In my own boredom and effort to murder time, I started reading about the culture and history of Maldives. What can I say? Maybe, my fascination towards what lies before my time isn’t just a thought that lingers in my mind. I am somewhat disappointed by how less material there is about the history of the Maldives. Whatever cruelty was done before my time was very cleverly limited or completely replaced by the stories of how beautiful life had been then. In fact, the whole way Rannamari story has been altered humors me.
So, in my very effort to gather what little is written on the internet about us here is what mostly humored or awed me to some extend. Beauty it seems at that time, was something that most men cared about. Infact the women made sure there men’s skin was radiant, fair and lovely. Im sure at that time if there were ads about beauty product it would be all-mens or some what dominated by men. Apparently as per Ibn Batuta, there is a custom where every woman goes to her husband or to her son with a collyrium case and with rosewater and ghalia oil (composed of musk and ambegris) after the'performance of the morning prayer. And he applies the collyrium to both of his eyes, and annoints himself with rosewater and the ghalia-oil. As a result, his skin takes on a polished appearance and ghastliness disappears from his face. Oh the pretty men of those times!!!
Some of the customs does fascinate me. I am sure all of my men friends who read this would be tempted to atleast spend couple of days of their lives at “that” time as the men at that time were treated like somewhat “royalties” back then. Although I do know, most of the men friends I know wouldn’t really survive even a day without their apples, iphones and googles. Now adays weddings and marriages would be all about honeymoons and amount of money we would spend on that dream wedding dress and the cake etc etc. Back then, when the man goes to house of his wife after their wedding, she spreads linen cloth in his honor from the roof of her house to the wedding chamber and along the cloth she places handfuls of cowries to the right as well as to the left of his path up to the wedding chamber. When he comes to her, she throws an article of clothing at his feet which is picked up by his servants. Talk about royalty!! And the amount of cloth women would spend on their weddings. If there was more than 10 weddings the whole roads in Male’ will be paved with cloth wont it?
The dress of the women!!! As Ibn Batuta writes the women went topless..yeup that was how it was! They did not cover their heads and combed their hair to one direction. Most of them wear only a waist wrapper, which covers them from their waist to the lowest part, but the remainder of their body remained uncovered. The female ornaments consist of arm-rings; a certain number of which a woman wears on both forearms in such a manner that the space between the wrist and elbow is covered completely. The rings are of silver and the gold rings are only worn by the wives of sultan and his relatives. There were also ankle-rings called baail and gold necklaces coming down to their breasts called basdarad.
I was quite delighted to find out that the women were quite self sufficient and worked to support themselves. They do work at home at a rate of five dinars or less, getting their keep free from their employees. The main work of the girls are spinning of coconut fiber.
You shall not see what we eat!!! That were the women back then. Although I love and almost all of my friends loves dining with their husbands or with group of friends at our small coffee hangouts, one of the customs back then is that women never dines with their husbands. Strange but true! In fact, the men would never be able to see them eat. The men needs to come home at meal times as the women back then doesn’t entrust anybody else to serve their husbands. She herself, brings him good and takes away the plate, washes his hands and brings him water for ablution and massages his feet when he goes to bed.
So that’s my historical rambling for the day! Ain't I glad I was born at a time when I can simply go out have a coffee with my friends, have dinner with my husband and yes he can see what I eat and just simply apply my treasured body shop foot lotion on MY feet before I go to bed. And yeup thank god for the dress and the shoes, I get to buy.
