families, or she will shave his head until he is seven years old, or give him a girl’s name instead of a boy’s, thus deceiving the gods who covet her treasure. ”

“ If there is no drought drying up the crops, if no disease comes to the cattle, if the moneylender is not too avaricious, if a few pennies can be saved to buy bracelets from the bangle-man at the annual festival, and if the gods do not disgrace her by sending too many daughters, she is happy. Yet the village woman and her family are always but half a step in advance of the waiting wolf; famine comes with swiftness, and quick deaths from plagues to hundreds of thousands of these peasant people, who constitute nine-tenths of the population of India. ”

“ She firmly believes that if her jewels, her dress, or her children are looked upon with jealous or covetous eyes, much sorrow will come to her, and she has many charms and ceremonies with which to counteract the baneful influence of spiteful persons. It is never wise for a visitor to regard a baby too closely or to admire its jewels or clothing openly, as, even if the mother is one of the advanced minority, instinct will assert itself, and deep within her heart, bred there by centuries of tradition, will be a little feeling that something might happen to her dear one. ”

“ I met a great many widows in India, and even among the Brahmo Samaj, which sect is now trying to break the tyrannical yoke of custom, I never heard of one who dared to brave public opinion and remarry. I knew one charming widow—I think the most beautiful woman I saw in India—who had practically broken all class restrictions except this last. It was said that she had been in love with a man for many years, and he had repeatedly tried to persuade her to undergo the censure of her people by marrying him, but she dared not do it. ”

“ Unlike the women of India, China, or Egypt, they may choose their own husbands and have a courtship such as we of the Western world so thoroughly understand. From the time of the first great event in a young girl’s life, the boring of her ears, which announces to her world that she is no longer a child but a woman, until her betrothal, the Burmese girl looks forward to the finding of a husband as the one aim of her life. ”

“ Cairo is the happy hunting ground of the Parisian jeweller, as Egyptian women are noted for their love of bracelets, ear-rings, necklaces, and pins. The old-time heavy gold chains and hoops are losing their charm, and now the lady whose husband has a purse easy to open buys long pendant ear-rings set with many diamonds, bracelets of pearls and rubies, rings of turquoise and sapphires, and necklaces of emeralds. Quantity, not quality, she desires, and the colour and purity of a stone are not so much to be desired as the size or number. ”

“ At the opera in cosmopolitan Cairo one may hear rustlings and low laughter from behind the closely screened boxes, and know that an Egyptian Bey or wealthy merchant is there with his family, allowing them to enjoy the play and watch the people in the house, themselves unseen. But this joy is given usually only to the women of Cairo, as the smaller towns have not as yet become sufficiently modernized that the women may go to the public theatres. ”

“ For every evil that man is heir to, the Koran is the cure. A few words from its precious pages are bound upon the arm of the camel driver, who feels that with this as guardian he will not be lost upon the trackless sands. When ill, the wife will call the astrologer, who writes a few words upon a piece of paper, and soaking it in water, gives it to the wailing child, and the mother is assured that all will soon be well, because has he not drunk of the very fount of wisdom, the words that came from God? ”

“ I did not attempt the hair-dressing, as that is a most complicated affair, and must be left to the attentions of a hair-dresser, who comes to the homes once or twice a week and makes the elaborate coiffures that add so much to the beauty of a Japanese face. Each age has its coiffure, and a woman never tries to disguise her age in Japan, because by her dress and style of hair-dressing she frankly confesses the stage she has reached in life. There is the baby with her shaven head, then the little queue tied on the crown ”