The Aïssaoua or the convulsant of the rue le PeletierAmong the curiosities attracted to Paris by the Exhibition, one of the strangest is undoubtedly that of the exercises performed by Arabs of the Aïssaoua tribe. The Illustrated World, October 19th, 1867, gives a report with several drawings of the various scenes that the author of the article witnessed in Algeria. He begins his story like this:
“The Aïssaoua form a very widespread religious sect in Africa and especially in Algeria. We do not know their objective; their foundation goes back, some say, to Aïssa, the Prophet's favorite slave; others claim that their brotherhood was founded by Aïssa, devout and enlightened marabout of the sixteenth century. Be that as it may, the Aïssaoua maintain that their virtuous founder gives them the privilege of being insensitive to suffering."
We borrowed from the Petit Journal, September 30th, 1867, the account of one of the sessions that a company of Aïssaoua gave in Paris, during the Exhibition, first on the Champ-de-Mars theater, and in last in the hall of the athletic arena on rue Le Peletier. The scene undoubtedly does not have the imposing and terrible character of those that take place in mosques, surrounded by the prestige of religious ceremonies; but, apart from a few nuances of detail, the facts are the same and the results identical, and this is the essential point. Besides, since these things took place in the heart of Paris, before the eyes of a large audience, the story cannot be suspected of exaggeration. It is Mr. Timothée Trimm who speaks:
“I admit that I saw things last night that left the Davenport brothers and the supposed miracles of magnetism very far behind. The prodigies take place in a small room, not yet classified in the hierarchy of shows. It takes place in the athletic arena on rue Le Peletier. This is probably why there is so little mention of the wizards I am talking about today.
It is obvious that we are dealing with enlightened ones, because here you have twenty-six Arabs who squat down, and to begin with, use iron castanets to accompany their songs.
The first one to come was a young Arab, from the Muslim company of ballet, holding a hot coal. I do not suspect that it could be a charcoal with artificial heat, prepared intentionally, for I felt its heat when it went passed in front of me, and it burned the floor when it escaped the holding hands. The man took that scorching hot coal; he put it in his mouth with horrible screams, and he kept it there.
It is obvious to me that these barbarian Aïssaoua are real Mohammedan convulsant. In the last century, there were the convulsant of Paris. The Aïssaoua of rue Le Peletier have certainly found this curious discovery of pleasure, voluptuousness, and ecstasy in bodily mortification.”
Théophile Gautier, with his inimitable style, depicted the dances of these Arab convulsant. Here is what he said about it in the Moniteur, on July 29th:
The first dance interlude was accompanied by three bass drums and three oboes playing in minor mode a song of nostalgic melancholy, supported by one of those implacable rhythms that end up taking hold of you and making you dizzy. One would say a lamenting soul, that fate forces to march with an always equal step towards an unknown end, but that one anticipates painful.
Soon a dancer rose with that overwhelmed air that oriental dancers have, like a dead woman awakened by a magical enchantment, and by imperceptible movements of her feet approached the forestage; one of her companions joined her, and they began gradually coming to life under a measured pressure, those twists of the hips, waves of the torso, those swings of the arms, waving silk handkerchiefs striped with gold and that languidly voluptuous pantomime that forms the basis of the oriental dancers. Raising the leg for a pirouette or a throw would be, in the eyes of these dancers, the height of indecency.
At the end, the whole troupe joined in, and we noticed, among the others, a dancer of fierce and barbaric beauty, dressed in white “haïks” and wearing a sort of “chachia” surrounded by cords. Her black eyebrows joined with “surmeh” at the root of the nose, her mouth red as a pepper in the middle of her pale face, giving her a terrible and charming look; but the main attraction of the evening was the session of the Aïssaoua or disciples of Aïssa, to whom the master bestowed the singular privilege of devouring with freedom everything that was presented to them.
Here, to make people understand the eccentricity of our Algerian convulsant, I prefer my simple and artless prose to the elegant and learned phraseology of the master. So here is what I saw:
An Arab arrives; he is given a piece of glass to eat! He takes it, puts it in his mouth, and eats it’s the whole thing! ... We hear his teeth crushing the glass for several minutes. Blood appears on the surface of his quivering lips… he swallows the piece of crushed glass, dancing and with genuflection, to the obligatory sound of drums.
To this one succeeds an Arab who carries in his hand branches of the Barbarian fig tree, the cactus with long thorns. Each roughness of the foliage is like a sharp point. The Arab eats this spicy foliage, as we would eat a salad of lettuce or chicory.
When the deadly foliage of the cactus had been absorbed, there came an Arab dancing with a spear in his hand. He leaned this spear on his right eye while saying sacred verses that our eye doctors should understand well… and he took his entire right eye out of the orbit! … All those present immediately uttered a cry of terror!
Then came a man who had his body tightened with a rope… twenty men were pulling; he struggles, he feels the rope piercing his flesh; he laughs and sings during that agony.
Then there is another fanatic that has a Turkish saber brough before him. I ran my fingers over its thin, razor sharp blade. The man undoes his belt, shows his bare belly, and lies down on the blade; it is pushed there, but the blade respects his skin; the Arab conquered the steel.
I quietly checked the Aïssaoua who eat fire, while placing their bare feet on a blazing inferno. I went to see the blaze behind the scenes, and I certify that it is fiery and made of flaming wood. I have also examined the mouths of those called the fire eaters. The teeth are burned, the gums are charred, the palate seems to have hardened. But it is indeed fire, all these embers that they swallow, with terrible contortions, seeking to acclimatize in hell…, that passes for a hot country.
What impressed me the most about this strange exhibition of the convulsant of the rue Le Peletier, was the snake-eater. Imagine a man opening a basket. Ten menacing-headed snakes hiss out. The Arab kneads the snakes, annoys them, makes them wrap around his naked torso. Then he chooses the biggest and the liveliest, and with his teeth bites it and punctures its tail. So, the reptile contorts in the anguish of pain. It presents its irritated head to the Arab who puts his tongue at the height of the stinger; and suddenly, with a bite of his teeth, he cuts off the head of the serpent and eats it. We hear the body of the reptile cracking under the teeth of the savage, who shows through his bloodstained lips the beheaded monster.
And during this time, the melancholy music of the drums continues its sacred rhythm. And the snake-eater will fall, lost and stunned, at the feet of the mystical singers. Until last week, they had only done this exercise with snakes from Algeria, that could have become domesticated during the trip; but Algerian snakes are running out, like all things. Yesterday was the debut of the Fontainebleau snakes; and the Algerian seemed full of distrust of our national reptiles.
Give it a pass to the devoured fire, supported at the ends… on the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands… but the glass crusher and the snake eater! … These are inexplicable phenomena.
We had seen them in the past in a dower near Blidah, says Mr. Théophile Gautier, and that nocturnal Sabbath has left us with chilling memories. The Aïssaoua, after being excited by the music, the vapor of perfumes and this swaying of a wild animal that shakes their immense hair like a mane, bit cactus leaves, chewed hot coals, licked hot shovels, swallowed crushed glass that could be heard cracking under their jaws, pierced their tongues and cheeks with needles, made their eyes jump out of their eyelids, walked on the edge of a Damascus steel blade; one of them, tied in the noose of a cord, pulled by seven or eight men, seemed cut in two; it did not prevent them, when the exercises ended, from coming to greet us in our lodge, the oriental way, and to receive their tip. There was no mark left from the terrible tortures to which they had just been subjected. May someone smarter than us explain the prodigy, for from our side we give up.
I agree with my illustrious colleague and revered superior, in the great art of writing, just as difficult as that of swallowing reptiles. I am not trying to explain these marvels; but it was my duty, as a chronicler, not to pass them over in silence.”
We ourselves attended a session of the Aïssaoua, and we can say that this story is not exaggerated; we saw all that is related there, and more, a man crossing his cheek and the neck with a sharp pin in the shape of a larding needle; having touched the instrument and examined the thing very closely, we convinced ourselves that there was no subterfuge, and that the iron really went through the flesh. But the odd thing is that the blood was not flowing, and the wound healed almost instantly. We saw another one holding hot pieces of coal in his mouth, the size of eggs, that he ignited with his breath as he wandered around the room, throwing sparks. It was such a real fire that several spectators lit their cigars there.
Therefore, it is not a question here of tricks of skill, of simulacra, or of juggling, but of positive facts; of a physiological phenomenon that confuses the most vulgar notions of science; however, strange as it may be, it can only have one natural cause. What is even stranger is that science seems to have paid no attention to it. How is it that scientists, who spend their lives in search of the laws of vitality, remain indifferent to the sight of such facts and do not seek their causes? One believes oneself to be exempt from any explanation by saying that “they are quite simply convulsant as there was in the last century; be it, we agree; but then explain what was happening with the convulsant people. Since the same phenomena occur today, before our eyes, in front of the public, that the first comer can see them and touch them, it was not thus a comedy; these poor convulsant, who have been laughed at so much, weren’t therefore jugglers and charlatans, as it has been claimed? The same effects being reproduced at will by disbelievers, in the name of Allah or Muhammad, so aren’t they miracles, as others have thought? They are enlightened, it is said; be it still; but then we would have to explain what it is to be enlightened. Illumination must not be as illusory a quality as it is supposed, since it would be capable of producing such singular material effects; in any case, that would be one more reason to study it carefully. Since these effects are neither miracles, nor conjuring tricks, it must be concluded that they are natural effects whose cause is unknown, but that is undoubtedly not untraceable. Who knows if Spiritism, that has already given us the key to so many misunderstood things, will not yet give us this key? This is what we will examine in a future article.
