140 The Popular Ritual of
that the people want to avoid the bds, or evil, which may- defile the road on which they walked before they had said their prayers. The ceremony at the msdlla is immediately followed by the killing of the sacrificial animal, and that it is, partly at least, looked upon as a preparation for the sacrifice is suggested by the great emphasis which Muham- medan writers lay on the necessity of performing the sacrifice after, and not before, the prayer, in order that it shall be efficacious.'
Before passing to the rules referring to the sacrificial victim, we have still to notice some practices which in all probability have originated in an intention of the people to purify themselves for the feast or to keep away evil influences. Among the Braber of the Ait Nder and Ait Yusi it is the custom for the men of one village to go, some on horseback and others on foot, to a neighbouring village to pretend to steal some of its animals. Then a sham fight ensues between the men of the two villages, with much discharge of powder at such close quarters that they not infrequently burn each others' clothes, the smoke of powder generally being supposed to drive away evil spirits. The whole affair ends with meals partaken of by both parties in common, first in one village and then in the other. All this is done very early in the morning of the first day of the feast. Again, among the Uldd Bu-
- Aziz, when the horsemen who have come to the msdlla
from other villages return to their homes, they have a race in which those belonging to the same village second each other in trying to catch hold of the unfolded turban swung by the man who takes the lead.
The sacrificial animal, which is called dhdyya^ by the Arabs and tafeska or taffaska by the Sluh of the Great Atlas, is mostly a sheep, but people who have no sheep
'Ibid., vol. i, pp. 312, 313, 315-317, 319. 323-
® From dh& {duha), the hour when religious people say their forenoon prayers.
