ABSTRACT
IT is the custom of the women of Lower Nubia at the present day to make a periodical libation of water at the graves of their relatives (both male and female). I observed this practice first of all in the Kenus district in the winter 1907-8 and in 1910 found that it prevailed also at Derr a hundred miles or more further south. At Derr I was told, as ,vas Mr GRIFFITH at Serra and Faras (GRIFFITH, Karanog, p. 83), that the women visit the graves every Friday morning to perforrn the ceremony. PIs. VII, 1 and VIII, 1, 2 are photographs of graves at Derr. PI. VIII, 1 shows a new grave covered with pebbles which have been" used to count the prayers, professions of faith and narnes of God repeated for the benefit of the dead man by his friends" (REISNER, Archaeological Survey of Nubia, I, p. 314; cf. LANE, Modern Egyptians, pp. 529-532 [Ed. 1895]). At either end of the grave, on the outer side of the head-stone and foot-stone, a palm rib, stripped of its leaves, is stuck into the ground, a similar rib! being laid upon the grave itself. Palnl ribs stripped of their foliage are also regularly carried by the women in the ,vedding processions at Derr (PI. VII, 2). At the head of the grave is a bowl of red polished ware (hand-made) for the reception of the weekly libation 2. At Derr, where I several times saw the rite being performed, the woman not only filled the bowl \vith water but sprinkled the grave itself, uttering the while, in Nubian, prayers or perhaps merely pious ejaculations. PI. VIII, 2 depicts a wonlall crouching beside a grave on the occasion of her Friday morning's visit. I did not ascertain for ho,v long after the date of the funeral this weekly libation is maintained. Possibly, in the case anyhow of a married man, it is continued as long as his widow renlains alive, or until she marries again 3 ! The practice is certainly non-Islamic in
orIgIn and must be a survival from paganism; as we shall see it is probably derived fronl the mortuary rites of Ancient Egypt.
