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JULY, 1890.]
THE ABORIGINES OF SOKOTRA.
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placing it on their altars, and hanging it round their necks. Every village had its minister, whom they called kashish (Persian for a presbyter'), to whom they paid tythes. No man could read. The leashish repeated prayers ante-phonetically in a forgotten tongue, which De Barros calls "Chaldee, "28 frequently scattering incense; a word like alleluia often recurred. For bells they used wooden rattles. They assembled in their churches four times a day and held St. Thomas in great veneration. The kashishes married, but were very abstemious. They had two Lents, and then fasted strictly from meat, milk, and fish.30
The probable explanation of the discrepancies in the foregoing accounts is that at some period a change occurred in the character of Sokotran Christianity; but the change may have shown itself only in particular portions of the island; and as the travellers did not all visit the same ports, each may have correctly described his own experiences. When the Abyssinian invaders of Yamen were defeated in A.D. 595 by the Persians under Horzâd bin Narsi Wahraz, numbers of the former fled by sea to the other side of the Gulf of Aden, to avoid the persecution which followed their defeat; and it seems very probable that some of them reached Soķotra and, settling there permanently, propagated their religion. Whatever be the particular sect to which the Sokotrans belonged, the traditions of Christianity appear to have been maintained among them for several centuries after the triumph of Islâm in the countries bordering on Arabia; and although the island itself became submissive to the Marah Arabs of Kishn or Farták, Christianity still existed in the beginning of the 16th century when the Portuguese arrived there. It seems to have been on the decline at that period, and received its death-blow in 1800 or 1801 when the Wahhabis of Nejd invaded the island, and in their fanatical zeal destroyed the churches, crosses, grave-stones and every visible trace of Christianity. At present --as Wellsted says "every individual in Sokotra professes himself to be a Muhammadan."30
The last vestiges of Christianity in Soķotra, so far as we know, are those traced by P. Vincenzo, the Carmelite, who visited the island after the middle of the 17th century. The people still retained a profession of Christianity, but without any knowledge, and with a strange jumble of rites, sacrificing, circumcising, abominating wine and pork. They had churches which they called mukam, dark, low and dirty, daily anointed with butter. On the altar was a cross and a candle. The cross was regarded with ignorant reverence, and carried in processions. They assembled in their churches three times in the day, and three times in the night; and in their worship barned much incense, &c. The priests were called odambo, elected and consecrated by the people, and changed every year. Of baptism and other sacraments they had no knowledge.
The Sokotran language - as I have already stated - has never yet been philologically classified : various conjectures have been made as to its origin, but most of them being mere guesses, are rather wide of the truth.
To facilitate the investigation of this important subject, I have compiled from numerous sources of information the two accompanying comparative vooabularies. No. 1 (founded upon that published by Dr. J. Bird in the Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, July 1845) shows as a heading a certain namber of English words such as must occur in every language, no matter how barbarous; and in the columns beneath them are the corresponding words in Sokotran and all the languages which are in the least likely to bear any analogy to it. Owing to want of information, the Sokotran and Chaldean portions are very imperfect, and the Gharah (Kara), which ought to be included, is entirely wanting. Still - meagre though it bethe information afforded by this table is, I think, sufficient to justify us in classifying the Soķotran language as a member of the Ethiopio branch of the Syro-Arabic or Northern Semitic family. It bears a closer resemblance to Gis - the ancient language of Ethiopia - than to any others here shown.
> Wellated says (II. 814) that the Ethiopio was commonly called Chaldean in the 16th century. * Yule, Marco Polo, Vol. II. p. 402.
0 (Vol. II. page 296.) An Arabic word, meaning place of rising, standing or remaining.
