Bedouin Tribes of the Euphrates Vol 2 - The Search For Mecca

240 Bedoiiin Tribes of the Euphrates. [cH.xxvir.
agJiaJ, which is
a part of his head-dress, and which
in fighting he has hung over his shoulders (for the
Bedouins fight bare-headed), he throws it round the
neck of the suppliant, and by this act proclaims him
captive.
His arms and mare then become the property
of the captor ; and, even if rescued later, the
prisoner can take no further part in the fight. If,
with his surrender, his mare is captured, he is then
let go, to find the best of his way back to his own
j)eople on foot ;
but, if the mare escape or be rescued,
then the prisoner must accompany his captor to the
tent of the latter, where he is hospitably entertained,
but held to ransom until such time as the mare can
be delivered.
Afterwards he is free to depart.*
The reason why life is seldom taken in war must
be looked for, partly in the fact that firearms are
not in general use, partly in the custom of claiming,
on the conclusion of peace, damages for each death.
A tribe which has a balance of fifty lives to account
for, may have a heavy ransom to pay at the end of
the war. The mares taken are also sometimes restored
by the articles of the peace ; but this is not
usual. The captors of them are generally anxious
to sell or exchange them with tribes not concerned
in the war, so as to aA^oid the possibility of such
restoration. When accounts are settled the blood
money, liak el dam, is paid in camels,—fifty I believe,
* Sometimes the prisoner, on taking oath before two witnesses
that he will send his mare, and always if he have no mare, is at
once released.