Page 31 - Arabian Studies (I)

Folklore and Folk Literature in Oman and Socotra 17

conics along and licks the wound ‘until he was all right’ (ta weka
be-xdyr). Two angels then came along and restored him to his former
condition.
Indeed so many are the mentions of snakes that there may here be
some folk memory of a snake-cult. In the story above, for instance, it
is not otherwise easy to see why the snake is necessary if the two
angels arc in any case at hand.
Animals also feature in connection with sorcerers in contexts
other than shape-shifting. The most important of the animals of this
kind are the hyaena (M. teberdy’n, II teberen, § firth), and the
animal-demon called in M. sirek and in § serek.
The sirek, most people seem to agree, is a large white animal a
little smaller than a cow. It is encountered only at night and it ‘eats’
people. Some folk say that it rapes women but this was not accepted
as true by everybody. The Mehra are rather more sceptical than other
Dhofaris about it, but maybe because they spend a fair amount of
time in Negd and the sirek is an animal one meets suddenly, coming
round a corner in the mountains. Certainly it is the main terror of a
night full of terrors, demons, ghosts, spirits and raiders.
It can be summoned by sorcery, though ‘there arc those who do
not believe this talk’. I was told that one day some men were on a
journey and saw a few women sitting by the road. As it turned out
they were witches waiting for a sirek to put in an appearance. It had
not turned up and they decided they must try and summon it. To do
this they rolled in the dust (M. emtoreg) and whistled (M. hesjor).
Whistling is one of the traditional ways of summoning supernatural
beings and the sirek did come to the summons. The men later
described it as being as ‘white as milk and as fast as lightning’. The
fact that they had seen it being conjured up and were able to
describe it meant that people were less sceptical thereafter about the
ability of witches to summon a sirek.
The hyaena is the mount of witches and wizards, and it can be
: :
sent by them to kill and maul the cattle of ordinary folk, One can
tell whether or not a hyaena is in the service of a sorcerer because an
animal under the power of a witch or wizard has a ring in its ear.
Moreover if you are sharp enough to get off a shot at it and then
only manage to wound it, it will have a bandage over the wound the
next time you catch sight of it put there by its master. It is not often
that one catches sight of a man mounted on a hyaena but it
sometimes happens when the moon is new. This happened to ‘AIT
Musallam and he wanted to shoot the man. His companion would
not let him do this, however, because he had not seen the hyaena. The
man spoke to them later and was very embarrassed. In a tale,