In Upper Egypt the women believe that yeast is spoiled if the sun “sees” it or a cat smells it.
In Upper Egypt the full moon is called “el-gâr el-ḥanni,” “the kindly neighbour.”
In Upper Egypt it is believed that if salt is exposed to the air a lizard will walk over it and spoil it.
The natives of the First Cataract eat all kinds of fish except the qarmût, which they will not touch. The qarmut is one of the Siluridae with dorsal and posterior fins and resembles a “cat-fish.”
In Upper Egypt if a child dies before it is three or four years of age it is said that “its garîna has taken it.” In the Sahidic dialects of Upper Egypt garîna, which is the Arabic qarîna, “a female colleague,” has the sense of “a double,” or more literally, “likeness”; hence the belief must be a survival of the old Egyptian belief in the ka or “double.” Compare what I have said on this subject in Folk-Lore, xvii. 2 (June, 1906), p. 200. At Cairo in the time of the Arabi troubles, when the statues of Ibrahim Pasha and of the four lions at the two ends of the Bridge were taken down and sent to the Bulaq Museum, a hole was first made in the breast of each of them in order to “let out the spirit,” that is, the ka of ancient Egypt.
In Upper Egypt to each person, and more especially to twins, his or her “garîna” is attached. To protect oneself from the garîna, who might otherwise carry one off from this world, charms, wrapped up in leather, are employed, which must be written by boys under twelve years of age.
In Nubia, and until recently also in Upper Egypt, after a marriage the bride and bridegroom go to the Nile, fill their mouths with water and squirt it in one another’s faces. The one who is hit first will be the most fortunate in life. The idea goes back to the days when the Nile was a divinity.
In Upper Egypt phalli are still hung up to protect the melons and sugar-cane.
