knows how the girls of the
Ouled-Nail earn their dowry in the _ksours_ and the cities, before they go
back to their tribes to marry, and Doutte (_Notes sur l'Islam maghrebien,
les Marabouts_, Extr. _Rev. hist. des relig._, XL-XLI, Paris, 1900), has
connected these usages with the old Semitic prostitution, but his thesis
has been attacked and the historical circumstances of the arrival of the
Ouled-Nail in Algeria in the eleventh century render it very doubtful (Note
by Basset).--It seems certain (I do not know whether this explanation has
ever been offered) {248} that this strange practice is a modified
utilitarian form of an ancient exogamy. Besides it had certain favorable
results, since it protected the girl against the brutality of her kindred
until she was of marriageable age, and this fact must have insured its
persistence; but the idea that inspired it at first was different. "La
premiere union sexuelle impliquant une effusion de sang, a ete interdite,
lorsque ce sang etait celui d'une fille du clan verse par le fait d'un
homme du clan" (Salomon Reinach, _Mythes, cultes_, I, 1905, p. 79. Cf.
Lang, _The Secret of the Totem_, London, 1905.) Thence rose the obligation
on virgins to yield to a stranger first. Only then were they permitted to
marry a man of their own race. Furthermore, various means were resorted to
in order to save the husband from the defilement which might result from
that act (see for inst., Reinach, _Mythes, cultes_, I, p. 118).--The
opinion expressed in this note was attacked, almost immediately after its
publication, by Frazer (_Adonis, Attis, Osiris_, 1907, pp. 50 ff.) who
preferred to see in the sacred prostitutions a relic of primitive
communism. But at least one of the arguments which he uses against our
views is incorrect. Not the women, but the men, received presents in
Acilisena (Strabo, _loc. cit._) and the communistic theory does not seem to
account for the details of the custom prevailing in the temple of Thebes.
There the horror of blood clearly appears. On the discovery of a skull
(having served at a rite of consecration) in the temple of the Janiculum,
see the article cited above, "Dea Syria," in _Dict. des antiquites_.

42. Porphyry, _De Abstin._, II, 56; Tertull., _Apol._, 9. Cf. Lagrange,
_op. cit._, p. 445.

43. Even in the regions where the cities developed, the Baal and the Baalat
always remained the divinities [Greek: poliouchoi], the protectors of the
city which they were s