CURIOUS FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 835 



their howling, the corpse is dressed and set in funeral array ; a fowl 

 is slaughtered ; the coffin is prepared, and the body crowded sidewise 

 into it. Half the clothes, money, rice, and usual necessities of life of 

 the deceased, and the feet of the slaughtered hen, are placed in the 

 coffin with the body, while the rest is consumed by the mourners. The 

 grave is built up in the form of a stepped pyramid, the terraces of 

 which are supported by planks, and over it is erected a canopy under 

 which are deposited articles which the deceased has used. At seven 

 and at forty-nine days after the burial, a second and a third fowl are 

 slaughtered, and a part of them is carried ceremonially to the grave. 

 The term of forty-nine days marks the period of mourning for an adult, 

 while only seven days are given to a child ; and during this time the 

 family must refrain from eating rice and satisfy themselves with a 

 less desirable and much less palatable kind of grain. With the ob- 

 servance of this season all the duties toward the dead are fulfilled till 

 the time of the djamcl, or the feast in commemoration of the entrance 

 of the soul into the spirit-world. This festival is celebrated every 

 two or three years, and all the families in the village that have lost a 

 member during the interval join in defraying the expense of it. An 

 invitation to the djamd is one of those things that are not declined. 

 The festival lasts through seven days, to each of which is assigned 

 some feature in the preparation for the ceremonial of cremation. A 

 crematory is built, to which the dead are brought, amid the bowlings 

 of the mourning-women. A brief formula is recited by the wadian, 

 or priest, over each body, as it is brought up, and it is then lifted upon 

 the hearth. After the burning the ashes are placed without any further 

 ceremony in a vessel called an agong, and this is deposited in the tam- 

 bcJc, or family sepulchre, a structure which is erected upon posts a 

 short distance above the ground. Children under seven years of age 

 are not cremated, but their bodies are placed at once in the tamhak. 

 They must be purified, however, before they can enter the heavenly 

 city, and this is done by sacrificing a hog on the day following that of 

 their death. Seven days after the djama, the siioah, a feast of pro- 

 pitiation, is given, when priestly ceremonies are performed, with eat- 

 ing, drinking, and sports. The viands which are eaten at these feasts 

 must not be allowed to touch the ground, and are therefore brought to 

 the feasting-place on wooden stands from one to two feet high. The 

 really important act of the shoah is the niajirus-ira, or blood-bath, a 

 ceremonial that might well excite horror. Four fowls, four goats, and 

 four swine, are slaughtered on a latticed platform, and their blood is 

 allowed to drip down upon the ground below. The multitude rush to 

 the spot to bathe in the blood ; women with nursing infants, children 

 of every age and both sexes, decrepit old men and vigorous young 

 men, besmear their faces, their heads, their breasts, and in fact their 

 whole bodies, with the warm streaming blood of the slaughtered ani- 

 mals, which are then cooked and eaten. 



